Restaurant review: Launceston Place, London

There are few restaurants in London my husband and I tend to gravitate towards again and again, more than others. Michelin star restaurants (and fine dining in general) is our hobby, and we’ve been to about 40 starred restaurants around London and abroad.

One of our more regular restaurants used to be Launceston Place in Kensington (London). However, during a visit that turned out to be the last one for a long time, we anticipated loss of a star for this restaurant, which subsequently happened.

Since then the restaurant has undergone major changes, including renovation, and more importantly, change of the head chef. Since taking over, Ben Murphy of course has a difficult task of bringing back customers that were lost in the highly competitive high end food industry. He for sure can boast impressive experience in top restaurants. It’s now time for him to fly solo, and we will be keeping on eye on his development and journey.

I do have to say that the restaurant is absolutely magnificent value for money. For three-course-lunch on a Sunday, which with all surprises turns out to be much more than three courses, you only pay £35 per person. We booked our table through Open Table, which for the same price, also included a glass of bubbly each.

First thing to mention straight away is that we arrived 10 minutes late to the last seating, and were still greeted in a very friendly manner. The ambience is wonderful and luxurious.

First arrived appetizers of smoked haddock ravioli and polenta cake with herbs. I’m not a great fan of polenta in general, so I have no strong opinion on them. The herb flavour however made them taste nice. I wasn’t too keen on the actual ravioli texture as it was hard / crispy rather than normal soft pasta ravioli, but I thoroughly enjoyed the filling of smoked haddock.

After this we got candy floss sprinkled with crushed aniseed. To be honest, I think this would’ve been better suited as pre-dessert than an appetizer before food. I’ve not had candy floss in ages so the thought of it was bringing back childhood memories. The floss itself was well made, fluffy texture and not overly icky-sweet.

Next up was the Amuse Bouche, served together with bread. It was all about potato in different forms: potato consommé jelly, potato mousse, and topped up with crispy potato crumble. This was an absolute star of the whole meal for me, I absolutely loved it. For wine we had decided to go for something we don’t often have; white Rioja Sierra Cantabria 2015. It had interesting complexity you wouldn’t always get with white wine. We both enjoyed the wine and would have it again.

For starters I had chosen crab, and my husband went for the beetroot with goats cheese mousse. It turned out my starter was actually a risotto. Had I known this when choosing, I’m not sure whether I would’ve gone for this option. The flavours were nice, however the risotto was a little bit too al dente for my liking (and yes, I do know risotto should be firm).  For those who are not used to having crunch to their beetroot might not want to go for that option. This was no issue to my husband however, who thoroughly enjoyed his starter.

For the main I had sirloin beef with rosco onions (scooped to the plate from inside an onion), beef jus, beef bonbon, pear and stilton. The beef was cooked exactly to my requirements (medium rare), although it wasn’t as succulent as I would like my beef. The bonbon was lovely. My husband’s cod was cooked perfectly. Menu only said cod / coconut / broccoli. Don’t let this scare you from choosing this dish, as the flavours were not overpowering the delicate fish, and everything worked really well together. Smoked eel was also included. We both had potato pave, and both thought it was amazing. My husband’s description is ‘it’s like a huge chip’, even though it’s very finely sliced, layered potatoes.

Next we had a cheese course (this is additional, with an extra payment attached). We are always very pleased with the Launceston Places’ cheese trolley, some cheeses introduced to us in this place have then become as some of our favourite cheeses (for example Stinking Bishop). To accompany the cheese we had Graham’s Tawny port, which was very good. The staff had very good knowledge of the cheese, and a big plus was seedless grapes.

We both had a rice pudding soufflé with passion fruit and yoghurt ice-cream for dessert. We all know that soufflés are difficult to make. To top that, it had rice pudding running all the way through. A great show of skill there. Overall a pleasant dessert.

To end it all, we were served with petit fours of lemon swiss roll, plum and rum cornetto and dark chocolate square, which was decadent and rich.

During the week, you can lunch at the Launceston Place for £23 for 2 courses, or £28 for 3 courses. You can also get Pre-theatre dinner for £30. On Saturday evenings only menu option is the Tasting Menu.

For overall rating I would give 3 out of 5 for now, with a great promise for things to come. I would like to point out that is a good marking, as 5 is reserved for the few best ones, and 4 is the one most really good places would get. I can see we will now start going to Launceston Place more regularly again.

Rating: ★★★☆☆