Browns, Nottingham.
Nottingham has so much to offer with lots to see and do, as well as some fantastic places to dine. Browns Bar and Brasserie is no exception to that, it's a spacious restaurant with a real intimate vibe to it. Found in the heart of the cultural castle district near Regent Street it's definitely a restaurant that offers class as much as the highest quality of food. Browns Bar offers brunch, afternoon tea, dinner and a great cocktail menu too.
The service in Browns is second to none, our waiter for the evening was great at welcoming us into the restaurant. He guided us through the menu, giving us direction on what he'd recommend best suited to our specific taste buds. There was so much on offer I was really relived to have this guidance to help me make my decisions. I had to try one of their cocktails, they all sounded good but as a big lover of Gin I obviously opted for the Clover Club, which was delicious, very refreshing and the Lemon Drizzle gin was definitely something I wanted to try more of.
As we knew our main dish would be pretty huge and probably difficult to finish we opted for some slightly smaller sized starters to begin with (but in hindsight I went for a pretty big starter, oops!) Camembert is easily one of my favourite cheeses, topped with tomato and rhubarb chutney and a generous helping of toasted bread on the side this starter was what dreams are made of. Whilst sometimes I feel like the flavour of Camembert can be bland, this touch of a tomato sauce on top was what it needed to give it something else. Jordan went for a lighter starter deciding to opt for the Torched Feta Salad. Jordan felt like the dish, while delicious, was lacking something, the dish was very soft, there was no texture and very little body to it, so while it had a lovely flavour, it left him wanting more from it.
For our main dish we decided to try one of their dishes from the Tender Beef specials menu that they were promoting within the restaurant. It has a whole range of specific dishes chosen to showcase the great beef that Browns has to offer. We decided on the Cote de boeuf a classic sharing dish perfect for the perfect night for two. This classic dish came with Tomahawk cut steak, a combination of a t-bone and sirloin served with confit tomato, asparagus, grilled mushrooms, thick cut chips and complete with Bearnaise sauce.
The dish was huge in size, came well presented with enough food for you to share. I thought the cut of meat was extremely soft and full of flavour. We decided to have ours cooked at Medium Rare, therefore managing to savour a lot of the juices and flavour from the cut of meat. The meat was cooked just how I liked it and having the choice to pick and choose how little or how much you wanted to enjoy with your meal was great.
I always prefer to eat my steak with Peppercorn Sauce so we decided to try this as well as the Bearnaise sauce to accompany the dish. I was more happy with the taste of the Peppercorn that worked so well with the cut of beef than probably the Bearnaise sauce did. There was so much on the plate, therefore if you had little appetite then this dish wouldn't suit you. Whilst a bit pricey at around £40 or more it's definitely worth the price to share between two people. I'm hoping this dish makes a permanent fixture on Brown's main menu.
To complete our evening and with our bellies full of delicious rich foods we decided to opt for a simplistic pudding choice that we could share. There was a wide variety of desserts on offer, which a lot of them being some classic favourites including Caramelised Lemon Tart and Sticky Toffee Pudding. We decided on the classic Chocolate Brownie with a side of Honeycomb ice cream and Devon cream toffee sauce. It's gooey texture of the brownie was perfectly accompanied by the crunch of the Honeycomb pieces, it was the perfect conclusion to our dining experience at Browns.
If you're looking for a hint of class, some very tasty food and top quality service then Browns is definitely the dining experience your after. They also offer some great dining experiences for Mothers Day and so forth so definitely check them out, their Afternoon Tea looks delicious and will definitely be something I will try out before the year is over.
*I was invited to dine at Browns, Nottingham in return for this review. All opinions and photos are my own.