Leicester House is a new boutique hotel and restaurant which has just opened off Leicester Square…We say new but it’s actually just taken over the site of what was One Leicester Street/Talented Mr Fox and before that, St John Chinatown. The new owners have given the dining room a nice lick of pale blue paint (although lets be honest it’s never being the decor that caused any problems) and are serving a menu of ‘French Vietnamese cuisine’.
Some of the best dishes we tried were from the ‘Crustacea and Small Things’ section including West Mersea rock oysters with Vietnamese dipping sauce, scallops served in a bone broth, and salt and pepper blackened squid. Elsewhere on the menu we were all over the pork collar with crab wontons, the green papaya salad and an awesome dessert of beignets with vanilla and coconut cream.
Leicester House is a nice relaxed joint right in the middle of one of the most hectic parts of town and with some really interesting food to boot, third time lucky? We’d like to think so…
1 Leicester Street, London, WC2H 7BL
www.restaurant.leicesterhouse.com