The Glasshouse/ Chez Bruce

I recently (re)discovered the joys of taking a day off during the week recently: I had a few days' holiday left over before the holiday year ended, and London is such a lovely place before the weather is good enough that it is flooded with tourists, and there is no-one around!

One of the nicest things we did was to go to Kew on a Friday and eat at The Glasshouse. Unfortunately, I now fear for the survival of the place, along with its brother Chez Bruce in Wandsworth. We went to Chez Bruce on a Saturday night, completely on a whim, and managed to get a booking by calling about 4 hours ahead. Worrying. And when we got there, it was definitely not fully booked. I know it is in the middle of nowhere, but I always thought that reputation would sustain a place like that.

Even more worrying was when they gave us a discount voucher for The Glasshouse with our bill. It was for a half price weekday lunch, 3 courses at £11.75. Yes, a Michelin starred, 3 course meal for less than £12. Even at full price it is ridiculously cheap. Thankfully, the place was quite full on the Friday lunchtime that we went, but we were definitely the youngest people in the place by a good few generations.

The worrying goes on too, as the food was such generous proportions, and the wine by the glass list far too reasonable. I had a gorgeous Slovenian white (must look up what it was) for a fiver a glass! This accompanied some great dishes, but enough food to feed a small family.

I started with a chicken raviolo with a garlic veloute. Whenever I read 'raviolo' on a menu, I start thinking it's going to be tiny and would never satiate my never ending desire for pasta. NOT THIS TIME! Look at how big it was!!!:

As big as a Cornish pasty, just this would have been enough for lunch, especially as the veloute is so thick it's the sort you can stand a spoon in. Fil unsurprisingly went for a salad, this time a wood pigeon one topped with a truffled egg. Again, so big you wondered why they thought following this with 2 more courses was a good idea:

And here is a gratuitous shot of the egg, very truffley it was too:

I am guessing they are making some money out of this by using lesser meats and worser cuts, but that logic goes out the window when they serve you nearly a whole rabbit for your main, which also came with a huge potato gratin thing, Bayonne ham, vegetables drenched in butter:

How we managed dessert is a small mystery, but probably helped by how good they were. Everyone knows I'm not a dessert person, but both Chez Bruce and The Glasshouse had me licking the plate. I had a fig roll with almond ice cream and a poached pear. Another good thing about having lunch at The Glasshouse is being able to take colourful pictures:

Fil found out how amazing trifles were with his black forest version:

We went to Kew Gardens afterwards (very nice by the way, even with its very ugly Asian pagoda), the admission for which was about the same price as the meal! I really ought to stop over-analysing restaurant business models and relax and just enjoy the damn food. I've just remembered the main course at Chez Bruce was this veal and spatzle concoction featuring veal tongue which was probably one of the best mains I've had in a long time. But do I mention that first in the blog post? No. Bad Connie!