All reader reviews by colin

Hibiscus

It is nice to find a restaurant with well spaced tables and good noise suppression (carpets and textured walls) - makes for pleasant conversation!

The food was wonderful - a twist for each dish in terms of the spices which may not be for all - but we found worked very well.

We shared the starters Langoustine, Fois gras and ravioli - could not fault any of them. This is rich food. The mains were goose and the two course pork, Desserts came in the form of Rice Soufflé, chocolate tart, and parsnip tart. The parsnip cream start by itself was wrong, but when combined with the vanilla ice cream and caramel came together beautifully - was a delight. The pre dessert of granny smith jelly, with chestnut mouse and celeriac mousse was divine. The only thing that we all agreed did not work was one of the sweet treats with the coffee - a smoked fudge - tasted like eating the remnants of a piece of fudge that fell into the ash of a fire - too smokey!

This is a restaurant for meat eaters who like rich food - the focus of the plate is definitely the meat which was generous with very delicate and interesting sauces and artistic accompliments.

The restaurant manager, Azedine was very helpful, very knowledgeable with the wine and always on hand to help without being unobtrusive.

This is three star quality but some of the non standard spicing may just keep those traditional Michelin inspectors from going for the third -I hope not!

Thursday, December 17, 2009
Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 9