With Bob Bob Ricard, you’re either a lover or a hater. People have been know to complain about the decor, the price, the menu and the quality of the food. However I’m going to come right out and say I love it. This blog is all about the treats, and so is Bob Bob Ricard. You can easily rack up a pretty hefty bill here, a couple of cocktails, a bottle of wine and some food will definitely send you well over the £50 mark but there really isn’t anywhere quite like it in London. It is the bastard child of English, French and Russian cuisine with a bit of each thrown into a menu that jumps from caviar at £20 a pop to a £7.50 prawn cocktail. There are some things on the menu that aren’t great and definitely over priced (the macaroni cheese is stodgy and lacking flavour but will set you back £11) but despite a few niggles I can’t help but love it. If you want to go somewhere where you’re guaranteed to have a fun, booze filled dinner then this is the place to go. And they really love booze here; wine from all over the world, great cocktails and lots of vodka, you’ll do well to leave still remembering your name.
After a few of the deliciously sweet rhubarb gin and tonics with just a hint of egg whites on the top we piled into the American style booths and perused the extensive menu. We stuck to the more traditionally English side of things for the starters. The scallops and black pudding were big and juicy with just the right texture while the venison tartar has to be one of my favourite things on the menu; dark, packed full of dark flavoursome meat with a beautiful quail’s yolk sitting on top, it is epic. One of our number did insist on ordering the prawn cocktail despite my warnings (I hadn’t read good things) and was predictably disappointed with it. This is one of the not so good dishes at BBR, 8 prawns balanced round a bowl with some sad looking lettuce and pink sauce in the middle, not a dish I’d recommend. My smoked salmon and bilinis was exactly what I hoped for, good quality fish served with sour cream although I would’ve liked a few more billinis than the three I got.
Scallop, black pudding and apple
Classic prawn cocktail
Smoked salmon
Venison steak tartare
In between the mains we indulged in a few shots of Bob’s specially brewed vodka with quails eggs. I am not a big spirits drinker but I could quite happily have put away a few more of these; smoky and spicy this was a bottle of vodka I would’ve happily taken home with me.
Bob's homemade Zubrowka and quails eggs
The mains were a hit around the table. The famous veal Holstein, which many have written about before now, was a delightful mixture of truffled mash, anchovies and meat, there’s a lot on the plate but somehow it all just works, with the truffle mash particularly memorable. The crispy chicken is out of this world, incredibly moreish, it’s a sort of up market KFC, salty crispy skin covering the succulent flesh, this was chicken posing as crack. Finally the fish cake was probably the most boring of the mains but fell away nicely and kept to the high standard round the table.
Old bay crispy chicken
Cornish crab cake
Veal Holstein and truffled mash
With more vodka ordered, we got stuck into a few desserts. The strawberry soufflé felt like it was lacking a bit of oomph not bad but not particularly memorable while the meringue fared better although by this point I think neither were necessary.
Strawberry meringue
Strawberry and cream souffle
The bill was pretty expensive but I think that was as much down to our own exuberance as it is BBR’s prices, don’t go if you’re feeling impulsive you may regret it when the bill comes. But that’s sort of the point of BBR, it draws you into a sort of treat filled utopia where you can forget the world for a few hours and indulge yourself in every decadent food under the sun; oysters, caviar, lobster, truffles, there all there but some at fairly high prices! So if you fancy a treat and want to indulge yourself, look no further than Bob Bob Ricard.
Eats, treats, and leaves 