The Warrington
2 Feb 2011
I used to live in The Barbican. It was and will always one of my greatest loves in London. Some people see it as an ugly concrete jungle in the city, but I would find comfort in it’s solid walls and frolic about on it’s labrynthian highwalk late at night when no one was around. Going out was a breeze, and anywhere worth visiting was only a short walk away.
Eventually the fates conspired, I was torn from the heart of where I loved best and now I find myself living in Maida Vale. Obviously moving from The Barbican to Maida Vale is not a particularly devastating downgrade. I should point out that I typically wouldn’t be able to afford to live in either location but it seems if you have patience, some strange twist of fate will enable you to stumble across a bargain.
Maida Vale is nice enough but I think I must be a city girl at heart. I miss the excitement, vibrancy and convenience of city living. I realise I’m not making enough of an effort to enjoy Maida Vale living and there is a need to remedy this. So what better place to start than the local restaurant scene? Queue The Warrington.
The Warrington, pub adorned with refurbished original features
Owned by Gordon Ramsay, The Warrington is a pub downstairs, restaurant upstairs and formally an 18th century hotel and brothel. Interestingly enough the slang word “randy” originated here due to it’s proximity to neighbouring Randolph Crescent. If you look at the feature above the bar, you’ll see it’s adorned with glass paintings of frolicking naked ladies… ooh racy!
The pub is beautiful and serves decent food in it’s own right. I’ve snacked here previously and very much enjoyed their pork crackling with apple sauce.
Upstairs the restaurant is a more stately affair. We were there on a Friday night to take advantage of their £18, 2 course Toptable deal.
We shared a starter of chicken liver pate and it was smooth and creamy, balanced with some lovely sweet chutney. There wasn’t quite enough bread served with the pate, but we remedied this by raiding the bread basket.
Chicken Liver Pate with Chutney and Bread
The trout with butter, lemon, salsify and potatoes was wonderful. The fish skin was perfectly crisp and completely adored by myself – one who can be very fussy when it comes to eating skin.
Trout with butter, lemon, salsify and potatoes
I arranged a midpoint swap with my dining partner who had the beef with butternut squash puree and portobello mushroom. The beef was meltingly tender with a nice rich gravy and went very well with the smooth, creamy, butternut squash puree.
Beef with butternut squash puree and portobello mushroom
We shared a dessert of apple and blackberry crumble with vanilla ice cream and this was good, though perhaps a bit on the tart side for my liking.
Apple and blackberry crumble with vanilla ice cream
Service was adequate though perhaps a tad clumsy as they forgot our wine and also gave us our neighbouring table’s starters when we should have received our mains resulting in some confusion (“This is trout?”). But in terms of the quality of food, I was very satisfied with my meal at The Warrington and could quite happily return should there be another special deal.
The Warrington
93 Warrington Crescent
London
W9 1EH
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