The Clove Club in London

“Nice welcoming atmosphere. The main dining room is polished and sophisticated, yet with a cozy homey feeling to it.

Great welcoming by the manager explaining the history of the restaurant – the owners are 3 artists from Manchester and it’s one of the first restaurants to have used a crowdfunding website to raise money.
7-8 Kitchen staff and 3-4 floor people alternating. All very prepared on both the restaurant heritage and the plates.

My meal journey took off with British sparkling wine from a Sussex wine yard – not so great but it was my choice over other bubbles they offered.

Starters were all to pick and eat with hands:

-Sea bass tartar – a delicious mix between crunchy and soft. Using a very thin fried pastry

-Herb and Miso broth – perfect to get warm, as it was cold and rainy outside…

-Snail croquette – explosive flavours, great crunchiness

-Fried chicken – perfect cooking but so average, could have avoided it.

Then the time came for the first main – Trout fillet perfectly cooked, with crunchy hazelnut and fried skin on top sitting in a bed of almond butter. To be honest, it wasn’t the greatest matching of flavours, the almond butter with all the rest and the skin was way too crunchy, the crunchy taste was already there from the hazelnuts so no need to add on that. The cooking of the fillet was in point but overall I didn’t enjoy the mix.

*Hot Smoked Wiltshire Trout, served with almond milk and watercress, toasted almonds and Petrossian Caviar*

Then they brought a Sardina sashimi on crunchy potatoes with mustard and mayo and a broth on the side which married perfectly with the 2013 roja wine – a nice finger break between the mains.
The bread was nice and crunchy.

The next main was a Ray with seaweed in the middle, boiled Pok Choi and two sauces (which I’m not quite sure how to describe, but I’ll just say: surprisingly good) green beans purée and a white sauce with a disk of crispy bread and cappers on top. This was frankly an amazing dish. Delicious both individually for each element as well as the blend of flavours!!! Probably the best dish although the next one was amazing too!

The last main was the Deer meat, sausage mushrooms and celeriac puree – sublime. Perfectly cooked, very tender and the “gravy” sauce on top was delicious.
By the way, each wine pairing was great!

For the desserts, we started with a refreshing habanero granita on top of a yogurt layer above a plum sorbet. Very soft and refreshing but probably more suitable as a summery dessert. Then they brought a hazelnut Mont Blanc with chocolate sauce and some small treats after that. It was all very good but I was soo full by then!
Lastly, I asked for espresso but they didn’t have the machine, so I settled for an americano with 100% South American coffee beans. Sure a memorable dining experience!”