The Reindeer Restaurant

[richard]

Gorging in a winter wonderland

Magically, The Reindeer will only exist for 23 days. Which is about as long as it took us to find its "secret location" reached via the freezing back end of an East End car park.

Yet lo! What a toasty Winter Wonderland greeted us inside. Waved in by a top-hatted chappie, we happily shrugged off coats at the theatrical log-cabin cloakroom and entered a forest of elegant black tables edged by a Narnia of real (if fake snow-frosted) firs, where low-hanging candle lights created an atmosphere of intimate warmth - a miracle in a venue vast enough to host an elephants' indoor winter olympics.

Flashy Giles Deacon plates were instantly whipped away from us - they were "just for decoration". Thankfully, that wasn't the case with our dinner, which was of a quality that belied this cutie-pie enterprise's throwaway concept.

My robustly, perfectly flavoured celeriac with black truffle soup (£9) proved the ultimate in sophisticated comfort food, while my friend's wild mushroom and champagne risotto (£5 as a side portion) was so dreamy we lusted to curl up inside it for a snooze. No time for that, when booking rules only permit two-hour slots. My main course, a succulent pink, thick hunk of grilled goose breast, leeks, prunes, lardons and cranberry sauce (£17) had such a chewy, gamey richness it was truly the Crimbo lunch you always want, but never get.

The indecently gleeful squeaks of "moist! moist!" with which my friend attacked her crispy-fatted roast guinea fowl with figs and parsnip mash (£17.50) had blushes emerging on surrounding diners. Generally, these were the sort of supertrendy, black-framed glasseswearing thirtysomethings who'd be in-the-know enough to know about a place like this.

Tardy arrival of our wine (we'd already begun starters), meant our elf offered us free desserts (yay!). Scrooge-like to refuse, we thought, loosening clothing to ease into a full-on Christmas pud with brandy butter (£7.50) so merrily citrus and wildly boozy we left very happy indeed. Eating in a concrete warehouse and crossing Lapland to get to the loo probably has a novelty shelf life. But what a wonderful life that is.

Average price of a meal for two with wine and service: £124
Old Truman Brewery, E1 6QL
Phone: 0208 880 6111


Source
Larushka Ivan-Zadeh, London Lite 06.12.06
thisislondon.co.uk

Image: Reindeer: quality belies the throwaway concept