Five Star Pub Grub At Lady Abercorn’s
A traditional English boozer plonked inside a glitzy five star hotel is the sort of bonkers idea you could only find in the middle of London’s achingly cool East End.
And although it is a stone’s throw from the hipster hangouts of Shoreditch, Lady Abercorn’s Pub and Kitchen is a relaxed and comforting haven.
The menu is a surprisingly quirky blend of classic pub grub – burgers and fish and chips are front and centre, exactly where you would expect to find them, but dig a little deeper and find some far more exotic dishes.
Tucked away in a corner of the Andaz London Liverpool Street Hotel, the Lady Abercorn takes its name from an iconic fiesty local pub landlady, and she would have been rightly proud of the enthusiastic and cheerful staff running the place today.
They recommended we sample their own chosen favourites from the menu, including Goat’s Cheese Profiteroles with Honey Glazed Figs and Pomegranate Molasses which somehow managed to taste like last summer’s trip to the Turkish coast.
Next up were the Ox Cheek Bon Bons, deliciously dense and rich balls of slow cooked meat which fell apart in the most delicious way. The stand out starter by a mile however, was the pork belly in sticky toffee sauce. Yes you read that right. Sticky. Toffee. Sauce.
And this was not just a nod to the famous pudding, the meat was drenched in thick dark syrup which made it zing and sing. It really shouldn’t have worked but it did. Oh believe me, it did.
For mains we went for the coconut king prawn curry which tasted great but was let down a little by its soupy texture. Luckily the mango chutney was triumphant, with postage stamp size chunks of fruit, and we’d have quite happily worked our way through a bowl of that with a spoon instead.
The sea bass with papaya salad was a generous slab of fish, cooked to perfection, and vanished within moments.
My dining companion came up with a wild theory that the human ‘pudding stomach’ is an entirely separate organ, providing additional food space for dessert – no matter how full you might be.
To put this totally non-biological suggestion to the test we ordered two puddings – the Almond and Chocolate Pallett with Apricot Foam and the Wild Strawberry Parfait with black pepper and tarragon compote. Both were works of gastronomic art, so delicately displayed on the plates that I was very glad had agreed to abandon science for the evening. I even broke my own hard and fast rule of photographing my food because they really were the prettiest puds we had seen in quite some time.
This innovative new pub is a great new destination which promises to put on live performances, will be showing key sporting fixtures and I’m reliably informed that the Sunday roasts are among the best around. Possibly because they all come with bottomless Yorkshire puddings (I know!).
- For more information or to book a table at Lady Abercorn’s click here
