Craft London

Craft, Greenwich – Craft made an impression on some of us either by recommendation or, more recently, having watched Masterchef UK 2016. For whatever reason it was, when they launched Test Kitchen Tuesday, we thought it might be the best time to try. Test Kitchen Tuesday is a promotion that runs on every Tuesday from now until the end of the year which consist of a five course meal for £28.00. Bookings available only after 20:00 hours. We were first elevated to the bar for drinks. The circular space of the bar with big window panes meant we had a 360 degree view ranging from the O2 building to the Emirates skyline to construction work on high story buildings to undeveloped grass land. Alright, maybe it was not such a wow scene when you consider the building works going on but it was still a moment to soak in this part of London. The next question I had to ask myself was, where am I to sit? The outdoor terrace appealed but it was too windy. I would be rather contented being in the bar all night long. Cocktails from £8.00. Yeah, might just forget about the restaurant. No, I reminded myself that I was not going to miss their fantastic offer and the experimental dishes of their Test Kitchen Tuesday. So, we descended via the elevator and its doors opened onto the open kitchen. Like the bar, the restaurant space is circular and with window panes. Therefore the lighting and ambience was also depended on the external environment. In the evening, the lighting is low and intimate. Seats in the inner circle are designed for larger groups. The table tops were laid with stylish stone floor tiles and fixed to the floor, partly surrounded high velvet cushioned chairs which gave a degree of privacy. Tables nearer to the window panes were more normal. On the menu, each dish was described only by its ingredients. I love a menu like this. We were quizzing each other on certain ingredients and guessing how it would be cooked – couldn't be more appropriate for a foodie evening, right? Service was fabulous. They were all very professional and attentive with minimal intrusion. Overall, I see that Craft has a team of chefs with sound knowledge in the cooking skills and collectively they have an interesting palate. This isn't just about fanciful edible flowers (flowers in dessert is ok!) and elaborated garnishes. Being served multiple courses at £28.00 was an absolute bargain. It was a dazzling evening. I am glad that I tried Craft with the Test Kitchen Tuesday offer and would not mind paying a visit to the drinks bar on the occasional visit to Greenwich. As for the restaurant, probably not just yet.

Our first visit at a fairly quiet lunchtime yesterday, quiet to the point that the restaurant doesn't actually open till 1. A few words first about locality and ambiance. North Greenwich has a bit of a desolate air; its a transport hub that probably wakes up mainly when there's something on at the nearby O2. The restaurant itself if the top floor of a glass cylinder and doesn't frankly give the impression of somewhere you're about to spend notable over £100 on lunch for 2. It looks much like the ground floor café. Service though is timely, pleasant , informative throughout, and they're obviously proud of what's coming out of the kitchen and that's nice to see. Its a short menu of small bites, more conventional starters and mains- about 5 of each. So not a huge choice made even shorter by the fact that one of the mains was a duck dish they're pricing at-wait for it-£75!!. My wife chose a couple of small plates in lieu of starter, salt cod with peas & broad beans and a dish of pickled vegetables, and professed herself delighted with both. Likewise my octopus starter, beautifully cooked and presented. Mains- well not so much. My roast cod in a smoked eel broth was very pleasant but maybe unexciting. My wife's pork belly had been cooked apparently for 24 hours. Well maybe but if was distinctly solid and chewy and without a crisp top.. Not a success. On the other hand her lemon cake dessert was tasty. I must confess I took a deliberate risk with dessert. I had a large scoop of cardamom bun flavoured ice cream, sitting on a strongly pepper-flavoured biscuit crumb, and surrounded by swirls of what they termed raspberry vinegar that had been concentrated (I supposed) to the point where it was quite the sourest thing I'd ever eaten. It was like someone had ground up the USA confectionery "Warheads" and sprinkled it over my pudding It was weird. The ice cream was nicely made , doubtless, but for me at least I'm reluctantly unsure that the dish works. As a single dish I could consider a rating of anywhere from 1 to 9 depending on how one balances off the desire to innovate (shock? frighten?) against sensory comfort and enjoyment. Lets just say I'm pleased I had this once but wouldn't be tempted again. Overall I'd have to say that the food we ate was uneven, though there's plenty of evidence that this kitchen can cook rather nicely- just not all the time. With a pleasant bottle from the low end of a usually pretty expensive array of reds, our bill came to £126. So its not a cheap lunch, and certainly if all we'd eaten was the quality of our starters we'd have been delighted. Go back? We maybe because its certainly not dull. You have to go to North Greenwich though which doesn't help, and neither does the limited choice.

Just walk from the tube station towards the O2 dome and there it is - a restaurant on the first floor, and bar on the second. It's modern and airy, spacious and comfortable. There is an effort to provide home made, local and sustainable produce which is to be admired. We had a very good evening there with family, it's light enough to see the menu and what you are eating, and buzzy but not so loud you can't converse. This is all fine and some of the food was excellent, but it just didn't hang together for me. All started well with a bowl of fresh breads, including lovely light naan, and home made butter. The first course of cheese custard with mushrooms was a surprise - it was bowl of cheesy sauce topped by salad leaves with some crisp crackers, other vegetables and leaves and I think there was a slice of mushroom. The sauce was nice and cheesy, the crackers crunchy, the salad leaves awkward to eat dripping in sauce, and some of the green veg leaves so tough they were impossible to deal with. My main course of lamb with tomatoes and anchovies was an assembly rather than a dish. Beautifully cooked, delicious lamb with a good grilled crust served sliced, on top of some sliced tomatoes, and anchovy sauce on the side. The sauce was so aggressive it overpowered the other ingredients so I left it. Dessert was a disappointment - sweet Yorkshire pudding with berries and ice cream. I imagined perhaps a British take on a clafoutis type pudding, but it was just a rather uninteresting Yorkshire pudding with some berries inside and vanilla ice cream on top - another assembly. Afterwards we went upstairs to the bar for a drink and it was very fresh out on the balcony with a great view of everything going on. Overall we did have a good evening, some of the food is terrific, and would probably go there again if over there for an event at the O2. The menu changes very frequently, so I hope for better choices next time.

Myself and my wife recently visited Craft London for my birthday. The restaurant was booked based on the excellent review in ES Magazine. When booking the restaurant my wife explained we don't eat pork or seafood and the evening was to celegrate my birthday. We arrived early so went to the bar for a cocktail on their balcony. A great area especially on a warm evening and the cocktails were quite good although took a while arriving. We went down one floor to the dining area and we were taken taken to our table - though the restaurant was virtually empty we were shown to a table with uncomfortable metal chairs in the middle of the restuarant which we quickly resolved by moving to a window table with comfortable chairs! We ordered from the A La Carte menu and started with the wild pigeon pastry and cured beef which we shared and devoured the tasty morsels in a number of minutes. The choice for our main courses was more tricky as a good 50% of the dishes contained either pork or seafood, some of which would've have been difficult to substitute. Eventually we chose the Turbot and the Ross Chicken with broth. Chef Stevie had kindly offered to create a new broth without pork as the original broth contained pork. The Turbot was light, buttery, well cooked with an accompliment of pickled vegetables. The chicken was tasty but not outstanding and based on the cost for each of the main dishes I had expected more (£32 and £28 respectively). We ordered a chocolate, coffee, raw cream to share as our dessert for which we waited slightly longer than normal as the first one had been burnt. The dessert was rich with a burnt undertone (which was part of the dish). As mentioned the restaurant was very quiet with only 5 tables occupied. This meant we had a variety of waiters serving us with varying degrees of service and knowledge. Particulalry disappointing was when we were speaking with one of the waiters and asking him about his favourite dish, his reply was that he had only started a couple of days ago and had only tried one dish on the whole menu. Our waiter who delivered our main course and dessert handed our dishes in complete silence without even attempting to describe what we were about to eat - even when we prompted him to describe our dessert we received a mumbled brief reply that it was chocolate and coffee!!! So overall a very mixed evening which I would have expected a lot more especially when looking at the overall cost and the rave ES review - over £80 per head including wine, cocktails (2) and service. Aside from great and creative food it's the small things which can make a dining experience such as a good table, consistent and informative service and even a subtle acknowledgement that it was a special celebration. None of these were apparent or forthcoming and it was unfortunate the restaurant was so empty.