B A R B I C A N L I F E


Evening view of St Paul’s from our table at Oblix


32nd Floor - Oblix When a new restaurant is launched management has an invidious task – it wants to generate publicity as quickly as possible, but this may not be at a time when everything has yet settled down. Oblix was the first of the Shard’s current three restaurants to open, back at the end of May, and was obviously keen to generate coverage as quickly as possible, perhaps before its two competitors in the building had opened – the result being a couple of unfortunately far from impressive reviews from some well known restaurant critics, mostly complaining about service and perhaps, rather unfairly about the type of cuisine on offer. Contrast this though with reviews


Smoked salmon starter


from real people as well as from some other professional reviewers as the restaurant got into its stride, and one gets a rather different picture. These real person reviews paint Oblix in a distinctly positive light. Indeed service and cuisine both seem to come in for high praise – a picture very much confirmed on our visit. Either some of the high-end restaurant critics are out of touch with what the public actually wants, or more likely the restaurant was a little slow to reach full efficiency. It had been open around three months when we ate there and things did indeed seem to be working smoothly and our impression of food and service was good – and it offers the same fantastic views as its two rival Shard restaurants, Aqua and Hutong. Oblix is the brainchild of


Entering the


restaurant area through the open kitchen


restaurateur Rainer Becker, whose London restaurants comprise the Japanese themed Zuma, Roka and the Shochu Lounge. Becker chose Fabien Beaufour from Eleven Madison Park


in New York to head up the kitchen, while Becker references the New York rooftop views and New York grill menus, coupled with upscale and sophisticated urban dining as his inspiration for Oblix – but luckily not the standard $195 per head (around £125) menu cost at the New York establishment! Oblix may be pricey, but not quite in the New York league! Oblix takes up the whole of the


Shard’s 32nd floor and offers a separated restaurant and bar lounge designed by Claudio Silvestrin. The restaurant is open during traditional lunch and dinner hours, whilst the bar area offers a deli option at lunch time, the standard dinner menu in the evenings and brunch at the weekends. Live music also features in the bar. The restaurant was full throughout our visit – perhaps a little noisy, but that is in part a function of its popularity with the public. The bar was also very busy and when we left at about 9.15 pm things just seemed to be warming up! You enter Oblix down a short corridor adjacent to the lift which serves all three Shard restaurants. At the end the reservations are checked and you are quickly led to your table – to the restaurant on the right, or the bar lounge on the left. One enters the restaurant through the extremely busy open kitchen and past a glass fronted meat storage chiller with appetising looking cuts of beef, hanging poultry etc. We were led to our table in the window and offered a cocktail or a glass of champagne. Menus were quickly brought out. Service was attentive right through without being overpowering – just right. Its difficult to describe the menu.


12


Mainstream with a twist might be nearest. There’s definitely an American influence in some of the dishes – perhaps it could be described as Anglo-American-European! In other words something to match most tastes.


Starters come in at from £7 to £21


(for scallop and lobster ceviche). Main courses include a couple of rotisserie options – rosemary chicken with skordalia at £18 and duck with mango chutney at £24 – and there was a vegetarian grilled option at £13, while the standard mains ranged from pork belly at £18 and whole sea bream at £22 up to dover sole, whole lobster or veal chop with gremolata all at £34. The lobster price did seem pretty reasonable, but as we didn’t try it we didn’t know how large it would have been. Other reviews I have seen suggest it is adequate – and good. It is possible to spend quite a bit more on steaks though. There’s a massive 800 gram rib eye on the bone option at £65 and there’s a waggu tenderloin/sirloin steak priced at £36 per 100 grams with a minimum size of 200 grams! We went for the crab cakes (£19)


small, but delicious, and smoked salmon on a bed of cream cheese and rocket all atop a flatbread which seemed huge at (£13) – also a good choice. The combination worked well.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68