29/07/2022
I walk past 108 Brasserie at the Marylebone Hotel quite often, as it’s just around the corner from my office. Last week I finally went there for dinner with one of my closest friends from school, Katie. We used to live round the corner from each other, so walked home together every day after school, caused chaos when we skipped school with Mimi and ate our weight in doritos and minstrels.
When I returned from living in Australia I went to my old school to see all my friends, and Katie saw me across the playground, and screamed loudly, before rushing across, pushing everyone out of the way and leaping onto me with the most ginormous hug. She’s the type of friend who I only see a few times a year due to busy schedules (she’s training to be a nurse), but every time we see one another it’s like no time has passed. As we hadn’t seen one another since our little jaunt to Cheltenham last year, we thought a catch up was well overdue.
We started with cocktails, I had the English Spritz, which was a beautifully refreshing blend of gin, cointreau and elderflower. Katie had the Nightingale, which was very sweet, but looked far prettier than mine. Please excuse the poor photographs, the lighting was awful and I stupidly only had my small GF5 instead of the big beast (DSLR). I tried to light the dishes with the light from my phone, but it didn’t work as well as I’d hoped, so the photos aren’t as good as usual :/
To start with I opted for the Seared Tuna with the soy and ginger dressing, while Katie went for the Crab and Avocado cocktail. While we waited for them to arrive we nibbled on the delicious fresh bread. An interesting mix of sourdough, Guinness bread, and soda bread, it was a welcome change from the normal ‘white or brown’ that’s on offer in the majority of other restaurants.
The seared tuna was incredibly spicy, I think it was the pickled radish, but it was a shame because it overpowered the taste of the tuna. Katie’s crab and avocado cocktail was delicious though! We actually switched as we each preferred what the other had. I then tried a kiwi flavoured cocktail, which I wasn’t too keen on, it left a funny aftertaste in my mouth.
For mains I continued the healthy eating with Whole lemon sole, with spinach, and tomato and rocket salads on the side. Katie had the Slow cooked breast of lamb. Both mains were really good and we polished them off very quickly, however the spinach was cold.
Naturally we couldn’t leave without trying dessert! Katie chose the Warm chocolate fondant, and I went for a favourite of mine; Apple and blackberry pie with vanilla ice-cream. The desserts were the perfect option for a cold winter’s day – they warmed us up inside and it felt like such a treat after my healthy starter and main.
108 Brasserie is a really lovely and intimate restaurant, perfect for either a date or catching up with the girls. The staff were brilliant and couldn’t do enough for us, and the food consists of decent classic dishes that weren’t particularly impressive, but did the job and satisfied both the tastebuds and rumbly bellies! I’d avoid the more alternative cocktails, out of the four we had we only liked two of them, so I’d probably stick with the classics if I went again. What also impressed me is for London, the prices aren’t over the top. They’re very reasonable which makes it an excellent choice if you’d like a fabulous and sophisticated meal out without the huge bill at the end.
