Tipped

Not cheap, but good value

February 15, 2008

Food's an interesting thing, isn't it? When you think about what pleases you in a dining experience, the two key factors are always that the food should be better than you're expecting and that what arrives on your plate should be more than you'd hoped to get for your money.

When the recently overhauled Rodendale started receiving good reviews and nominations for Best New Restaurant from Time Out, we were keen to visit and see what they'd done with what was previously a massive, noisy gastropub, full of bellowing "young professionals". The answer is that they've refurbished, decreased the size of the bar area and increased the size of their dining area. They've stopped focussing so much on running a bar, and now it's more of a restaurant with a small bar for pre-dinner drinks (although it is still open to non-diners and seems quite popular), or bar food.

I should point out that rather than eating in the "bar and grill", which I've yet to try, we booked for the "Dining Room".
When you pay a little bit more, you expect a little bit more and the Rosendale didn't disappoint. The food was inventive, without being wayward and it all tasted stunning. Even something as simple as a starter of ravioli was incredible... and let's face it, just how often can you say that about ravioli?

With wonderful service and a sommelier who couldn't have been more helpful, the experience was excellent from start to finish and the only negative criticism that I can offer was that the acoustics of the Rosendale still make it a little on the noisy side. With an open plan feel and wooden floors, quite how you'd rectify that, I can't say, but it's not enough to put me off going there again... Actually, after writing this, I'm going to have to find an excuse!

The Rosendale is good for: dates, dinner with mum and dad, dinner with friends.
The Rosendale is poor for: noise levels and atmosphere in the bar. If you wanted to have drinks afterwards, Herne Hill is close by, or Westow Hill in Crystal palace is a couple of minutes away on the no.3 bus route... It runs from just round the corner.

Tags: West Norwood West Dulwich

Poor Service

September 24, 2007

I trekked for an hour across Dulwich to check this place out and what a disappointment. Having just won the Timeout gastro pub of the year, we were excited by this newcomer in the area. When we arrived at the bar we were told to sit down at a table and someone would take our drinks order. There were a lot of waiters running around as well, looking slightly frazzled even through the place was only a quarter full (It was after 2pm on a Saturday) Doesn't seem like a pub to me if you can't order your drinks at the bar. So we sat down and waited. And waited some more. Finally someone came over with the food menu. Actually we'd like some drinks first. So he took our order - a beer and a glass of wine - and disappeared again. We perused the bar menu - fairly standard gastro pub food - fishcakes, posh sandwiches, cheese or meat platters. Finally after another endless wait, we got our drinks, except my glass looked half empty. Perhaps the glass was larger than normal, but it looked distinctly empty, like they had reached the end of the bottle of wine, and couldn't be bothered to open another one. So we called the waiter back to ask what happened to the rest of the wine. He disappeared with my drink and returned with the exact same glass. "Manageress says that's the correct measure". Sorry but if I'm paying £7 for a small glass of wine, I want to have a glass that looks full.. and if your customer is unhappy with the measure, then you should give a top up, however small. We'd planned to eat lunch there, but were so put off by the attitude of the place, that we quickly finished our drinks (easy for me since I didn't have much) and left. Maybe we caught them on a bad day, but considering they're off the beaten track, they really to try a bit harder to win over locals. Definitely won't be back.

Tags: gastropub