Overview
In this article we review Kol, a London based Mexican fine dining restaurant.
Location: Marylebone
Price per head: £200 – £300
Our opinion: Worth the money
Summary: A top class fine dining experience with real personality. Many memorable dishes with top class service deliver a truly remarkable Mexican experience.
Restaurant Review
We went for dinner at Kol for Louise’s birthday meal. We had heard about this restaurant fairly recently and were excited to try a restaurant that was highly rated, but that was also very different to anything we had tried before.
Louise and I have both eaten out at a reasonable amount of fine dining places over the years, both in London and abroad. We absolutely love it. And not purely for the food, it’s the whole experience. It’s normally for a more special occasion, and there is always an air of excitement at knowing you are going to get to try food that you could not have imagined before going. It’s food that you will never be able to recreate at home, and the whole experience is theatre. Where else do you get amuse bouche?
There have been a couple of occasions where the excitement and anticipation of the meal have been greater than what transpired in reality. These experiences have instilled a level of caution in both of us, we are aware there is the possibility of disappointment.
At Kol we were not disappointed.
The food was delicious and beautifully presented, and even fun. But what we loved most about it was that it had a distinct personality. We have been to a number of great restaurants that serve lovely food, but often they lack differentiation. We have had so many modern British meals that they all merge into one in our heads, and we can’t remember distinct dishes. That won’t be a problem with Kol. It looked Mexican, it smelt Mexican, and it tasted Mexican. The flavour of corn was a theme throughout, hints of it in most dishes, linking them all together like part of a story. They served classic recipes as well as reimaginations of others, but they all had personality and belonged here. It was memorable.
Kol pride themselves on being Mexican inspired whilst relying primarily on British ingredients. The only things they import from Mexico are the dry ingredients, some spices and the dried corn. This does 2 things. It means that all the ingredients are of the freshest quality, ensuring optimal flavour, and adds an extra level of creativity and novelty to an already very exciting menu.
It wasn’t only the food that was perfect, the atmosphere and service were also first class. The decor of the restaurant added to the whole experience, really transporting you to Mexico. The wait staff were incredibly attentive, to the point of overhearing me comment on how nice the plates were and then bringing me a business card with a QR code linking to the shop where they source them.
We went for a Mexican fine dining experience and we got it.
We started with a Margarita cocktail. Now this wasn’t your usual Margarita, and if that is what you are expecting or hoping for you might be disappointed, like Louise was a little… It is made from tequila, yuzu, and ‘Muyu Chinotto’ which is essentially a zesty liqueur. No lime, very little acidity. Now, if you put to the side the Margaritas you have known from the past and treat this as an entirely different drink, then your whole perspective will change. It was smooth, flavoursome, easy to drink and very different to any cocktail we have had before. Louise enjoyed the drink, she was just expecting a Margarita.
After this the meal started in anger. We were served 2 amuse bouche which set the scene for what was to follow. Flavours of mezcal, corn and chilli hitting us from the get go. And after these warm up acts we were served with dish after dish filled with Mexican flavours, and British ingredients both of us had never heard of.
We had 10 courses in total and 6 of them were absolutely outstanding.
The standouts
Nicoatole
The Nicoatole was like nothing I had tried before. A yellow pepper mousse and creme fraiche, both delicious on their own, and topped with caviar providing a perfect hint of saltiness.
Taco
Our third dish was our first Taco… finally. And this was arguably the dish of the evening. This is clearly a signature dish given it serves as their website background, and this is for good reason. It was one of our favourite dishes we have ever had in fine dining, and incredibly memorable. It was a taco, but a taco like no other. A beautiful fresh corn tortilla, soft and warm. The filling was langoustine with a sea buckthorn and smoked chilli sauce.
The show stopping element came in the form of a langoustine head that had clearly been marinaded or cooked in something so that it was warm and juicy. This was our ‘lime’. We squeezed the head releasing the wonderfully acidic juices over our taco. Go to Kol for this dish alone.
Sope
The Kol menu was 145 quid a head, which is a lot of money but pretty standard for this level of fine dining. There was also a £30 supplement for an extra dish. We decided to share one. I am so glad we did. It was thinly sliced wagyu steak on a bed of peas, elderflower and oarweed, all on top of a ‘Sope’ (essentially a thick corn tortilla). It knocked my socks off.
Now, it did feel weird knowing that we had just paid 30 quid for what was essentially a very small bit of food. In normal places that amount of money gets you a 3 course meal. But you have to be in the right mindset for this kind of dining experience. This was a creative and incredibly tasty dish and really added to the overall experience. We both feel that sharing one between 2 was sufficient as well.
Mextlapique
Wow. Halibut cooked in a corn husk and, according to the menu, cooked with kelp, cauliflower and succulents. It was perfectly cooked fish in a rather light creamy sauce with hints of corn, saltiness, and the right level of umami. Honestly some of the best fish I have had. I was also surprised at how much food a corn husk could hold, and thankful for it.
Carnitas
The main course and the main event. Build your own tacos served with a selection of toppings and sauces. We could choose between confit pork cheek and confit whole cod. We went for the pork and were thrilled with our choice. The meat was insanely juicy and flavoursome, with just the right level of fat running throughout. The sauces were better than I could ever dream of making at home. The toppings were interesting, like a few sprigs of English herbs neither of us had heard of before, and apple. However the apple was a tad sparse (2 tiny cubes of apple were meant to go across 4+ tacos). This was all served with warm freshly made corn tacos of varying colours. Overall this dish was great, and also a decent amount of food. More than one usually expects from a fine dining dish.
Some advice for if you go, a Tom Top Tip if you will, be aware that you can ask for more tortillas! We were initially given 4 and tried to cram a lot into the 2 we had each, whereas we think that 3 tortillas each is probably the optimal amount.
Tamal
Described on the menu as ‘Brown butter corn steamed cake, buttermilk, fennel’. A fabulous end to the meal. I am often left disappointed by dessert at top end restaurants. Either it is very generic and slightly uninteresting, or over the top experimental and plain weird. But this was not the case here.
Beautifully balanced and sufficiently sweet, I would challenge anyone to say they didn’t like it. But on top of all that it fit in with the menu perfectly, finishing the meal as we started it, with a hint of corn.
The rest
I don’t want to give the impression that 4 out of the 10 dishes were bad. This was not the case at all. They just weren’t knockout blows. It is very rare for us to have a tasting menu and think every dish was perfect. The overall menu at Kol was definitely up there with some of the best we have had. Every dish was interesting and unique.
On to the wine. We didn’t go for the wine pairing in an effort to reduce costs slightly (it costs £115 a head). We instead opted to get a recommendation from the Sommelier for a bottle of wine. To be honest we didn’t love the white wine we got at all, which was quite disappointing given it still cost over £75. We got a recommendation for a glass of red wine each to go with the Carnitas dish and these were really good, so maybe we just got unlucky with the bottle?
Overall we had a fantastic time. For those who are looking for a special meal in London and are willing to spend £200 – £250 a head then Kol certainly has you covered.
