Granary Square Brasserie
After a busy day at cookery school, I spent the afternoon enjoying the London sun before meeting my family at Granary Square Brasserie in Coal Drops Yard. There’s outdoor seating overlooking the water fountains, decorated with exotic (fake) flowers creating a tropical aesthetic. The inside is beautiful, it’s colourful and elegant with bright accent walls, exposed brick, velvet chairs and sofas, warm lighting and tall plants. It reminded me of an Oliver Bonas shop but classier and with chandeliers.
We were thrilled to be seated in our own private hole in the wall (literally) at a cosy, round table, perfect for the 5 of us. Unfortunately, service from the outset was quite slow and it took a while to receive our drinks. The cocktails were nice, I thoroughly enjoyed my Mirin Fraise in the coupe glass but my mum was unsure about her Black Forest G&T. We ordered the honey-glazed almonds with rosemary and sea salt with our drinks but they didn’t arrive until our main course and for £3.25 we were disappointed with the tiny, and I mean tiny, bowl (about a tablespoon worth).
When our mains arrived we were again quite deflated by the portion sizes. We had to double-check that the main course salad wasn’t accidentally a starter size and were shocked that a £16.95 Chicken Milanese didn’t come with any sides, not even a small salad.
The flavours were all really delicious, no complaints in that regard, but my Keralan sweet potato curry with choy sum, broccoli, coriander and coconut was missing a fair amount of the ingredients. There was no choy sum so I had to ask for some on the side and one leaf of coriander was just quite sad. My aunt had the same curry but with monkfish and prawns and she was equally unhappy with the lack of garnish and her tough monkfish.
Overall, we had a lovely evening due to the company and the environment but sadly the food and service didn’t live up to our expectations. I would probably go back to give Granary Square Brasserie another try but it would be quite low on my list so 5/10 would return.