Food & Drink: Mews of Mayfair, W1S
No two words fill the heart and stomach with joy quite like bottomless brunch, and I for one am a complete fan.
I can’t think of a better way, or is that an excuse, to catch up with friends.
As luck would have it, London is awash with a choice of places to spend an hour-and-a-half supping on the tipple of your choice, with a substantial meal thrown in to soak it all up.
We popped down to Mews of Mayfair, which is not as dauntingly flashy as it sounds, to check out its offering.
Its prime real estate location in, yes, you guessed it, a mews just off Oxford Street, set proceedings off to an excellent start.
The collection of Mews restaurants takes up most of the street, comprising a court yard bar, brasserie and pizzeria.
My friend and I were brasserie-bound with tunnel vision for bottomless brunch. The weekend brunch menu is available 11am-5pm every Saturday and Sunday.
Two courses are £22 and three courses £26. Add on bottomless Bloody Marys, Bellinis, Mimosas and Prosecco for an additional £15 per person so £37 in total, representing something of a bargain for central London these days.
We were fortunate enough to be given a discretionary pass by the manager to choose from the brunch and lunch menus, so decided to take the mix and match approach.
I chose poached eggs and avocado on corn bread as a good yardstick by which to measure the brunch menu.
The soft-cooked eggs were nothing short of excellent, oozing out on to their smashed avocado mounds and bread bed, with the lightest of kicks from the addition of some jalapeno.
A first glass of Italian fizz – Prosecco worked wonderfully well.
The brunch menu is a tale of the expected – bacon and eggs and eggs benedict – and the unexpected and somewhat refreshing – black pudding mash, fried egg and truffle mayonnaise, and baked eggs, n’duja (smoky sausage spread), tomato, butterbeans, flatbread.
As an aside, Bircher muesli was also listed but left me wondering who would be holy enough to eat cereal in a restaurant? It didn’t much strike me as a fun choice. My second course, from the lunch menu, gets a tick for predictability but again is a good way of determining the standards of the kitchen.
Mews house burger, Cheddar, Bloody Mary relish, and fries was nigh on perfect, with its charred outer crust and juicy, pink centre, raised up further by the exotic relish, served on a semi sweet bun. Again, a lot of thought has gone into this menu, with dishes such as Loin of Yorkshire venison, beetroot, pickled blackberries, and Mews Truffle burger, with the black version of this seasonal delicacy added to both the brie filling and fries.
We didn’t venture into desserts but if we had, the ubiquitous sticky toffee pudding, and banoffee pie loomed large.
10-11 Lancashire Court, Mayfair, W1S 1EY. Paloma was a guest of Mews of Mayfair