Cheap and Fabulous Fine Dining? Totally Possible

Noble Rot is a wine bar and restaurant in Lamb's Conduit Street in London, a pretty little shopping street that retains much of its eighteenth century character and not far from the British Museum, Sir John Soane's Museum and Conway Hall in Red Lion Square.

There's an extensive wine list, I guessed about 660 wines. A top priced Pinot Noir - A. Rousseau, Chambertin, Burgundy, France, 1990 - will set you back £4,500. You can book online for the Restaurant, there is also an online shop and a magazine featuring the likes of Nigella Lawson and Yotam Ottolenghi.

On a frosty dark November day in London, Noble Rot offered a warm, cosy, candlelit interior. Not too busy for two o clock on a Friday afternoon. The service was excellent, I was greeted with a welcoming smile. The restaurant was full, but the Autumn Set Menu and snacks were available in the bar.

I was very happy to sit opposite the glowing open fire, giving out bone-warming heat as only a (smokeless) coal fire can. There were heavy velvet drapes at the door, shielding diners from icy blasts when the front door opened. I was just in time - the bar filled almost immediately after my arrival.

Lunch time set menus are an excellent way to eat beautifully prepared quality food at reasonable prices. Noble Rot offered two courses at £16 and three for £20. Two courses are probably ample for most people in the middle of the day, but just in case, you can fill up with three.

This menu also suggested a paired wine, each one available in 75ml servings, for each course. Water in a carafe arrived with the cutlery and a fine heavy bottomed tumbler.

The first course was roasted Jerusalem artichokes, green olives and mustard. I'd never tried Jerusalem artichokes before, although Nigel Slater is always writing about them, I was intrigued by their nubbly shape and curious to see what they tasted like.

They have an interesting sweet nutty taste, the sugars caramelised through roasting. Pitted green olives, not too salty and rocket in a lovely light dressing were perfect accompaniments. The dish was paired with a red wine, Bertrand-Berge, Fitou 'Origines', Languedoc, France, 2011 (£24 a bottle, £3 for 75ml). The wine was dry and sparse and smelled and tasted of ... wine. None of the chocolate or pepper aromas of a Shiraz ... just red wine and perfectly delicious.

Here comes my only complaint about this and many eating places today: the spindly necks on the cutlery. I don't know who came up with this fashion, but it's not the best design for dexterity when eating. The food came on plates and the forks had sharp tines, so this is a small quibble.

The main course was Baked Scottish Cod served with wilted radicchio and elderberries, piled on three delicious steamed new potatoes. This was paired with a Chablis - E&C Vocaret, Chablis 'Bas de Chapelot', Burgundy, France, 2016 (£56 a bottle, £7 for 75 ml).

This is where the meal transcended into 'oh, la la!' territory. Both food and wine were exquisite. The wine was creamy and unctuous, a faint smell of coconut, like a particularly delicious and slightly exotic English trifle.

The cod was divine, gorgeous fat white moist flakes with a crispy coating of skin, perfectly cooked. The radicchio was in fine shreds, wilted and made rich and jammy with elderberries, adding a sweet-sharp fruity taste and deep purple streaks to the pale glistening cod. The potatoes were the perfect foil, light, dry, slightly waxy and firm against the soft fish and wilted leaves.

Into my dreamy, food and wine intoxicated consciousness drifted the sound of dirty blues playing in the background. I thought maybe Eric Clapton or Cream. It turned out to be Jimi Hendrix. On vinyl. On a record player. I might have thought I had died and gone to heaven as I gazed at the glowing coals of the open fire.

In for a penny, in for a pound of avoirdupois, I thought, and called for the third course, a special favourite of mine, bread and butter pudding. This was paired with a sweet white, Guiraud Sauternes (£57 a bottle, £7 for 75ml). The bread and butter pudding, served with single cream, lived up to expectations. Lovely soft middle of bread and just set egg custard, crunchy top sprinkled with sugar crystals. Encased within, dark black currants, complete with seeds.

Noble rot refers to a fungus which grows on the grape-skins, decomposing the fruit and crystallising the sugars. It leads to very rich complex sweet wines. It does indeed.

My bill for all three courses and an optional service charge came to £46.13. A more disciplined diner could have eaten two courses of excellent food and been well-satisfied for £16 and water provided in a nice carafe and glasses.

The service was impeccable, everyone smiling, efficient, pleasant, chatty if you wanted and unobtrusive if you didn't. The chatter didn't get too loud and the background music was just that. The toilets were down a spiral staircase, narrow and slightly precarious for someone dyspraxic with failing sight and the wrong side of three small but powerful glasses of wine. I held on tightly. It was a bit like going down the rabbit-hole - dark paint and a multitude of doors to choose from at the bottom. The toilets themselves were clean and well-appointed with amusing cartoons, expensive handwash and lotion and a sandalwood candle burning in a tin.

This would be a lovely place to take friends for a special lunch or, if you want an old-world feel to a visit to London, it would be ideal. You could stay and chat in the warm ambience, putting the world to rights, protected from the chilly, misty fading day outside. Perfect, on my list to visit again.

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Restaurant Information

Noble Rot

51 Lamb's Conduit St, London WC1N 3NB, UK

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Cheap and Fabulous Fine Dining? Totally Possible
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