Nestled on the first floor of the Design Museum, Blueprint Café is a long-time favourite with City workers and visitors alike. Famed for its views, this riverside restaurant is worthy of being high up on your bucket list.
The Blueprint Café interior is simple, clean and calming. With a blanket of neutral shades, plain seating and a surprising amount of vacant space, it borders on the austere.
But all this unobtrusive simplicity is surely designed to lead the eye toward the sensational wall of floor-to-ceiling windows, where some downright remarkable views of Canary Wharf, Tower Bridge, the Gherkin and half of the City await. Their signature blue binoculars allow diners to zoom in on the world as it drifts by below.
It’s perhaps a better proposition when darkness falls and London gets that twinkling glow, but the views are still impressive even when they have only the teeniest glimmer of the British morning sun to rely upon.
With over 22 years in the business, the Blueprint Café boasts pretty impressive renown, and although it has always come across as somewhere quietly confident and a little more reserved than some of its brash, headline-seeking counterparts, foodie folk worth their salt know that this is a place worth trekking to. A busy dining room is filled by those from far afield, as well as a table or two lucky enough to have wandered in from Shad Thames, perhaps nonplussed by less enticing options nearby. Staff, meanwhile, are spot on and seem to know the menu and wines very well indeed. It’s a stylish yet inoffensive atmosphere; cool but not over-bearing.
The simplicity and clarity affair continues with the cooking with very few – if any – fiddles and an emphasis on astute sourcing and seasonality. Head Chef Mark Jarvis’s seasonal menus are short and to the point – dishes are beautiful but in no way twee, allowing the ingredients and judicious combinations to do much of the work themselves. The food, much like the atmosphere, is fancy without being showy.
The oak roasted pig’s cheek (£7) is a pretty remarkable introduction, with deep and fatty hunks of melting cheek finished lightly in a pan for a layer of gold, served with rocket, a modest apple sauce and some finely julienned celeriac tossed through with a wholegrain mustard sauce. It’s all really rather good. The English asparagus (£7.50) offer a very good insight into the sourcing evident throughout the restaurant’s twice-daily changing menu, with loads of nutty sweetness working impeccably with the slow poached egg perched atop, just waiting to proffer it’s brilliant yolk.
The braised lamb (£20) is once again simplicity itself, with three rounds of neck (almost unfeasibly tender) and a generous cut of shoulder (less tender and less good) nestled amongst a selection of suitably vibrant vegetables from those good folk at Secretts down in Surrey. The sweetness of an immaculately cooked fillet of sea bream (£17.50) gets a deep and spicy note or two from rocket, pepper and chorizo (from an Iberian piggy, no less) for what’s another very accomplished dish.
Desserts keep things similarly simple, with a remarkably good cheeseboard (£8) playing host to a selection of very fine British cheeses, and an Eton mess (£6) a colourful little riot of strawberries, cream, strawberry coulis and sumptuous nuggets of meringue.
Meanwhile, the wine list is varied with a pleasing number to choose from – available not only by the glass but by the 250ml or 500ml ‘pot’, there’s plenty of scope to either sample a few or avoid quaffing a whole bottle, which makes grabbing a glass at lunch all too easy a proposition.
The selection is impressive too, with a slight skew toward old world options (including an excellent Sancerre from Henri Bourgeois – £45) unable to silence some very good bins from Argentina (notably a fruity, velvety Argentinian Malbec from Santa Julia – £29) and New Zealand (both the Clos Henri Pinot Noir – £39 and the Framingham Riesling – £34 are worth a try).
Good old Blighty is represented too (in the form of the very good 2005 Nyetimber Classic Cuvee sparkling white from east Sussex – £65), with more additions rumoured to be on the horizon.
Bring it back to basics and enjoy the simple, finer things in life at Blueprint c
| Design Museum, London, SE1 2YD | Transport: Tower Hill tube or Tower Gateway DLR or London Bridge tube/rail |
| Telephone: +44 020 7378 7031 | Opening Times: Lunch served 12:00-14:45 Mon-Sat; 12:00-15:45 Sun. Dinner served 18:00-22:30 Mon-Sat |
| Email: blueprintcafe@danddlondon.com | Website |
