Fifteen London by Jamie Oliver!

 

First reknowned chef journey of Gordon Ramsay’s Boxwood Cafe was a pleasant experience & to continue our journey of large credit bills & expensive meals, we ventured into Old Street to visit Fifteen, Jamie Oliver’s infamous restaurant. I have always been a fan of Jamie Oliver, not because he is a good & skilled chef but more on his entertainment value & his charisma. I remember in my teenage years when everybody was watching MTV, Friends & Baywatch, embarassingly, I preferred watching The Naked Chef, Oliver’s Twist, Jamie’s Kitchen & I suppose he was the person that has inspired myself to find my passion & love for food. I loved his shows, I loved how he scooters around London picking up cheese, wine, the freshest fish, I loved his kitchen & I loved how he presents himself in front of the camera. Despite how the public has mocked him, I have the ultimate respect for this person who established the Fifteen Foundation of whom he rescues & trains 15 disadvantaged young people off the streets & slums to work in the kitchen. The success of the first launch led to many more Fifteens being opened around the glove, Amsterdam, Cornwall & Melbourne whereby the same concept was applied. His next move was the attempt to ban unhealthy & basically crap from schools in England whereby I have also experienced in my 5 years of boarding school life. Imagine being fed chips, sausages, frozen deep fried fish fingers, jacket potato, pies & all the other food products that are extremely high in calories & salt content, not exactly healthy for our future generation & the concern for obesity levels is increasing at an alarming rate. Instead, Jamie wanted to introduce tasty, delicious & most importantly healthy food items to the school meals system & his tiresome efforts won over the population of England & most importantly, government funding as a mean of support. I admire what he has done as the PR value for Jamie is phenomenal but at least we finally have a chef standing up to help those that needed our help.

A visit to Fifteen was one of those activities an Asian tourist must participate in just to see Jamie Oliver’s first establishment. Of course, being a tourist this time round, I had a sense of excitement when we arrived at Old Street Station despite the strong gale & rain – how typical of England. The walk from the station is approximately 7 mins & when we arrived at the restaurant, it was half full during this Monday lunch. Guess what, the 1/2 full tables were occupied by mainly tourists & you barely can hear English begin spoken.

There are 2 parts to Fifteen, which is Trattoria & Dining Room & we booked for Trattoria as due to the more casual, laid back approach. The open kitchen with the Fifteen Chefs working was a pleasure in the eye & on the right hand side of the entrance, you will find a collection of Jamie Oliver’s money grabbing souvenirs which you can judge whether it ‘s worth the money or not. If you browse through his website, the man is an absolute money machine – (http://www.jamieoliver.com/jme/index.html). Not your average chef to say the least whose name is printed on a pestle & mortar & going for 25 pounds a pop. For those that do not know, Jamie Oliver has also recently published his own magazine by the name of “JAMIE”, whether you will buy it or not, I don’t know but it is all of the best sellers according to WHSmiths!

Most importantly, my sense that your average chef’s profile has become so big & commercial that he has forgotten the most important ingredient of a restaurant, the quality of food. The course of the meal was very hit & miss & see our dishes as below:

Selection of Kenny’s Home Baked Foccacia with Cerro Del Masso Olive Oil– This was wonderful, with intensive & flavourful Rosemary infused with the bread. The seasoning of salt was equally important & Cerro Del Masso Olive oil was of the highest quality. I could eat this bread basket for the whole day because it was just purely beautiful to start off your whole meal. Unlike many other restaurants in Europe, you will have to pay for your bread at Fifteen and was priced at 3 pounds (equivalent to HKD40), geez, what an expensive foccacia but totally worth the value.

  

  

Antipasti – Insalata Caprese – Beautiful mozzarella with Isle of Wight tomatoes and sweet basil – We had a very good reader from our facebook fan page who spotted the word Isle of Wight Tomatoes in this dish & if you look at the photo carefully & from our tasting, I simply did not taste any existence of the tomatoes which was very decieving & disappointing. Priced at 8 pounds per dish, this is one EXPENSIVE Mozzarella. On the bright side, the sweet basil was exactly how it was script on the menu, very sweet with no bitter taste at all & the mozzarella was amongst one of the finest I have tasted on this trip in Europe. I love Mozzarella as it is something which is boring & bland but yet the magic touch from chefs can often turn this into a true delicacy. If you do order this dish, please check on the existence of tomatoes on your plate!!

Primi – Linguine Carbonara with Guanciale, Oregano, Free Range Eggs, Garlic & Parmesan– One of the most ordinary dishes during this lunch that I dare to challenge the chefs at Fifteen that I can cook better.  The sauce was light & not exactly the most creamy from a normal Carbonara & you would expect Jamie Oliver’s team of chefs to be piling on the cream & butter as witnessed from his cooking shows. When you are eating a Carbonara, the word calories & fat are best mates but this dish does not dare to reach this level. The flavours of garlic & oregano were also lacking from the dish. Brightside of the dish is that the linguine was extremely fresh & soft and the pancetta used was of high quality.

Secondi – Char-grilled Scottish rib-eye from Buccleuch estate with peppery watercress, roasted garlic-tarragon butter and freshly grated horseradish – Since we want to experience the signature dishes of Fifteen’s menu, we are in for a real feast & calorie binge. In order to achieve this objective, you can only go right with either Chicken or a Piece of Char-grilled Rib-Eye. The Pan roasted Celtic Chicken with Tuscan salad did not sound appealing & we settled for the Scottish Rib-Eye. We all make mistakes in life & this has gotta be one of the biggest food blunders to count. The Scottish Rib-eye was priced at 21 pounds, the most expensive course in Trattoria with presentation was simple & casual with watercress & shaved horse-radish. We ordered a medium steak & the first action with the steak knife immediately send me signals this was a well-done steak with no sight of red-ness to be spotted on the steak. First bite of the steak was disappointing with the texture was as hard as rock but credit that the juiciness & quality of the steak itself was definitely there. Will also be an improvement if the Garlic Tarragon Butter could be served on the side as it looked like a puddle of grease which was not the most appealing. My suspect is that it was a rare off-day for the chefs but priced at 21 pounds per steak for lunch, there has got to be no mistake whatsoever. VERY DISAPPOINTING!

Since the mains & pastas were relatively disappointing, we had to get tucked into the desserts to rescue the experience. The sight of the desserts on offer were extremely attractive & we couldn’t help ourselves bur ordered the Dolci - Hazelnut brownie with amaretti cream and chocolate sauce & the Cheeseboard with Italian Gorgonzola, Peaches, & fresh bread! The Hazelnut brownie was nothing spectacular & the fact that it had raisins, not mentioned on the menu did not please my dining partner. An overall extremely ordinary brownie which I have tasted better ones around London & the only worth mentioning area is that it was not too sweet which was how we liked it.

I loved The Gorgonzola Cheeseboard presentation, so rustic & so simple on a cheeseboard which you can enjoy all by yourself. This Italian Blue Cheese was delicious & a perfect ending to this meal with the rustic oatmeal bread & condiments. Slight improvement would be perhaps to provide more bread for this course & the 4 tiny triangular slices of bread was so so small & petty that one would wonder that bread was & is an expensive product.

With such a massive commercial brand name, we were bitterly disappointed with our experience at Fifteen London. Right, we were full from all the food, service was fine & ambiance was as expected but the food was what I thought as moderate to mediocre which was a real shame. To spend around 100 + odd pounds for a Monday lunch was not a small amount but the food says it all. Perhaps maybe it is time for Mr Oliver & its share-holders to review all the food on offer & it may be worth to review the back to basics as the brand Jamie Oliver is getting a little too out of hand. I was disappointed but at least, I have visited Fifteen London even though it was plain, expensive & above all, extremely ordinary.

Happy Eating

Geoff

Upcoming Review: Galvin Bistro De Luxe on Baker Street

  

Address: 15 Westland Place, London N1 7LP

Tel: 0871 330 1515

Food Quality (5* the highest): 2/1/2*

Price for  Lunch (5$ = very expensive): $$$$ (Around 100 pounds for 2 pax)