I first visited restaurant Story, on the south bank of the Thames between London Bridge and Tower Bridge, back in 2018, when it held 1 Michelin star.  Back then I had a slightly mixed, but overall favourable experience of chef Tom Seller’s innovative food.  In January 2021 I read that it had been awarded a second star, and that it was providing nationwide delivery of make-away meals. I ordered Story’s special Valentines meal box, for delivery on Friday 12th February, at £250 for two people.  A lot of money for a make-away (it included a bottle of English sparkling wine, langoustine, foie gras and caviar) but it was competitively priced with other top restaurants’ offering for that weekend.  I had a problem ordering on their website, but when I phoned Story a friendly lady processed my order promptly.

On 12th February I was very excited about my order. But it didn’t arrive.  I emailed Story and had to wait a couple of hours to hear back that they were having a few issues with APC, the delivery company they were using (with “guaranteed overnight delivery”), and they gave me details to track the delivery.  By Saturday morning the tracker told me my parcel was at APC’s local depot, but it didn’t tell me when it would get to me, so I phoned them for an update. They told me they would find my parcel and try to get it to me that day, as they were aware it was perishable goods.  But it still didn’t arrive.

On Monday 15th, without any notification from APC, the parcel arrived at my home. It had been carelessly handled and some of the items inside had spilled.  An email of complaint to APC only got a generic apology and a suggestion to contact Story!  So I suggest you might want to think twice about ordering anything from a company which uses APC!  Story told me they would not be using them in future, and promptly processed a full refund on my purchase and said they would send me a gift as further compensation. Good service recovery!

After cleaning the spillages in the box I saw a hand written envelope bearing my name and a Story wax seal, with a menu and documents detailing all the ingredients/elements and their allergens, plus reheating and assembly instructions.  I thought this personalisation was a lovely touch!

Restaurant Story likes to refer to canapés or amuses bouches with the less formal name ‘snacks’, and it was a treat to have some of these same delicious snacks which are served in the restaurant, although of course they’re not served or presented in the same ‘theatrical’ manner.  Story had advised I should discard most of the foodstuffs because they weren’t guaranteed safe to use 4 days after shipping, but as most were packed in sealed plastic, and smelt perfectly OK I was happy to use most elements.  For example, the marinated salmon was perfectly good, which I spooned into a fine pastry tartlet case.  Then there was a small gougere which, after warming in the oven, I piped full of truffle mayo; lovely, though the pastry was a bit flakey.  The 3rd snack was called “Rabbit sandwich”, a delicious cuboid of rabbit meat browned in a pan and topped with tarragon emulsion and small discs of pickled carrot.  I should have placed small pieces of fresh tarragon on top, but the herb had deteriorated, so they were binned.  Overall this ‘snacks’ course was easy to prepare, delicious to the taste, and a lovely reminder of actually dining in Story. 9/10

NB the photo above shows that we drank a Champagne which we had already opened, and we saved the 2017 Rose Balfour sparkling English wine delivered with the meal box for a later date.

The next course was Story’s famous signature dish “Candle”: a candle made of beef dripping, sitting in a pool of heated dripping, with a swirl of house made beef extract (not as strong as Marmite, but adding great beef flavour). A ‘Parker House’ roll was supplied to dip in the dripping mixture, but it had gone stale, so I oven baked my own petit baguette for this indulgence.  As I dipped my bread into the beefy dripping my mind drifted back to my grandmother telling me how she loved dripping and bread after WWII; it’s marvellous when food can bring back memories!  After dipping the bread there was some lovely celery relish to add, which was a lovely foil to the rich beef fat. 8/10

The next course was a luxurious treat: Story-branded Oscietra caviar with pound-coin-sized golden potato blinis, creme fraiche and a sprinkle of chopped chives (which were still in good enough condition to use).  The caviar was of excellent quality – good-sized golden pearls. The only regret was that we only had 20g of it to share, but by chance my best mate gifted me 50g of Exmoor caviar, so we were able to have decent portions on our blinis. In the photo above you can see the larger, more golden pearls from Story’s Oscietra on the right, against the smaller blacker pearls from Exmoor, left and centre, which come from a different sturgeon subspecies.  I’m not usually a fan of blinis with my caviar, because I think they mask the flavour, but these mini blinis were lovely. 8/10

The next course should have been a lovely-sounding langoustine agnolotti with langoustine sauce, but I chose to bin this for food safety reasons.  So we went onto our main course of aged Yorkshire duck breast with potato terrine, beetroot and foie gras.  I was surprised there was only a single duck breast, to share, but it was such a plump and beautiful looking piece of meat which adequately fed two.  The duck skin had been expertly scored, so all I needed to do was sear it gently in a pan for a total of about 10 minutes. Small slices of potato terrine were browned in the pan then warmed in the oven along with some whole baby beetroots, while I reheated a lovely duck sauce which had been lightened with celery.

I dressed my plates with pickled ribbons of beetroot and beetroot gel, added the heated beets and terrine, placed a “foie gras gem” on top and sliced the duck breast in two, revealing its still pink flesh and crispy skin.  The “gem” was liquid foie gras encased in beetroot gel.

With the addition of the lovely duck sauce this was a really sumptuous, delicious and pretty dish!  10/10

For dessert we had chocolate and praline mousse, which had a great flavour. It should have had crystallised cocoa on top, but that had spilled during APC’s careless transit, and even though some decorative flowers had wilted a bit, I had to add them for aesthetic purposes!  6/10

Our meal was rounded off with some petit four “treats”, comprising a “Story chocolate”, a nice sharp apple jelly they called “red apple pate de fruit”, and a tasty and not dry tonka bean canele cake.  8/10

The shocking performance of APC couriers had a very negative effect on my weekend; the Story make-away was to have been the highlight, in a locked-down life with little else to look forward to.  But the meal I ended up being able to create was very enjoyable indeed. Produce was top quality, assemblage required precision but it was very rewarding to serve up pretty attractive and delicious plates of food.  Overall 9/10 and satisfied!

This experience will motivate me to reorder a Story make-away, and to return to the restaurant itself, when it reopens after the covid closures.