Our pre-theatre meal was at The Forge in Covent Garden tonight. Nate and Caro are big fans of French food so were happy to try somewhere random and French! Additionally The Forge had the advantage of having outside dining tables so we could take advantage of the most glorious evening.

Like the other restaurants in this chain (the other two being Le Café de Jardin and Le Deuxième) the restaurant serves French food with a slight Anglo bias. We opted for the 3-course set meal which was simple but had options that we all liked and was also significantly cheaper than doing three dishes a la carte.

The food we all received was quite high quality – we all enjoyed our starters: soup of the day for me, duck and pistachio terrine for Caro and penne pasta with rocket and blue cheese for Nate. Mains were also good with Caro and I both going for the grilled salmon with mushroom risotto (recommended by our waitress) and Nate going for the chargrilled bavette (steak) with chips and bearnaise. Once again all delicious but portion sizes could have been a bit bigger. My disappointment for the night was my mango parfait – what was served was like a slice of cake 1cm wide. It was melting when I received it and practically disappeared after two spoonfuls.

Kyla was a late joiner to our dinner but the restaurant made sure to bring out both her selections so that by the time Nate, Caro and I had finished our desserts and were moving on to tea Kyla had pretty much caught up with us.

Overall The Forge was okay. Quality of food was let down by portion sizes. Some of the other tables had a la carte options and portions seemed a little more generous. Burgers looked great. Service was excellent and attentive though they seemed to have a lot of management floating about making sure the waiters and waitresses were doing their jobs.