It’s 80 hours since we were there but we were pleased to be back at Incanto
The risotto was so good the other day I had to have it again and followed it with hake and then despite being tempted by the panacotta the lure of the rhubarb was too strong to resist.
All my recent daiquiris have ignited my love of rum and when on a recent visit to Blue Otter Wines I was shown Bristol Black Spiced Rum and decided to give it a try.
As soon as I opened the bottle the smell was liquorice, treacle and aniseed. The taste follows the smell with this being an unusual non-sweet spiced rum compared to others I’ve tried.
Whilst I normally love non-sweet drinks it wasn’t what I was expecting but it was enjoyable slowly sipped.
To see if I could sweeten it up I added some coke and the result was delicious – all of the flavourful spices but slightly sweeter so it felt smother and went down very easily…
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Incanto in Harrow has recently become my favourite restaurant and on our first Saturday together, and not working in what feels like ages, it felt like the perfect way for Mr Bitter and I to treat ourselves.
From the second you walk in here you can’t help but enjoy yourself. From the friendly welcome to the light and airy dining room as soon as we sat down we began to relax.
Incanto offers a fixed price menu for lunch Tuesday- Saturday and dinner Tuesday- Friday. They also offer a full ala carte menu and 2 tasting menus. The fixed price at lunch is just £17.95 for 2 courses or £19.95 for 3 and at dinner that rises to just £19.95 and £23.95 respectively. But good value is no good without good food and I have to say that fortunately Incanto excel themselves at food and it is then you realise just how good the prices are.
Today we ate:
3 varieties of delicious bread served with olive oil which I washed down with a very tasty Rhubarb Bellini plus an amuse bouche of asparagus foam with polenta chips
We then both had an incredible risotto which managed to combine fresh spring flavours (it was packed with of peas and spring greens) with intense creaminess.
My main course was goats cheese ravioli, whilst Mr Bitter had chicken breast. By now we vere too busy raving over the food to remember to take a photo.
For desert I had their delicious, and beautiful, olive oil cake served with rhubarb (god I love rhubarb and no matter what else on the menu tempts me I just can’t seem to resist it) and rhubarb and custard ice-cream. The cake was warm and moist- on the cake side of a nice light brioche and not too sweet or dense. In fact it was light as air and combined nicely with all its accompaniments. Mr Bitter had a variety of home made ice-creams including a chocolate one whose light appearance belied just how strong a chocolate flavour it held.
Fully satiated I finished with a coffee and sad to say we were just too full to enjoy the incredible petit fours which came out at the end (ok we each found room for one of the little custard filled cream puffs)
I really can’t urge you enough to visit Incanto. The food is extraordinary, the servce wonderful and the surroundings beautiful. I can’t wait to return.
This evening was hosted by The London Cocktail Society andwhilst it began as good as their other events things soon took a turn for the strange…
The evening was going great, and everyone was having a lovely time enjoying their Martin Miller’s gin and experimenting with different garnishes and botanicals to see which they felt paired well with their gin & tonic, when suddenly, and sadly, everything took a turn for the worse as robbers broke in (after throwing rocks, using a crowbar and shooting at the door they eventually realised it wasn’t even locked!). Fortunately we were upstairs and didn’t see it taking place but the noise and realisation was more than enough to send shock and terror through the group. Ridiculously the evening had been so well planned and full of treats that at first it appeared this was some kind of crazy entertainment, but the screams and shots soon put paid to that idea.
The rest of the evening went in a blur of listening to police helicopters and waiting to be released to go home by armed police.
Very annoyingly, my bodyand trapped Vagus nerve let me down and nausea, vomiting, shivers and general confusion and disorientation were the order of the day for the next 48 or so hours. So sadly I can’t bring you a full recap of events but you can read a great one here.
bitter with a twist 