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Well the three of us we went to Fifteen last night for dinner and I will preface this by saying it was the stuff of cullinary dreams and a singular food-religious glimpse. It was not so much dinner as a complete experience from start to finish. Additionally being in London for almost a year now we’ve grudgingly grown to accept that you will never see good service anywhere; meaning that when you do stumble on someone who actually wants to serve you it, in and of itself, is an experience to behold.

Staff at Fifteen (at least all of the staff that we encountered) were so incredibly nice, attentive, knowledgable and efficient you truly wanted to not eat and just watch them. From not needing to ask what table you were at when ordering a drink at the bar to folding your napkin while you were in the bathroom you really felt exceptionally well looked after. They also knew absolutely everything about every dish and weren’t afraid to try to explain something when they only had some of the info. Just bliss really We wanted to keep our waiter who was exceptional and had only been there five weeks! Robin - you’re awesome!

And then there was food…I think.

I say I think because we opted to have matched wine for every course and we had five courses. I can say entirely without exaggeration that this was the best food I’ve ever tasted - and after tasting each other’s courses that’s something like 15 different dishes - a truly mind-blowing experience.

Then there was the wine. Now, I’m not a wine conniseur by any stretch of the imagination. I know the names of a few types of wines and I like dessert wine beacuse it’s sweet and red wine because I don’t mind it but that’s it. I really couldn’t name anything other than Brown Brothers (!) and, well, there’s the shame So when I say that the wine matching expert gave us new wines matched to each individual course and then proceeded to explain where they all came from and their history, it was in a fashion that I swear was not unlike a magician knowledgable in arts and ways you never knew existed, you have a hint of what sort of surprise we were in for. Now the food by itself was amazing. The food with the wine has the other half of the meal; the full taste event. It would have been blasphemy to have gone and not had the matched wine because you would seriously have been missing out. Again, after tasting each other’s meals we tasted the wines to match and with around 13 different wines each proved to be individual and unique - even through the alcoholic haze as the courses rolled on
Without going into painful levels of detail we had four types of salami, olives and turkish bread to start, a palate kickstart-type spoonful, entree, salad, starter, main, pre-dessert foam shot and dessert with tea and coffee afterwards. We were there for around three hours and there was almost no waiting in between courses. They ordered us a cab and we floated home with senses more sated than our stomachs which in the whole grand experience really did play second fiddle.
I am agape, I am ecstatic and … I am ruined. Never again will I be able to casually quaff wine winthout knowing what could be a full taste experience. Constantly will I yearn for levels of service unattainable and always will I treasure the experience.

If I book now we could get a table in six months