Adam Handling At Caxton

We were very impressed with the food, atmosphere and service. The price is also very reasonable for a restaurant of this caliber! Will definitely be coming back!

A hidden gem of a place just around the corner from St. James’s Park station! Adam Handling knows his stuff and is definitely deserved of a well-​earned Michelin star that will be awarded this year (2016)! The atmosphere is contemporary, clean, down-​to-​earth and the prices relatively reasonable for the caliber of creativity put into his menu. Definitely go for the tasting menu, as there are several mind-​blowing items to experience. These dishes are seriously a work of art! My favorites are the «liquid gold», chicken/​fig/​lime starter, and salad of salt-​baked celeriac – amazing and imaginative. The dessert puddings are beautiful and very tasty, my favorite being the yuzu. The cod fish and chips is an excellent choice, the batter is absolutely perfect. The wagyu burger with pulled pork and crispy onions is excellent, one of the best burgers I’ve ever had. Definitely will be back when in London!

Came here for an impromptu lunch date with the fiancé.
Loved the dining room. It’s like a little haven away from the hustle and bustle of Victoria — comfortable and comforting. There were quite a few business lunches going on around (to be expected based on the location).
I had a tuna nicoise salad. This was almost 5 star but the tuna didn’t taste like it was cooked fresh if I’m honest (seemed like canned tuna). The dressing was good though as was the salad, egg was perfectly cooked for me (gooey yolk). The sourdough bread was superb — served warm with the option of ‘chicken butter’ (I couldn’t partake as I don’t eat chicken).
Service was good, quick and attentive if not 100% polished. Food was served quickly which was good for a lunchbreak.
They have a very good value sounding dinner offer (3 courses and a wine for around £30) so we’ll definitely be back to try that.

Came in on a relatively quiet Friday after a long flight from the US; I was starving and felt like an experience so I went ahead and tried out the 11 course tasting menu.
Absolutely everything was outstanding. The staff did a great job, the food was amazing, and the restaurant did a really interesting concept (which I haven’t seen before) where a different staff member brought out each course. This culminated in the head chef himself, Adam Handling, coming out to my table to chat while he handmade the tiramisu course with liquid nitrogen and what looked like a full chemistry set. Really a one-​of-​a-​kind experience, and a great way to kick off a weekend after a long week at work. Will definitely return!

The cooking was overall very capable, very contemporary in style and tidy presentation. While is not quite Michelin standard, I believe Adam as a chef has what it takes to progress, judging from some of the moments of brilliant of my meal. Price wise (Fine dining) it is actually pretty reasonable, you are looking at £40 for a three course a la carte and £50 for the tasting menu.

7 course tasting menu. A very fast start but then it slows down to a nice pace. Went for the wine pairing option which was good, but it would have been nicer to know a little more about each wine — sparkling white from Kent, white from Croatia and Portugal and France… some more background would get my 5 stars. Good was 5 stars with monkfish and limestone potatoes the star. Yes the Beetroot was outstanding and the surprise in the box… it was all super. So yes go for a great meal but ask more about the origin of the wine

Surprised I didn’t Unilocal this place after eating there 4x in one week back in June. My brother hates Unilocal because some of the reviews are emotionally subjective, but if a place truly rocks, they deserve recognition. This place truly rocks — 4x. One week. I had a small business dinner there (7 people) one night where we all enjoyed the sublime tasting menu. Minimal shop talk, maximum eyeballs rolling into backs of heads in delight. Met chef Adam that night who was utterly charming and is such a young talent. A food alchemist. Got the cookbook. Then I met colleagues in the bar for drinks and had nibbles — great cocktails, great bar food. Then I had a big meeting dinner there (30 people) — much larger than they normally deal with, but I worked with them to create a set menu — and the servers could not have been more accommodating and the food was again eyeball rollingly delicious. I sat next to the sibling of an A-​list celebrity, which would have normally been captivating but I was distracted by how amazing the food was. THEN I convinced a fellow foodie colleague who missed the first dinner to join me for the tasting menu with wine pairings and we were treated like royalty. Granted I dropped a lot of $$$$ there earlier in the week, but the chef was SO gracious, via email as he was stuck in traffic en route from a book signing in Edinburgh, and we sat for four hours chatting and indulging in the genius of Adam Handling’s artful, creative, and delicious dishes. I’m headed back to London later this month and cannot wait to return to Adam Handling at Caxton while I can still afford his food. He’s headed for multiple Michelin stars and I suspect will soon be out of my price range. I’d still pay the price though — this is food that does not disappoint. Even dishes I would never normally order — e.g. lamb tartar (not a fan of lamb and my Americanized-​sanitized palate gets a bit squeamish) was divine. I sound like I’m exaggerating but I swear the flavors matched the plating, which was pure art. This is a chef who takes great pride in his art. He could serve up aged raw pork liver garnished with freeze dried flies and I’d probably eat it.

Came here on a Saturday night having got a late reservation. This has been going for about a year and the chef Adam Handling was a runner up in Masterchef the Professionals. We arrived at 9pm as per the booking but although we walked though a dining room with lots of empty tables, we had to wait for 20 minutes to be seated.
My slightly dirty vodka martini was very good though.
The restaurant is quite large with partitioned off areas which makes it feel smaller than it is. No-​one was really that dressed up as it’s part of a hotel so there were families staying there who had come down for dinner in their jeans.
We ordered the 11 course tasting menu with the paired wines, and you also received a free signed book by the chef. The service was generally good and friendly and we even met the chef for one of the courses which was a lovely surprise. There were very few dishes that I actually liked, let alone rated. The scallop was divine and the beef wasn’t bad but otherwise everything was a bit average and some courses not that tasty. The wines weren’t very good either, and were very weighted towards whites; there was only one red during the whole meal. They also forgot to give me the book but I collected it the next day as we happened to have stayed nearby.
Overall not very impressive. I wished I had just gone for a standard two courses with a wine of my choosing. I won’t be back.

Exceeded our expectations! The service, atmosphere, and food were exceptional. Presentation was top notch and the wagyu beef and garlic prawns we had were perfectly prepared. I’m sometimes skeptical of restaurants connected to hotels but this lived up to its price tag. We shall return if in London again.

Ate here last night after wandering around the neighborhood looking for alternative places to eat. Normally, the restaurants at hotels are fine. But this one was the exception. The hostess fit us in and boy were we lucky. The food is really great. From the fish and chips to bbq goat to the small salads and vegetables, everything was very good. The one small disappointment was the popcorn for dessert, but I will definitely go back and highly recommend going!

Absolutely excellent! I had the Long Horn Sirloin with the peppercorn sauce 2 nights in a row. Awesome!!!

Wonderful food and service. I recommend ordering off the tapas/​seasonal menu, as the food is really inventive and delicious. I ordered off both the tapas and classic menus, and liked the tapas more.
The complimentary «chicken butter» that comes with your meal is INCREDIBLE! I could have eaten a whole bowl.
The cracker with mackeral and the chicken liver mousse are also very good. The veal schnitzel is only OK (mine was tough and the breading quickly fell off) and the mash was a bit salty.
The service here is top notch. Wonderful atmosphere, too.

Tried here on my first night, and I enjoyed it enough to bring my clients the next. Innovative food and presentation and a terrific staff.
Highly recommended.

I recently booked a table for dinner at Adam Handling at Caxton, well known as the runner-​up in Masterchef: The Professionals 2013, who has also gained many awards since.
We both went for the tasting menu, which consisted of six courses priced at £70 per person.
To start off, we were served a loaf of warm sourdough bread. I usually try not to overdo it with the bread course at the beginning, but that chicken butter and duck liver parfait was just too good to let it go to waste.
The doughnuts with dressed crab were tasty little mouthfuls albeit with a slightly denser texture then I was expecting. I would have gladly had a whole plate to myself.
The beetroot snack were little delicate wafer rolls with a sweet and slightly sharp beetroot filling. It was really light and crisp, and dusted in a beetroot powder.
The chicken skin was very moreish, and a favourite for both of us.
The first course was the salmon, with pea, sweet and sour wasabi, apple and dill. A bit of molecular liquid nitrogen show as our server brought over a pot with frozen violas and poured the contents over our dishes. I do love tartare dishes, and did enjoy the lamb tartare, served with beets, fermented red pepper, chilli and sorrel. I just wished that there was more.
The chicken and lobster was served with a fragrant yellow curry and palm sugar sauce. The lobster was fresh with a nice, springy texture, and the chicken really tender.
The ashed beef rump is apparently his signature dish, served with burnt artichokes and cabbage. A tender piece of beef with a lovely pink centre, and you could really taste the strong smokey flavours in it.
For dessert, we were first served the apple with cucumber and gin, which was very cooling and refreshing. A nice way to cleanse the palate after the rich courses that were had before. The second dessert was more sweet and indulgent — a yuzu-​based dessert with milk, crumble and meringue.
Check out my blog for the full post with photos x

Visited with my mum for a Mothers Day treat.
We had the most fantastic meal. The service was perfect, the prosecco and wine was terrific and the food…
Amuse bouche was a sour dough bread with a chicken butter and a duck parfait. Both of these were just delicious.
The rabbit terrine starter and slow cooked beef main were also fantastic. The highlight of the meal was the sea bream main with leeks in a variety of ways. It really was just beautiful as a dish.
The yuzu dessert was balanced a little towards the sweet rather than the tart for us but not enough to give the restaurant any less than five stars.
A really first rate lunch. I recommend a visit wholeheartedly.

The Caxton Bar is the St Ermine’s hotel bar. The St Ermine’s offers a free cocktail with a Unilocal «check in». Redemption of this turned into a very bad experience. So incensed was the bartender with the hotel, I felt uncomfortable to return to the bar.
One the second night we avoided the bar and sat in another room with service from the floor staff. When we reordered a round at the end of the night, the server «mistakenly» thought we all had ordered another round. When she came with an extra cocktail she took quite umbrage to have to return one.
The worse part of the night, was she presented us a check with the unordered cocktail to which we nearly paid. When we reminded her we didn’t reorder that one, she presented another check with one less drink. Closer inspection showed that both checks were printed at the same time.
Confused? She had hope to rip us off but was prepared we might catch it. AVOID THIS PLACE. THEY ARE SLICK AND LOOKING FOR PEOPLE TO RIP OFF.
Having now posted over 600 Unilocal reviews this is my only second BEWARE.

Service during breakfast and dinner was rather slow so they lose a star for that. But the dinner I had there was fantastic. The monkfish was really tasty and just the right amount of food to leave room for dessert. Had the chocolate thing… it was amazing, and very rich. I couldn’t even finish it. It was like eating a hockey puck-​sized truffle. Excellent food… if only the service could be leisurely, rather than painfully slow.

Yes, yes and yes. This is a place which I would be happy to take anyone out for — although they’d better be worth it as you can make it quite pricey with your choices.
Bright and open, the restaurant sits in the bottom of the St Ermine’s Hotel building, and you can wander through to the bar and lobby. The food was both ‘interestingly’ prepared (several different types of beetroot in one dish — very tasty though), and satisfying. Some dishes were even quite brash — such as tempura crab or chicken butter with brioche.
A round of starters could have seen me through the rest of the day (this was a lunchtime), but I’m glad we waited around for our mains. Slightly stuffy, yet inattentive service carried us to our mains. By golly was I happy with my choice of ashed beef with barley and chips. The truffle oil chips with parmesan weren’t the best ever, but played a supportive supporting role to the fantastic beef. Pink on the inside, dark on the outside but oh so tender and flavoursome. Heartily recommended.
Yes, expensive. Yes, ‘celebrity’ chef. Yes, not the finest service. But oh boy, a place to go at least once.

After seeing chef Adam on MasterChef Professionals I had to try this place and surely it did meet my expectations.
I went with a friend and shared an entrée, scallops with chicken and peanuts. I thought it was a terribly risky combination (scallops with chicken???) but it worked. The scallops were beautifully cooked and the chicken melted in the mouth. The peanuts added some indonesian flavour to the dish.
I had Cod as a main and it was amazing. The fish was cooked to perfection and it had a dash of mash that was heavenly. My friend had ashed beef and the flavour-​texture combo was a very nice surprise. As a desert, the ginger panacotta standed out, with textures carefully combined. All in all, the chef is a texture genius and he tries some interesting flavour combinations.
Service was excellent, friendly and caring but not annoying and the room itself is nice and quiet. They also have private rooms for groups.
At £55 each before wine it does not come cheap but the experience is definitely worth a try.

Beautiful, classy yet relaxing restaurant with world class food, and service.
Close to an Underground station (St James Park), so very easy to get to.
2 of us had the ‘6 course tasting menu’, and the 3^rd an appetizer and a main.
Our 6 course taster menu was a wonderful experience, and very memorable. Each plate was a work of art, but also seasoned perfectly, with moist, delicious food. Multiple components on each plate, combined textures and flavors in interesting and ‘just yummy’ flavors!
At the end of the meal I was satisfied, but not overly stuffed, so the portion sizes were well considered. Well done!
The appetizer/​main course only combination of my parter was beautiful and also delicious. I took pictures of everything.
Being served with plates of fantastic looking food covered with conical glass covers holding in smoke was a piece of performance art, and yes, I could taste the smokiness in that dish! Wonderful!
I’ll be sure to go again with more friends!