I’m a patient of the Royal Marsden Hospital on the Fulham Road in London’s South Kensington area. When I have an appointment at hospital I always book somewhere to have a nice lunch, so that my hospital visits can become days to look forward to and enjoy the finer things in life.  On this particular visit I booked to eat at Restaurant Ours, 5 minutes walk from the hospital, on the Brompton Road.
Tom Sellers is the ‘Culinary Director”, but doesn’t actually cook there, as he spends his time at his 1 star restaurant Story over near London Bridge. But his involvement was what attracted me to the restaurant.

Upon arrival, seeing the entrance is a “wow” moment: a long white corridor with illuminated glass walkway and fire features takes you to what must be the rear of the Brompton Road building and into an annexe filled with light, trees and plants It really is a stunning entrance!  Ours markets itself as a ‘restaurant and lounge’ and considerably more space is given over to the bar/lounge side of things than the restaurant.  I was seated an given a menu, but it wasn’t the lunch menu I ‘d seen online, so I asked for that. I also enquired about the slightly more expensive ‘Ourday’ menu shown on their website, but I was told this is their Sunday lunch menu. It really would be helpful if that were made clear on the website!  There aren’t any table cloths; this is an informal and casual venue.

The £28 3 course lunch menu offers much better value than their a la carte. My starter was “Foie gras, brioche, apple” which was a decent sized quenelle of smooth foie, atop a (black) burnt apple puree, on a slice of toasted brioche. I chose a glass of riesling to go with it, at the suggestion of my waiter. The foie was smooth, tasty and not too rich, the puree was very pleasant, but the brioche was very dry and tasted a little stale. 6/10 The riesling was good (as one would hope, at £19/glass), but, for me, it was not the best accompaniment to foie gras parfait (I prefer a sweeter wine).

For my main I chose “Roasted pheasant, dates, brussel sprouts’ with a side of “Our chips, pecorino & foie gras” and I was guided to a glass of Malbec by my waiter.
The pheasant breast was a little dry but the leg meat fell away from the bone and was excellent. The bird was not strongly gamey. The halved and griddled sprouts were very nice, but I have no idea where the dates were (nor figs, which my waiter told me were in the dish). All of this was presented on just one half of the plate, which left space for my chips. They came in a portion big enough for two to share (so I left half of them), they were nice, but I have no idea where the foie gras element was. 6/10
The Malbec had good powerful fruit flavours, a consequence, my waiter told me, of the grapes being grown above the cloud line, where they soap up more sunshine. But again, this was £19/glass, which I felt was too much.

Dessert was my favourite dish: “Our lemon verbena” was a perfect slice of lemon parfait, a meringue tile, a mint and verbena granita and a rocher of milk ice cream. Everything was spot on: it was light, clean and refreshing and not at all overloaded with sugar. 9/10

I didn’t have coffee, but went for an espresso martini instead (£15). I did have a large bottle of sparkling water at (an expensive) £4.50, and my total bill came to £105.19. That’s quite a jump from the headline lunch price of £28, due to the high price of my 2 glasses of wine, the cocktail, the overly marked up water and the £8 side of chips.
My French waiter Sylvain was very pleasant, the venue was impressive (though not very well heated), and broadly I enjoyed my lunch. But I’m only scoring an overall 6/10 because of the high price of the final bill. Over the past few years I’ve noted that when eating lunch at Michelin level restaurants in London, the cost of wine tends to add an equivalent cost of an extra diner, so Restaurant Ours goes far beyond that pricing model.  Perhaps the drinks prices are intended to be in line with a fashionable London lounge bar, I don’t know, but they’re just too expensive to have with a restaurant lunch!

PS their toilets are well worth a visit: there’s a beautiful and huge display of roses on one wall, as you enter the lush green botanical loos. If the ambient temperature were warmer I would have thought the loos to be wonderfully tropical.