The Bickley, Chislehurst

A group of us went for a meal to the Bickley a couple of weeks ago and although a nice time was had by all I must confess that I found the experience a bit lacking in taste..

Credit where credit's due - the new look is lovely. Congratulations to the owner for actually recognising that bringing in a professional designer and doing the place up properly is worth the effort. Although the decor will begin to look dated quite quickly, hopefully the owner will keep reviewing that and won't let the look go stale.
I also liked the logo/signage/graphics and the colours - very stylish. There are areas where it goes a bit too far (ie. the way the menu pricing is written, which is a bit pass� in design terms) but generally it's a huge, huge improvement on what the place used to be like!

The minus points.. The food, although it looked good, seemed to be somewhat lacking taste-wise. We started with nibbles which were lovely, but none of us enjoyed our main course as much as we'd expected, lack of natural flavour & seasoning being the main complaints. I had the chicken, which was slightly overcooked & a bit dry, with potatoes that lacked seasoning and crushed broad beans with pesto. But where was the pesto? Was so subtle that I couldn't taste it. Or someone downstairs had forgotten it.

Another main sampled was the fish & chips, which was all a bit limp, and the fishcake main with samphire was also deemed to be lacking in flavour.
For dessert the pineapple tarte tatin was okay, but the ice-cream, supposedly coconut and lime? I think! Again - couldn't taste it. The caramel from the tarte tatin drowned out any flavour there. (And please don't think that my palate is geared to over-flavoured, processed foods as this is definitely not the case - I cook from scratch with natural ingredients daily & never eat processed or over-seasoned foods. And I wasn't drinking alcohol that night either!)

The staff were polite but didn't smile, and the female staff looked like WAG wannabees.. and as the night went on the place began filling up with over-confident, loud men who obviously fancied their chances with themf!

So, all in all - okay - and the prices were okay, I think, but for me, just a tad lacking in taste, generally.

Unlikely I'd go back but I'd say that if you think that the height of good taste is having a 4x4 with a private number plate spelling out your name or initials, then this is the place for you! ;)

26 Apr 2010 13:34