Quality Wines — Restaurant in London

May I gush? I asked the waiter. Sure, he replied.

So the evening started in the small crowded room of this humbly named premises. We squeezed into our window table lit by the glowing candle shoved in a wine bottle. Busy place. Walls lined with stacked wines. No fuss. Simple. Ceiling high blackboard is scrawled in white chalk telling of the evening's meal offerings and wine deals. The food began gently with a plate of fine delicate slicing, of a Spanish style ham, the name utterly unfamiliar to me. Name aside this was exquisite as promised. We topped it on a super delicious chewy oil dripped foccacia. A great start. A plate of chard followed on its heels, accompanied by toasted pine nuts and another unfamiliar fresh Greek cheese. Combination, simple, honest, superb. The seasoning on the chard undetectable, the balance of flavours - impeccable - hard to do with chard. A plate of chickpeas and sardines followed. The chickpeas so soft, the next stage would be mush, but the chef reined control and these soft peas sopped up gently the fine flavours of the sardines. Excellent. By now I'm wondering if this fineness could continue, the tester being the next choice, a risotto. It arrived, sprawling comfortably across the plate. It's primavera being peas, broad beans, asparagus. Classic. First mouthful. Unbelievable. Texture - perfect. Rice - impeccable. Vegetables - spring green, al dente. Flavours - outstanding. The flavours all hummed in equilibrium. Not one outshone the other, but all equally valued in this symphony of humble food. Where to go from there. Cannolo if course, made with pig fat. The pastry so delicate but also robust, blistered, it snapped and cracked in my mouth exploding forth delicate cream of vanilla in one and hazelnut the next. Wow. Impressed. Like its name this place is both understated and confident. It has aplomb. The care taken with this simple menu of food is little experienced. Congratulations team Quality Wine. An outstanding meal of...

The biggest problem at Quality Wines was the service, which unfortunately affected my enjoyment and experience of the food. The wine was good but that's expected.

We had a reservation, and yet were initially offered a seat at a cramped bar seat by the door, which I would expect to be used for walk-ins/single diners. We were moved outside, which was accommodating but it seemed like the restaurant was trying to squeeze as many covers as they could out of a cramped, small space (and spoiler alert: the food isn't quite good enough for them to be getting away with this). Our server did not provide us any information on the menu, notes on the food, or information on the wine list. They then forgot to bring us our wine and we had to put our order in again. The menu itself had no detail about the food, i.e., where it was coming from (like, what exactly justifies an £8 tomato salad? are the tomatoes organic/imported/produced on a small family farm...?). There was no information on the menu about the size of each dish and we were not told. It would have been helpful to know how many dishes one should order etc.

The food itself was decent. Lobster roll was as good as could be expected in London rather than Bar Harbor, and the bun was really nice. They get points for essentially fusing the flavors of a classic cold lobster salad roll with the lesser known hot buttered roll. This is not the type of place that serves fries with anything but some slaw alongside the roll would have been nice. The aforementioned tomato salad was good but I have had better tomatoes in recent memory. The rabbit ragu was the best of the three; pasta itself was incredible and it was really well seasoned.

The wine was good, I really enjoyed the two glasses I had, though suspect they are serving a small size of 125ml.

Had the service been better and the menu furnished with more details, I would have enjoyed this...

Location up Farringdon Road , a 5 min walk from Farrington train/ tube stop. A corner location with black sun protector. This is adjacent and separate to the chop house next door which is more upmarket dining and interior of the same establishment.

Google notes that it opens at 0900- that’s for the butchers but the restaurant opens at 12 and the chop house next door has the same opening hours at the cafe.

Interior Atmosphere Rustic, you could be in Italy but it’s old school and basic , working area as you come in for the butchers. The next room is the kitchen with table seating. Rustic wooden floors, a marble tables oddly placed in the middle of the dining room , shelve seating to one side and a number of tables. Menu on the board as well as paper form. Exterior seating too but on road very close to cars driving downhill so not the best ambience. Seating is uncomfortable and cramped. Seating close to the open kitchen had an intermittent smell of food items burning.

Starters Gilda : beautiful pinchos: overpowering olive and chili with a rather subtle acchoive with a nice olive oil. One bite wonder for £3.

Mains Good value lunch deal of £15: Cavatelli with Ventricuna Vastese & Pecorino with a glass of wine or beer. Small portion, oily due to the cheese. Intense ragu sauce . Didn’t really fill up

House red: nice decent red was served and great value as noted as £3 on the bill.

Deserts Well blend of creamy cherries and almond. On the smaller side for £6.

Service : efficient but...