Eat Out London!The Brackenbury
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The Brackenbury is such a haven.
Situated at the fashionable end of Brackenbury road, the stretch that locals refer to as 'Rodeo Drive', the Brackenbury is a small neighbourhood restaurant.
'Small' on account of its size and 'local' because it is extremely local to its location in the locality.
Originally opened in 1489 by Sir Robert Brackenbury (who was the former warden of the Tower), the restaurant has been at the forefront of what can only be described as hospitality excellence since then.
A place for all occasions: for a quick mid week solo lunch to a festive Saturday evening feast with friends; from joyful christenings to sad but necessary funerals - come to celebrate/commemorate the landmarks of your life/death at The Brackenbury
Reviews and related sites
Wine Rooms
drinks food
We love wine, and all that’s enjoyable around wine: good food, good friends, good conversation.
We take particular pride in our selection of bins, and in presenting you with an extensive range of wines by the glass.
We encourage you to sample those armed with a pre-paid card, with or without help from our wine specialists.
We also stock a cracking selection of sparkling and sweet wines, beers and spirits.
Food is there to make the wines even more enjoyable!
Wine Rooms - Brackenbury
drinks
The bar area features five gleaming wine dispensers and 40 wines by the glass from our exhaustive list, high and low seating and plenty more space to stand.
It’s a friendly and interactive environment to sample some top wines along with tapas-style bar snacks.
The Brackenbury - London Restaurant Reviews | Hardens
food
Hidden away in Hammersmith, a newcomer seeking to evoke memories of the legendary early-'90s restaurant on the site; it was good-all-round on our early-days visit, but the standards which would once have been exceptional are now relatively commonplace.
It promised what, for its time, was groundbreaking, affordable-quality cooking - a reward for those who braved this then-offbeat slice of Zone 2 (a destination in those days not even needed for 'The Knowledge').
The site has had its ups and downs and after a short stint in recent times as 'The Port of Manilla' - a magnet for Filippinos everywhere, but out-of-step with its natural local clientele - it's been returned to its former guise by a local resident who also happens to be restaurant royalty: Ossie Gray's mother Rose co-founded the River Café.
Better perhaps was the grilled black bream, fennel, orange and olive salad.
Prices are reasonable but - given the decidedly 'local' setting - we couldn't help wondering if it wouldn't make sense to offer some special menus for brunch, early evening and so on.
The Brackenbury - London Restaurant Reviews | Hardens
food
Hidden away in Hammersmith, a newcomer seeking to evoke memories of the legendary early-'90s restaurant on the site; it was good-all-round on our early-days visit, but the standards which would once have been exceptional are now relatively commonplace.
It promised what, for its time, was groundbreaking, affordable-quality cooking - a reward for those who braved this then-offbeat slice of Zone 2 (a destination in those days not even needed for 'The Knowledge').
The site has had its ups and downs and after a short stint in recent times as 'The Port of Manilla' - a magnet for Filippinos everywhere, but out-of-step with its natural local clientele - it's been returned to its former guise by a local resident who also happens to be restaurant royalty: Ossie Gray's mother Rose co-founded the River Café.
Better perhaps was the grilled black bream, fennel, orange and olive salad.
Prices are reasonable but - given the decidedly 'local' setting - we couldn't help wondering if it wouldn't make sense to offer some special menus for brunch, early evening and so on.
The Brackenbury, restaurant review: Can son of the River Café Ossie
drinks food busyness cleanliness
Mr M's bruschetta of braised cavolo nero, ricotta, spiced olives and grilled chilli (£8.50) is a bit heavy-handed, with flavours fighting to come out on top (spoiler alert: the olives win).
Tracy, who orders the mackerel starter, wins again with a main of spiced fish stew featuring bream, cuttlefish, mussels and tomato.
At £17.50, it's not the most generous dish I've seen, and there's a huge blob of aioli to bring together the rather plonked-on components, but she declares it delicious and, being a fish specialist, she knows her stuff.
Still on fish, which is clearly the chefs' forte, Mr Rogers has roast Icelandic cod, ratte potatoes, and braised celery in porcini and marsala (£16.50).
The wine list has some handsome Italian bottles which Mr Rogers steers us through – I've only just made out "colombare recioto" in my notes, a pudding wine that, coming on top of everything else, was a honeyed goodbye kiss.
Fay Maschler reviews The Brackenbury | London Evening Standard
staff food location menu
ES Food Newsletter Chef Rowley Leigh and Nick Smallwood, two of the chaps who founded Kensington Place in 1987, are at the next table.
Lauded as the ideal neighbourhood restaurant when Adam and Katie Robinson opened it in 1991, The Brackenbury has eerily been reconstituted with that virtue intact, right down to the detail of supplying friends and acquaintances with whom to chew the fat in the extended gaps — it is very early days — between courses.
The premises — after a hiatus as a Filipino restaurant that didn’t sit easily in what estate agents in their wisdom once christened Brackenbury Village — are now in the ownership of Ossie Gray, formerly manager and wine and olive oil buyer at The River Café, and chefs Humphrey Fletcher and Andy Morris, who between them can drop the names of Kensington Place, Glasshouse, River Café, Anglesea Arms and Providores.
Our choice at dinner to start is Tamworth pork terrine with prunes, a sturdy slice with the fruit at the heart packing the sort of punch that the word pâté doesn’t come near, served with celeriac remoulade and toasted sourdough and tagliatelle alla cacciatore where the hunter’s bag of pheasant, rabbit and wood pigeon have gone into the ragu.
Chat with Rowley Leigh, these days chef-patron of Le Café Anglais in Bayswater (also opening soon probably not near you in Hong Kong), as we wait for iced Paris-Brest with hot chocolate sauce and prunes in Armagnac with crème fraîche, reveals that he and Nick Smallwood owned The Brackenbury for a while after the Robinsons took off for South Africa.