Jenny and I continued our good eating quest to knock off another Michelin-starred restaurant. Aubergine is a French restaurant located a bit of a hike away from South Kensington tube. Its not a huge restaurant but strangely more than half the restaurant is not taken up by tables for dining but a sort of lounge area at the front. The dining room, it seemed, was located at the back. Further, in an interesting strategic move – rather than fill the front part of the dining room up with patrons they sat most people right at the back. We had a lovely table right under a sky light so it made the atmosphere feel very bright and cheerful. Look out for the aubergine theming too from the aubergine place holders to aubergine stamped cutlery.

We were dining off a set menu meal so options were limited. I would have loved to have been able to afford the chef tasting menu which looked absolutely gorgeous but our 3 courses for £34 was pretty good value for the quality of the food we got.

I was extremely pleased with the bread that they brought out to us. Not only was it homebaked stuff (so really fresh and apparently straight out of the oven) but they kept bringing it, and bringing it and bringing it. Nearly as fast as we could finish the bread! Along with the butter we nearly made the mistake of overdoing the bread and leaving no room for our dinner!

As with any top class restaurant we were served an amuse bouche at the start of our meal. I think it was a spoonful of tuna or something served on a small toast with pickles. Not bad.

Interestingly despite the fairly limited set menu both Jenny and I went for different starters and mains. Jenny went for a seafood dinner with scallops to start followed by skate.

And I went for a warmed duck salad followed by a boiled pork cheek dish.

We both, however, couldn’t resist the cherry beignet dessert. It came recommended by the waiter and it was very good, even if the cherries were on the tart side. Overall the food was excellent and good quality coming served on impressively hot plates, not just warmed. Probably my pork cheek dish could have done with a bit more seasoning but my warmed duck salad was perfect and actually surprisingly substantial. Thankfully food was also not rushed out and came at a good pace.

Service was excellent. We were served by at least four or five different people from our waiter who took the order and brought the bill, to the wine guy, to the girl serving us bread, to the girl giving us new cutlery, and to the girl delivering our food. Despite all the wait staff involved in the process service never felt intrusive though at times a little OTT like running ahead of you to the toilet door to open it for you, or running after you as you came back to pull out the chair for you. Toilets, by the way, were surprisingly not that special though they did have hand towels (fluffy stuff) and proper hand wash and moisturiser. Strangely enough they did make a few mistakes which included dripping water from the wine decanter on our butter when pouring Jenny’s wine, or bringing my drink down on the lip of a wine glass, or charging us extra for wine and juice which should have been part of our offer.

A lovely experience.

UPDATE: On January 2010 Aubergine lost its Michelin star. 🙁