October 14, 2015

Castello

Esher has yet another new restaurant. Castello has taken on the old Piccolo spot. Having made big improvements to the site, they opened their doors on September 18th. Some of you may be familiar with Castello as they used to have a location in Old Shepperton, which they have shifted to Esher. It’s an independent husband and wife team and they have one other location in Windsor.

The interior is now all on one level and it works so much better. Décor is bright and cheery. When we visited it was packed giving a great bustling feeling but we still able to have a comfortable conversation without struggling to hear each other.

Staff are friendly and welcoming.

The regular menu is pasta and pizza as well as standard mains, including a steak section. A specials menu has several choices of starters, mains and desserts – it could actually pass for a full menu on its own. There’s also a £9.95 daily lunch menu that includes a glass of wine/beer.

All food is prepared fresh onsite to order.

To start Jman ordered from the specials menu, New Zealand mussles tipped with garlic butter and parmesan – finished under grill £7.50 They were massive, which he loved because it was less effort on his part. You know they were tasty because he was trying to shovel one into my mouth before I’d even picked up my fork.

I’m boringly predictable and obviously couldn’t resist the Calamari served with tartar sauce and leaf salad £6.50. Lightly battered and tender insides plus an actual salad instead of a bit of lettuce for garnish. This would make a tasty complete lunch, yes, I think I will…

In the interest of not duplicating dishes, for a main we fought over who got the daily special of Pan seared cod wrapped in bacon served with garlic crushed new potatoes, Mediterranean vegetables & Pinot Grigio cream sauce with prawns £14.95. He won. And he relished every bite.

I chose another dish from the specials menu, Pan fried seabass fillets with saffron risotto, courgette and minted yoghurt £16.50. I didn’t feel too hard done to in missing out on the cod. The fish was perfectly cooked with crispy skin. I couldn’t get enough of the courgettes and the risotto was nice and creamy.

As much as I was enjoying the food and ambiance, this hobby is making me fat so I elected to pass on dessert, despite some yummy sounding home made ones.

Castello sits well along other restaurants in Esher. It’s a smaller, more intimate family affair serving up great freshly prepared food and an excellent choice for a grown up meal.

10 High St, Esher, Surrey KT10 9RT
castellorestaurant.co.uk
Sandown car park is closest car park

We were guests of Castello but this is no way biased my review.

February 13, 2015

Henry’s Grill

As you may know, we are big fans of Henry’s Kitchen in Hampton Court, so we were very excited when brother Henry’s Grill opened on Esher High Street in November.

It’s a large space featuring an open kitchen with a rotisserie charcoal grill. The décor is stylish urban, almost an industrial feel. Walls cladded in reclaimed wood cleverly remind you of the qualities of the food you are about to consume.

Like Henry’s Kitchen, Henry’s Grill is a member of the Sustainable Restaurant Association (www.thesra.org), meaning Henry’s Grill takes eco and social issues seriously. Locally sourced food and materials, sustainably sourced fish, recycled and upcycled materials are used wherever possible, socially responsible in its treatment of staff, to name a few.

Dining here can make you feel good in supporting the ideals. Yet it would be entirely possible to eat here and not even be aware of their ethos, so don’t let it turn you off if you’re not that way inclined. The core of Henry’s Grill is great food – including lots of meat.

Every Tuesday is Brazilian Rodizio Grill night, offering unlimited servings of meat, carved from skewers right at your table.

There’s live music on Fridays and Saturdays. In keeping with Henry’s ethos, young, local artists perform to diners, which often leads to impromptu dancing.

Service is excellent. Ann ate here with her family two weeks ago. When her daughter didn’t like her main, the waiter, passing by, picked up on it from the look on her face and then took it away and let her choose another one, something that’s hard to fathom in this day and age.

The menu is modern, with a big mix of cuisines. Italian, Moroccan, American, Mexican, Thai, Greek plus some classic British dishes make it difficult to choose. Of course this means Henry’s Grill is going to be a good bet no matter what you’re in the mood for.

Despite all the meat on offer, vegetarians are well represented with several dishes to choose from. I suspect even a gluten free vegetarian could find a thing or two.

Prices are reasonable, impressive given their ethos. Plus 50p from select items is donated to the local charity Shooting Star Chase.

We decided to share two starters. Always suckers for meze type dips, we went for the Hummus, tzatziki, aubergine caviar, guacamole, bread £5.45. The guacamole had some kick and was our favourite but all were tasty.

Our second choice was the Falafel topped with goat’s cheese and caramelised onion £5.95. We’ve never come across falafels used as a base but what a great idea. Nice textures and not at all dry.

For mains, Ann went for the Original burger, all burgers include lettuce, tomato, red onion & coleslaw in a brioche bun, served with chips £8.95. Actually she had this the first time she dined here but loved it so much she couldn’t resist having it again. And once again it didn’t disappoint. Good chunky chips, nice and crisp on the outside.

I chose one of my top five favourite lunches – Quesadilla toasted tortilla oozing with melted cheese, pico de gallo and one of the following delicious fillings: sweet potato & feta cheese or spicy chipolte chicken one course £7.50 Monday – Friday lunch and early evening menu.

Indecisive as always, they kindly offered to do half & half for me. I love sweet potato, initially I thought the feta with melted cheddar was weird but two bites in and I was sold. The chicken was juicy and tender and was very filling. A sucker for a quesadilla, I’d definitely order this again but still don’t think I could choose between the two.

The accompanying pico de gallo was stand out delicious. I would have been perfectly happy just slathering it on some toasted tortillas.

On to dessert. The dessert menu featured several tempting sounding offerings and we decided on sharing two. We managed to restrain ourselves from the chocolate fudge brownie, possibly by reasoning that carrot cake and apple pie sound like they count towards our five a day.

Apple Pie, a rustic Italian apple pie filled with apple pieces & crème patissiere. Served with vanilla ice cream £5.75. A satisfying tart of the European variety rather than the American kind. It was beautifully presented, as were all our dishes.

Carrot cake, a light carrot cake topped with delicious cream cheese & lemon icing $4.95. Mmm, this was moist and light as a feather with all the yummy flavour you’d expect in a carrot cake. Delicious.

We love everything about Henry’s Grill and genuinely hope it does very well in Esher. Go, support them and feel good about your eco and sustainable choice while enjoying a fabulous meal.

48 High Street, Esher, Surrey, KT10 9QY
www.henrysgrill.co.uk
Street or town car park.

We were guests of Henry’s Grill but this is no way biased our review.

May 3, 2014

Daylesford Esher

EXCITING NEWS – Henry’s Kitchen is going to open a second location, Henry’s Grill in the old Daylesford Spot. You can read our review of Henry’s Kitchen here – ladieswholunchinsurrey.com/2014/09/26/henrys-kitchen

***Daylesford Esher has now, perhaps unsurprisingly, closed. Our experience might give you an idea as to why***

A relatively new addition to Esher High Street, located in the recently completed building between Church Street and Lammas Lane (the two main traffic lights.) Town car park unless you hit the jackpot and get street parking out front.

This is our second in the “series of places we aren’t going back to specifically for this blog because we’ve already removed them from our rota but we think you’ll find our previous experience useful” post.

Daylesford Esher is a restaurant outlet of Daylesford Organic Farm in Gloucestershire.

They organically farm both produce and animals and make their own bread, cheese and condiments amongst other products. There’s an organic farm shop on site where you can find lots of goodies and fresh baked treats to take away. They also sell through Ocado. Their slogan is “straight from our farm to your fork.” The specials are seasonal. It’s all very Gwyneth Paltrow.

Naturally all this has a big impact on the prices. To eat here you have to be willing to pay for the provenance.

The food here is good and thoughtfully presented in a visually appealing way. The menu has a wide range of choice, from salads to burgers.

Our issue is the disconnect between the food and the décor. When (ha!) we spend £84 for three people on lunch we want to be in plush surroundings, not something reminiscent of Ikea. It boils down to the prices being in the ‘special treat’ category, but the décor and ambiance being decidedly ordinary.

The service again does not reflect the price level. We hatched a plan that we would send the kids to a matinee while we went for lunch. We thought we would have plenty of time. We were wrong. We had to ask for our drinks then two more times for our food. In the end Marie went hunting for our absent waitress, or anyone, to bring us our food.

The movie finished, our children tracked us down and we ended up sending them to Cafe Nero while we finished eating as we deemed them unworthy of Daylesford prices – even a juice is £4.

If organic and sustainable are very important to you and you aren’t concerned with prices or decor then you may well love Daylesford Esher. For us it’s too expensive to be a regular lunch spot and for those special treat lunches we want to go somewhere that feels like a treat as well as tasting like one.

We ate here in February 2014.

As always, let us know if you disagree with us!

Menu	4
Food	4
Decor/Ambiance	2
Service	2
Value	2
Total	14/25

48 High Street, Esher, Surrey, KT10 9QY
daylesford.com/esher

April 20, 2014

Cote Esher

Located on the High Street opposite Waitrose. There’s no parking but there’s a public car park nearby.

We didn’t pick the best time to start our blog. Our first post was on the eve of the school Easter holiday break. Which means our lunches are on hiatus until our kids are back in school and we regain our freedom. In the meantime we thought you’d find some of our previous experiences helpful.

Though we’ve decided we’re not going to include chains* we feel we really should include Cote Esher as it’s such a favourite of ours, plus we have a deadly tip.

As is suiting for a French restaurant, it can be quite bustling at lunch. We like to sit towards the front of the restaurant, as the main part can get quite loud. It could do with a few more plants to absorb some of the sound.

Last time we were here (January 2014) we sat in the front corner near the big bar. The only drawback to sitting here is the occasional glimpse of a dead body. Yes, really.

With the reliably prompt service, Marie ordered the Chicken and Walnut salad and Ann & Lynn both ordered the Goat’s Cheese Salad. Our drinks arrived quickly, as usual. At this point a private ambulance parked up on the pavement in front. The ambulance men went into Frederick W Paine Funeral Directors located next door to Cote.

As we were tucking into our salads the men came out wheeling a man in a body bag. At least we assumed it was a man due to the large feet propping up one end of the bag. With the reminder of our own mortality, we were glad we’d opted for salads instead of steak frites.

And what yummy salads they were, especially the Goat’s Cheese Salad (they don’t include aubergines in the roasted vegetables that come in the salad, clearly they agree with us that the texture just does not work in a salad.)

We do not in any way hold Cote responsible for the body incident, clearly next door should be more discrete and use the back door (an alley runs alongside their building so there’s no reason to use the front door.) If the idea of this happening to you fills you with horror, sit in the main part of the restaurant or at the front on the side that is far away from the bar, pictured here: