You can’t beat a good supper club. It’s that perfect midway between a high-quality meal in a restaurant and a dinner party at home. Nowadays, there’s plenty to choose from in London, but on this occasion I was invited down to dine with 12 other guests at The Punchbowl in Mayfair.
The Punchbowl is the perfect kind of venue for a supper club. Step through the front entrance and you’ll find yourself in a setting of beautiful and understated Georgian elegance. My friend and I scoot past the bar and are taken up to the third floor, the private dining area where the monthly supper clubs are hosted: The Club. The room is stunning, bordering ostentatious, but its fun to be eating somewhere so grand. We all take a seat at the large dining table in the centre of the room, and then Oliver, our host for the evening introduces himself, the menu, and the first wine of the night. Tonight’s menu is themed around the Great British Apple, with a different item of British produce being celebrated each month at the club. To begin, we are served a starter of seared Isle of Lewis scallops, an apple and cucumber tartare, sour apple jelly and crispy pea cress. It’s a pretty looking dish, and thankfully, tastes as good as it looks. The scallops are cooked perfectly.
Once our empty scallop shells have been cleared away, it’s on to the main course and the next wine. Oliver, our host, does a brilliant job of guiding us through the wine tasting, and it’s not long before he’s bringing us all a plate of roasted pork fillet, with celeriac mash and a calvados and grain mustard cream sauce. The presentation is a little less fancy than the previous dish, but it still tastes great. The saltiness of the pork and the sweetness of the apple is a perfect, tried and tested combination, and the sauce the dish comes with is exceptionally good.
From the look on my fellow diner’s faces, it seems we are all relieved to have a little rest before the dessert is brought out. During this time we are treated to a short acoustic set by the supremely talented Bea Munro. Her music brings an added intimacy to the evening, but just before we’re all ready to wave our lighters in the air, it’s on to the final course, a cinnamon and raspberry strudel with a hot chocolate and apple schnapps fondue. In my opinion, it’s probably the only dish that fails to live up to its billing. Nonetheless, I find my plate is still clean in less than 5 minutes. The dessert is paired with an absolutely delicious sweet Hungarian wine (through Enotria), and after a couple of glasses, and some more music from Bea, the evening draws to a close.
It is clear from the joyous look on everyone’s faces that this has been a great evening. Given your dining with strangers, supper clubs always carry an element of surprise, but everyone here proves to be great company. The food is also fantastic on the whole, and our host, Oliver, is knowledgeable and charming throughout the whole night.
What I like about Punchbowl’s monthly supper club is that it is capable of offering its guests a premium dining experience, but does so without ever feeling overly fussy or pretentious. This is a perfect environment to enjoy a special meal with friends, or a partner, and at £50 per-head it all feels very reasonable. As I leave the venue, I find that I’m already planning my next visit.
www.punchbowllondon.com/
41 Farm St, London W1J 5RP
Piece by Paul Stringer, Food Goblin Contributor
