Five years ago seems like a lifetime away but back then the City of London, the heart of the capital – was a place you’d rarely eat in. Perhaps an over complicated lunch at a Michelin star restaurant (which I love), a white table-cloth experience in Roux at Parliament Square or steak at Jamie Oliver’s Barbecoa. These were really the City’s first and best restaurants but what none of them offered was casual dining and mainly catered towards “the suits”. Now however that’s all changing. Suits are being swapped for more casual attire, people want to dine more casual and in turn service is getting more casual. The City’s still a bit behind but it’s catching up and I’m glad, because I love this part of London.
One of the these slightly more casual openings is The Happenstance. A modern glitzy venue owned and operated by the Drake & Morgan empire – a group I’ve got a lot of time for because they know their customers very well. Inside this city eatery it’s also looking gorgeous. Beautifully stained wooden floors, brushed copper, plush modern furniture and the odd appearance of faux fur draped over the back of a chairs. The dining area around the bar is the place to be seen, but the huge dining room around the back features a stainless steel open kitchen and downstairs is one of the best private dining spaces around. I’m rather in love with the interior here. Cocktails are also excellent, a reason to visit alone in fact. If you don’t fancy eating than perch at the bar and gaze upon the mixology table which is currently featuring a bespoke DIY G&T experience.
Food wise, it’s good. It won’t be winning any awards for restaurant of the year (well the interior could) but I don’t expect they intend too or are even aiming for anything like that. They serve good quality, filling and satisfying food as very respectable prices. You won’t find many places in the City of London at these prices for this quality. The prawn lollipops here are one of the highlights. Large, juicy, succulent prawns coated in a light crisp batter and served alongside a delicious sweet chilli dipping sauce. Scotch eggs are also excellent, in fact they’re one of the best around. A perfectly cooked egg, surrounded with rich and juicy chorizo sausage meat, bounded in golden (panko?) breadcrumbs – the paprika mayo was also rather good. Less successful, but easily improvable was the crispy squid with wasabi mayonnaise. The batter was much too thick and instead it needed to be a light tempura. The main problem wasn’t the combination but this sort of batter takes longer to cook and squid on the other hand doesn’t like to cooked for that length of time otherwise it becomes chewy.
Main courses were again lovely plates of food at very lovely prices. My grilled beef churrasco could have done with a little more colour on the meat itself but flavour wise it was lovely. Slathered in a coating of oil & fresh herbs, alongside some juicy flat mushrooms, watercress and green peppercorn sauce. The dish was one of the daily specials so grab it while you can! Another solid offering was the chicken milanese with celeriac remoulade. Cooked the right side of golden, this dish with a squeeze of lemon is easily one of The Happenstance’s signature dishes, or at least it should be. Some Roman fries were topped with parmesan, truffle and honey, but the sweet potato fries were better.
What really let The Happenstance down was the desserts. They were fine and satisfied our sweet tooth urge but they could have been a lot better. The best of the two was the crème brulee with amarula liqueur and pistachio biscotti. The brulee was well executed, set to a perfect stiff wobble and glazed and torched to perfection, but the biscotti was a little soggy and it should be hard and crunchy – perhaps it was stored in the fridge? The apple tarte tatin was served with the most amazing salted caramel ice cream but the tatin itself was very lacking, in flavour and nearly not enough caramel sauce. It meant the apples weren’t soft enough and they also had quite a bit of skin intact, along with bit too much bruising.
So what did I think of The Happenstance? Like most restaurants in London it doesn’t come without its faults, and while desserts were a bit of a mixed bag, most of what we ate was very good and exactly the type of meal we were after on a Monday night – offering simple, honest cooking which comes with great service, great prices and interiors to die for. I might skip dessert next time I visit but I’ll definitely be back and can’t wait to try some more of those delicious cocktails.
7/10
I was invited to review
Those Scotch Eggs….
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