With everything going on in London right now and the unfathomable amount of new restaurants opening across the capital, I seem to have forgotten a little about all of the pop-ups, supperclubs and street food. When I heard that the much talked about chef, Allan Pickett was going to be popping up at the Sanderson ahead of his restaurant launch later in the year, I just couldn’t resist the opportunity to check out this chefs cooking first hand, before the rest of London descend upon it. If you’ve not been inside the Sanderson before then you need to, simply for its stunning courtyard, lobby, restaurant and purple bar – then order yourself a cocktail and never leave. The place is gorgeous.
Food wise Allans cooking here at the Sanderson is nothing short of spectacular. The whole menu is tantalizingly sounding good and all very competitively priced. To set us away on this pop-up of a journey we started with a lovely plate of thinly sliced scallops with avocado purée, granny smith apple and red amaranth (type of leaf). Full of freshness, lots of flavour and went stunning against the glass of cold Champagne we were sipping on, cutting its way through that apple. Equally as delicious or perhaps maybe even better still was the Cornish crab on a bed of pressed watermelon and a petit lucques tapenade – bursting with summer flavours.
Main course was yet another stunner. Perfectly cooked (and I can’t stress that enough) twice cooked pork belly with peppered squid, basquaise sauce (made with peppers) and parsley oil. A beautiful medley of flavour and textures, with all the individual elements perfectly executed – but if I’m being really picky I didn’t quite see why the squid was paired alongside the pork. Perhaps those crunchy rings of squid would look better served on the side in the bowl. Apart from that I had no complaints over this dish in the slightest and would happily devour all over again.
If I had to pick my favourite experience here at Allan Pickett at the Sanderson – it’s got to be the desserts. Sable tart of strawberries with pistachio crème patissière and elderflower sorbet was a mouth-watering dish, with that sorbet being one of the best I’ve eaten in quite some time. The star of the whole however evening was this late rhubarb yoghurt fool with ginger biscuit crumb. It may not look like much, but when it arrived it was glistening from the juiciness of that rhubarb and that ginger was so intense you couldn’t helping think anything but about Christmas (which is also nearly here may I add). A lovely couple of dishes which made the perfect end to our meal.
Not quite ready for bed we lingered about in the hotel and had a few more drinks, which turned out to be a bad idea the next day. With Allan Pickett opening up his new restaurant Piquet in September, its given a lovely little insight into what will undoubtedly be another great restaurant opening up in the capital this year. If you’re impatient like, me you can book a table here at the Sanderson right now – otherwise if your calendar is too busy then at last you haven’t got long to wait, although with food this good it will feel like an eternity.
8/10
