28-50 Marylebone

A very nice restaurant, and very friendly staff.

we enjoyed our lunch and enjoyed the relaxing ambience of the place.

very nice! 

Ok food but small portions and very expensive for what is a bar with tables. Service hit and miss.

Every time I visit 28º-50º I enjoy myself. Apart from their excellent selection of both traditional and unusual wines by glass, carafe and bottle, their exceptional food, never fails to deliver. My guest ordered the the scallops and the hake - both were cooked to perfection. I ordered the chicken liver parfait which was perfectly paired with an apricot and ginger chutney and the suckling pork belly which included salsify (a favourite of mine, commonly used in France though rarely seen on English menus.) Whether you after a quick drink of exceptional wine, or dinner 28º-50º is definitely worth a visit.

28-50 is as much as sister to Texture as Kate and Wills' firstborn is cousin to Blue Ivy (23rd cousin twice removed according to the Daily Mail, bastion of all things royal). OK they are aiming at totally different markets but to get the elephant in the room out of the way upfront: the evening here cost a third of our meal at Texture and was 3x better value. I'd recently found Texture a bit forgettable and hadn't been blown away by the 28-50 at Fetter Lane last year but whilst the two 28-50s are twins, with a shared fondness for wooden wine boxes stacked sky high, they are definitely non-identical ones. For a start, the 2 floor-to-ceiling windowed walls of the triangular bar at Marylebone Lane make it light and bright, waving goodbye to sinful-drinking-should-be-done-in-the-dark dim basements. For seconds, the service is charming: the maitre d' helps me up on to the bar stool and tucks me in like a solicitous, but ludicrously good-looking, uncle. Food is straight-forward but delicious (and unlike Texture, fat is allowed). We shared a few small plate starters including the most amazing cubes of intensely piggyish pork belly with really crispy skin and a sticky honey/soy sauce. My spatchcock chicken wasn't the most exciting but was perfectly, simply cooked, with lovely fresh greens and, aaah, triple-cooked chips which may well have seen 3 cooking stages. I finished off with a crispy topped creme brulee, yum. Then there's the wine, which was an education. We ordered a carafe which seemed tiny on arrival (and is actually 250ml which passes now as a “normal” size glass in many places) but, like Mary Poppins's carpet bag, dished out an astonishing 3 glasses of wine. We started with a Portuguese one and then without guilt tried the Rose and then a recommended Viognier. Overall, £50 of money well spent. Of all the family, this is definitely the fair-haired boy for me.

This is my second time here and, likely, not the last. The restaurant is uniformly pleasant, professional and well-run. Food is tasty and well-cooked (menu is brief, but not challenging), service is friendly and prompt and and prices user-friendly. It is the wine list, however, that takes it to the next level: one would not expect to find a bottle of Mastroberardino Taurasi Radici 1997 on the menu at all, let alone of around 60 pounds! Brilliant!