Luxury Hotel Crawl

I am going to call this the "luxury hotel crawl" evening of our London trip, when we started off with a drink at the legendary American Bar at The Savoy followed by dinner at the Rosewood. It's my first time visiting and fell in love with the spectacular decor the moment I stepped in to the lobby with the impressive festive season decorations including a few bigger-than-life pieces made entirely of Lego bricks. A perfect example of combining class with fun.

The American Bar is tucked away on one side of the lobby and I arrived at just about the time when the pre-theater crowd has dissipated so it's lively but not over-crowded (and staff seems to be catching a breath after the most hectic time of the evening. The dark decor with leather upholstery lounge chairs reminded me very much of American speakeasy in the 1920's - perhaps that's why the bar was so named. Went straight to the drinks menu and found myself with a songbook instead, with labyrinth-like choices each named after a song commonly played by the live pianist at the lounge - another landmark of this historical bar. Still feeling a bit under weather (literally!), I wanted something strong yet comforting, and the combination of bourbon and branca menta in the cocktail named "Ghost King" sounds like exactly something that I needed. A tribute to a song called "Walking in Memphis" and named after The King (on the other side of Atlantic), the drink was served in a martini glass with a shot of Jack Daniel's Single Barrel bourbon, visciolata, branca menta and vermouth. It's punchy with a hint of herbs and sweetness, and dangerously drinkable.

As we approached our dinner reservation time, we made a hike up to Holborn Dining Room at Rosewood London about 15 minutes away on foot. The grand decor of Rosewood was reminiscent that of The Savoy's though the hotel has a less colorful history, only open in its current name in recent times. The old-fashioned decor with the high ceiling, marble pillars, dark wooden tables, and red leather upholstery chairs reminded me of the classic New York-style steakhouse, but the menu was unmistakably British. The specialty here is its pies - Chef Calum Franklin was known to be obsessive with his pastries - and the restaurant even has a "Pie Room" which is a private dining room dedicated to this iconic dish.

Before we got to our pies we shared a couple appetizers to start, one of which was the Scotch Egg. Its simple description of "Winner of Scotch Egg Challenge" on the menu got us curious and it sure was excellent using a classic recipe of sausage and meat wrapped in a soft-boiled egg and served on a bed of caper mayo. The egg white was just done and yolk still runny, and the wrapping was flavorful with a nice crust. That sure will win at any challenge. Went for octopus as the other starter course, grilled tender and served with the smoky chorizo sausages and creamy and rich aioli.

There were six different savory pies on the menu while we were tempted to try them all among the three of us, we ordered two to share including one that's seasonal special on the menu. Apparently there's such a thing as "British Game Week" and for this special occasion Chef Calum introduced the game pie on the menu, with three types of birds - pheasant, mallard and partridge - wrapped with ham and all the other goodies in the pastry shell, which itself was like a work of art with rounds of crispy, flaky and buttery puff pastry. The filling tasted like a well-made corned beef, well brined and tender, and to complete all this was a generous pouring of meat jus. I swear this pie alone can feed 4 easily and my picture didn't serve justice of how good that was.

For our second pie we went for the vegetarian option for a change and it's equally impressive. Inside the short crust that shaped like a round hat was the filling of potatoes, Comte cheese and caramelized onion. The melted cheese and the soft potatoes plus the sweet onions gave the pie such comforting flavor, worked perfectly well with the parsley sauce. I couldn't have asked for a better meatless dish.

Pork belly was the other main course we ordered - decent but not as impressive as the pies I have to say. The whole belly was rolled and roasted and carved into individual portion, and served with apple puree and sage jus. The meat was juicy and the skin was super crispy, so nothing to complain about really, just that we were blown away by the pies. We stuck with our pie theme and went along with the festive mood with the hot mince pie to share. No doubt the best mince pie I have had.

We didn't do much touristy thing this trip and I would count drinking at a London institution and eating the classic British pies at the specialty restaurant as two of those things we did, all accomplished in one evening. Thank you C for the introduction and it's awesome to catch up at your adopted home turf.

When? November 30 2019
Where? Holborn Dining Room, 252 High Holborn, London, UK
Menu Highlights? Game Pie
Drink? 2016 Tenuta delle Terre Nere Etna Rosso DOC
Web: holborndiningroom.com