Review | Heddon Street Kitchen, Mayfair

Quite a lot of my food-based posts tend to focus on more budget-friendly places (or finding ways to still eat at not-so-budget-friendly places when you don’t have the cash to splash). Anything pricier than about thirty quid a head isn’t really my forte, and I’m perfectly happy with that. However, recently I won a competition on Twitter with Regent Street for a meal, desserts and cocktails at three different venues in central London, to celebrate Lumiere London. It came at quite a handy time, as we’d just moved house and as a result didn’t really end up doing anything for our anniversary – so this was a pretty good thing to do for it. I’ve already mentioned the desserts at Hawksmoor, but we also had our main meal at Heddon Street Kitchen, part of the Gordon Ramsay Group. I do like watching Gordon get all sweary on Hell’s Kitchen, so I was definitely looking forward to my first experience of his food offerings.

At our table, we were greeted by the manager with a couple of glasses of champagne which was a rather fabulous touch. Unfortunately my first choices of both starter and main had sold out – a sign of how good they are? – but there were still plenty of tasty options to choose from. To start, I chose the Spicy Tuna Tartare, wonton crisps and creme fraiche. It was a very unusual texture and not that spicy, still enjoyable but I much preferred the Tamarind Spiced Chicken Wings. Well-spiced with a sticky glaze and an impressive portion – these, I’d definitely recommend.

One thing that’s always appreciated, especially during the winter months, is a big ol’ bowl of warming mac’n’cheese. For a long while, I actually managed to put myself off it thanks to a disaster in the kitchen involving the decision that adding chicken soup would be a good idea. Yeah, don’t ask. However, due to some rather good experiences with bowls of the gooey, carb-y goodness since, I’ve totally been won back over. And Heddon Street Kitchen’s offering is very much up there with the very best of the best. Rich slow braised beef cubes, oozing cheese and an almost-too-much portion size, it’s definitely finally put to bed the mac’n’cheese apprehension for good.

I also had a taste of the cod. Cod is good. And this cod was amazing. Although, if you’re hungry, you might want to order a side as it’s a noticeably smaller portion than the mac and cheese. We ended up ordering the caesar salad with boiled egg, pancetta and anchovies to share – although I needed a lot less with my epic mac’n’cheese. A little more adventurous than my normal caesar salads, the dressing was lovely and rich – although I’m not the hugest fan of anchovies, if I’m honest.

The cost of the meal came to £80.25 including service charge (25p over the prize budget, we did good maths), which is more than your run-of-the-mill weekday evening dinner, but for a special occasion meal, pretty decent still. The chicken wings and the mac’n’cheese were both top quality dishes and really filling – I’d definitely look at going back to Heddon Street Kitchen…although preferably with the parents in tow!