You will be familiar with the notion of a “bottomless” offering. Pick your drink and for a set time period you can drink as much of it as you are physically capable. There is generally much to like about the concept for brunch. The bottomless period may be timed with a precision rarely seen outside a Grand Prix, and catching the eye of the waiting staff for that 8th top-up can be surprisingly difficult, but generally, it’s a great way of getting completely blotto on a Saturday while still getting home in time for Strictly.
I’m less sold on the expansion of the idea into Sunday lunch. Bottomless red wine sounds like a great idea. On a Saturday, absolutely count me in. But after Sunday lunch comes Monday morning. That last glass you sneaked in 15 seconds before the cut-off will come back to haunt you. Anyway, with Sunday lunch, what you’d rather have than booze is another Yorkshire pudding. You’d love a few more carrots. What you really, really want is another roast potato. Or six.
Pivot’s recently launched Ultimate Sharing Roast aims to satisfy this desire. Located on the first floor of an elegant townhouse on Henrietta Street, the dining room offers a grand view over Covent Garden Piazza and St Paul’s church, allowing you to enjoy the street performers without the risk of audience participation. The Sunday lunch menu offered by chef Mark Greenaway has a set of simple starters such as a creamy white bean soup and a chicken and hazelnut terrain, but we decided to cut straight to the chase, or rather the meat.
The sharing roast is designed for four people, although is priced as a single meal rather than per head and so could presumably be split amongst fewer if you are feeling particularly carnivorous. It comes with roast beef and half a roast chicken as standard, and then a choice of lamb or ham hock. We went for the lamb without reaching a conclusion as to whether ham hock belonged on a roast dinner. Accompanying this is a full complement of trimmings – yorkshire pudding, pigs in blankets, glazed carrots, cauliflower cheese, hispi cabbage (full marks here for not using the vinegary red cabbage that blights so many roasts these days) and, of course, roast potatoes. There is also plenty of gravy to go round, which isn’t always the case. All well cooked and doing exactly as advertised, with no needless flourishes. This is a proper Sunday roast, and once you’ve eaten your vegetables, more were cheerfully brought by the friendly waiting staff.
The inability to say no to a third helping of roast potatoes left little room for dessert, but as with the starters the offering is classic and to the point, with a chocolate mousse and pavlova to satisfy the sweet tooth, with ice cream and a selection of English cheese completing the set.
The wine may not have been bottomless, although an unlimited Bloody Mary is available if you need Sunday lunch to recover from Saturday evening, but we enjoyed a bottle of Casa Relvas Pimento Preta from the Alentjo in Portugal, living up to its name with a peppery spice that went perfectly with the red meats. Sticking with Portugal for the white wine, the A B Valley Vinho Verde was a fresh accompaniment for the chicken.
The Ultimate Sharing Roast is priced at a very reasonable £69 (for four people) and Pivot provides the perfect location to watch Covent Garden in all its madness while eating as many roast potatoes as your heart desires (and stomach can manage).
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