Becca
Linz
Pete
Vicki
We met on the 5th floor bar of the RFH which, to my surprise (and mild disappointment), is not a special staff-only affair. Apparently any old hobbledy-hoy can totter up there whenever they want. Shocking. However I don’t think many Londoners know this fact because there were barely any people there and we had no trouble grabbing a little table. Looking over the edge of the balcony however, presented a different story: the bar and seating areas of the RFH terrace and restaurants below were crawling with people (aka suckers). Check it out:
Incredibly, Linz arrived half an hour early. I know you’re supposed to be sceptical about stuff you read on t’interwebs but it’s true, cross my heart! When we arrived we were given the once over by the strangely attired staff (grey tunics like the commanders on the Death Star) and led to our table in what can only be described as a funeral march. For some reason the woman led us to the table really, really slowly. How very odd. The room is a pretty decadent space with very high ceilings and a huge window across one wall looking out onto the river. When we arrived though, the view was blocked by the blinds which were down to prevent the room overheating. Apparently on the Southbank Centre daily complaints list the temperature at Sklyon crops up all the time. We were assured however that they’d be opened later in the evening (and when they were people whooped and clapped!).
We sat down and were immediately asked if we’d like some champagne to start our meal. One of those places eh? Heavy on the upsell. We declined. In fact, I’d say the staff were one of the key negatives of Skylon. Miserable bastards the lot of them. Not a single smile in the bunch. I did get the continual impression that they were looking down on us which is not good. The rest of the diners were all pretty upmarket I have to admit. Lots of jackets and grey hair. The kind of place someone like Jenny Agutter would visit.
Anyway, onto the food. The bread situation was a tad better than BBB but still not perfect as the butter was a little firm. But they did salt one pat of butter and kept refreshing the bread when we ran out so plus points there. They started by bringing us some amuse bouches to start things off (mushroom and cheese balls, salmon thingies and a tomato thingy – sorry, I don’t know how to describe them!).
The menu here is short. You have a choice between seven starters and seven mains. We didn’t go for deserts but from memory there were about 7 of those too. The food though was universally excellent. For starters I had a qual with rhubarb which was great. Becca and Vicki had a mushroom with some stuff in it; also nice. Linz meanwhile ordered crab for the first time ever. I was beginning to suspect that this was an imposter and that she’d been replaced by an evil early-arriving-seafood-eating automaton. But then she spat a bit out into her napkin and I relaxed.
For mains, Becca has a wild sea bass with some prawn tortellini and baby gem sauce. Yes folks – that’s lettuce sauce. Linz and Vicki has a rabbit ballotine with a herb risotto. I went for the halibut with squid and chorizo. All dishes did the job although when I got home Laura said she would have found them weird without any side dishes.
Later in the evening Becca was regaling us with stories of her computer programming skills and how back in Lincoln they used any excuse to have a street party (Princess Diana’s 21st birthday anyone?). I was laughing so hard at such a poor reason for a street party that I almost missed the fact that Jenny Agutter was sitting a few tables down from us.
The bill was a little steep even with the discount at about £40-45 each for 2 courses and a small amount of wine. Good food though, and a good venue. But for the future, maybe somewhere to go back to once you can get work to pay for it.
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