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Thursday 26 October 2017

Restaurant Review: Restaurant James Sommerin

Last Friday, I reached an important milestone in my recovery journey - all clear for a whole year. We always eat out somewhere nice after my three monthly appointments, but we decided we needed to go somewhere extra special on this occasion. It's been an incredibly tough year for both of us so I think it's fair to say that we deserved to treat ourselves.

After much deliberation, we took the plunge and booked dinner at the Michelin-starred Restaurant James Sommerin on Penarth Esplanade. If we can't treat ourselves to an extravagant meal for this level of occasion, when can we?!

In an extremely rare burst of optimism, I bought my dress for the occasion from New Look months ago.




When we arrived at the restaurant, we were shown to our table straight away. As we were visiting on a Friday evening, the tasting menu was the only option on the menu. A few people had already told us that we might as well go the whole hog and opt for the tasting menu if we did go there, so we were perfectly happy with that. We were presented with two options - the standard tasting menu or the surprise tasting menu. As there were a couple of items I didn't fancy on the standard menu, and just because it was a special occasion, we decided to go for the six-course surprise tasting menu with wine pairings. When I told the waiter that I don't like fish, he was very understanding and assured me that my menu would be planned accordingly. 

Before I get started on talking about the food, I should make a few things clear... firstly, I apologise for the terrible photo quality. The lighting wasn't very good in the restaurant (and I didn't think using the flash would be appropriate!) so my photos definitely don't do the food justice. Secondly, as I've admitted before, I'm a terrible food blogger. This means that any detailed descriptions below have either been taken from Google or just vaguely guessed at as I could never remember all those intricate ingredients myself. I also haven't gone into detail about the specific tastes and textures because I'm rubbish at doing that, quite frankly. All you need to know is that everything was amazing. 

We were served a few 'snippets' before the first of our six courses which were a pleasant surprise. These were made up of a wild garlic espuma with toasted seeds, cheese gougères, and tapioca crisps with taramasalata and hummus.






We were then shown a huge platter of different breads and asked which we wanted to try. I assumed we could only choose one but Neil chose two, so I went ahead and chose the same two - a caramelised onion wheel and a rosemary focaccia. The bread came with a dollop of unsalted butter and a seasalt and seaweed butter, served on a pebble from Penarth beach! 




Next up, it was time for our first starter and our first glass of wine. Although I was quite nervous about the prospect of drinking lots of red wine as I'm not usually a fan, I've since come to the conclusion that I must have only tried rubbish red wine in the past as I loved the varieties we had on Friday night. This course was a lovely concoction of wood pigeon, black pudding, raspberry and beetroot.




It was soon time for our next savoury course and our first glass of white wine. Neil was served trout for this course and I was given the vegetarian option as I'd asked for no fish. I can't find a detailed description of this course anywhere, but it was basically made up of mozzarella, basil, pine nuts and heritage carrots. I never thought I'd say this sentence, but they were the best carrots I've ever had in my life. 




We both had a vegetarian offering for the next savoury course - potato, garlic foam, mushroom shavings and an additional mushroom concoction (you might have guessed by now that I often use the word 'concoction' when I don't know what something is called). I don't like mushrooms so this was probably my least favourite dish, but that potato really was spectacular. 




It was time for our main course and I think this was my favourite dish of the night. I could have eaten it three times over! We had a beautifully cooked steak, shallots, roast parsnips, mushrooms, root vegetable puree and a red wine jus. It was absolutely spectacular and blended perfectly with the accompanying wine.




In the blink of an eye, we moved on to desserts. I was THRILLED to discover that there were two dessert courses, as you can imagine. The first one was the best dessert I've ever had (and I've eaten a lot of desserts). It was a deconstructed lemon tart with blueberries, shortbread, meringue and the most amazing lemon sorbet. And who doesn't love a bit of lemon-scented dry ice action? The accompanying wine was my favourite of the evening as it reminded me of the ice wine we sampled in Toronto. 




While I was still waxing lyrical about my first dessert course and the wine, out came the next one. The second dessert was a raspberry souffle with a quernell of violet ice cream, and it was absolutely exquisite. This was actually the biggest course of the evening and I struggled to finish it, but I was determined to finish every bite. It was too tasty and too expensive not to! 




We absolutely loved our experience at Restaurant James Sommerin and I wish we could eat there every weekend. All the staff members we spoke to were very attentive and every course, both food and wine, was described in great detail. We ate at our own pace and were there for a good three hours in total. 

Although it's not cheap and is by far the most expensive meal we've ever eaten together, it definitely lived up to our expectations and 100% deserves that Michelin star. 




Have you ever been to Restaurant James Sommerin? What did you think?



1 comment:

  1. Sounds amazing - and very well deserved :) Love your dress too x

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for your comment! :)