the ledbury

a truly incredible dining experience.

the ledbury is a fine dining restaurant with a real emphasis on fine, as every part of our visit was truly exceptional.

the staff were really friendly and from varied locations. they knew their products, dishes and menu very well. they managed to achieve the perfect mix between professional and personal.

when having a meal with diversefoodand many courses, i like to ask that we only find out about the fish after we’ve finished eating it. it adds a whole extra level of enjoyment and appreciation to the food. plus, i always find that my tastebuds are more generous to trying new flavours and items in this scenario.

whilst it is a pricey experience, it is one that was 100% worth it. every dish was made to perfection and i couldn’t stop making yummy noises - always a very good sign.

16th february 2015 · by chris · in eating , england , london as you may have realised if you have been reading my blog for a while, i have been to the ledbury maybe 6-7 times.  i always find it to be a very surprising experience.  usually in the form of a little unexpected but altogether very much welcome extra.  this visit was not to disappoint. upon sitting down, i found the table ornament to be extremely interesting. i did wonder if the feathers of that particular bird (you will have to forgive my lack of fauna knowledge here as i am unable to identify what bird this comes from) ended up in some dish. maybe it was from the bird which graced the covers of the menus. but in any case, onwards to what you come here for, to read about the food.  first up the amuse bouches. a lovely brioche. foie gras jelly on puff pastry. mussels on seaweed. the brioche was soft and airy with a light dusting of something crunchy on top. i think it was onion?  next down was some foie gras jelly.  not bad but a bit too light for my taste.  i do love my foie gras but am used to its heavy, cloying taste, uncultured barbarian i am.  lastly, blended mussels on reconstituted seaweed.  a lovely amalgamation of the sea.  you will have to forgive me here as although the intricacies of the amuse bouches were explained to me in depth by our waiter, i was too interested in savoring thefoodwith my sight and smell senses to pay attention.  my hearing tends to turn off when i am distracted you see, much to the dismay of my friends.  which leads me to my most useful phrase when queried for my opinion after long monologues by friends.  “that’s interesting”. a beetroot and eel salad.  i am usually not a fan of beetroot.  it brings up childhood memories of trauma of that awful purple (why was it always purple) vegetable that i pushed around my plate as a kid.  thankfully, this white beetroot tried valiantly to address my unconscious fear about this root vegetable.  it provided an ideal contrast to the

went for my birthday. everything was just perfect.
the restaurant is quite spacious, with fairly big tables. the room does
thefoodis so precise, so balanced between texture and flavours. the quintessence of modern british food. the aged pidgeon was just insane, with agin that perfect balance through game. the pheasant egg and celeriac is a dish i could eat every morning. etc etc etc......
the wine list is also balanced and well priced with a couple gems at a decent price.
service is also very precise; present when needed, friendly without making tones of it, and very witty.
it comes at a price, nothing crazy considering the amount of work behind it.

there were two menu options. the special lunch menu at £45 or the tasting menu at £75, both available with matching wine. such a tough choice, but it was the ledbury and we just had to go down the "more" route. we had matching wines for each course (including a matching wine for the amuse bouche) making a total of 8 glasses each (i think). pretty heavy for lunch time drinking i have to say. in retrospect the "less" route might have been the more sensible choice.

we started with chantilly of colchester oysters with a tartare of scallop and oyster, horseradish and dill - a very elegant dish, this was followed by flame grilled mackerel with smoked eel, celtic mustard and shiso. then we had hampshire buffalo milk curd with saint-nectaire and truffle toast. the truffle toast was the highlight for me, delicious. we were four glasses down at this point when we moved on to the fish course of roast native lobster with broccoli stem, natural yogurt and indian spices in brown butter. this was followed by pork cheek cooked in pedro ximenez with puffed grains and spiced cream and roast haunch of fallow deer with white beetroot and smoked bone marrow and several more glasses of well matched wines. we finished with a light pre-dessert and the dessert of pave of chocolate with milk puree and lovage ice cream.

thefoodwas universally good, we just felt that we had over done it. i am always happy to go to the ledbury but i think next time i will stick to the set lunch.

one tip though, if you do want to go down the tasting menu route, is to do it at lunch time - the tasting menu is £30 cheaper then than the one offered in the evening.

a sensational eating experience. we were so happy to have chosen this restaurant, as everything was absolutely perfect. thefoodwas incredible, the service was attentive and the restaurant had a lovely relaxed but luxurious vibe about it. i cannot recommend the ledbury enough and would love to go back, this time attempting to take inconspicuous photos of the food, which i must say are works of art. thefoodwas equally attractive as it was tasty and i found the evening to be a perfect restaurant experience.
food: 8.5 / 10
service: 9 / 10
ambience: 8 / 10

it was a fabulous experience. there were small nibbles before getting the appetiser served. great introduction of the wine matching your pallet. thefoodwas so fresh that you can taste every single of the original taste. desserts were amazingly made. great service in general.

excellent place. delicious, beautifully presentedfooditems with the freshest ingredients and optimal hygienic conditions. the staff is highly professional and friendly and the service is prompt and punctual too.

the presentation was extremely good the ambiences was lit and so was thefoodyou have to check out ghis place in north hill i love this place i will return this place for sure

have not seen such a cohesive, harmonised team in operation for a while, michelin of not. all the stuff were fab but a special mention goes to javier and natalie. thefoodis fab, the highlights for me from the tasting menu were the smoked eel surprise, and the most amazing pigeon dish i have ever had! fantastic lunch! wine matching menu excellent!

when planning our recent vacation, realizing we would have a few hours in london, i knew i had to get my priorities straight, starting with where to eat.  as i polled various foodie friends who had been through the city, i received a number of suggestions, but one was listed over and over again — the ledbury.  thus, like any good globalfoodlover, i watched the reservation window and pounced on an appointment for a long lunch on our one full afternoon in the city.  given our short stay in london (under 48 hours), i had booked a hotel in nearby notting hill — the laslett (more on that experience later).  i chose the property primarily because of its location, thus, we could easily stroll to lunch.  hubs and i lucked out for our brief visit, and had a clear walk to make our 1:15 reservation.

we lovefoodand have been lucky to go to a number of fine dining restaurants around london, this has been our absolute favourite experience to date. everything was perfect, the staff were so welcoming and not at all stuffy like other establishments, the wine was heavenly and the food. wow. there aren't enough words in the world to describe how awesome thefoodthe was. it's the best tasting menu, we were very full by the end, we went for the eight dishes. i would have been fine with the six and more than full but we didn't want to miss out on tasting anything as it all sounded incredible. we're only sad we didn't have room for the cheese! i highly recommend the ledbury for any special occasion, it was a real treat.

10/10 -foodwas out of this world - if we had any issues with any of the ingredients theyu offered an alternative. we had a small problem where we wanted to try 3 different main courses but there were onkly 2 of us. as a surprise they brought out a small sampler plate of the dish we were curious about but did not order. 1st class service from them - staff funny and very helpful. its spenny but definately worth it. blooming hard to get table so book in advance. in my top 5 restaurants in london. 1st class

it's weird, i've never liked the look of the ledbury menu so i've constantly put off going despite it constantly coming out as the no 1 tasting menu in london and often the uk. every tasting menu i've had anywhere there's been an item on it that i don't think works, and i'm consistently proven wrong, given that, i figured that a menu where i didn't think anything worked must mean that i was again wrong about it, and i was - it was superb.

let's start at the beginning; the ledbury's a small restaurant in notting hill, located on the corner of 2 residential roads and is utterly unassuming, from the outside it could really be anything, inside it oozes style, the tables are laid out such that you're not sitting on top of each other and it's all nice and serene as you'd expect. so, to the food....

we had the 8 item tasting menu with paired wines, the first course was tomatoes and langoustine oil, i don't really know how to describe it except textures and flavours of tomato, each different but excellent together, the rich langoustine balanced it all and held it together really well. the white beetroot with smoked eel (and i admit i'm biased as i love smoked eel) was again perfectly balanced as i expected the beetroot to overpower the eel but no, it was mild enough to complement it perfectly. the warm bantam's egg with dried ham and truffle was a sunday morning fry up given an up market make over, absolutely awesome (i admit to holding some bread back to mop up the egg), it was the mildest dish with truffle i have ever encountered and this is a good thing as i find truffle more often than not kills the flavour of everything else on the plate, this was really well balanced and the truffle was just one of the flavours not the heavy flavour killer i'm used to. the steamed romanesco with shellfish, crab and parmesan crisp was full of the flavour of the sea and the parmesan just enhanced the sea flavours with it's own saltiness. the glazed aubergine if i'm honest was the weakest item on the menu, more a texture than a flavour but then i dislike aubergine, however the meat sauce was amazing. the galloway beef was to die for, perfectly cooked, melt in your mouth beef with bone marrow, just perfection. the first dessert was a set custard and doughnut, i loathe set trifle, mainly for the horribly gelatinous cold custard within so this was a massive shift from what i was expecting, far from being the claggy lump of vanilla i expected it was a light delicate little thing with tasted amazing, coupled with the tiny delicate doughnut it was a real surprise, two things that should be heavy both in taste and texture were light, delicate and refined. the brown sugar tart with stem ginger ice cream was a struggle, not because of anything to do with thefoodjust because we were stuffed. even though we'd only eaten brunch that day and it was now 10 hours later we had to fight to make room for it.

so, the service, there's no dress code, which is great, and the service is as informal as the dress, this is no bad thing, no stuffy waiters, just attentive, friendly staff who realise that the slightest slip up from them can ruin your meal. sam was excellent, a really nice guy, happy to answer questions about thefoodand everything a good manager should be, he gets himself out to the front of house and meets the diners rather than hiding out the back. our sommelier was excellent (i'm really sorry i can't remember her name which is appalling as she was fantastic), explaining every wine and very helpful when i explained that i don't particularly like red so she swapped out the heavier of the 2 reds (a malbec) for a south african white which was not dissimilar to a white burgundy and could hold its own against heavy flavours (great choice btw). and of course dylan with his very dry sense of humour. i have to say that i think the service here was better than at the waterside inn under diego and thefoodwas on a par, perhaps the waterside has 3 michelin stars because it's a prettier building, who knows? but the ledbury blows the only other 2 star restaurant i've visited, the hand and flowers, out of the water. well done guys and thank you very much for an excellent anniversary meal.

we visited here for lunch earlier in the year. we opted for the tasting menu and it didn't disappoint. the restaurant itself was a bit subdued being sunday lunch but is very well presented and i'd imagine would have a great atmosphere in the evening. a slight criticism would be the tables perhaps being a little too close together.

thefoodand service were top notch as you'd expect. the snacks at the beginning were excellent (especially the dumpling) and the meal throughout was of a very high quality with the highlights being the agen prune and the belted galloway dishes. they even gave us an extra desert to share which was a really nice touch. the manager was very charismatic, knowledgable and passionate about the food.

this is rightfully in the upper echelon of fine dining establishments, it certainly won't disappoint.

we ate here on the 16th of october for a friday lunch, we were on our honeymoon from australia. the ledbury is a formal and serious fine dining restaurant. my wife and myself both had the full tasting menu with matching wines. the service andfoodwas impeccable, my only critique would be if the service staff could announce thefoodand wine more clearly and with a greater depth of understanding and passion. when you are a foodie and you undertake a tasting menu, the interpretations and motivations behind the dishes are as important as the balance and techniques used in the actual dish. one of the gentlemen that served us was excellent the others were in need of some practice and guidance. thsfoodwas amazing, spot on every dish. our favourite was the tomato dish, incredible. as silly as it sounds the house bread and whipped goats whey butter was also a high light :) we were treated wonderfully and loved our experience at the ledbury, the chef was even kind enough to show us the kitchen. will definitely return when we venture back to this side of the globe. thank you ledbury team!