5 /5 Sarah Rees: Wow wow wow wow wow! Having eaten at some of Spencer Metzger and Jason Atherton’s other endeavours in the past, we had high hopes for Row on 5. Booked a few months ago and strongly suspected a second star would have been achieved by the time we visited - and of course it was, deservedly so! We were greeted with a friendly welcome, and quickly whisked into the ‘lounge’ area, sat in gorgeous seats right next to the fire feature. A glass of champagne soon arrived, and the first couple of dishes were served here too - personal fave here was the cheese and onion - outstanding!
We then moved upstairs (via the Chelsea Dagger lift) to our seats at the counter. Highly recommend sitting at the counter if you enjoy watching the chefs at work, though you can still see this from other tables in the room. The room is all encompassing, yet private enough to enjoy your own conversations. The synchronicity of both food and drink arrivals is wonderful and real testament to how well drilled and meticulous the service is (Spencer runs a tight ship!)
Each course was full of flavour and delicately curated, favourite upstairs was the lobster with the light brioche loaf, butter/honey and sauce combo - Spencer kindly offered us more to unashamedly mop up the bread. All chefs/sommeliers were so lovely and explained everything very well, with such enthusiasm (particularly Roxy who you can tell LOVES her job and the opportunity to share expertise).
Following the dishes upstairs, it was back to the lounge, where we had the final courses including petit fours. I enjoyed an excellent old fashioned and they brought a little cake for my husband’s birthday which was a nice touch.
We had the Thursday night menu which was a slightly shorter version of the main menu, and chose to do the wine pairing too - meaning we discovered many wines we’d not heard of or hadn’t considered previously.
A real treat, and one of the best meals we’ve ever had - just really sad it’s over (time to save up for the next visit I think…)