Nopi

I am sad to say that Nopi was the most disappointing meal of our trip. As you know I love Ottolenghi and make it a point to eat there every trip. I appreciate the ingredients and the effort that go into making the dishes. I felt that although some dishes were tasty enough at Nopi the sum was not greater than the parts. The portions are too small and the prices too steep. We ordered the sirloin from the mains section which at £30 is the same price bracket as a main at Tom Kitchin or Martin Wishart. It was tasty but nothing special. The mackeral came with an amazing cucumber sauce but was a tidly 4 pieces of fish enough really for a mouthful each. The venison was slightly larger and reported to be tasty. We ordered a few vegetable dishes: burrata, blood orange, coriander seeds and lavender oil was ok the highlight was the blood orange.

The cauliflower green Harissa bulgar and almonds consisted almost entirely of bulgar, I found only one piece of cauliflower in it. This was tasty if paltry.

The crushed beetroot dukkah and date molasses was almost awful. Beetroot can have an inherent sweetness to it which would necessitate cautious addition of date molasses to avoid over sweetness. This failed furthermore it was not crushed but puréed into an unappetizing purple mush.

The roasted sweet potato, burnt aubergine yoghurt, basil was ok. It's hard to go wrong with sweet potato but I have a suspicion it was butternut squash as I did find some hardened skin akin to that of butternut squash. Even that is just lazy, it doesn't take much to peel a butternut squash before you roast it.

The calcots were fair enough. I have always missed them when in a Barcelona so was keen to try them. A cross been tween spring onion and leek.

The twice cooked baby chicken was indeed minuscule and again a mouthful for each. I could have looked past the portion sizes if it had been tasty but it was overwhelmingly sweet as opposed to savoury.

The puddings were worse. The mint chocolate chip was left unfinished and that says something when ice cream goes uneaten. The trifle was described as dry. 

I could have forgiven the fact we were kept waiting 30 mins for our table had the food been worth it. I don't mind paying a lot for food when it's worth it but this was not especially given most of the vegetable dishes are pre prepared aka ottolenghi and sitting out on serving platters in front of you.

 In a city like London where there is do much choice and competition I was surprised and disappointed by what we had, and am sad to say I will not be back.