Bryn Williams Is A Bite Of British Brilliance At Somerset House

Bryn Williams, Somerset House ★★★★☆

Tabish Khan
By Tabish Khan Last edited 70 months ago
Bryn Williams Is A Bite Of British Brilliance At Somerset House Bryn Williams, Somerset House 4
It's a casual setting and we like the quirky lighting fixtures.

Somerset House is constantly in flux with rolling exhibitions, art fairs, new studios opening up and now another new addition. A Bryn Williams restaurant bringing some modern British cuisine to the Neoclassical complex.

The restaurant brings fruit and veg to the forefront, made clear by the menu where the healthy things are mentioned first, with the meat following at the end of the list of ingredients. We hadn't realised how common a convention it is to always list the meat first until looking at this menu and it throws us off completely. The lack of any 'v' symbol means you have to read every offering just to ensure whether it's vegetarian or not. It's an interesting touch, even if it takes a little getting used to.

The crab on watermelon is a delight.

We kick off with some Devonshire crab on watermelon and it's an absolute delight, two very different flavours working well together, the saltiness of the crab offset by the refreshing cool of the watermelon. It's two flavours we'd never think to mix — the best link we could come up with is that one lives in the water and the other is mostly made up of water, it's a stretch and we know it.

Our main is the grilled salmon and though everything tasted lovely it lacked in adventure. It's a classic dish crying out for an inventive take on it, but surprisingly Bryn Williams has played it safe.

The salmon was lovely, though it could be more adventurous.

We plump for two desserts as you can never have too many. The cheesecake gets the density spot on and there's great zest from the passion fruit, though it overpowers the banana and the pineapple.

Star billing belongs to the lavender meringue, lemon posset with lavender and blueberry ice cream. It's a lot of flavours to work with and the colour of the dish suggests the lavender will dominate, but every taste is detectable and all blend seamlessly together.

We now want to try other lavender desserts, the lavender complemented the other flavours delicately.

We enjoy every dish and this is a solid addition to Somerset House, though we're holding out for more adventurous foods, as that's what this restaurant excels at.

Bryn Williams is at Somerset House, Strand, WC2R 1LA.

Last Updated 30 May 2018