Grilled Goat Cheese
Gastromaquia

Gastromaquia

Calle de Pelayo, 4 28004, Madrid, United Kingdom

Coffee • Cheese • Spanish • Mediterranean


"When we saw there was no OpenTable review for this restaurant, we knew we had to give one. Gastromaquia gave us one of our best meals of the year. We were in Madrid for one night before heading back to the States, looking for a place for dinner. We found this restaurant near our hotel on OpenTable with no other information other than it was nearby. We found the website for the restaurant and were intrigued by the menu and decided to make a reservation. We are so glad we did! From the appetizers to the dessert we were enchanted and inspired.For appetizers, we ordered the Blue Fin Tuna Abrazado de atún Rojo and the Goat Cheese with Pesto Queso de cabra a la plancha. The flavors of the tuna with the tomatoes, greens, and sriracha sauce were refreshing and amazing. The warm goat cheese and pesto gave a new definition to “comfort food.”For our main dishes, we ordered the Truffled Mushroom Risotto Risotto de shitake trufado and the Duck Magret Magret de pato. The mushroom risotto was warm and flavorful. The duck was incredible. Not normally being fans of duck, we approached this dish with the most trepidation. The preparation was perfect. All the combined flavors took away any gaminess you might get from duck and instead gave this wonderful meaty flavor that was amazing.With all the dishes, the thing that we appreciated the most from this menu was the wonderful combinations of ingredients and flavors that you think you know, but, when presented in the dishes we had, opened the mind and palate to new, creative flavors.Having such a flavorful meal, we chose to share the Mojito Sorbet Sorbete de mojito and coffee for dessert which ended up being a perfect, refreshing, palatecleansing choice.Overall, we were so happy with our meal and pleased that we found this restaurant. We highly recommend it to anyone traveling in Madrid"

Kipferl

Kipferl

North London, 20 Camden Passage, N1 8EA, United Kingdom

Cafe • Coffee • Austrian • European


"My partner treated me to a birthday lunch at Kipferl as we both love Käsespätzle which is a dish popular in his hometown of Voralberg in Austria. It is a dish we know well and eat often when there. Their menu promised the cheese was from Voralberg and we had high expectations for an authentic dish given this restaurant is meant to be authentically Austrian! Upon arriving we were seated quickly and ordered our meal in good time. We both ordered: käsespätzle and Kartoffel salat (Potato salad). My partner also ordered a soup of the day. Both of us had had a very light breakfast and were excited to enjoy one of our fave dishes again. The soup was watery and tasteless, made edible only by the sourdough bread. On reflection I wish we had ordered as we went along ... as this was a sure signal of the poor quality food emerging from the kitchen! When the Käsespätzle arrived the distinct cheese aroma was missing... first sign it was not what was promised. OMG! this was the WORST Käsespätzle EVER! Käsespätzle is made using four types of cheese (Käse) from the area of Voralberg This cheese is unique to Voralberg and the dish CANNOT be made without it! Without it the flavour and strongly distinct smell are missing. Whatever type of cheese they used it was definitely not the specific cheeses required for this dish The spätzle was disgusting. All you could taste was egg! The texture was wrong... it is meant to be small well formed kernels of spätzle dough instead it was soft and almost mashed... In no way did it resembled what we always eat when visiting Voralberg. The flavour, aroma and presentation was completely WRONG. The Kartoffel (potato) salad was just as awful too. Massive rounds of potato swimming in dressing. This is such a wonderful dish when made correctly... sadly this was my WORST birthday meal EVER! We were both incredibly disappointed esp. as several years ago we had tried Kipferl in Wes London (now closed) and the Käsespätzle was editle then. Clearly the chef doesn't know how to make this dish or just can't be bothered! We CANNOT recommend Kipferl as what they promise on their menu in terms of Käsespätzle is definitely NOT what it should be, not worth the price and a rip off. We were so disappointed that we ended up not having a pudding/cake and took our business elsewhere to L'Etro in London where the cakes were excellent and where I could have had a great birthday meal with my partner.. .incredibly disappointing!"