For those of you who don’t know, Wild Honey is the greatest restaurant in the world. OK, so I may have exaggerated that a little bit, but back when Wild Honey was in Mayfair, I completely fell in love with it – naming it as my Top 5 Restaurants in London. Sadly the restaurant then closed, but little did I know it was all for good reason as it was moving just around the corner, into much larger and much more prominent site.
In case you didn’t know anything about Wild Honey, the restaurant is looked after by one very competent chef named Anthony Demetre, whose original Wild Honey enjoyed 12 successful years in Mayfair. Now in his new home at the corner of the Sofitel St James Hotel, Anthony’s distinctive modern European cooking is on full form once again and perhaps even better than before. Showcased in a striking new dining room designed by interior specialist Jim Hamilton, we first took to the bar to enjoy a cheeky cocktail, or two.
Through the back entrance of the restaurant, which connects to the hotel – I’d highly recommend starting with a cocktail in the St James Bar. I ordered a ‘King of Pop’ which was inspired by Michael Jackson and is part of the music cocktail menu which has been designed as a CD case – with the lyric book showcasing the different recipes. Once we sat down at the table, another cocktail arrived. The restaurant is very big on their cocktails, but specifically I’d make sure you order the aged Negroni or the intriguingly named ‘I am very specific with my Negroni’. I’ll let you discover why.
Our first dish to the table and one which really gave me a last taste of English Summer was this heritage tomatoes with nectarines, goats curd and wood sorrel. Fresh, zesty, juicy – delicious. Apart from all of those things, this dish has that unmistakable Anthony Demetre signature to it. If you closed your eyes and tucked into most of the dishes here, you’d instantly know who cooked it for you. Now that’s food personality for you.
The steak tartare here is divine, so much so I need to return with the other half because this is their absolute favourite dish. This rich and rather mouth-watering chopped beef tartare came smothered in an oyster ‘ketchup’ and served alongside with a few slices of toasted sourdough. The acidity in this dish was great, the meat was tender and the seasoning – spot on.
Picking a favourite dish in a restaurant is never an easy task and by no means does it mean any of the others were bad, but it’s that one dish that if you came back – you’d order immediately. Mine was one of the starters of hand cut macaroni ‘Cacio e Pepe’ with crisp boneless chicken wings. The pasta, even with a good bite to it still felt like it was melting in the mouth, the chicken was as succulent as ever and the cheesy, peppery sauce over the pasta was so good you’ll want to slurp it straight from the bowl.
If any of you ever read my review of Wild Honey back when it was in Mayfair (you can HERE) then you’ll know how much I loved it. Anthony is an expert at creating what are sometimes such simple dishes, twhich manage to trump some of the most complicated around the capital. That dish I loved before in Mayfair was the burrata, which was topped with greengages and dukkah spice. This time around the burrata still remained sensational and was still topped with dukkah spices, but also trumpet courgettes, nasturtium leaves and herb oil vinaigrette. I want this dish for lunch everyday, please!
More food you say? I felt the same way – but all in the name of research! A huge chunk of roasted Limousin (central France) veal, with sand carrots and a medley of wild mushrooms. The veal was beautiful, the mushrooms doused in a healthy amount of butter and the carrots carried a nice smokiness to them. I’m always telling my readers to come hungry to just about any restaurant, but really do in the case of Wild Honey because portions are generous and rich.
We definitely ordered our fair share of meat courses here, so we couldn’t leave without sampling a good piece of fish and a fine example this was. Roast fillet of cod with a fricassée of smoked haddock and corn. The cod was cooked with so much precision, flaking apart at the sight of a fork and the sweet, rich haddock and sweetcorn flavours added such a lovely depth to it.
If you’re big on dessert, then make sure you save room for two in particular because they will blow you away. Wild Honey ice cream, served with fresh honey which is spooned table-side straight from honeycomb. It really doesn’t get much better or calorific than this. Perhaps even better still and a dish which will no doubt make this restaurant even more famous on Instagram is the most wobbliest of English custard tarts, with golden sultanas, pine nuts and salted butter. It’s light, it’s rich, it’s messy – it’s absolutely delicious.
I’m sure you can probably tell, but I absolutely adored this shiny new Wild Honey which I know will continue to be one of the capitals best restaurants. The new space is stunning, the food is better than I remember, the cocktails are fantastic and if you really don’t want to leave, you can check into the hotel and spend the night. Hotel restaurants can sometimes be given a bad name, but any guest of this one will most certainly not be disappointed. Would we come back? Of course!
I love the interiors and the food looks mouth-watering!