With its plush armchairs, low tables and chilled vibes, you’d be forgiven for thinking the Lounge at The Pilgrm is a casual bar/café rather than a proper hotel restaurant. True to form, the cocktails are particularly good – and so they should be, considering they’ve been lovingly lifted from acclaimed bars around the world.
When it comes to food, the petite menu is made up of a hodgepodge of inventive-sounding, multicultural small plates. It may not be the prettiest but the tomato-heavy lentil dhal brought together a good measure of Indian spices, while chunks of baby courgette and tender chicken livened up the mix. A tangy radicchio and beetroot salad was pretty as a picture, the soft pear slices offering welcome sweetness. Courgette and halloumi falafel melted on the tongue with cooling sesame yogurt.
Less successful were the fish tacos, which sounded great on paper but failed to deliver IRL. Dessert was more memorable. The chocolate mousse was like eating Nutella straight from the jar, and the ‘sweet of the day’ – an apricot and semolina cake on my visit – would have been a treat with a cuppa. A note of advice about table selection: those low tables are fine for finger food, but for dishes that need shovelling in with forks and knives, the higher tables are a more practical choice. Just FYI.