dinner at the Shard

Last night I took J1 for dinner at the Shard. It’s an early Christmas present as he is going away. He is also past the age of ‘stuff’ which he can buy for himself anyway and we are now in to ‘experiences’.

My fine dining experiences are limited. I was trying to remember what they were last night. I’ve been to Luton Hoo twice, again with individual children to celebrate special achievements. I’ve been to Le manoir aux Quat’ Saisons in Oxfordshire to celebrate Isabel’s 70^th. FP took me to the Ivy once. The rest are a smattering of better foody experiences where they do things like give you sorbet between courses.

It was all a bit last minute. I never thought I would get a table. I read the Evening Standard review and tried to get in to Hutong. I thought north Chinese food would be nice and the review said it had a better view. They only had a table at 10pm so I went for aquashard which is contemporary British and had a table that day for 6.30pm. The lady on the 9am-9pm telephone booking line was really helpful and the confirmation came straight through to my email.

It’s easy to find from the tube. We went to the wine lodge first at Borough Market then trundled along to get on the lift. You don’t get the sensation of travel I experienced in the Empire State Building.

The entrance to the restaurant takes your breath away. It was a clear night and the sparkly lights inside and outside were magical. Not sure what I thought of the Vivienne Westward tree. It had a net bag on the top and something that looked like an oddly shaped blue globe. More on her Christmas partnership with the restaurant later.

We got taken to our table. I was expecting to be crushed in the centre. We had a prime slot directly up against the floor to ceiling class windows overlooking Tower Bridge. The young people who took our coats and provided impeccable service and whose range of accents I was clueless about were wonderful. They made you feel special without being obsequious.

So – on to the food. Not a vast range on the menu which I read somewhere is a good sign because it means they do what they do do very well. Don’t expect gourmet food analysis here. Let’s just say that 6 lines of text translated predominantly in to blobs and slivers, but exquisite blobs and slivers. The taste of yummy food is not lost on me. I started with something that was predominantly pigeon and bacon, went on to pork and finished with the Vivienne Westwood/cool earth/save the rainforest, dessert several glasses of wine (not my usual £5 Sainsbury’s shiraz) later. It was all melt in the mouth stuff and unusual textures like something that looked like a lettuce leaf, but was crunchy. I adored it all and I was full at the end.

I took photos of the view. I savoured the wine while looking out over a city that I love. When we got up to leave I had to look back and got a bit choked up. As I have said often in this blog, I remember wonderful moments.

The company was excellent of course. Apparently the male urinals are flush against the window so the view is spectacular. In the ladies everything other than the towels is glued down.

I made J1 walk me along the south bank to Blackfriars. I didn’t want the evening to end.

Experience it.