Pollen Street Social

Pollen Street Social is the origin of Jason Atherton’s global restaurant empire, and it remains the jewel in the crown. Whether you're here dining on the a la carte, or the £190 chef's experience, you can come to Pollen Street Social knowing that your money is safely invested in one of the most exceptional restaurants in London.

As with any restaurant, it’s the team who give you a first taste of what to expect. The buzzy bar and cosy dining room are run like a well-organised ship. One team member seamlessly segues into the next so that you are warmly looked after from beginning to end. 

That attention to detail carries through all of the cooking too. Atherton's signature 'afternoon tea' opens proceedings, and includes a crisp, confit potato chip, with vinegar powder and taramasalata emulsion - a salty seaside treat that smells and tastes like the best chippy you’ve ever had. The 'tea' - a mushroom broth with Parmesan foam - coalesces two powerful umami flavours into an intense, heady broth that sets a very high bar for what's to come.

Every other course clears that bar, or gets extremely close. Later plates settle into more classic flavour combinations - the sole meat course on our visit was an aged Cumbrian beef fillet with ceps, foie gras and truffle, for example, which doesn't win much for innovation but does score full marks for absolute no-holds-barred flavour.

Other courses delve into a much deeper, more intriguing bag of tricks. A dish of Brixham crab comes with ajo blanco ice cream, a perfect claw of crab meat, and a bisque reduction. It's simultaneously sweet and savoury, hot and cold, and throws a barrage of different textures at you. And yet, it all hangs together, perfectly balanced like an enormous house of cards. 

From front to back, this is a superb meal, from a slick kitchen that doesn't even appear to break a sweat. Wine service is just as accomplished, and wine pairings are willing to delve into the more interesting, rather than sticking to the tried and tested. The tasting menu does focus on fish and seafood and so the pairings by consequence lean towards whites, the highlight being a rich, buttery Côtes de Beaune that stood up to a magnificent tranche of turbot. As you leave, there's one last treat for the road - a cube of truffled fudge, with a last sliver of truffle on top. Money aside, Pollen Street Social is a masterclass in how to execute a tasting menu, and it sets a high benchmark for the rest of London.

Secreted beside a discreet Mayfair alleyway since 2011, Jason Atherton’s imperious Michelin-starred flagship, Pollen Street Social, remains “bang on the money” – a “masterpiece of fine dining” and a worthy winner of the SquareMeal Restaurant of the Year award in 2011 and 2017. Step through the glass door and the good vibrations hit you straight away, while the clean-lined metropolitan dining room shows its cosmopolitan class with dramatic lampshades and eye-catching arty exhibits.

Atherton may oversee a global empire these days, but he still puts in the shifts at PSS, and is often to be seen at the pass – a world-class hands-on restaurateur in his rightful place. Culinary influences and cross-fertilisation abound, but everything is underpinned by indigenous ingredients, from a witty Cockney riff involving smoked eel, buttermilk, beetroot reduction and jellied eel to South Downs fallow deer with pear, cocoa and chocolate vinegar or “staggeringly good” Lakeland lamb with beetroot, blackcurrant, savoy cabbage and a mini hotpot on the side – scintillating, exuberant food of the highest order, with maximum flavour delivering maximum satisfaction.

Provenance is absolutely key to Atherton, who believes that a menu can only ever be as good as its ingredients and has taken the time to foster long-term relationships with suppliers across Britain in order to obtain the very best produce the UK has to offer, from Colchester crab to Buccleuch beef, Jersey oysters, Orkney scallops and Goosnargh duck from Lancashire.

To start, the ‘fruits of the British sea’ is a delirious array of maritime delights presented on a special stand – we love the oyster ice cream dressed with an oyster leaf, the lobster cocktail, and the scallop with pickled radish and jalapeño; to finish, the dessert bar promises close encounters with the likes of Brogdale pear sorbet, goats’ cheese ice cream, honey and bee pollen.

Service plays it ‘social’ without ever losing its professional cool, and there are treasures galore on the ever-expanding wine list curated by the group’s whizz-bang sommelier Laure Patry. “Few places are such a treat” concludes one admirer of Pollen Street Social– amen to that.