28-50 Wine Workshop & Kitchen

I recommended this place to my wife when she met up with an old girlfriend last Friday evening. They were delighted with the place. Sufficiently busy to have a buzz, but not so much that they couldn't get a table or hear each other speak. Very pleased with the menu and wine. Described the service as "effortless". I must go back there soon...
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Kwev
8 Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 8
Thursday, March 17, 2011

Went for lunch on a rainy Thursday.

The restaurant is in a basement, but this did not bother me, and it is so well laid out and decorated, that you don't really notice.

We ordered the burrata, which was served with salad leaves and the foie gras as starters.They were both well presented and tasty.For mains, we had the onglet steak and the pheasant.My colleague was very happy with his steak, and the pheasant was terrific(served with chestnuts;bacon bits;celeriac) and not at all dry as this bird can be.It was also served in manageable pieces (BAR BATTU TAKE NOTE!) .28-50 makes a big thing of its wine, and the list is extensive.From the regular list, we had a carafe the most expensive red.While it was tasty, it was obvious that in filling the carafe they had poured the end of a bottle including the dregs.This is not on,and it was the most disappointing aspect of our lunch, given that this is a wine bar which should know better.We did not try dessert, as the rice pudding we wanted would take 45 minutes to be ready, we were subsequently told.Perhaps this dish shd be eliminated from the menu, or customers could be asked to order it at the beginning?

Overall a good experience, and much better than Bar Battu.
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C.Elder
8 Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 8
Friday, January 14, 2011

Brilliant place - especially for non-billionaire winos.

Food is great value - exceptionally fairly priced for what and where it is. The wine list is outstanding - huge and excellent selection of wines sold by the glass, however for me the real jewel is the collectors list. This is wines which are evidently broked by 28-50 and sold for close to retail prices - if you consider spending £70+ on a bottle of wine to go with dinner to be a good idea then you will be very, very hard pressed to find a finer bottle for your money anywhere in London if not the world.

Lovely buzzy atmosphere - more funky than formal but definitely not painfully so - good service, lovely staff - very highly recommended.

It is honestly hard for me to imagine any occasion I would want to go out for dinner and where La Trompette or 28-50 weren't the right place to go...
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Leon
9 Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 10
Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Had dinner here last night with some mates. There were a dozen of us. They did us proud.

The staff are engagingly pleasant and professional. The manager was much in evidence, ensuring all ran smoothly (and it did).

The room is interesting - you'll love it or hate it. I loved it. It's kitted out thoughtfully with decent fittings and furtniture. Looks like they've invested here for the long term.

The wine list is excellent - lots of interest, quality and value. Very refreshing fiano for twenty odd quid and then lots and lots of Crianza Rioja.

The menu is crowd pleasing - the food was good without being excellent. The duck rillettes, much complemented by other reviewers, were nice enough though I thought rather greasier than was quite right. Lamb was top notch quality, and well cooked.

They handled our large group's order exteremely well for a newly opened outfit - no hiccups and pretty much simultaneous service of courses.

It wasn't as busy as I'd expected a new opening of this sort, in this location, to be. It's just what the area needs, why aren't more people giving it a go? Maybe too informal for the corporate entertaining that keeps the tills ringing (and full) on this fringe of the Square Mile? Didn't bother us - we brought our own atmosphere with us, and were spoiled rotten by the underemployed staff.

If you like Terroirs down at Charing Cross, you'll like it here. Pretty similar execution of a very appealing, wine biased, concept. Fewer left field, weird wonderful (and sometimes awful - lets be honest!) natural wines here though.
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Kwev
8 Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 7
Thursday, July 15, 2010

Popped in for a glass of wine last night, just to try it out, and ended up staying for several hours.

First off the place looks great with nice solid wood tables, nice wine storage (old boxes) and some nice mirrors so even if you are sitting facing the wall you can still see everything going on.

The wine list is just the sort I like, not too short and not stupidly long, about 60 - 80 I would guess. A good selection are available by the glass, carafe and the bottle which is great if you want to try a few. We had a glass of Champagne and one of Chablis to start then a carafe of Mersault, all were good except the Champagne could have been a bit colder. By this time we were getting hungry so moved to a table and tucked in. Duck rillettes were very good, and reminded me of one I used to eat at my grandmothers in France. Mains were just as good, a nice pork belly and a decent rib-eye & chips. With these we drank a bottle of St emillion and a very good bottle of New Zealand Pinot Noir, both were under £50. Cheese and desserts were fine but a bit of a let down after the first 2 courses, and at £8.50 I thought the cheese portion was a little small.

Service was very good, the (I guess) manager was very friendly and looked after us well, as did the charming waitress from St.Tropez.

The only down side was it was not really busy so lacked a bit of a buzz, I guess everyone else was watching the football.

Overall very good, and not bad value but saying that we still notched up a bill just over £200.

I look forward to working my way through their wine list over the coming months.
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Chris - View all reviews by this user
8 Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 8
Saturday, June 19, 2010

A new dawn has arrived...

In the 80's/90's there were wine bars. In the 90's/00's there were gastropubs. Today, we have the wine workshop.

28-50 sets a new trend of dining in todays current decade. Centering originally around a wine list supplied by serious collectors, 28-50 offers not only great fine wines by the glass, but serious food excellently delivered by Paul Walsh, ex sous chef at Gordon Ramsay, Royal Hospital Road.

Xavier Rousset the head sommelier has cunningly arranged a wine list quite different to your average top restaurants. Here you're not bamboozled with a 50+ page wine book of god knows how many different wines the restaurant is being forced to stock, here's it's remarkably simple and quite ingenious: 15 reds, 15 whites, routinely changed and all under £50 a bottle, available by the glass and/or carafe.

Then there's the Collector's list, which are wines that are mature and are bought by the restaurant from avid collectors and sold with a very small mark-up. Such wines on offer (at time of writing are: 1995 Noel Verst Cornas (£125 per bottle), Allemand Cornas 1995 (£75), 2000 Colombier Hermitage (£45), 1999 Clos de Vougeot, Jean Grivot (£85) etc... Mature wines, at shockingly reasonable prices. Where else in London does this?!..

Then there's the food; I started with the lunch menu: 2 courses for £15.50 - To start with the Duck rilettes with cornichons and sour dough toast was remarkably delicious, gamey and at the same time a wonderful depth of flavour, superb texture. The sour dough bread was perfectly fried and the cornichons gave the dish that excellent zip of acidity. Delightful.

Then came the Onglet of beef, braised shallots, chips and sauce choron. The Onglet, a typical french cut not typically found over in these waters, needs to be either flame-grilled on a bbq or grilled and served either firstly rare or medium rare. It came exactly like that. Blood oozing from it, the sauce choron added a wonderful richness to the dish, the intensely concentrated shallots added wonderful sweetness and acidity both at the same time, and the chips could be chomped quite enjoyably.

£15.50 for the above, excellent value and wonderful service to match the really quite quaint and intimate venue. Soft lighting, oak tables, warm colours, photos of bottle labels, wine boxes arranged around the venue (and being used to store cutlery etc, a nice touch I thought). There's a mezzanine space which up some stairs and overlooks the main dining space. Great for parties of about 10 or so.

Onto the desserts, all at most reasonable 6 odd quid each. I sampled the Rhum Baba with Chantilly cream and strawberries: brilliantly doughy with perfect sweetness and sharpness from *the brilliant* strawberries to match. Then came the Almond cake with peach sorbet and fresh strawberries and raspberries; an enchanting mix of sweetness and sourness all wrapped up in succulent mouthful.

The cheeses from La Fromagerie are as you would expect, world class. Fantastic array served with brilliantly nutty bread.

Even the coffee at £2.50 is sumptuous, brilliant crema, not burnt, just right.

Cost of a 4 course meal with service: about £35 including a glass of wine. Brilliant value.
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J.Fisher
10 Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 10
Thursday, June 17, 2010