Review - Great Taste at the Cadogan in Knightsbridge

Great Taste at the Cadogan is a great restaurant offering a surprisingly unique concept - all food is British, and all of the ingredients are winners at the Great Taste Awards.  Food that’s proudly and successfully British, capable of standing up on its own merits of taste and quality against the best of the rest of the world.

We went on a Friday lunchtime, and sampled the 3 course a-la-carte menu, created by Xanthe Clay, of the Daily Telegraph and Nigel Barden, chairman of the Great Taste Award Supreme Jury, who has been curating the menu for the past few weeks, alongside main chef Oliver Lesnik.  The restaurant will evolve over the year because every six weeks or so a new team of curators will come in, using their inspiration, and what’s seasonal, to create a new menu.  In this way it’s going to be like a series of pop-up restaurants, but always in the same space.

I went along last week with my friend Ali.  It was a beautiful day to be sitting in a restaurant and having a lazy lunch!  The presentation was superb, the staff were all very attentive, and looked after us very well.

At £28 a head for the 3 courses it’s definitely not an everyday lunch, but it’s a fantastic treat, and a great opportunity to support British producers.

For starters we had the trio of salmon (smoked, seared and tartare), and the cold meat platter (including smoked duck, smoked ham, and corned beef).  We were helpfully given instructions for the order of eating - it’s best to work up to the strongest flavours.

For the main courses I went for another trio, the 3 ages of sheep (lamb, hogget and mutton), while Ali went for the roast ray wing.  Again it was delicious, and perfectly presented.  You can see from the picture the care and imagination taken over the lamb!

Finally we opted for the gluten free brownie (amazingly moist) and the cheese board.  As with all the dishes the most was made of the ingredients; you could taste everything.  The menu also clearly gave the provenance of each of the main elements, with the number of Great Taste stars.

It was a fabulous lunch, and very highly recommended.  It’s great to be supporting British producers, because it’s great to be able to experience the food prepared and cooked perfectly.  Clay and Barden have set an incredibly high standard, and thrown down the gauntlet to the next two curators.  Can’t wait to see what the next pair come up with.

Great Taste at the Cadogan is at 21 Pont Street, Knightsbridge, London SW1X 9SG

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