Très Orné Odins

Back in May the Davey family went out for dinner in full force for my Mum's birthday. Yes. May. I know I should've posted this ages ago but the sooner you can get past that, the sooner you can read about this restaurant worth knowing about...

We dined at Odins near Marylebone High Street - an Anglo-French restaurant which is part of Langan's restaurants. Now I was initially a little dubious of eating at this place for a few reasons:

1) it has a pretty awful looking website
2) the site says that Odins 'provides the perfect location for that romantic meal or relaxed business meeting' - neither of which are ideal for a birthday meal with your family
3) quite a few reviews were more complimentary about the art in the restaurant rather than the food

However...these points were forgiven (but not forgotten) after eating there and this is why.

The relationship between traditional French and English dishes are combined beautifully and sometimes surprisingly unusual. The pairing of poached egg with chorizzo on rustic toast is something you'd instinctively know went together, but add in a red pepper sauce to the equation and oh my, it sure works on the tongue!

The appearance outside of the restaurant isn't immediately inviting - large windows totally covered by curtains during the daytime. But it's probably to conceal the vast amounts of paintings and art inside.

The waiters and staff are composed and know how to tend to your needs. Glasses were kept full, they were amusing, polite and were hot on recommending food and wine. It was particularly impressive when one waiter de-boned the Dover sole in front of us before serving it.

The food was impeccably cooked. I ordered the beef from the specials menu (medium-rare). It was superb; tender, sizeable and had a brandy and peppercorn sauce which zinged and released more and more flavour after each bite!

As someone who's a lover of chocolate, I obviously went down that road for dessert and had 'Mrs. Langan's Chocolate Pudding'. I was a bit disappointed as most of it was whipped cream with a small base of chocolate sponge. However the rhubarb crumble with custard and the treacle tart with apple compote were delightful to round off a meal.

So essentially this is one of those places where you can't judge based purely on appearances (though it is important to get that right). See past the aesthetic flaws and enjoy what's important - the food!

A few more pics...