Reviews

Chelsea Bar & Brasserie Review: Great nosh or just too posh?

Featured Photo by Jez Timms

Chelsea Bar and Brasserie is in the middle of town but hidden away at the same time. It offers up what you could call your typical “posh” setting with wine bottles covering the walls, comfy leather seats, lots of modern glass and varnished wood surfaces. The big open spaces and lots of windows would let in natural light, but, unfortunately, the current building works next door brought the noise and scaffolding with it.

The staff were friendly, charismatic and did show off their personalities which helped bump up the good service to great. Orders were taken and delivered promptly, with no errors. While it was quiet at the start, the atmosphere did start to pick up and once there was a buzz it was a very nice place to be.

The drinks were decent enough, nothing massively stood out on the menu. It was a list of standard beers, the most popular (dare I say also easiest to make) cocktails and an average wine list. The drinks were nice and I had no complaints, I just also wasn’t impressed or blown away considering the high class setting they portray. I had a margarita which was exactly how a margarita should have tasted and a Brooklyn Lager which is a branded beer bottle.

The menu I had was for special offers so didn’t include everything but what it did offer was good. There was essentially a red meat option, a chicken option, then a fish and a veggie one. I had the Angus beef which came with creamy mash, a red wine jus, spinach salad and some extremely crispy bacon.

The beef was really tasty and considering they didn’t ask how I wanted it cooked it was still pink inside. I was a bit disappointed they didn’t ask, but was still glad it was cooked well. The red wine jus was really rich and it helped bring in some oak flavours into the mash which made it more than just purified carbs. Very impressed with the taste so far.

The bacon was nice but unnecessary, it was very crispy and tasted good on it’s own but did not suit a dark rich flavour. Pork generally is more suited to a sweeter accompaniment like apple sauce and therefore did make the dish feel a little unbalanced.

Overall the entire experience was good enough. I had a great time there and nothing was bad, but nothing was incredible. The high class ambience that they are trying to achieve needs to be backed up with slightly more tasteful decor and more technical dishes. The pricing is what I would expect to pay in a restaurant of this style but the fine dining experience feels more of a facade than part of the the resturant’s practices.