Items ordered:…read more
Crispy aubergine tops, amba
Burrata, Grezzina courgettes, preserved lemon oil, basil
Wildfarmed flour pita, tahini
Grilled cucumber, black sesame sauce, Aleppo peanuts
Grilled onions, Westcombe ricotta, vadouvan cashew oil
Wolves Lane tomatoes, peach, basil, lime
Celeriac shawarma, bkeila, fermented tomato
Lamb and pistachio kofta, harissa, yoghurt, rhubarb salad
My wife and I had a few days to ourselves without the kids, and we wanted to try something a little more adventurous and unknown. We had seen Rovi highlighted on the TV show Somebody Feed Phil, and we were excited by how vegetable-forward the place looked to be. This is a place for adult tastes. I think we would've really struggled to find dishes that our daughters would enjoy eating here.
Rovi comes from chef Yotam Ottolenghi, an Israeli-British chef who primarily cooks modern middle eastern cuisine. The thesis of this place is to "celebrate vegetables from root to tip", and they really do that. There are meat items available, but vegetables are definitely the star throughout the menu.
First of all, I'll say that this is probably the best restaurant we've eaten at all year. Every dish had a specific flavor profile, and usually multiple distinct flavors could be felt in each dish. It's even hard to pick out a favorite or even a least favorite, because everything was so good and so unique.
The first dish we were served were the aubergine tops. They were perfectly crispy and not too oily. I could taste the natural aubergine flavor, and there were plenty of other spices to complement it.
The burrata came next. It was complemented by generous portions of fresh mint and olives. The burrata itself was extremely fresh and light. Like all the other dishes, there was plenty of acid that went well with the core flavors.
A cucumber salad was next, which was really highlighted by this amazing black sesame sauce with peanuts. Those little hits of black sesame made the entire dish.
The grilled onions were recommended by the server, and they featured on the Phil show. I can see why. I have never liked the natural flavor of onions, especially green onions. But this dish had grilled the onions to a level of caramelization that made it really easy to enjoy the onion without its sharp natural taste. There was also an incredibly fresh ricotta below it that ate almost like a tofu. Either this or the Aubergine tops were our favorites for the night.
The tomato salad were a seasonal item, and the tomatoes came directly from the restaurant's own garden. This dish was good, but relative to the other dishes, this one was the most conventional in terms of flavoring.
The celeriac shawarma was also recommended by the server. It's kind of bold to put just celeriac as the main texture filling inside a pita and call it a shawarma. But the celeriac itself was very meaty and satisfying, and I didn't miss the meat at all. The pita itself was also very fresh. I should note, we had also ordered a separate order of pita, and the tahini sauce that came with it was also a highlight.
The final dish was the lamb and pistachio kofta, and this was the one really traditional meaty dish we got. Even in this dish, there were all sorts of additional vegetable elements, with a rhubarb salad and a really nice yogurt. The meatballs were done extremely well, and tasted like the best possible combination of lamb meatballs and falafel.
This was a real highlight of our whole UK trip, and I would gladly go back if the chance were to arise.