We visited to Chez La Vie on Saturday, 19 January 2019, just over a week after it re-opened.
This was in their new location at the Nelson Inn on the Skipton Road.
Not surprisingly it was a busy Saturday evening in the restaurant. We were shown to the lounge area first for a pre-dinner drink as the table wasn’t ready just yet – we were slightly early and this was hardly a chore.
Decor is stylish and comfortable, leaning more to soft furnishings, comfortable padded seats and carpet. For those of us that like to talk rather than shout or if you have any hearing impediments, then this is good.
A few sips into the drinks and we were shown to the table. The tables are all well spaced and none of those bench seats where it feels it’s as easy to talk to the table next to you.
Starters are around £5.5o and mains around £15, couple of pounds less for the pub classics and around £18 for sirloin steak. You will need to add £3.95 for a side dish.
Our table of 4 selected the french onion soup, a paté and a prawn cocktail.
We ordered a bottle of Malbec, but most of the wine is available by the glass, so when you finish the bottle you can just order by the glass and are not left dry or half a second bottle you feel obliged to glug.
Much has been spoken about the French onion soup so it did have something to live up to. It arrived quickly at the table, this is where you learn there is a certain technique to eat it. Tempting as it is to dive in, which I did, you need to wait. That time allows the molten cheese on top to cool a little, from the temperature of the surface the sun, to something more easily tamed. It was a lovely and warming starter and it was easy to see why it proves so popular.
We ordered main courses of a fillet steak, tuna steak in provencal sauce, beef bourguignon and roast rump of lamb in red wine and redcurrant sauce. My tuna was cooked pink and served on a lovely delicate and fresh tasting provencal sauce. All was very much in order, with the dishes cooked well. Side orders are generous too.
We never made it through to desserts, maybe next time. Maybe come back to them another time.
For a newly opened or re-opened restaurant they were already up to speed. Food arrived in a timely way and was faultless – it looked like a restaurant that had been open for some time.
This is a great addition to the Harrogate restaurant scene.
A terribly written review. The reviewer, a ‘Journalist’ should be able to perform a basic proof-read and spell check; a desert is a mass of sand whereas a dessert is a sweet course at the end of a meal. Repetition of phrases is frowned upon but appears here as does coincidentally, a lack of detail.
Desserts…….not. Deserts.
Come on get it right!
What a terrible review, detail very much lacking, and a Sirloin Steak for, “around” £18, you were there, you read the menu, you looked, and should have being a “journalist, made notes of the pricing structure, oh dear.
I agree, I think we could have done better.