Remember Lyle’s

Here’s an anecdote about our recent encounter with the chef James Lowe from Lyle’s: remember the neo- dinner experience we had in Chambre Separee? That night Felice was seated beside a couple. Being Felice, at certain point of night, he couldn’t help but sharing his profuse admiration of Kobe Desramaults with the guy sitting next to him. I wasn’t paying attention until Felice mentioned ‘oh you are from London, my wife studied there (by the way, I wasn’t, it’s Edinburgh... but never mind);

And then Felice continued ‘you know our favorite restaurant in London is called…’ he nudged me to remind him of the name;

I said ‘Lyle’s’;

The guy went ‘It’s my restaurant’;

I went ‘no way, you don’t look like the chef’;

He then went ’what about now’ tugging the white napkin in front of his collar.

What a small world, at least for those who lost their hearts for food.

We’ve been to Lyle’s only once and it was back in 2016. Then I read an article about the so-called ‘Young Turks’ and shortly afterwards both The Clove Club and Lyle’s parachuted to the list of world’s best 100. We loved everything about the restaurant straight-away:

The style of the dish: It was so not British but at the same time very British. The dish is minimal all ingredients essential, all ingredients extremely tasteful. Till now I remember the mutton we had, how the fat oozed with flavour so palpable that I will not be exaggerating to say I can sense that in my mouth now.

The dishes are very well presented; however not particularly photogenic and therefore even better as we soon abandoned the attempt to take photos; instead we focused on the pleasure of eating.

The ambiance: just like the dish, simple but with good taste.

The price: to round up the experience, we received an easy-to-digest bill

Remember Lyle’s, much over-due but never too late. Now on our way to Paris for a whistle-stop tour along Clamato, Clown Bar and David Toutain.

#michelin #lyles #jameslowe #london #50bestrestaurant