I grew up watching Great British Menu with my Dad. Me, in my early twenties and still living at home, him mid-fifties, still working and beating me nightly at chess. The halcyon days of cooking TV; it provided a much needed juxtaposition to the viewpoint that you had to be a Ramsey-esque areshole to others in order to make it to the screen. We watched and I learnt, from Marcus Wareing making the custard tart in season 1, to Sat Bain’s snotty egg, Jason Atherton’s El Bulli-esque martini, Mark Hix reading the newspaper purely to piss off Micheal Cains, Glynn’s straight ten strawberry dessert from that final week where he served a fishless fish course, Johnny Mountains meltdowns, and Kerridge changing the landscape of the show by going all mainstream with the cooking and perceived personality. I’d sit there on the end of the sofa, whilst Dad sat crossed-legged on the rug by the fire regardless of the weather, us making silly bets and watching a style of cooking that seemed a dream away from what I was used to at that point in time. Great times, and if nothing else from this piece, you have no idea how happy writing that last paragraph has made me. I scraped 400 words on french bistros to be able to recall watching that show with Dave Carlo.
You see, the thing about Dad is very little in life impresses him, least of all some chefs making a bit of dinner on the telly. I don’t know if he really enjoyed watching the show or just liked an hour with me. In a life where I’ve eaten at will in some of the best restaurants in the world, he’s very rarely stirred enough to comment. He was semi-impressed by my going to The Square, same with the first time I ate in Opheem, but he’s only ever picked the phone up twice; once to tell me that he wanted to eat Tom Sheppard’s pie (he did. Twice.) and the other to sing the praises of a certain Spencer Metzger. A certain Spencer who went from the Ritz to Row on 5, and has now opened Chez Rose as an homage to his grandmother. It’s taken two paragraphs but we’ve got there. Food, it’s best experienced as a family thing.
Spencer Metzger knows a thing or two about refinement. His cooking at Row on 5 is all immaculate technique and polished precision, but here he seems to be chasing something altogether more comforting. This isn’t French food as a museum piece or an exercise in culinary archaeology. It’s French food as it ought to be: generous sauces, unapologetic butter, textbook technique and dishes that have survived for generations. In an industry obsessed with the next trend, there’s something quietly rebellious about serving the old ones properly. Perhaps that’s why the idea feels so refreshing. Metzger isn’t attempting to reinvent French cuisine; he’s reminding us why it became the benchmark in the first place.
And here, outside the restaurant on the quiet Pollen Street in what could arguably be London’s best table, we are sipping on great cocktails, ordering wines in Mayfair for just £35, and splaying molten butter on the best of baguettes. There is instantly something wonderful about Chez Rose, a certain calmness and charm from the team who slip nonchalantly between English and French, and who aren’t afraid of the odd joke whilst in service. We both get french onion gougeres, warm and impossibly light, full of cheese and roscoff onion flavour. And then starters of stuffed courgette flowers with a pesto-like sauce vierge and tomatoes, and another of various tomatoes with peach, basil, and stracciatella, which could in all honesty do with a pinch more salt. That aside, what stands out is the quality of the ingredients that are impeccable given the more than fair price point.
Sophie takes three langoustines off the specials board at £13.50 each for her main, adding excellent frites and a salad in order to bulk it out. The langoustines are huge, meaty things that taste even more expensive than they look. It’s a flavour so clean and so delicately marine that anything more than butter, lemon and a little heat begins to feel like a breach of etiquette. I’m having a vegetarian day and got the ratatouille served inside a charred pepper with more pepper sauce. It’s the weakest dish of the day, which isn’t to say it isn’t very good, I just wish I’d stuck to my guns and got the roast chicken for two purely to myself and worried about it later.
Fear not, they have crepe suzette on the menu and it’s as good as it gets anywhere. The crêpe itself is little more than an excuse; a wafer-thin, buttery handkerchief whose sole ambition is to absorb every last drop of that glorious sauce of butter, caramel, citrus, and alcohol. I almost cried into it, which in hindsight might have ruined it. Almost as majestic is the strawberry pavlova, fresh on that day, with superb strawberries, chewy meringue bowl, and a consommé of the fruit that tastes like strawberry laces. Add an excellent pastry section to reasons you should go.
They finish with cookies that Spencer learned to cook with Rose, and we finish up by paying a very reasonable bill of £250 between the two of us. We loved it, and so did everyone else, with our tiny community of tables outside laughing and offering to share dishes. For that two hours on a sunny July afternoon we could have been in Paris, though I’d argue the cooking here is superior to anything you’ll find within a ten minute walk of the Seine. I called Dad when I got home to tell where we had been for lunch. He was impressed right up until the point I told him the cooking was French. I will never win with him.
9/10
Sign up to the newsletter here;
