108 Marylebone Lane

It is under a mop of wet hair and with furrowed brow that I approach 108 Marylebone Lane. I’m counting down the days until the summer arrives so we can all get our horrible pasty legs out and sit in pubs after work, guilt-free, under the hazy delusion we are actually in Valencia rather than Vauxhall.

Luckily, 108 – as I will nickname this expanse of hotel-come-restaurant – offers a welcoming retreat from our extended winter, with low-slung red lightshades and a quiet buzz, despite the early hour.

108 has a good reputation for bespoke cocktails and, if I’m honest, I’d already know what I would order long before a wooden slab of olives and vegetable crisps arrives.

The Tea Thyme Martini is a blend of Glenmorangie whisky, apricot liqueur, Earl Grey tea syrup bitters and thyme. I savour every deliciously British drop.

The menu arrives on a huge sheet, which I can only imagine is chosen to further drive home the message that 108 use local ‘purveyors’ who ‘enrich’ the menu, which is proudly emblazoned in no less than three places on the page. They even sell ‘local’ wine. Why this is in inverted commas I do not know because it is from Surrey, which is in fact rather local.

The menu itself is robust and comforting, matching the blustery weather outside. I would say this is somewhere to take a proper bloke on a date. They will feel comfortable with the gastropub-style  pork belly – a small honeyed tower of slightly tough meat or smoked chicked terrine – light and tasty but with a severely short supply of rye bread, which aggravates my own pet peeve.

After already filling up on the hearty starters, we approach venison sausages which arrive in a healthy amount of rich pancetta and juniper berry sauce. My haddock, in a saffron sauce, is gently cooked but over salted and meekly accessorised with five tiddly mussels. The most disappointing aspect is the wet smear of green gob plonked on top of the flesh. In dim light, I initially mistake this for shrivelled skin however, with a further reference to the menu, I realise it was intended to be a ‘herb crust’.

A chunky apple and plum crumble finishes this homely meal off. The cheese plate from La Fromagerie would have been difficult to do badly – although the selection does smack of M&S on Boxing Day.

Our wine is a tasty, full bodied Italian red but served cold. The waitress is nice enough to point this out before leaving us to enjoy the frosty plonk unhindered.

I left with heavy dread about facing a drizzly Oxford Street. This time, however I managed the journey with more gusto. Apart from green gob-gate and the cold wine, 108 provided me a hearty meal with which to fight off the last days of winter and had I been any less rotund of belly, I would have desperately tried to squeeze in another cocktail at the bar.

108 Marylebone Lane
Marylebone
W1U 2QE

Tel: 020 7969 3900