Quality Wines – Introduction

On our most recent trip to France we caught flights that stopped in London on the way over before catching the train to Paris. We then flew out of London after six weeks touring around France. This gave us the opportunity to have a liesurely lunch before catching the plane to Australia that evening.

Our meal was at a place we hadn’t been to before called Quality Wines in the suburb of Farringdon, which is in the east-ish part of London on the corner of Farringdon Rd (A201) and Vineyard Walk. It is open for lunch so was a good place to spend some of the afternoon before heading for the airport.

The food at Quality Wines turned out to be quite delicious and the wines available were exactly the type of wines we like.

The wine that we chose was an old favourite that we have been drinking since we first discovered it in the early 2010s. It was Love & Pif by one of the masters of natural Burgundy wines, namely Yann Durieux. This wine clearly demonstrates his mastery of the Aligoté grape variety, both in growing the grapes and making the wine. His wines are not cheap but he is a master wine maker with a very solid background so his wines never disappoint.

We arrived at Quality Wines without a reservation just before 12 noon and were shown immediately to an inside window table after first being offered an outside table which we considered but expressed a preference for an inside table.

We were presented with an extensive wine list from which we ordered the Love & Pif described above. We then were given a printed food menu as well as being directed to the daily specials on a blackboard on the wall (shown below).

Some of the dishes on the blackboard sounded very appealing and we soon had chosen some from there and some from the printed menu as well – we were in no hurry as we had all afternoon before we needed to be at the airport.

The first snack that we chose was a very tasty olive wrapped in an anchovy and bathed in olive oil as shown in the photo above.

We also ordered some foccacia as the table next to us had already ordered some and it looked so good we couldn’t resist!

Next came another snack listed on the blackboard as tomato gemista with tzatziki – the tomato had been cooked over flames until quite soft and the tzatziki provided the perfect foil to the tomato flavours.

The salad we ordered was quite large but an incredible combination of flavours. The tuna combined well with the olives and other ingredients and the egg had been boiled to perfection with the yolk almost set but not quite – perfect!

This dish was sensational. It was tagliatelle bathed is a sauce made from yellow peppers and topped with freshly made stracciatella cheese. The flavours and textures of this dish were perfection on a plate!

The fish dish of the day was a baked Dover sole sitting over a long cooked lobster bisque and topped with a tomato and parsley sauce.

Dessert saw two different plates arrive. One was a chocolate sorbet presented very simply as a ball of chocolate. The tart (shown above) showed considerable skill and the ability to present simply. Both of these were full of flavour and decidedly delicious.

So, we were most excited about our meal and also happy to have discovered a new place to add to our current London favourites such as Towpath, Brawn and Planque.

If you want to check the opening hours at Quality Wines (in case they have changed) then you can see more information on their Web site here.

We have also included this venue in our survey of eating in London here.