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The Kings Cross Grille is the fifth Grille to open in the UK. There’s another London branch at the Hoxton Hotel plus others in Chester, Harrogate and Lincoln. It looks like the start of something big in the food stakes and one to recommend.
The Venue
The old NatWest site on Pentonville Road has been rebuilt to form the Nido building, a ‘nest’ of accommodation for overseas students in London. The Grille is on the ground floor and forms a corner site at Pentonville Road and Calshott Street. It’s one of many new ventures in the King’s Cross area, along with the revamped St Pancras station, the refurbished Midland Grand Hotel coming soon, the Regent Quarter in Caledonian Road and the new King’s Place art centre in York Way. Things are really looking up for what was a depressed area and the Grille is certainly a much needed new restaurant that surely represents the way that King’s Cross is going, which is up, up, up.
The Atmosphere
Modern chic describes the decor at the Kings Cross Grille, with funky artwork on the walls and metal lights and fittings in the ceiling. It looks like a posh club and there’s music to go with it. If you think the funky choice of sounds might be offputting, in fact it isn’t and the general buzz of the place just adds to the ambience. It doesn’t take long to settle in and start enjoying yourself. At one end there’s a bar area for just drinks and snacks if you don’t want a formal meal at table. Otherwise there are dark brown tables and chairs in twos and fours plus with longer tables for party bookings. The staff are very pleasant and attentive without being obsequious and altogether it’s a fairly relaxing place to be.
The Food
Open seven days from 7am to midnight, the Kings Cross Grille covers all bases from breakfast through lunch and dinner and brunch at the weekends. Apart from the main menu, there are also special offers such as the express lunch with two courses for £10, the Grille Lucky Seven with a choice of seven dishes at £7 each, served before 7pm, seven days a week. A separate kids’ menu for children of eleven and under is just £5 for a main course plus ice cream. Sunday lunch is £15 for two courses, or £18.50 for three with a choice of starter, the roast of the day and a dessert. The breakfast menu offers the usual suspects from big fry-ups to kippers, porridge, muesli and French toast.
The main menu has a good range of brasserie items – starters, salads, pasta, grills and main courses plus sandwiches and other snacks. Starters of crispy duck salad (£6.50) and Loch Fyne smoked mackerel (£6.75) are recommended. The first has a good selection of well dressed leaves with spikes of crispy duck (perhaps a little too crisp and dry) enhanced with honeyed figs and cinnamon to make a tasty first course. The mackerel is in fact not the whole fish, but a pate. However, it’s a very good one, quite rich and served with horseradish cream to add extra edge.
Main courses include rump steak and chips, bangers and mash, salmon fishcakes, duck confit, fish pie and a rib of beef for two. Vegetarians can enjoy the beetroot tarte tatin, vegan pasta and the daily risotto. Grilled sea bass (£14.50) is a good piece of fish set aboard a sweetcorn and clam chowder served on the shell and with a bed of spinach leaves: very good quality and one to hit the right spot every time. Braised pork belly in cider (£14) is heavy on the meat but with little or no fat, but with a top layer of crackling. Sometimes this dish, which is gaining in popularity daily, can be too fatty and filling. The Kings Cross Grille pork belly is just right, especially with an accompaniment of rather refined black pudding and Savoy cabbage.
A vanilla creme brulee with a compote of berries contained within the custard is a real dessert treat with some homemade crumbly cookies, while the Clementine trifle is another bonus: not only a very good and solid trifle but also one that is made with Cointreau jelly and accompanied by some delicious fruit crispbread.
The Drink
There’s quite an amazing choice of wines on the list. There are over twenty each of reds and whites (£14.95 - £38) plus another ten reserve wines (£40 - £87), a few pinks (£18.50 - £32) and a baker’s dozen of Champagnes (£37.50-£220). The house wines are Marquis de Canonelle in red and white at £4.10 a glass, £10.10 for a 50cl carafe or £14.95 a bottle and both are extremely drinkable. An eclectic cocktail list has all the classics, martinis, bellinis, mojitos and more plus the usual bottled beers, spirits and waters, and ports and dessert wines. The Muscat de Beaumes de Venise makes a good finish to the pudding course.
The Last Word
It’s good to find a chain restaurant that has individual character and good attention to detail. This is obviously just the beginning for a very successful operation and you may well find a Grille coming to your part of the world any time now. If so, then beat a path to its door.
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