Boxwood Cafe - mmm cheapo menu

In our little adventure into the various toptable cheapo menus this week, I actually had very high expectations of Orrery, and much lower ones for Boxwood Cafe. I do have some level of prejudice against the various Gordon Ramsay ventures - as much as I loved my one and only visit to Royal Hospital Road, you know that given the huge number of restaurants and side projects Ramsay has now, he more or less certainly has nothing to do with the day-to-day running of each individual restaurant anymore. I was also a bit dismayed to read that the signature dish at Boxwood Cafe is a burger - ok, it's a veal and fois gras burger at £25 a pop, but I'm never sure of these upscale reinventions of lowscale dishes.

How wrong I was though. Even just stepping into Boxwood Cafe I felt there was much more of a buzz, and what a lovely, cosy space. Even on a Wednesday night, the restaurant was packed full, but all the soft furnishings (including very clean, smooth, beige carpets, and yes, I did take my shoes off) means it's never noisy. Obviously it benefits from its Knightsbridge location, as well as the Ramsay name, but what a different in atmosphere it made.

The cheapo menu here was £23 for 2 courses including a 185ml carafe of wine (or £28 for 3 courses). The prices on the a la carte menu were a lot punchier than I'd actually expected, £10-15 for a starter, £20-35 for a main, which makes the cheapo menu pretty good value. Choices were limited to 3 per course, but I thought they were simple and well-chosen, and reflected the style of the cooking well.

For starters, there was a choice of ham hock terrine, grilled sardines, and goat's cheese creation. Jess and I both plumped for the terrine. Accompanied by piccalili and garlicky ciabatta, the terrine was wonderfully flavoured, lovely chunks of meat, why don't I eat more of this kind of stuff?:

Emily went for the grilled sardines, which came with hummus and beetroot. Again, I liked how they really showcased cheaper ingredients in order to make their cheapo menu work, rather than compromising really expensive ones:

The main choices were a seafood risotto, a chicken milanese, and a somewhat suspect vegetarian option. We all ordered the seafood risotto, which was divine, one of the best risottos I've eaten in a restaurant. The copious amounts of butter may have helped, but again, the theme of using cheap ingredients well came back. The seafood included wasn't extravagant - mussels, clams, squid - but cooked to their best. This would have rivalled any lobster risotto. The little bits of samphire was a nice sharp contrast to the extreme creaminess:

The dessert options were quite uninspiring, and only Emily went for the peach melba sundae (posh peaches and ice cream basically). But all in all, what a lovely surprise, and for once it didn't really leave me craving for the expensive a la carte menu. A complete opposite to Orrery in some ways - one of the most expensive main courses at Orrery was actually pig trotters! OK, it came with truffles, but the experience at Boxwood shows you don't need to sex up good, honest ingredients.