Amusing Bouches: Texture, London, 12th September 2013

Deciding where to go for a nice (poshish) lunch in BIrmingham is relatively straight forward-choose one of 4-5 restaurants and book a few days in advance. Having decided to have lunch somewhere in London for a friend’s birthday deciding where to go was more of a challenge because there is so much choice. Booking with a few days to go did rule out those places that require booking weeks to months in advance, but there still must have been close to 50 potential Michelin-starred restaurants. Just as well then that the friend who’s birthday it was happens to have an interest in Iceland and there happens to be a restaurant called Texture with an Icelandic head chef. Some good Tripadvisor reviews helped to convince me we wouldn’t be disappointed.

We went for the lunch tasting menu that wasn’t ridiculously expensive (£55 for 5 courses) and had a couple Scandinavian themed dishes. To start there was very refreshing tomato gazpacho with mozzarella, then had fish dishes including a great Icelandic salted cod with chorizo before Anjou quail with sweet corn. Desert was Icelandic skyr with rye breadcrumbs and raspberries that had a kind of deconstructed cheesecake feel (and was lovely). We had coffee, partly to try the petit fours and partly to try and partly to wake my friends up prior to our “Hint, hunt” adventure (see next post) as they had both enjoyed the matching wines.

Overall it was a very nice lunch with a relaxed atmosphere and attentive but friendly staff. It might even have convinced me that a trip to Iceland would be a good idea…

http://texture-restaurant.co.uk/restaurant.php