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Restaurant review: The Henrietta Hotel, London WC2 - olive magazine
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The newly opened Henrietta Hotel, from the Experimental Group (Compagnie des Vins Surnaturels, Experimental Cocktail Club, Joyeux Bordel), sees acclaimed chef Ollie Dabbous shaking off the industrial décor of his eponymous Fitzrovia restaurant.
It’d be churlish not to imbibe at The Henrietta, given the Experimental Group’s pedigree and the fact that cocktail historians Jared Brown and Anistatia Miller consulted, so go for the refreshing, cucumber-based Lucky Jim and something to graze on while you look over Ollie’s seasonal, ingredient-led menu.
Roasted seabass for main was accompanied by a deeply umami, smoky tarama broth, fragrant lovage oil and tangy pickled courgette, which acted as the perfect foil to its platefellows.
Desserts are simple – green apple sorbet, soft-serve cherry blossom ice cream – but the wait for buttery, freshly baked madeleines with Chantilly cream is more than worth it.
Elegant and refined but accessible, the experiments have paid off and we wouldn’t be surprised if Henrietta quickly draws the crowds you’d expect from a restaurant with Ollie Dabbous at the helm.
New Openings: Henrietta
Behind the scenes: "Wunderkind" Ollie Dabbous materialised in January 2012 as if from nowhere (in fact, from Le Manoir Aux’ Quat Saisons and Texture) and won a Michelin star within eight months of opening.
Now 35, he moves into a new phase of his career at the Henrietta with the imminent closure of Dabbous and the March closure of its follow-up Barnyard.
Dabbous’ partners, the "global hospitality collective" the Experimental Group, known for Compagnie des Vins Surnaturels and Experimental Cocktail Club, have bars, restaurants and hotels across Paris, New York, Ibiza and London.
Henrietta | A Covent Garden Restaurant From Uber-Chef Ollie ...
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Unless you’re Ollie Dabbous, in which case when one door closes, another one gets built from scratch and placed in his new restaurant.
The old restaurant is Dabbous – a.k.a the restaurant that took reservations a year in advance, was awarded a Michelin star within 8 months of opening, and has been one of London’s most in-demand, highly-esteemed restaurants for the past 5 years.
So no pressure on that new restaurant, which is Henrietta; a collaboration between Dabbous and the group behind the Experimental Cocktail Club, and La Compagnie des Vins Surnaturels.
It’s a sister hotel to the Grand Pigalle in Paris, and its centrepiece is a two-storey seasonal restaurant overseen by Ollie, serving fresh, simple food with a nod to French cuisine.
NOTE: Henrietta is open now.
Henrietta | Soho, Fitzrovia, Covent Garden | Restaurant Reviews ...
Henrietta Hotel - Covent Garden, London - England - Smith Hotels
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The Henrietta Hotel – which some might claim was in fact named for the street in Covent Garden on which it is situated – is a cosy 18-bedroom boutique address with a playful-yet-luxurious interior design by Dorothée Meilichzon and a restaurant from star-chef Ollie Dabbous.
Having accidentally walked passed the front door more than once, we eventually checked in to the Henrietta just in time for cocktail hour and were led straight up to our room on the second floor, which overlooked the street and had plenty of room to swing a cat (or a cot – should you be traveling with a small one in tow), and to stand far enough back to happily Instagram all the picturesque design details.
It was so nice, and – it being the Friday evening after a particularly energetic week or seven – Mr Smith and I took one look at the room, one look at each other and instantly agreed: we weren’t going to leave again until, ooh, sometime on Saturday At Least.
Sancerre, saucisson and a selection of other various snacks were summoned from room service, to be followed a short while later with a full meal served hot from the restaurant downstairs.
More than a nice change of décor, and the delights of an unusual minibar selection and the bathroom’s cute amenities (the Henrietta provides a little bag with a selection of gorgeous brands), more than the lack of endless chores that would be demanding our attention if we were at home, the Henrietta is just a lovely a place to spend time in.
Henrietta: a casual restaurant with formal food for people wearing hats
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Henrietta is a restaurant in a boutique hotel on Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, around the corner from the actors’ church St Paul’s, which is very plain.
Henrietta Street is full of tall, sad houses — the kind London does so well in fiction and in life.
On Henrietta’s website, there is a photograph of a man in a red velvet jacket reading the London Evening Standard.
I cannot divine the hotel, because I am unwilling to pay £324 to stay in a small room in Covent Garden, especially if it has bobbly grey carpets.
If you can survive the ennui of a fashionable yet casual restaurant in Covent Garden (‘laid-back, effortlessly cool,’ said Time Out, like a computer program written by a mad PR flunkey out to destroy respectable criticism), the food is fine.
Henrietta: An ode to joy from star Ollie Dabbous | London Evening ...
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Language, Truth and Logic is one of the cocktails on offer at Henrietta Hotel.
I love this story and by extension whoever names a cocktail after a book of philosophy and dreams up other concoctions inspired by Kurt Vonnegut titles (Sirens of Titan, Cat’s Cradle), Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim, A J Cronin’s The Citadel and, in Down and Out — Beefeater gin, Lillet Blanc, Crème de Cassis — references George Orwell.
Are we surprised that Experimental Group, owners of Henrietta Hotel and also Experimental Cocktail Club, Joyeux Bordel and Compagnie des Vins Surnaturels, has managed to involve Ollie Dabbous in overseeing its restaurant?
At a second meal a bowl of spring vegetables and flowers with wild garlic and Graceburn cheese — soft, raw cow’s cheese steeped in herb-infused oils — is balm to the senses and to the soul of someone like me who feels always lagging behind in the five-a-day stakes.
After various bouquets on the plates, slices of slow-cooked Saddleback pork served with a film of lardo melting on top and shards of slightly scorched sweet, long Tropea onions convey pleasing, almost daring, simplicity.
Henrietta, London WC2: 'An antidote to meaty, fatty, salty bro food ...
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I’m remembering this as food starts arriving at Henrietta, the restaurant of a new Covent Garden boutique hotel as light and airy and, well, feminine as its name.
Even if he’s not cooking here full-time – we’re told, “The menu is by Ollie Dabbous”, and we don’t see him in the open kitchen – this is something of a coup.
And a departure: Dabbous and its brooding, vaguely dystopian decor and boundary-bothering dishes have been abandoned in favour of something altogether more Pollyanna.
A pillowy flatbread drips with garlic butter and quantities of sweet white crabmeat (which lodges in molars for an improbable length of time; special, super-tenacious crab).
The pale elegance of white asparagus is paired with duck egg mayonnaise on toast (more blooms), a dish whose innate sweet richness doesn’t need its truffle oil.
Henrietta Restaurant | Restaurants in Covent Garden, London
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The latest venture from superchef Ollie Dabbous, at a fashionable boutique hotel.
Her laidback, effortlessly cool vibe?
Henrietta is the first restaurant in aeons from brilliant, boundary-breaking chef Ollie Dabbous (‘da-boo’, but you knew that).
The boutique building – a knock-through of two Covent Garden townhouses – is the latest from the boys behind the Experimental Cocktail Club and hip hangout Le Grand Pigalle in Paris.
Or one of the best vegetarian dishes of the year: smooth, nutmeggy ricotta dumplings in a soup of slightly tart, garlicky buttermilk, studded with fat garden peas, frilly mushrooms and soft chunks of artichoke, then strewn with herbs and flowers?