Sunday 6 January 2013

gallery mess











if you follow my instagram/twitter, you would have seen me yesterday sharing my rather yummy smoothie and scone combo at gallery mess. probably not the best week to declare ‘no more alcohol and cake until i am thin’ (ambitious i know) but alas, i ate fairly healthily (minus the scones) and drank none of the hard stuff (we had mocktails). 

so apparently gallery mess occupies the space where the grand old duke of york fed his 10,000 men. hence why it is called gallery mess – the gallery being of the saatchi sort, the mess being of where military peeps eat sort. works for me (simple things). it is really very handsome inside, with floor to ceiling windows, white painted arched ceilings and exposed brick. total interior porn. the mess is mainly for tea, alcohol and lunchtime snacks and definitely has that café, more relaxed kind of vibe going on. full of chelsea-ers but wasn't stuffy at all, so unstuffy in fact, that there were no plates for our bread (hands are really very multifunctional). 

my date tash and i had three courses; tash had the carpaccio with thin carrot shavings to start and the world's largest salmon and cod fishcake for her main (quote: "this is the largest fishcake i've ever seen"). i had a beautiful (but quite heavy - i genuinely had to leave some and i never do that) cauliflower soup for starters, with a super yummy pumpkin tortellini with walnuts and watercress to follow. my tortellini was wonderful, genuinely so so nice, the sauce accompanying it reminded me of one my ma makes (for lasagne, i'm known for my lurking around the saucepan with a ladle for "tasting"). as with rhubarb’s bond & brook, we couldn't say no to scones, and so instead of regular pud we have a mini afternoon tea. the scone babies had just been baked (warm and moist, nom nom) and were the perfect size for the final stages of our food coma's. i can imagine having a full afternoon tea out on the terrace on one of those rare warm london days would be delightful. 

K x