The Princess of Shoreditch — Restaurant in London

Having seen Ruth on Great British Menu we were delighted to hear the news that she was to become head chef of the fine dining restaurant upstairs at the Princess of Shoreditch in east london. This would also be a great location for us to be able to visit as it’s on Paul Street and only a ten minute walk from Liverpool Street station. Unfortunately due to the current situation we were unable to get here any sooner than on saturday. But I’m delighted to say it was worth the wait.

Now to the day itself which started as I said arriving into London on the train and taking the leisurely walk along paul street until we came to the pub. We entered to receive a nice welcome from Josh before taking a seat at the bar to enjoy some pre lunch drinks and snacks. These included a Gin & Elderflower Fizz , the Queen’s Negroni , Pork Scratching’s with Apple Sauce & Home Smoked Nuts. It was nice chatting to Josh who is the general manager of the group that owns four pubs as he gave us a good insight to how the Princess of Shoreditch is different to the other three.

Now it was time to head up the spiral staircase to the dining room on the first floor. You could see straight how they’ve put in a lot of work to create a lovely dining area where all the tables are nicely spaced out. We took our seats before being greeted by restaurant manager Hayley who it was excellent and a delight to talk to throughout our lunch. There are only two menu choices to choose from which are the short five course or long eight course Tasting Menu with the option of an additional Cheese Course and yes we opted for the eight course. We then chose a bottle of the 2017 Mirabeau Rose from the Cotes de Provence that paired perfectly with a majority of the dishes.

Our first course was a couple of fabulous little Snacks. A Mackerel , yorkshire parkin & gooseberry along with a Chicken Liver , yoghurt , pistachio & raisin. This was followed by a selection of bread , crackers and two types of butter marmite & tomato.

Now we moved to the second course British Corn which was a Charcoal and hazelnut praline with pickled mushrooms & nectarine. An interesting combination that worked perfectly and definitely one of the highlights of the day. We followed this with a delightful refreshing Red Mullet Ceviche with isle of wight tomato , yorkshire fettle , olive & fennel.

Our next course was the Cheese and Onion a Berkswell & Truffle Agnolotti with spring onion , kohlrabi & bacon foam which a fabulous rich and creamy combination. This was followed by the main event the Salt Aged Duck with artichoke , chicory , cherry , potato and a heavenly duck leg terrine and probably my dish of the day.

We then opted to have the additional Cheese Course to share which featured a Lyburn Gold , Kentish Blue , Bath Soft along with a malt loaf , carrot & fennel chutney & dried grapes. Our palate was then refreshed with a Gin & Tonic with elderflower , cucumber & dill.

Now it was time to finish with a fabulous dessert English Strawberry with goat’s curd , sparkling wine & basil. We ended our lunch with Petit Fours of cashew & miso choux bun as well as hand tempered chocolate with passionfruit. These were brought to us along with a little surprise by Ruth herself which gave us the chance to have a quick chat and personally thank her a for a fantastic lunch.

This brought to an end a fantastic lunch and one that I would highly recommend. If you didn’t fancy having a tasting menu then I would certainly recommend looking at the bar menu downstairs which also looked very appetising and by the sound of it a Sunday roast seems to be a good idea as well. This is something we’ll probably try on our next visit which I’m sure won’t be that far away.

Thank You Ruth and all the team for a fantastic lunch and look forward to seeing you...

We came here for a Sunday roast lunch. First impressions were great, the pub/dining room is very tastefully designed and there was a nice atmosphere to the place. Also, the pre-dinner cocktail was wonderfully mixed and delivered promptly. We had two of the starters. The potted brown shrimp was very well seasoned and beautifully matched with shredded kohlrabi, though was slightly spoilt by the addition of a filing-threateningly hard crisp bread. The other starter, chicken liver pate, was delightfully creamy, if a little bland. It was, bafflingly, accompanied by just half a slice of brioche bread, meaning that most of the pate ended up going to waste. As for the roasts, the beef I had was a superb piece of meat, beautifully cooked and a reasonable potion, and it came with a fabulous Yorkshire pudding. Unfortunately, the sides were a major disappointment. The greens were rather bland, and the carrots had been cut both too big (so raw in the middle) and too small (so soggy). Some of the roast potatoes were fine, if unremarkable, but they had also mixed in some cold, dry potatoes which had obviously been sitting around for a while, in the hope we wouldn’t notice (we did). To make this worse, we were served a tiny jar of gravy (between four people), and had to ask twice to get any more, meaning we were eating a very dry roast for most of the meal. I also asked for pepper, to make up for the bland greens, but this was ignored. The deserts were decent, especially the sticky toffee pudding. The service, though friendly, was disappointingly unprofessional. Apart from the issues mentioned above, no one looked at our table at any point, meaning I had to get up to find someone to order more drinks. And when I did order a drink, it took two goes to bring the correct one. This place has received very many good reviews, and there were some very good things about our meal. However, there was also some very disappointing things. It may be we just had the misfortune to go there on a bad day, but given how great some of the other pubs in the area are (see The Marksman especially), I would strongly suggest trying them before...

My friends and I chose here for Sunday lunch and while the food was very good, the service was not.

Most staff were very polite and friendly but their attentiveness was severely lacking. Firstly, we waited about 20 minutes to order our food and catching the eye of any of the servers was almost impossible; there were moments that some of them (not all) were stood in the corner chatting or on their mobile and (who I presume was) the duty manager appeared to do nothing about this.

About an hour in, we heard a clattering of crockery down the stairs and it transpired that this was our food. While accidents happen, we only discovered this by asking our server whether it had been ours (two other tables that arrived after us had now received their meals) and there was no effort in the immediate instance to be proactive and a) tell us what had happened (as I say, we had to ask ourselves!) and b) offer any sort of apology or compensation (complimentary bottle of wine, for example) for the fact that we were now having to wait for our meals to be made from scratch again.

As I say, once the food arrived, it was clear why there are so many great reviews for this place because it was delicious and plentiful (the table next to us (three people) had to request more veg. as they had been given very little to share so there was some concern given that there were six of us!). However, as I say, the food was lovely and a real credit to the pub!

In total we were there for two-and-a-half hours but despite what had happened to our food there was also no goodwill attempt for the fact we'd had to wait so long for our food; as I say, while it wasn't intentional, it had happened and anywhere else would have likely offered some discount.

Overall it wasn't a horrible experience but it was just very disappointing that some small tweaks to the customer service and attentiveness of the staff would have made our visit so...