Pollen Street Social – Slow Service; Odd Ending

Pollen Street Social is a Michelin Starred restaurant in London.  The evening started well.  The dining room is actually nicer than it appears on the website.  It has a nice modern vibe.  It is a bit loud though.

We had a nice table by the window.  The bar staff where we waited for our table was extremely attentive.  The dining room staff not so much.  More on that later.  For now, here was the menu:

The meal started with various amuses:

The star of the amuse set was definitely the mushroom tea.  The chef extracted a lot of mushroom flavor that was very delicate.  It was a good start.  The amuse in the shell (I don’t recall exactly what it was) was also good and had hints of truffle.  The other two were good but nothing out of the ordinary.

As we had just got off a long flight, we decided against the tasting menu.  We ordered a la carte and started with the “Fruits of the British Sea”.

Crab and Caviar – Delicious and delicate.

Sea Scallop – Pretty good but nothing outstanding.

Lobster cocktail – Something about this dish didn’t work for me.  It may of been the cream/foam to everything else ratio.  There was just too much of it.

Oyster Ice Cream – I love oysters but this was a total miss.  I did not like the texture, flavors, and temperature together.   The oyster is already a perfect food.  It does not need to be messed with like this.

The server also brought some bread.

For main I had roasted sea bass and crab crushed potatoes on the side.

The fish was cooked well, but I did not get the side dish.  It was a bunch of diced undercooked potatoes and crab.  Did not complement the main dish and was not good on its own.

Overall, the service was VERY slow.  Very long gaps between each course.  We ended up asking for the bill before dessert because we did not want to wait for it to come out based on how long the previous dishes took.  They did not bring any petit fours or even a small sweet at the end which was an extremely odd way to end a Michelin Starred meal.  The experience started strong but faltered in the end.  Given the long service time, not all dishes working well, and lack of even a mint at the end, I would not return.