Social Eating House: when fine dining goes "social"

Overall rate: 7.5

Price: £65 sampler menu; £12-15 starters; £28-33 mains

Price we paid: £100

Go there for: creative take on British cuisine in fake-casual settings

1 Michelin star

Location: Soho

The definition of fine dining in London is becoming more and more elastic, as the focus moves from heavy tablecloths and sophisticated preparations to minimal dishes and exposed brick walls.

Social Eating House is the epitome of this trend in modern British cooking, together with other Michelin-starred London restaurants, such as Lyles and the now-closed Ellory. From elegant to trendy, is a short step. Everything, from the location in the heart of Soho, to the buzzy dining room filled with young customers, identifies Social Eating House as a perfect example of the London restaurant that wants to keep up with the latest trends, and attract a new, “cooler” segment of affluent clientele.

Opened by Jason Atherton in 2013, Social Eating House’s kitchen is lead by Paul Hood, who had previously worked with Atherton at Pollen Street Social. The “social” leitmotiv is apparent in the layout of the dimly lit and animated dining room, featuring bistro-style mirrors, bare brickwork and a speakeasy cocktail bar upstairs. It’s casual, a very calculated kind of “casual”.

Now, the food. We go for the six-course tasting menu priced at £65. We order a glass of prosecco each, which arrive at room temperature. Not the best start, we have to say. However, the bread is some of the best we’ve ever had in London; the butter has just the right consistency and an interesting smoked taste to it. The first course is scallops, an elegant dish scattered with crisp horseradish flakes on a rich cream of smoked avocado. Very fresh to the palate, this dish has good texture; however, the flavour of the scallops gets a bit lost within the other ingredients.

The following dish is our favourite from the tasting menu. Imagine foie gras, with a Japanese twist: served in bonito dashi and topped with crunchy vegetables painstakingly cut into identical pieces, this old-fashioned luxury ingredient turns into a refreshing and light dish. Superb, and kind of an incarnation of the spirit of Social Eating House.

A dish of cod with apple and turnip on a sweet miso sauce continued the homage to Japan: pleasant and perfectly cooked.

The following course was lamb, served with a flavoursome olive oil mash, an intense sauce and crisp turnips. The flavour and texture of the meat were excellent, but we didn’t see the creative flair we experienced in the first two dishes.

The dessert was a homage to a remarkable ingredient: griottines (cherries marinated in eau de vie). Their intense flavour and sour aftertaste was a pleasant counterpart to the sweet and smooth peanut butter parfait. As the other dishes we tried, also the dessert was a showcase of three different textures: softness (the parfait), crunchiness (from the almond croquant placed on top), and the chewiness of the cherries. A good contrast was also provided by the light cherry sorbet. This is the typical minimal-looking dessert, which reveals its complexity only as you start deconstructing it.

If our review of Social Eating House only took into consideration the food, our rate would have been surely higher. Truth is, if Paul Hood's dishes fully deserve their Michelin star, the service is a galaxy away from it. It wasn't only the lukewarm glass of prosecco, but also the ineptitude at explaining the dishes, which, given their complexity, hugely suffered from this disservice. We don't say waiters should know the wine list by heart, but we found a bit embarrassing to have to point at out bottle of choice on the menu in order to be understood.

Social Eating House is a very good restaurant, where British cuisine is constantly questioned and reinvented in modern and creative ways. It's just a pity when bad service influences your experience of great food.