London- J Sheekey and The Wolseley

Our second day in London we awoke severely jet lagged and kind of a mess. We headed out to see the sights and had a quite piss poor meal in one of the pubs. Note to self- whenever there is an item called the Big Ben Burger on the menu in London, you're probably not in the best food place. However we stopped in for some wine and snacks at the Wolseley and completely made up for it.

The Wolseley is a beautiful restaurant located inside of an old bank with fantastic marble floors, shimmering silverware and quite a group of good looking clientele. We stopped in the front bar and ordered up a Croque monsieur and some almonds.



The almonds had just the right amount of salt and came quite nicely presented in its little silver dish.


The Croque was delicious as well.



Really gooey Gruyere cheese inside some thick bread that had been liberally buttered and grilled to a crisp. It was the perfect little midday treat. For dinner that night we headed to J Sheekey and grabbed a seat at their newly opened Oyster Bar. Since they are known for their seafood we decided to go all out and start with the Plateau de Fruits de Mar. This thing was so big I couldn't get it into one shot. The top tier had two different kinds of briny and enormous oysters which I sucked down almost immediately.



The bottom was filled with a ton of different clams, cockles, langoustines...I don't even know what else there was..it was a ton of food and everything was extraordinarily fresh.



We had ordered a fish pie for after our plateau but we were too full to even attempt it and cancelled the order. So instead we came back the next day for lunch! Here is Sheekey's famous fish pie.



Wow- this was one rich and decadent dish with huge chunks of fish swimming in the creamy sauce and crispy potato top. Worth the return trip without a doubt! I ordered the Salt Cod Hash which was basically salt baked cod chopped up and mixed with some potatoes.



It came with a perfectly poached egg and some seriously good mustard as a sauce. We also got a side of the Green Beans and the Green Heart Salad.



The beans had a very nice garlic butter sauce that really complimented the fish pie. The salad was good but I found the bleu cheese a little overpowering with my salty cod.



However the meal was wonderful and I just loved the ambiance and attitude at J Sheekey. We had the same waiter for both our dinner and lunch and he sent over some of their homemade chocolates at the end as a special thank you.



Both of these places were spectacular and I was beginning to think it would be impossible to top the dining experiences we'd had so far. We were going to finish the London part of our trip with dinner at St. John's that night.