We are really very proud of our excellent restaurant and the fabulous team that the Head Chef leads, so you can imagine how delighted we were to get this fabulous review on the food in the restaurant. Why don’t you come and have a try yourself!
On a leafy section of London Road sits The Mandolay, a gleaming cream-coloured hotel a few minutes’ walk from Guilford’s historic town centre. The restaurant within the hotel is well known locally for their afternoon tea, which has won them devotees. But in February this year the restaurant team’s reputation was given a further boost, as they received a second AA rosette for culinary excellence. So it was with this recent success in mind that we eagerly took our seats to sample Restaurant at The Mandolay’s new spring menu.
The dining room is modern and decorated with fresh flowers, with an obscured view of the busy kitchen beyond. Having arrived early, we managed to bag the large corner booth and were soon greeted by our congenial waitress who talked us through the seasonal menu and extensive wine list, making recommendations when we were stuck for choice.
We were first treated to some beautiful bread and a selection of unusual butters all made in-house (an impressive feat considering lots of high-end restaurants outsource their bread-making). We were then surprised by a couple of amuse bouches. The first, a light orange muffin was topped with dark salty ham, and second a lovely little cheese beignet with a slight crust on the outside and a gooey cheese centre.
Our first starter was the salmon & crab raviolo. The pasta parcel was beautifully thin and the shredded crab and salmon meat fresh and full of flavour. Under the parcel was a salad of courgette spaghettini and around the dish were spears of charred asparagus. But this lovely spring dish was really brought together by the sauces, including lovely blobs of brown crab emulsion and chive oil.
The next starter was a lovely rich corn-fed chicken terrine flavoured with cream, tarragon and wild garlic. The rich meaty flavours were nicely counterpointed by citrusy bergamot, fresh cucumber flowers and peppery nasturtium leaves. For texture we had a lovely golden shard of crispy chicken skin and toasted wild rice.
A sophisticated plate of suckling pig arrived at the table, no pig with an apple in its mouth here, but rather three artistically displayed pieces of delicious pork: a juicy roast loin chop, a golden crispy bon-bon and a slab of pressed pork terrine delicately flavoured with thyme. The pork was beautifully complimented by the accompanying spring greens, griddled spring onions, fondant potatoes and vibrant apple and butternut squash purée and topped by a shard of crackling, sage and fennel oil and a gravy boat of smoky gravy.
The gnocchi was a much simpler dish of clean, spring flavours. The pesto-coated gnocchi was accompanied by purple sprouting broccoli, sprigs of sweet young basil leaves, punchy ‘home-blushed’ tomatoes and topped with generous shavings of earthy white truffle and parmesan.
Being a seasonal restaurant meant having some lovely British rhubarb on the menu, which arrived in vivid splashes of pink. Cooked three ways we had a comforting mini crumble, a chartreuse-coloured rhubarb sorbet and ginger-pickled rhubarb. There was also a soft rectangle of marshmallow-type gel, dots of vanilla cream and rhubarb gel, berries as well as a scattering of nougatine to give the dish some crunch.
The final dish of the night was a magical one, the ‘jaffa cake’ arrived as a white chocolate orb. The waiter then poured warm orange liquor over the top, melting the delicious globe and exposing the dessert inside.
Inside revealed a dark chocolate covered orange cake topped with blackberries and raspberries and accompanied by a yoghurt sorbet. The orange sponge was moist and indulgent and the warm orange mingled with the melted white chocolate to create a kind of thick dessert soup, which was too good to want to share.
Restaurants within hotels aren’t always the most exciting places to visit because I suppose they don’t have to be, with almost guaranteed custom from residents. But I was happily surprised by the Mandolay; it’s clear from the quality of the food and the knowledge of the front of house staff why the team here have received their second AA rosette. So, if you feel the need to escape the big smoke, I recommend getting the surprisingly swift train to Guildford and visiting Restaurant at The Mandolay, you won’t be Surrey.