Ottolenghi, Notting Hill
I first heard about Ottolenghi when friends came back from Wilderness festival raving about swimming in rivers and the Ottolenghi banquets. I looked this up on line and wasn’t that taken, how good can a deli be? There are currently four locations in London.
This week i eventually took myself to Nottinghill to try it out and i completely get what the hype was about. I like salads, but this is not salad as i know it. The creativity and imagination that goes into the menu is insane. i have never seen such an array of ingredients from all other the world being combined in something as unassuming as salad. every mouthful is completely different and that is for each salad when you have two or three on your plate things you tastebuds go into overdrive.
So I had the Seared sesame crusted tuna with pineapple and sweet chilli salsa, roasted aubergine with black garlic yoghurt, fried chilli and herbs,. Jerusalem artichokes and potatoes with raw el hanout, saltanas, kale, preserved lemon and almonds. Fennel,carrot, cabbage and orange slaw with green raisins and herbs. Now for a lunch that is a lot of ingredients. Every bite of the slaw was completely different and the aubergine had a really nice chilli hit, but it didn’t over power anything else on the plate. the tuna was firm and the sweetness with the acidity of the slaw worked really well.
The second plate had, free-range roast chicken with lemon, chilli and oregano. chargrilled broccoli with chilli and garlic. Roast sweet potatoes with ginger yoghurt, lemon, pickled red onion and parsley. The sweet potato was cooked to perfection, you could cut it with the side of your fork, but it never fell apart, and the broccoli had a nice bite, with the added smokey hint from the chargrilling.
For dessert i had the white chocolate cheese cake with raspberry. Although it looked very pretty when it arrived i wasn’t overwhelmed by the little cupcake that was on my plate. However the flavour this little cake packed was amazing and i didn’t feel like i needed anymore at the end.
All in all this is well worth the trip, and i will definitely be going back for more, and as the menu changes daily this could become an expensive obsession as this isn’t a cheap salad, but how can it be when its this good!
A tourist in my own city 