Sunday 15 January 2012

In with the new at the Vincent Rooms

The Vincent Rooms, 76 Vincent Square, SW1P 2PD
Two course meal with wine: £25 ish (we split the bill, some people had dessert)

Sometimes, when I want to escape to an imaginary world in which I have won the lottery and can afford a beautiful house in SW1, I go to Vincent Square. It's the perfect place to reflect on just how awesome it would be if I were ludicrously rich. It is quiet, it has a big playing field in the middle and the houses look like the sort of accommodation American film-makers imagine all well-to-do Londoners live in, complete with a Rolls Royce and a butler. Once a year, they even hold the London rum festival in Vincent Square; presumably so the wealthy folk don't have far to roll home. However, until recently, I have been missing out on one of Vincent Square's best attractions: the Vincent Rooms. Attached to the college that trained such luminaries as Jamie Oliver and (ahem) Antony Worrall Thompson, the Vincent Rooms lets one test the abilities of the current batch of chefs-in-waiting, and all at prices a mere mortal can afford. I only wish I had tried it sooner.