Friday 22nd September, 2000
Italian
50 Berners Street,
Price per head: £93.11
Nearest tube: Oxford Circus (Bakerloo Line, Central Line, and Victoria Line)
Comments
Spoon+ is the name of the restaurant in the Sanderson hotel. The hotel entrance has some somewhat daunting doormen, and once inside you must navigate past the bar where the suits congregate. Actually there is another more direct entrance to the restaurant, but we didn't discover that until later.
Hildon mineral water was £4 a bottle; we had one sparkling and one still, and a bottle of Bouchard sauvignon £28 as an aperitif between five diners. We'd actually asked for a Semillon but they got it wrong. I picked a £43 Gewurztraminer (Kritt 97) to go with the starters but it was very disappointing. Too sweet; a bad choice on my part.
Our starters were:-
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(S+J) Pork ravioli £14 each - nice enough but look at the price
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(I) Mango salad £12 - nice enough but look at the price
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(P) Iceberg salad £12 - nice enough but look at the price
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(L) Dried pasta £12 - actually this was very good. The truffle sauce was just right.
Our main courses were:-
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(J) Lobster £28 - nice
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(I & P) Beef £20 each - uninspiring
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(S) Lamb £20 - not pink enough
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(L) Seared tuna £21 - nicely presented
We had a £77 Mosswood 96 with the main course.
Puddings:-
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(J) Carpaccio Ananas £9 - very pretty fruit salad elegantly presented; I know I'm being repetitive, but look at the price
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(I) Finger choco £9 - exquisite
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(S) Cheesecake Icecream £9 - why?
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(P) Cheesecake £9 - presumably quite good, but it was scoffed before I even had a chance to look at it
Three glasses of pudding wine, Jurancon only four quid a glass!
Four of us had a double espresso at £4.50 each.
The loos were in a state of disrepair, but I assume that will be quickly sorted out.
All in all, it was a disappointing experience. The food was OK, the service was OK, the bill was excessive. I won't be going back. We were charged £59.55 for service which brought the total bill to £456.55 for five people.