Pollen Street Social

Petit four at the end of the meal

Pollen Street Social review at-a-glance

Awards: One Michelin Star

+The kitchen makes it a point to source many of its products locally - Lamb from the Lake District, a few hours from London, was the highlight of the meal.

+/-Capably executed food makes for a polished, if slightly uninspired, experience which may have been a product of the short format lunch menu.

Review Rating: 87/100

Verdict: Capable is the best way I could describe my meal at Pollen Street Social. Dishes were well-conceived and well-executed, exactly what you want out of a kitchen. The ham hock terrine was a dud but everything else was very good and fit the bill if you want a classy, consistent lunch. There are more exciting tables in London but Pollen Street Social is the type of place I could see myself visiting for lunch if I worked nearby. I agree with Michelin’s assessment - the restaurants’ star is well earned.

Price I Paid: 38.50 GBP / €45 for three course lunch menu

Value: 14/20

Pollen Street Social and Jason Atherton’s Background

Pollen Street Social opened in 2011 with great anticipation as its chef, Jason Atherton, was formerly of the Gordon Ramsay restaurant group including as head chef of its former Michelin star outpost, Maze. Chef Atherton’s decision to strike-out on his own appears to be a wise one - the restaurant earned a Michelin star for Pollen Street Social only one year after opening. Since the success at Pollen Street the Chef has also started a restaurant empire of his own, including 8 in London, multiple restaurants in China, and one in Dubai and New York among others.

Where many of Gordon Ramsay’s Michelin restaurants are more formal affairs, Atherton keeps Pollen Street a bit more casual - there are still linens on the tables but the floors are wood and the servers are a little more relaxed.

I visited for lunch and ordered the short three-course menu for the friendly price of 38.50 GBP. Each course featured three choices of dishes which I thought was a nice touch as you could actually tailor the meal a bit to your taste (even if I chose poorly with my starter). At dinner, longer tasting and 4-course set menus are available.

Review of what I ate at Pollen Street Social

The meal kicked off with a very nice set of amuses simply called Afternoon Tea which was a nice playful take on the typical snacks you would have with a sip of tea including a mushroom tea soup, a bit of bread with salmon roe as well an elevated take on a cucumber sandwich. This was a fun way to start the meal and a nice bit of originality by the chef (even if that originality was just paying homage to something very unoriginal).

For the starter, I chose a rather elaborate-sounding dish of pressed terrine of smoked ham knuckle with onion and mustard puree, root vegetables and truffle jus. This was an inauspicious start to the meal, inoffensive but not very flavorful. Perhaps there is a limit to how good of a terrine you can make out of ham knuckle but this did not taste like much. The “root vegetables” were predominantly small balls of carrots and the truffle jus only had the faintest taste of truffles.

The main course was a lamb rump from the Lake District and its braised neck a wild garlic crumb and much better than the start. The Lake District is in the northwest part of England and, having visited it on a drive from London to Scotland, I can attest to the high number of sheep roaming the area. Chef Antherton treated them well, showing off the quality of the lamb and pairing them with some good-quality peas that were perfect for the spring season. Most impressive was the neck, fork-tender, and having a very nice flavor from the wild garlic crust. This was a very strong main dish from the kitchen and one I would happily eat again.

Dessert highlighted gariguette strawberries which were served fresh as well as made into a wild strawberry sorbet and paired with ample amounts of crème fraîche. This was a delightful dessert, the gariguette strawberries being miles better than what you get at a US supermarket with tremendous sweetness. Given the strength of the gariguettes in the dish, Chef Atherton smartly kept things very simple. The sour tang of the crème fraîche and nice acidity from the sorbet were a great pair.