Well it was just 18 months late opening in the end but Bob Bob Cité, the sister restaurant to much-loved Bob Bob Ricard, is finally open. Located on the 8th floor of The Leadenhall Building, or the Cheesegrater as its better known, the new city location takes the glitzy spirit of the original and ramps it up a few notches.
The designers, BradyWilliams, have clearly had a lot of fun with this one as they’ve gone all out on the interiors; there’s so many shiny reflective surfaces it almost feels as if you’re walking through a fairground hall of mirrors at some points. There’s marble floors, retro blue and red leather banquettes and stools, LOTS of chrome fixtures, rosewood wall panels, bespoke light fixtures and LED strip displays that give it a slight futuristic feel. There’s countless other expensive looking details and we absolutely love it for completely flying in the face of current London minimalist design trends. No wonder it’s reported to have cost £25 million – we’re sure the owners will be hoping that people make liberal use of the famous ‘Press for Champagne’ buttons, and fast.
Eric Chavot is in charge of the menu and as you’d expect from a chef of his calibre, the food is more than a match for the occasion of a night out here (and it is a night out; there’s even a ‘glamorous’ dress code). It’s described as French country food though in reality it’s a bit fancier than that – there’s caviar, oysters, lobster, escargots, veal, foie gras, and truffle aplenty. We began with a classic steak tartare, chopped Scottish rump of beef, shallots, gherkins, capers, and a soft-boiled quail egg, plus a glass of champagne (of course). There’s also a version topped with caviar if you’re high-rolling. Balancing out the meat we also went for heritage tomatoes with silver skin anchovies.
We had a hard time resisting the epic beef wellington but as we’ve had this before in Bob Bob Ricard we thought we better get something different. However if it’s your first time, this is a must order. Instead we went for an excellent chicken and mushroom pie topped with golden brown pastry, and a side of truffled chunky fries. We also went for a grilled lobster thermidor with a brandy sauce, which was really good but having seen how amazing the chicken pie was, we kinda wished we’d gone for the fish pie instead. There’s so much to choose from here, food envy is almost guaranteed.
Dessert was one of our favourite dishes of the night, a lemon tart topped with peaks of soft meringue. Needless to say we were rolling out of there after all that. Much like the original Bob Bob Ricard, Bob Bob Cité is a lot of fun and perfect for a birthday or other celebration (but it’s not cheap).
122 Leadenhall Street, London, EC3V
bobbobcite.com