When a restaurant is named after the architect who designed its building, it better be a stunning setting. And if the chef patron is a two starred Michelin chef with experience at some of London's most lauded restaurants, then the food certainly better taste as good as the place should look.
Marcus Wareing's The Gilbert Scott at the St Pancras Renaissance London Hotel is a gorgeous place for a lovely meal. A meal here veers toward the not-cheap and lingering fine dining end of the spectrum. However, if in a pinch with a Eurostar to catch, the restaurant's St Pancras Express Menu presents an opportunity to enjoy a bit of grandeur and haute cuisine without as much commitment as you might expect.
At £22 for two courses or £27 for three, the Express Menu is served efficiently by a friendly staff. During our visit last week, the seasonal and regularly changing menu included options such as a homey Lincolnshire haslet or moreish mulligatawny for starters and warm-you-up beef faggots or light and flavoursome fillet of pollock with either accompanied by seasonal vegetables as mains. Desserts were gingerbread and pear ice cream or Eton mess. The ice cream wowed. The focus of the express menu seems to be on slightly refined British comfort food classics – and if our experience (we especially loved the mulligatawny) represents the norm, £22 for such a lunch is good value.
Set within the ornate and gilded grandeur of the old Midland Grand Hotel – essentially a huge wing of the new St Pancras Renaissance London hotel (Euston Road, NW1 2AR) – The Gilbert Scott is a beauty spot of an eatery.
Photo/Chris Osburn
Disclaimer: Londonist visited The Gilbert Scott upon invitation of the restaurant.
