Restaurant Review: The Glasshouse, Kew

Date of visit: July 2021

One of my favourite things to do for a day out is pair some sort of activity with a good lunch. The Glasshouse is obviously ideal for this as it’s right by Kew Gardens so you can see the gardens, have lunch then hop straight on the train home. This was my second day out with lunch at The Glasshouse with my boyfriend actually - last time we went to the gardens but this time we walked down the Thames Pathway before lunch.

The lunchtime menu is £50 for three courses, which doesn’t include any canapés, amuse bouche or other bits and bobs. If you order coffee on the menu this says it comes with petits fours. We didn’t have coffee but did get a truffle each with the cheque. 

In terms of wine available they have a few options by the glass - we only looked at the whites; two were around the £6 range then jumping to £12.50 and above. We chose a £17.50 Chardonnay and then the £12.50 Viognier, which was probably a good bet as it was just as nice as the Chardonnay in my opinion.

The Bread and Butter

I want to say this was a sourdough. Either way it was very good bread and the (room temperature) butter was a simple salted butter but very tasty. We got through 3 rounds of the stuff, which they kept bringing without being prompted at all. 

The Menu

As there were no goodies prior to the main event we both started right away with the lobster and scallop raviolo in lobster bisque with ginger and basil, which had a £7.50 supplement charge. There were about 5 other options without a supplement but we thought we would treat ourselves. 

And it was totally worth it! This dish was sublime in every way. The pasta was perfect, the bisque was super tasty but delicate with the ginger and basil. The raviolo was packed full of chunks of lobster. Lucky for us we had all of that bread because this bisque got mopped up, honey! 


For my main I chose the lamb dish, which came as slices of saddle with a crisp belly… thing. The lamb flavour came through really well in both and the lamb saddle was perfectly cooked, super tender. The many other things on the dish included tomato, pepper, olive, artichoke a quenelle of crushed potato. Each element was on its own packed with flavour and came though together even better. There was also quite a lot of sauce which I like. A winning dish.

My boyfriend chose bream, which I tasted and didn’t like as much as the lamb but I’m not a massive fan of fish compared to meat so no surprises there. 

For pudding I had a passion fruit bar - a firm curd of sorts - with white chocolate ice cream and mango slices. There was lime in there too. My gosh what a lovely pudding! The flavour of the passion fruit came through quite vividly and I must say I’ve never had white chocolate ice cream that actually tasted of white chocolate but this one sure did.

Having said all that I tasted my boyfriend’s choice which was a chocolate croustade with milk ice cream and it was even better. Just extraordinary. So delicious, and an excellent combination of textures! It also had a bit of popping candy in there which I usually enjoy. 

That’s the end of the food, apart from a truffle each which we received with the bill. Again, delicious! They definitely know what they are doing with chocolate here. It was also pretty massive, I ate it in 4 bites!

The Service

The setting is lovely, and the area all around Kew Gardens station is. The service is really well paced, with well judged gaps between courses. This is especially important for me given the short menu - sometimes with a short menu the whole thing can be over far too quickly but not here. Just right. Bread and butter was replenished without being asked, there were people around whenever we needed anything so really nothing to complain about.

Scoring

Food: 4/5

A very nice bread and butter. For a 5/5 I would want to see multiple breads.

Food: 4.5/5

I don't think I could ask for better flavours, but the presentation is not as precise and designed as you find in other fine dining restaurants so I can't quite give it full marks.

Service: 4/5

Not at the level of a super fine dining experience, perhaps just because it was lunch, but still very decent.

Value for money: 4.5/5

Despite the fact that the menu didn't include any extra goodies I'm going to give this an extra half point due to how delicious the food was for the price.

Overall score: 4.3/5

Comments

  1. BambukatOctober 21, 2021 at 7:29 AM

    One of the best blogs to learn about restaurants, thank you for sharing these reviews. Your review are very helpful, I appreciate your work. Glad to come across this. Great blog. Best Indian Restaurant Sheffield

    ReplyDelete

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