I first visited The Greenhouse last year and enjoyed the atmosphere there, although the quality of food can at best be described as average. It passed into the hands of Donald Maclay Jr recently and he has spared no expense in the renovation, the restaurant is now larger and more stylish with the use of blond wood. The menu typifies all that is best about Pacific fusion cooking — ingredients from all over the world are brought together with panache. Eating the food assemblies feels as if you had helped yourself to a plateful of goodies from a well-stocked fridge. Imagine this as an appetizer — Garroxta cheese with chorizo, Serrano ham, piquillo peppers, chillies, almonds and caper berries. Or tuna sashimi salad with avocado, sea kale and roast peanut-ginger dressing.
For main course we tried grilled scallops with sweet chilli sauce and crème fraîche, duck breast on braised hijiki and buckwheat noodle salad. The vegetarian in our party declared that the baked globe artichoke, buffalo mozzarella and wild mushrooms with honey-braised blackbeans and wilted spinach simply divine.
For dessert don’t miss their dark ice cream platter (chocolate, coffee and caramel) with cardomom and cherry sauce. It’s not cheap, but if you’re looking for to impress a date of a client you can do no worse.
