**Ever agonized over the perfect place to go on your first date? The right choice can affect on how well it goes – the wrong choice can end up in tumbleweed silences and a polite handshake goodbye. Well no more, because food writer/single girl and Grazia Daily columnist Tess Ward is on a mission to roadtest the perfect restaurants to take your date to. Tess Ward is a food writer, Le Cordon Bleu trained chef and host of West London’s exclusive tailor-made cookery programmes. She is also a twenty-something singleton, on the hunt for the best date-night eateries.
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Where do three hungry yogis go for a feeding after a hardcore yoga session with Sophie Clyde one of the best teachers in town? Answer: to a restaurant as aptly named as Rabbit of course. Rabbit is the newest establishment of the Gladwin brothers (the same guys that run the Shed, Notting Hill), and Rabbit’s ethos is all about meat, raised and hunted, as well as veggies grown and foraged from their farm in Sussex. After an hour and a half of asanas and enough downward dog to warrant a lead and tummy rub, I was fully up for a fully-foraged feast of a menu. Lots of wild game and the odd lettuce leaf or two. We are yogis after all…
THE VIBE
The feel of the restaurant lies somewhere between a posh man’s scullery and a trendy farmhouse. Simple white walls erupting with superfluous wooden beams out of the floor adding edginess to an otherwise simple decor. The design, wooden tables and benches all relatively simple, the detail being in the accessorising. Medicine bottles, and pickling jars on the high shelves, mismatched taxidermy stamped all over the walls. Rather abrupt splashing of colour coming from the abstract art dotted in a line down the far wall. The clientele were a mix of Chelsea and West London types (I can say that as I live in west London, the rest of the time I shall pretend that there is no distinguishable feature about said type). A date was in full swing opposite our vast table. They were tucked in the corner under the soft lighting in a rather prime spot for people watching. Despite my guess of it being a first of second date, they were looking very much as ease, enjoying the never ending flow of small plates whilst chatting, flirting and looking rather enraptured with each other. Damn them.
THE FOOD
Starting with one of their refreshing daily looseners, we must have ordered virtually everything on the menu. From dips, to veggie, to game, to fish, to offal to croquettes, you get the idea. Rather unusually the veggie dishes were the highlight of the meal. The poached turnips with spiced red cabbage, chestnuts, cranberries and tahini was superb, a wonderful combination of flavours I would never have put together. So too was the shaved sprout salad and the richly buttery mushroom ragu with shaved black truffle and sage oil. Full of flavour and exceptionally well executed. The highlight from the meat options is a toss up between the duck liver with lardons, radicchio and sultanas and the seared fillet of woodcock. There was not one thing that I can honestly say I disliked although excessive over salting did leave me with rather annihilated tastebuds after a few more simplified green dishes wouldn’t have gone amiss among the dominating heavy dishes.
THE VERDICT
Definitely a place for an informal, yet suitably classy, second or third date. The Gladwin bros have triumphed again. The plus for it’s location being lots of good pubs nearby to carry on the drinking after, should you feel so inclined post feed. The yogis and I left well fed, satiated and zen. Raving totally rabbit about those veggie dishes. Some inspired recipe development is to come post my return from Bali I feel.
Rabbit, 172 King’s Road, London, SW3 4UP