THE RIVER CAFÉ- BEST RESTAURANT IN LONDON

The River Café, many would say, is the best restaurant in London and possibly in the UK.  It’s certainly one of Britain’s most famous restaurants – near Hammersmith Bridge in West London and I highly recommend it for a special occasion.

I decided to take the fam there for my BIG birthday.  I sadly don’t have the funds to go regularly, just because.  Obviously that was instead of taking them on a luxury holiday – it’s known and loved by all the A-List celebrities (it’s Gwyneth Paltow’s favourite restaurant in the UK) and therefore the prices are high, but I have to say we all loved the whole experience and so despite pretending to cry when the bill arrived, for the experience and the memories, it was worth every penny.

We started off our night at The Dove pub on the other side of Hammersmith Bridge. That was for sentimental reasons – my parents had their first date there and sadly now they’re no longer around, it felt right to have our first drink there and make a toast to them. They would never have imagined that over 60 years later their daughter and their grandchildren would be there reminiscing about them. It’s a wonderful pub and is in the Guinness Book of Records for having the smallest pub room in the world!:-

Here we all are in it:-

Then we simply walked along the river to the River Café:-

My birthday this year fell on a Monday – not the ideal day to go out for supper but the River Café was packed as usual.  In fact I think it’s on a Monday that you can usually see Ruth Roger’s dining there and then moving about to say hi to all her friends (it takes a while).  She even wandered over to say hi to us, despite us not being anyone of note.  Sadly we didn’t see Michael Caine who also dines there every week  – but Olivia Rodrigo was there….and I’m sure lots of others.  I tried very hard not to spend my whole night looking at other people, difficult though that is for me.

The food was exquisite and my entire team loved every course they had.  The wine was great too – I was advised by the sommelier to buy a white wine called Pieropan Soave Classico, 2023 which was deliciously fruity and not overly pricy.

The menu changes daily –  I kept my menu for a keepsake and got everyone to sign it.  We shared some antipasti – pizzetta ai Funghi, calamari ai ferri and mozzarella di Bufala with smashed cannellini, tomatoes, olives and top of the range olive oil.  Several of my kids chose the slow cooked rabbit as their next course (Vesuvio) – not for me – I went for the Ravioli Verde with wet walnut sauce, pecorino and marjoram. Others went for the clams – also delicious.

As a main course I chose one of my favourites – Sea Bass (Branzino), roasted in Vermentino and oregano, with braised Italian spinach and Violetta artichoke alla Romana and it was exquisite (£66!!).  Others went for the Monkfish, the Dover Sole or the Beef Rib-Eye and everyone was super happy with their choices.  By then I was trying not to look at the prices.

Sadly I didn’t get a photo of the whole table – but you can see how busy The River Cafe is in these ones:-

Not the best photo of all our food – here, mainly on the table was the Tagliarini alle Vongole – fresh clams

Happy, happy, happy – no idea why we had two glasses of wine each:-

My little birthday candle came in the best ever Affogato with Espresso and by that point I totally wasn’t paying attention to what anyone else chose.

Attractive…

Here I am pretending to cry into my very large bill!

Such a gorgeous happy night and I wish I could eat there every Monday too!

My youngest son made me my birthday brownies for when we got home, so that deserves a photo too:-