Morells , North cliff – A Wolf in Sheepskin .

Most of you might know the name due to it being acclaimed as a 5 star boutique hotel and exclusive wedding venue in North Cliff. They recently also opened a French style bistro at the venue, so this exclusive little place is now open to the public.

I’m a sucker for French cuisine (well anything French actually) but especially French food. Having read about the bistro on more than one platform, and finding ourselves wanting to try something new on Sunday, we set off for lunch with great expectations.

Let’s start off with the good shall we, and I urge you to read the following 2 – 3 sentences carefully, as this will be the full extent of the good:  The venue really is gorgeous and has a lovely ambiance,  feels like you’re sitting in a secret garden, when in fact you’re on the corner of 14^th Avenue. Everything is neat and clean, and you are welcomed by a man in a penguin tail tuxedo with top-hat and cane. The owner/manager is a very friendly lady, offering blankets should you be a little chilly by the water fountain.  

The bad: I will try to keep this short, but I will also tell I like it is. As picturesque as the setting is, quite the opposite is true for everything that follows; service (or rather lack thereof) and food.  Service:  As we were seated our waiter asked if we would like anything to drink, we order water while waiting for the wine list…which never arrived. We sat and admired the surroundings, and chatted for about 10min, with no waiter approaching our table again, after standing up to call someone, we received menus.

Again we waited roughly 10min to catch a waiter’s eye in order to place our food orders. When ordering, I specified that I would like the French Onion Soup for starter, and the Tomato Tart ( which is a starter) for main – our waiter confirmed with me that I would not like to order a main, but that I would like the second starter as a main instead, I confirmed this a 3^rd time.  Needless to say, I received both the above mentioned with the other starters, and one of the luncheon party did not received her starter. No one apologised for this mess-up, or for the delay in the correct missing starter being brought out when the rest of the table where just about done with our starters.

Mains arrived 45min after the starters have been cleared – also only after calling a waiter to ask what is the hold up. This time around, I did not receive the Tomato Tart, but a fillet of Salmon, which I advised was not my order. Again, no apology for the mess-up, or delay in receiving the tart – which was by no means re-made since being brought out an hour earlier, as this was stone cold, so the delay in bring me the correct, but cold, order is slightly baffling to me.

The ugly – or rather The Bad continued; I warned that there is not a lot of good about this one…Food:  Menu has a lovely variety, and descriptions are full of flavour. You really get excited when reading this, really actually mouth-watering. Unfortunately this is a complete hoax. Guaranteed the descriptions are looked up on the internet or in a proper French cookbook – but the food does not live up to this at all.

French Onion Soup is one of my favourite soups, due to the pure simplicity of the flavours, on this occasion every spoonful tasted like a mouthful of onion jam – now don’t get me wrong, I love a little dollop of onion jam on a melba toast with a slice of brie; but as a savoury onion soup – not so much. (and the cheesy baguette – turned out to be what looked like Parmesan powder?)

The tomato tart, which in the menu, is described as a Confit Tart Tartin, served with basil lentils and a poached egg and red wine reduction, came as a cold hard baked slab of puff pastry, with 4 cherry tomato’s half, a dessert spoonful of cold brown lentil (with a finely chopped green something – could have been basil, could have been grass, who knows?). The poached egg was a hard pan fried quail’s egg, and perhaps a teaspoonful of balsamic vinegar that is supposed to be the red wine reduction.

The Seared Pork shoulder turned out to be a piece of pork fillet, also cold – and underdone in the centre, wrapped in bacon, served with sweet potato mash, crumbed sweet potato, one baby onion and a 4cm cut of celery. No sign of the Parisienne sweet potato, red apple puree or cauliflower crisps… really just unacceptable to say the least.

Osso Bucco came in a gigantic portion, double the amount of couscous to meat, and just a dollop of sauce. As I don’t eat meat, I can’t give much of an opinion on this – but it evident that this was not too great from the fact that not even one of the pieces of meat was eaten, and did not receive rave reviews from the rest of the table.

In all honesty, I think the Seared salmon option was the best of the lot…keeping in mind that it does not take a lot of talent from any kind of food to be better than any of the described dished, in fact I think McCain pre-frozen veggies, that are steamed with a smidge of béchamel or a simple grating of cheese would outshine them all. But hey, perhaps that’s just me.

Dessert, which is customarily my favourite part of any given meal, we completely skipped, as we could only imagine the catastrophes that would come out of the kitchen.

 

All and all – disaster.

And what mind-boggles me the most, is that this is a supposed “5 star” exclusive venue, hosting extremely expensive weddings. Now dear management, if you, your service team and kitchen struggle on a Sunday afternoon lunch service – not fully booked might I add, perhaps half ( and this is not a big restaurant ); then how in the world do you handle a wedding?

There is a saying – the higher the pitch, the lower the profit. I could not think of a better description for this “elite” restaurant. Leave the penguin suits, top hats, and fancy descriptions at the door – and rather focus on producing good and proper food.

Avoid at all cost!! Rather order pizza.

Until we eat again…