What do you want from a restaurant?
One of the real joys of traveling is eating. Dining out in restaurants in the cities I’m visiting is always a highpoint of the trip – not only sampling the local cuisine but also trying international dishes prepared in different contexts. For example, the first time I ever had vitello tonnato (veal with a tuna sauce) was in a delightful neighborhood Italian place in Frankfurt. Who would have expected that? And by the way, if veal with a tuna sauce sounds weird to you, you need to try it. It can be fabulous.
But after a while, a bit of restaurant fatigue can set in. There are a million (well, perhaps a exaggerate a bit but it’s only a bit) restaurants in London (not to mention the pubs) but just how much energy do I want to put in to figuring out where to eat tonight? And even if I do go through the effort of figuring out where to eat, do I want to spend energy on making a reservation and then figuring out how to get there? And back? Well, sometimes the answer is yes. That can be really exciting.
On the other hand, I’m also beginning to value a simple, lovely meal close to the hotel that places a cap on a beautiful day. With that in mind, I think I can say that my favorite restaurant in London is the MK Bar and Grill.
A great deal of MK’s appeal is location. When we travel to London, my true love and I always stay at the Citadines in South Kensington. It’s a friendly, comfortable hotel near the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Royal Albert Hall, the tube (subway), and several popular bus routes. It’s also located on a street with small grocery stores, wine shops, dry cleaners, and local restaurants. One of those restaurants is the MK Bar and Grill.
It has no Michelin stars and would never appear in any magazine’s Top 10 list. It is on the ground floor of our hotel and has a clean, welcoming design. There is nothing on the menu that I couldn’t do myself at home on an ambitious day, but we’ve never had anything there that we didn’t like. The offerings are basic – grilled fish, seared duck breast, roast chicken, steaks, spaghetti carbonara, etc. – and well prepared. The service is invariably friendly but this isn’t intended to be a review that compares the MK Bar and Grill to the best efforts of Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver, or Heston Blumenthal. It’s just that when having dinner during my last trip to London, I realized that I’d eaten at MK more often than any single restaurant outside of Philadelphia and how much I enjoyed it.
This got me thinking about what we want from a restaurant, particularly when traveling. When I first visited London, everything was a novelty and the search for an exciting evening meal was part of that novelty. That can get old, though. These days, I’m starting to know my way around and have favorite places to go and things to do and my dining preferences have changed accordingly. The well-prepared food, friendly service, and welcoming ambience bring the day to a lovely close.
In Paris, our go-to place is Auberge du Moulin Vert near our hotel in the 14eme arrondissement. Here, too, we always stay in the same hotel (the Citadines) and the restaurant is a couple of blocks away. When we first started visiting Paris, it was an old-fashioned auberge serving friendly, provincial food. A few years ago the location was purchased by the Dorr group of seafood restaurants and was transformed. It retains the warm, provincial feel but the menu now specializes in fresh seafood well prepared and has a staff that is friendly and attentive. Moulin Vert, like MK, doesn’t try to achieve a creative peak but instead offers warmth, comfort, and consistency and there are times when you’re traveling that it feels good to enjoy the (adopted) familiar.
I can’t leave without a shout-out to my home restaurant in Philadelphia, Bistrot la Minette. It’s not far from my house and my true love and I have been regulars since it opened about ten years ago that specializes in provincial French food. The food is prepared exquisitely and consistently and the staff is always attentive and warm. It’s a place where we can retreat and relax after a tough day but also one that can be the location for a celebration. For us, it is an important part of our neighborhood.
Ever since my last meal at MK I’ve been thinking about restaurants and why I go and what I like. Of course there are times when I’m looking for ingredients or preparations that stagger the imagination and a stunning experience, but that’s not always the case. I’m beginning to see the real value in a friendly place where the quality of the food and the warmth of the service supports and enhances my day instead of becoming the center of attention.