A new neighbourhood restaurant in Richmond quietly opened last week and looks to offer some of London’s best value dining. Mignonette on Kew Road launched last week, helmed by chef John McClements, and offers starters from £7.50 and a two-course lunch menu at just £16 (£19 for three).
Speaking to the Standard, McClements said: “We want to deliver a really good value restaurant and it’s our intention to continue this concept of value for as long as we can.”
He continued: “We have extremely low overheads. I’m the chef-owner and I do all the cooking with my business partner and one other doing the dishes. We source all our ingredients directly from various farmers and fishermen and because we’ve cut out the middle man and have funded the place ourselves, we can offer our guests amazing value”.
The value for money at Mignonette stands in firm contrast to the mainstream of London’s recent restaurant openings, where premium ingredients are met with premium price tags. With Mignonette, McClements says he has opened a restaurant with value at the very heart of the offering, without skimping on the quality of ingredients.
The current menu looks a treat with dishes including Orkney scallop brochette with skate rillettes and fermented cucumber (£9); Sutton Hoo chicken with Lyonnaise potatoes, timut pepper and salsify (£18); and roast turbot with lobster tuile, king prawns and bouillabaisse (£25) all on offer.
Alongside the à la carte is a set lunch that looks to be among London’s cheapest, with two courses at £16 and three courses at £19. Choices include a miso-glazed quail with wild mushrooms; fillet of seabass with asparagus puree; and there’s also the intriguing sounding “truffle tortilla” with yellow wine, Parmesan and confit potatoes.
When asked about the spiralling costs of supposedly affordable bistros in town and other recent restaurant openings, McClements noted: “I think it’s outrageous really, that things have got so out of control with pricing. Things like VAT and the higher prices which some of these supply companies are charging, added together with staff costs, are killing off restaurants.”
Mignonette is split over two floors, with a private room downstairs with space for about 35 guests and a main dining room above that seats 30. The restaurant will be staffed each day by a small team of waiters, one assistant chef, a kitchen porter and McClements himself.
When asked about what guests should expect, McClements acknowledges this is something of a departure from form. “In the past, I’ve always gone for destination dining, but here I’ve gone in the total opposite direction. I looked at the site — which has been closed for a few years, and needed a lot of work — and thought: let's go local, focus on [a restaurant for] the local people who live in the local area.”
The chef had previously been retired before the opening; his career includes a great number of openings (the Ma Cuisine group, La Brasserie, Tagine in Kew, Tapas Y Vino, and many bistros), though he is perhaps best known for his eponymous Twickenham restaurant, where he briefly held a star in 2004. It later reopened as The Grill.
What was it that brought him out of his retirement? “I’ve been doing this since I was 15 and over the years I’ve had seven different restaurants, including a Michelin star and a Bib Gourmand,” he said. “I sold the Ma Cuisine group about four years ago, did some travelling with some videos for a handful of restaurants around the world. But in truth, I just missed that restaurant feeling. I’m excited to get back into it again.”
