Margot restaurant, London Covent Garden - review

Margot restaurant hardly needs much of an introduction.

Firmly ensconced on lists of the best London restaurants, this one gets great reviews almost without fail. Margot is a also Covent Garden restaurant institution, serving customers top-notch Italian fare for the last 10 years.

It had languished on our list of London restaurants to try for a while now, and so finally it was that one sunny afternoon in April we made our way over to the vibrant inner-London suburb of Covent Garden.

Centered on the buzzing and ever-popular Covent Garden market, this is an area packed with some of London's best bars and restaurants. Wandering away from the station past a row of chic storefronts and a bunch of trendy pop-up stores, we soon found ourselves outside the front door of Margot restaurant.

Ambiance

The mood at Margot is sophisticated bistro.

In a similar fashion to nearby (and to this day one of our all-time favourite London restaurants) the Delauney, the interiors are plush leather booths alongside mahogany wood panels, tables covered in immaculate white linens. The whole combines to create an ambiance that is both modern and at the same time harks back to the heydays of a traditional southern-European eatery.

Service was prompt and professional and, at least during our visit on a not-too-busy weekday lunchtime, flawless throughout.

Food and drink at Margot 

As we usually do, we started off with an aperitif each: an Amalfi Spritz for me and - in typical fashion - a Kir Royal for Julien. Both were impeccable.

And to go with our soon-to-be-arriving food, we had between us a glass of Chianti and a Sauvignon Blanc, and once again both wines were top-notch. 

And so on to the food menu:

Starters

The first of our food dishes arrived at the table, and it is fair to say they that they were both gorgeously presented, pretty-as-a-picture plates.

I had gone for the Vitello Tonnato, a starter of roast veal slices arranged around a creamy center that was apparently tuna based, but didn't much taste like it - prettily decorated with garnish leaves and sprinkled with capers.

Julien had opted for the Taleggio Mousse, a creamy cheese creation topped with a honey tuile wafer, so handsomely presented it could have come straight from a Michelin starred restaurant table.

So far so good, the food at Margot certainly looked the part, and we were keen to dig in.

Here, unfortunately, is where things didn't quite live up to our expectations. While both dishes were perfectly decent, neither was anything we could rave about, more average than amazing.

Main courses

Moving on to our mains, we'd both chosen from the Primi Piatti pasta dishes section of the menu.

There were some absolutely delicious-sounding options to choose from, including the likes of strozzapreti with duck ragu, or lobster tagliolini bisque.

In the end, I went for the Ravioli al granchio e zafferano: a crab ravioli in a mascarpone cheese sauce with cherry tomatoes. Crab-based pastas are a big favourite of mine, and I've certainly had a few that were memorable.

This, though, was not to be one of them. Similarly to the starter courses, this dish was decent, but not quite delicious, and not what I'd been hoping for from a restaurant of Margot's reputation.

Julien went for another classic, the Pappardelle con ragú di cinghiale, a wild boar ragu pasta topped with parmesan.

To this day I remember sitting many years ago in a clifftop restaurant in Corsica's Bonifacio, having been tempted in by the local establishment's enthusiastic proprietor - a charismatic French-Italian sporting a singularly impressive moustache - and eating an unrivaled plate of boar pasta as we looked out over the Mediterranean, Sardinia hazily visible in the distance.

The version at Margot, according to Julien, was not quite of the same standard, even if it was certainly adequate.

Crab ravioli at Margot

Final review of Margot restaurant

Now, none of the above should be read as an entirely negative review of our lunchtime experience at Margot.

We were warmly welcomed and looked after throughout, and the restaurant itself is comfortably and stylishly upmarket. And the drinks we had were excellent to a one.

It is just that whereas we had been looking forward to delicious plates at a well-renowned London purveyor of Italian food, our experience was a bit nearer average than wonderful.

In a city like London, with a near-endless supply of good restaurant options, we think there are similar restaurants that perhaps do this style of dining just a little better: the likes of Notting Hill's Caractère, or Norma in nearby Fitzrovia, come to mind.

Still, judging by the generally excellent reviews that Margot receives online, our visit was perhaps out of the ordinary, or maybe we just got a bit unlucky.

All in all, our meal was far from a disappointment, we had a lovely time in a superior restaurant, and we're thinking Margot should merit at least a second visit - to see if maybe next time it will live up to our eager expectations.