Brasserie Roux – Perfect for the price

Brasserie Roux is, according to the website, “Inspired by Albert Roux”. I dont know if that means Monsieur Roux had/has any role in the running of the restaurant or if they just persuaded him to let them use the name but either way I enjoyed this experience much more than my previous Roux excursion at Le Gavroche.

The restaurant is situated in the Sofitel which is nice enough but the dining room itself is gorgeous. So gorgeous, I think it might just be my favourite dining room in London. Incredibly high ceilings, traditional-ish décor and nice and bright yet it still felt cozy. 10/10. The service was also charming, although it might have been helped by the fact that it was 75% empty. Despite the lack of people in such a large room though the atmosphere was still relaxing but up-tempo enough that it was difficult to eves drop.

I should mention that the Boyfriend and I were eating at 5.30, so I have to say the fact there were any people in the restaurant impressed me. Being forced to eat so early, thank you Nutcracker organizers, did mean we were able to take advantage of the “Three courses for 15.50” or in our case “Three courses and a glass of Champagne for 25.50”. In reality, its more than this, three courses +  Bread + Amuse Bouche, none of the silly “we will charge you for things that are standard in other restaurants" ahem Tom’s Kitchen.

We started with a small cauliflower soup to start. Not particularly interesting but nice texture.

I then had the “Salmon and trout rillettes” which was wholly under seasoned. Only the powerful taste of the trout attempted to make up for the blandness of the salmon, but the ratios were out so the majority of the dish was flavourless. I couldn’t work out the purpose of the white sauce that accompanied it as it was as flavourless as the salmon. Disappointing.

My next course of  “Chicken with Mushrooms and Onions “ (obviously not the correct title, I failed to write it down and the don’t have the menu on their website, but you get the gist). Was much better .In fact it smelled so good I forgot to take a picture until mid munching. The chicken was perfectly cooked and the portion very large. It tasted pretty much identical to what I think must be the World’s Most Expensive Chicken Dish I ate at Le Jules Verne, in Paris recently.

Finally, I finished with a cheese plate which for the first time ever on a set menu wasn’t at additional cost. Luckily, I was too full at this point to be disappointed by the quality of the cheese which in my opinion wasn't that great.

All in all I was a pretty satisfied, and very full customer. However, had i been paying full price for the meal I probably would have been let down by the quality of the food, although I do wonder whether the standard is higher for the a La Carte fare.