D&D London... Second time lucky?!

With its impressive glass frontage onto St. James’s Street and carefully chosen pieces of modern art adorning the white walls inside it would be easy to confuse the Avenue Restaurant and Bar with one of the many art dealers and galleries in this wealthy enclave of London.

Avenue is part of the independent restaurant group D&D London, of which my only previous experience was a dreadful evening of poor quality food and service at the Butlers Wharf Chop House Bar.

Fortunately the service was already well ahead on points, with our coats taken promptly by the restaurant manager before we were led to an immaculate table at the back of this cavernous restaurant. The minimalist interior screams chic and sophisticated, with a beautiful grand piano a pleasing touch.

We were promptly asked if we would like any water, ‘still, sparkling… tap?!’ Tap water was duly requested along with a bottle of Chilean red wine, which arrived together with warm rustic white rolls and butter. The wine was initially poured into the wrong glass but quickly rectified by our attentive waiter.

From the impressive modern European menu the wild mushroom risotto with parmesan shavings was chosen to start, followed by the free range Suffolk chicken breast, wild mushrooms and cep sauce.

If wild mushroom risotto had been ordered it most certainly did not arrive, instead the waiter set down pan fried horse mushrooms, garlic, brioche and red onion marmalade.

Choosing not to say anything I cut into the brioche, which was soft in the middle yet burnt and hard around the edges; the red onion marmalade meanwhile was delicious and an excellent accompaniment to the chewy mushrooms.

Unlike many London restaurants that choose to have their kitchen as an integral part of the main restaurant itself, at Avenue it is downstairs and as such orders are sent via a dumb waiter.

Unfortunately this meant that none of our dishes arrived hot as they should have done and the cep sauce on my main had started to form a wholly unappetising skin.

The chicken breast was terrific, beautifully cooked, wonderfully moist and tender. That was however until I got to the end piece closest to the bone, which rather worryingly was raw.

A side order of chips had also been requested with the mains, which were perfectly golden crisp and nicely salted. The excellent spinach salad and wild mushrooms were quickly finished off with the remaining cooked chicken and cep sauce.

Service was excellent throughout the evening and we were brought dessert menus from which we ordered the chocolate and raspberry cake with ice cream and the hot apple and blackberry crumble.

The chocolate and raspberry cake centre was too sticky and bordering on sickly as opposed to rich and moreish, whilst once again the hot chocolate sauce had started to set by the time it arrived at our table. The crumble was delicious however, if slightly bitter.

All in all we left feeling disappointed by another D&D restaurant, whilst in my own mind I left Catchphrase’s very own Roy Walker to deliver the final verdict. ‘Avenue… it’s good, but it’s not great!’