Food reviews

Kensington Place

Above: A new look for Kensington Place

Kensington Place has been one the area’s very favourite eateries for all of its two decades. And when its founding chef Rowley Leigh sold up and moved to Whiteleys a couple of years ago, new owners D&D London (formerly Conran) first wanted to keep everything the same. So the chairs stayed, the menu continued to promise the scallops with pea puree, the chicken and goats cheese mousse and the sweetcorn and foie gras pancakes, and the feel was basically unchanged, apart from the fact that Rowley has gone and seemed to have taken a lot of his people with him. But now D&D’s trying a different approach. People want it to be the same, they say, but they’ve also been complaining about uncomfortable chairs and bad acoustics for years. And it was time for a change with the menu, they thought, because the new chef should be allowed to make his mark.
So now the multi-coloured chairs have been painted a uniform blue and their seats padded. Tablecloths soak up some of the noise and the menu is entirely new, apart from the fonts, which are familiar. We started with a memorably delicious green pea soup with ham hock and truffle tortellini, pored from a milk jug at the table, and a lobster salad.Main courses were slow cooked cod with fennel, squid and jersey royals, and a beef skirt steak with intriguing wild asparagus, lemon and mushrooms. It’s all tasty, but service has lost KP’s former characteristic effortless, perfect but casual touch and become a bit more formal with more checks whether everything’s okay and less instinctive sensing what you need. Still, it’s still a favourite with the locals and probably will be forever. l PH