La Fromagerie of Marylebone specialises in yesobviouslycheese, and vegetables and some fresh pastas and salume as well as the usual mimsy gift items (12 types of honey, anyone?). You can get lardo di colonata, so they know what they're about. The piece de resistance and real point of the place is a sizeable cheese room stuffed to bursting with 300 or so perfectly kept cheeses and a smattering of properly trained staff – a facility of which anyone can be justly proud.
So it is principally a shop - but also a café. Now, as I mention in my review of St John B&W, I find this problematic. Unless the two businesses are kept largely separate, 1) you feel like you’re an unwanted picnicker sitting incongruously in the middle of a retail operation, 2) the staff get distracted between the two sides of the setup.
La Fromagerie, one of Marylebone's many foodery-eateries, suffers slightly from 1 and badly from 2. The long wooden communal table and smaller square couples places are set in an alcove from the shop, so side-by-side with the enterers and shoppers and payers and sellers. So what's the problem? I illustrate: Next to our station on the big table was a pile of muffins and a bowl of granola.
Does one help oneself? If so, where are the bowls? If not, why is it here? Can one buy the muffins to take away from the shop? Or are they on the menu? And if they are, why are they sitting on a shop floor where the prodders and squeezers who have drifted over from the farmers market across the way can give them a quick fondle before they are – totally redundantly – plated for me by a waitress and carried the arm’s length to my place?
I approve of cheese for breakfast, of course. La From offers a
‘farmhouse’ breakfast, which showcases the best of the store – a couple
of breads, 3 cheeses, a really fine pot of yoghurt, prosciutto and
speck. It was all marvellous – a soul-cleansing example of the
greatness of simple things. Howeverhoweverhowever - my companion’s
‘toastie’ was minuscule and unremarkable. Clearly her fault for not
choosing the basic cheese, but one would hope such a classy shop could
progress beyond the basic. Even Mr DDD can make a cheese bloody
toastie.
And here point 2 raised its hideous head. The service was rubbish. Our brusque waitress was prompt enough
bringing the food, but went totally awol at bill time. This is
obviously Absurd and Wrong. Eventually, we hunted down some other shop
staff and begged them to accept our payment. Also unsmiling, they
acquiesced.
Buy cheese here. Buy Italian wood-roasted beetroot here. Buy a present
for your grandparent here. Eat cheese here, if you feel the need.
Otherwise, do brunch elsewhere.
Did you try the truffled brie?
Posted by: Nick | 06/16/2010 at 03:36 PM
No, I thought you were bringing me a piece ;)
Posted by: Debbie | 06/16/2010 at 03:47 PM