Cycene is a recent opening (tail end of last year) in Shoreditch.
The meal starts in the downstairs bar with an impressively rich 3-day beef broth, with beef fat and oxalis. A nice way to start on a freezing cold evening! A very good loaf of warm rye and spelt bread, three butters : seaweed, cultured and chicken, plus a great little bite of beef charcuterie.
Upstairs to the dining room and on to a trio of small bites. The Comte, pickled walnut and onion tuile a great combo. I particularly enjoyed the duck liver in a red pepper casing, which was so delicate I’m not really sure how it held itself together.
Next course not actually pictured as we got up from the table and had it served in the kitchen. Oyster slow cooked for an hour before being finished with a hot coal and served in the shell with pickled cucumber, caviar and a warm cucumber sauce. A slow cooked oyster is new to me and I enjoyed the texture, for me the star was actually a little serving of either fermented cucumber juice or cucumber juice with something fermented in it on the side. Really refreshing.
Raw scallops with macadamia nut milk and blood orange oil. Flavor-wise this was excellent, I think I might have preferred a touch more acidity, but I’m a bit of an acid-junkie so could be personal taste as much as anything, my wife loved it.
The cavatelli was the star for me, incredible flavour coming through from the uni sauce. The crispy cassava a nice textural addition, and the black truffle with citrusy sansho leaf made this a really aromatically satisfying dish for me. Absolutely loved it.
Nicely cooked grilled monkfish with fried maiitake and cauliflower. Not much to say here, this was as you’d expect, and perfectly nice. Some welcome freshness came from some pickled cauliflower that maybe I would have liked to be a little more acidic but as I’ve said that’s probably my own taste coming into play there.
The turbot was the more interesting fish course for me. 5 day dry aged on site in their purpose built ageing chamber that you walk past en route to the dining room and from a 9kg fish this had a great flavour and was perfectly cooked. Initially I was a bit wary of the lettuce sauce but I came round to it, although I did prefer the sake caramel overall. The brioche with it was excellent and very helpful for mopping up leftover sauce!
The duck breast was well cooked, the beetroot puree delicious and worked well with the bitter endive. The ‘yakitori’ on the side was a kind of tsukune meatball made from the leg meat topped with pickled enoki mushrooms which had a good flavour that was definitely reminiscent of yakitori but was unfortunately ever so slightly too dry.
Pre dessert fromage blanc + rhubarb was excellent. I love rhubarb and this kind of texturally satisfying mouthful that’s still crisp and refreshing is right up my street, this could have been tailor made for my exact taste, I could have eaten a huge bowl of it.
Chocolate tart was impressively light. I’m not often a huge fan of chocolate desserts as they can often tip me over into uncomfortably full, but this was just right. Don’t think I got much sweet potato flavour from the ice cream but it was a nice accompaniment to the tart.
Petit fours also very good, caneles are pretty much my favourite French pastry so top marks for me at least!
Overall I really enjoyed this meal. It’s a relatively unique experience as with only 15 covers its quite intimate, and with a fair amount of interaction with staff and the chef/kitchen, at least initially. I can imagine some people may not enjoy all the moving around in the first few courses but I like that sort of thing and enjoyed being able to go into the kitchen and talk to the chef etc.
Will say it is arguably quite expensive, but I think reasonable in the context of the kind of experience and size of the restaurant.
gamengiri420 on
What did you pay, and where would you compare it to?
Seeing lots of chicken butter lately.
br0b1wan on
This all looks amazing. Thanks for this OP, I’d love to check this out next time I’m in London
syahawesome on
I have seen photos of it on IG and boy this looks amazing. Guess I’ll add it to my list next time I hit up london. Thank you for sharing 😉
Othersideofthemirror on
Looks great, and although new owners and chefs, sounds similar to when i went to Maos after it opens with the wandering format.
Glad they’ve got rid of the communal tables, although the social aspect meant our neighbours shared their expensive bottle of red with us.
5 Comments
Cycene is a recent opening (tail end of last year) in Shoreditch.
The meal starts in the downstairs bar with an impressively rich 3-day beef broth, with beef fat and oxalis. A nice way to start on a freezing cold evening! A very good loaf of warm rye and spelt bread, three butters : seaweed, cultured and chicken, plus a great little bite of beef charcuterie.
Upstairs to the dining room and on to a trio of small bites. The Comte, pickled walnut and onion tuile a great combo. I particularly enjoyed the duck liver in a red pepper casing, which was so delicate I’m not really sure how it held itself together.
Next course not actually pictured as we got up from the table and had it served in the kitchen. Oyster slow cooked for an hour before being finished with a hot coal and served in the shell with pickled cucumber, caviar and a warm cucumber sauce. A slow cooked oyster is new to me and I enjoyed the texture, for me the star was actually a little serving of either fermented cucumber juice or cucumber juice with something fermented in it on the side. Really refreshing.
Raw scallops with macadamia nut milk and blood orange oil. Flavor-wise this was excellent, I think I might have preferred a touch more acidity, but I’m a bit of an acid-junkie so could be personal taste as much as anything, my wife loved it.
The cavatelli was the star for me, incredible flavour coming through from the uni sauce. The crispy cassava a nice textural addition, and the black truffle with citrusy sansho leaf made this a really aromatically satisfying dish for me. Absolutely loved it.
Nicely cooked grilled monkfish with fried maiitake and cauliflower. Not much to say here, this was as you’d expect, and perfectly nice. Some welcome freshness came from some pickled cauliflower that maybe I would have liked to be a little more acidic but as I’ve said that’s probably my own taste coming into play there.
The turbot was the more interesting fish course for me. 5 day dry aged on site in their purpose built ageing chamber that you walk past en route to the dining room and from a 9kg fish this had a great flavour and was perfectly cooked. Initially I was a bit wary of the lettuce sauce but I came round to it, although I did prefer the sake caramel overall. The brioche with it was excellent and very helpful for mopping up leftover sauce!
The duck breast was well cooked, the beetroot puree delicious and worked well with the bitter endive. The ‘yakitori’ on the side was a kind of tsukune meatball made from the leg meat topped with pickled enoki mushrooms which had a good flavour that was definitely reminiscent of yakitori but was unfortunately ever so slightly too dry.
Pre dessert fromage blanc + rhubarb was excellent. I love rhubarb and this kind of texturally satisfying mouthful that’s still crisp and refreshing is right up my street, this could have been tailor made for my exact taste, I could have eaten a huge bowl of it.
Chocolate tart was impressively light. I’m not often a huge fan of chocolate desserts as they can often tip me over into uncomfortably full, but this was just right. Don’t think I got much sweet potato flavour from the ice cream but it was a nice accompaniment to the tart.
Petit fours also very good, caneles are pretty much my favourite French pastry so top marks for me at least!
Overall I really enjoyed this meal. It’s a relatively unique experience as with only 15 covers its quite intimate, and with a fair amount of interaction with staff and the chef/kitchen, at least initially. I can imagine some people may not enjoy all the moving around in the first few courses but I like that sort of thing and enjoyed being able to go into the kitchen and talk to the chef etc.
Will say it is arguably quite expensive, but I think reasonable in the context of the kind of experience and size of the restaurant.
What did you pay, and where would you compare it to?
Seeing lots of chicken butter lately.
This all looks amazing. Thanks for this OP, I’d love to check this out next time I’m in London
I have seen photos of it on IG and boy this looks amazing. Guess I’ll add it to my list next time I hit up london. Thank you for sharing 😉
Looks great, and although new owners and chefs, sounds similar to when i went to Maos after it opens with the wandering format.
Glad they’ve got rid of the communal tables, although the social aspect meant our neighbours shared their expensive bottle of red with us.
One on my list.