Victor Garvey At The Midland Grand

The Midland Grand Hotel, designed by Sir Gilbert Scott, opened in 1873 next to St Pancras Station. The original hotel closed in 1935, and the Gothic revival building was very nearly demolished in the 1960s. Eventually the hotel was reopened in 2011 as the Renaissance. The building has featured in several movies, including Richard III (1995), Batman Begins (2005), and in two Harry Potter films. The hotel staircase was used by The Spice Girls for their video of their song Wannabe.

The dining room itself has very high ceilings and opulent furnishings. It was once The Gilbert Scott  and in 2023 became The Midland Grand Dining Room. In February 2025 the restaurant was taken over by Victor Garvey, who runs Sola in Soho. His former head chef at Sola, Andy Parker has transferred to the Midland to head operations. The room can seat 65 diners at one time, with a dozen chefs working in the kitchen today. There is an a la carte menu, but we went for the tasting menu at £139 per person.

The wine list had 424 labels and ranged in price from £34 to £2,090, with a median price of £100 and an average markup to retail price of 3.1 times. Sample references were Domaine Boucabeille Les Terrasses Régis Blanc 2023 at £41 for a bottle that you can find in the high street for £20, Wolf & Woman Chenin Blanc 2023 at £69 compared to its retail price of £26, and Leeuwin Estate Art Series Shiraz 2018 at £86 for a wine that will set you back £32 in the high street. For those with the means, there was Marchesi Antinori Tenuta Guado Al Tasso Bolgheri 2001 at £395 compared to its retail price of £181, and Ridge Vineyards Monte Bello 2015 at £545 for a wine whose current market value is £211. 

The meal began with a trio of canapes. Different textures of Hubert tomatoes from Provence included a tomato sorbet and gazpacho consommé. These tomatoes are high quality (currently costing around £47 a kilo wholesale) though they will probably be even better in a month or two from now as the weather warms up. The tomatoes were macerated in tuna garum (a kind of fish sauce, along with brown butter tarte fine with caramelised onion mousse, anchovy, finger lime, and coriander. This was good, but I preferred smoked mackerel pate encased in a piquillo pepper jelly with roasted red pepper piperade and confit Yukon gold potatoes. This had plenty of mackerel flavour and a lovely smooth texture.

I also enjoyed a tartlet of Cevennes onion mousse and anchovy. Cevennes onions are from southern France and are arguably the king of onions, having a mild flavour, tender texture and natural sweetness. The anchovy flavour was strong without being overwhelming (16/20 canapes). 

Next was crab with miso mayonnaise, smoked eel and pea sorbet with a jalapeno foam. The crab was hand-picked Dartmouth confluence crab ( which grow to twice the size of normal cock crabs due to their specific micro ecosystem) with seaweed jelly, jalapeño, and Italian pea sherbet. The eel was excellent; for me, the jalapeno foam could have been a little spicier, and the pea sherbet tasted a little more of mint than I was expecting, but the crab itself was excellent, the eel was lovely, and the miso mayonnaise worked well (15/20).

Bread appeared at this point, served warm and made from scratch in the kitchen. This had a lovely texture, served with good quality butter. The next course was a slab of foie gras marinated in port and ice wine, glazed with raspberry gelee, served with lovely homemade brioche. The slab of foie gras was topped with a garnish of kefir, toasted puffed buckwheat, fresh raspberries and ginger and topped with crispy raspberry croquanter.

The foie gras was high quality and the acidity of the raspberry provided some acidity to balance the richness of the liver. The Isigny butter and duck fat brioche on the side had superb texture (16/20). Hamachi was served as sashimi with avocado ice cream, the fish itself being of high quality (15/20). 

Native lobster was poached in the shell in butter, then grilled over Japanese binchotan charcoal. This was served with spiced sand carrot soubise with pickled osmanthus and sauce à l'Armoricaine (which originated in Brittany) infused with Thai spice, and fresh physalis (goldenberry). The lobster was tender, the spicing restrained but present and the sharpness of the pickled osmanthus nicely balanced the sweetness of the lobster. The earthy sand carrot gave another dimension to the dish. On the side, a lobster “sausage” of lobster knuckle with scallop and red Argentinian prawn was flambeed in whisky at the table and served on a hot rock. This was delicious. Overall, this was a lovely dish (17/20).

The next dish involved some tableside theatre. Normally you see a duck press used for, well, duck, but in this case, it was used in the execution of a bouillabaisse. This was started with brandy and Pernod with roasted Hubert Provencal tomatoes as well as carabinero prawn shell heads that were crushed in the press. The sauce was made with the red mullet bones, saffron, star anise, and roasted cardamom, and then finished table side a la presse with Pernod, brandy, Valencia orange juice, and flavoured with red mullet liver butter. This sauce accompanied unusually large 900g red mullet seared skin side down then basted in salted butter, served with baby fennel, saffron confit celeriac, and black olive. The mullet had lovely flavour and the sauce was superb, with lots of depth of flavour, the liver providing depth without dominating (17/20).

High-quality quail from France (no farmed Norfolk quail here) was made into a ballotine then cookedwith Cevennes onions and morels. The quail was cooked “a la ficelle” which is where it is hung about 3 feet above a grill by a string (hence the name) for a few hours while wrapped in caul fat, basting itself and so staying juicy. It is then finished in the oven and served with a fricassé of French morels, girolles, and caramelised baby Cevennes onions. The dish was topped with a foam of vin jaune and a little escabeche radish for acidity. The quail had lovely flavour, much better than the quail that you normally see on UK menus. The morels were also terrific, and the sauce with the quail had plenty of depth of flavour (17/20).

At this point my wife had a vegetarian alterative of agnolotti with white asparagus, morels, and girolles in a “sauce Guerard” which is the sauce Michel Guerard used for his famous morel pillows. The agnolotti themselves were filled with morel and wild mushroom duxelles. This was also excellent, and I was particularly impressed with the quality of the white asparagus.

A pre-dessert featured grapefruit in various forms. There was grapefruit jelly, grapefruit juice and white and pink grapefruit segments infused with rosemary, along with grapefruit sorbet, and grapefruit flavoured meringue discs with a lime jus. Grapefruit is perhaps optimal around December but this was of unusually high quality, and the overall effect was very refreshing, which is the whole point of a pre-dessert. Grapefruit is a much underutilized ingredient in my view. This dish was not quite in the league of the classic grapefruit millefeuille of Christian LeSquer when he was at Ledoyen, but was nonetheless very good indeed (16/20).

Dessert was a take on a coffee opera cake, with sponge almond, chocolate mousse with coffee and almond, all prettily presented. The chocolate used was 80% gran cru chocolate cremeux with salted caramel, almond bavarois, Panama geisha elida chiboust, and an ice cream of Panama geisha. This came with a gingerbread almond tuile. This visually resembled a dish that used to be served at Sola, and tasted as good as it looked (17/20). 

Coffee is from Difference Coffee. This came with some very good mignardises. Yuzu and Mentón lemon semi freddo with toasted cardamom marshmallow atop chocolate was lovely, the acidity of the lemon balancing the richness of the chocolate. There was also sablé Breton, excellent mini-Darjeeling tea madeleines and classy passion fruit pate de fruits.

Service was excellent, the staff being friendly and attentive. The bill came to £221 per person. This was an excellent meal, featuring high quality ingredients and classy technical skills. This is a positive transformation from the previous two incarnations on these premises and deserves to prosper.