Matilda is the restaurant in the newly re-opened Henson Hotel. It was much busier the second night we visited and we sat in a different part of the room which allowed us both to watch over all the evening’s activities. We had a curved corner booth in the darkened room where you mostly heard conversations of other guests and the music bleeding in from the bar. It was my understanding that the kitchen was training in some folks on stations new to them or maybe it was the bigger crowd but service was way slower than the previous evening. The server felt the delay and brought us extra items to make it up to us but I laughed when we marked two and a half hours there and the reservation system had reminded us that our time slot allocated us one and a half hours. The staff were all so nice and the food was so good, you couldn’t get mad. All that said, this is a place I can easily recommend you stay and enjoy dinner and drinks too. A lovely a la carte breakfast is also included with your room.
Set-Up
Food
The pair of wood grilled oysters with bone marrow, pumpkin seed oil and sorrel were served on mounds of salt. They came 2 to an order and were well seasoned with the lovely textural contrast of the crisp crumbs on top. The server brought us a second round to make up for one delay.
Raw Montauk Ruby Red prawns with Perilla and Mirin were wrapped in a shiso leaf and served on ice. They came 3 to an order and had the pasty smooth texture of raw shrimp but were made lovely by all the herb flavor added to them. These were quite savory.
Calabrone with Chanterelles and sunchokes. This was new on the menu since last night so we had to try it. The pasta were like large gnocchi in that they were very tender puffs of dough. Mixed with excellent mushrooms, it made a really savory dish. They came 5 to an order and every bit was totally yummy.
Leeks, Japanese Eggplant, and smoked eel under tomato Béarnaise was amazing. The young tender leeks were fabulous with the rich sauce accented with bits of smoked eel. This was decadently rich and wonderful.
Slow-grilled Amish chicken with scallions, koji and chicken jus was another excellent dish and plenty for 2 to split. The skin was rendered crispy on the mostly boneless chicken pieces. The moist chicken pieces were wonderful with the reduced flavorful sauce. Chicken done well can be a fabulous dish and this one was.
Fig & Oat was a caramelized panna cotta with fig leaf oil jam, green fig preserves and fig tuile. This was new on the menu too and as a fig lover I had to try it. The smooth panna cotta was lovely in the bottom of the dish. The fig was on top so you needed to dig down the entire depth to make the dish special. It could have used a textural contrast but I can be happy with a fine custard and fruit dish any day.
Chocolate Mousse with Cynar sabayon and honeycomb caramel was an extra dish brought by our server to make up for service delays. The chocolate mousse was on the bottom and topped by the sabayon cream which was dotted with the honeycomb. This one did have plenty of textures as well as lovely flavor. I would have preferred the honeycomb to be broken into smaller pieces so you could have it mixed with more of the spoonfuls but this was another fine dessert.
I do like the fact they recognized the pace was severely off, and they did something to make it pass better, like the comped snacks. Too many places forget that basic part of hospitality.
Yes. That eased the pain even though we didn’t complain the server was embarrassed. That’s a well trained staff!
Exactly. It shouldn’t take for the diners to say something, this should be recognized by well-trained staff. So kudos to them!
If you read the review I just posted from Vienna, I’ll add that they didn’t even get the hint at first when I started to order drinks OUTSIDE of the wine pairing…