Disco Bistro

The beginning of December always marks a time where I will be eating lots, drinking more and exercising less and this year looks like it will be no different as we have lots of foody treats planned.

To kick things off we went to Disco Bistro for a friends birthday on Monday night. This restaurant has popped up in a proper old fashioned London boozer, The rising Sun - a short stroll from the grandeur of St Pauls with a more formal setting upstairs and snack in the bar.

Upstairs is quite a collective and eccentric scene with an old routemaster chairs, a taxidermy squirrel with a lamp in its mouth and a bit a blackboard scribbling by graffiti artist Pure Evil. The food and menu are both small but in my opinion perfectly formed.

We went for some snacks to share instead of a regular starter, these were presented in plastic baskets and felt quite dirty (but in a good way) until you bit into them and realised the ingredients were actually quite fancy.

Savoury doughnuts filled with cheese and served with a warm apple sauce, spicy chilli chicken wings with a goopy and moorish marinade and my favourite a lobster corn dog - the outside looked artificial but the lobster inside was meaty and had such a huge hit of seasidey flavour.

In total contrast the mains were beautifully presented and of a smart restaurant standard. The deer came medium rare with spiced pumpkin puree, cabbage and pickled pear plus there were popped barley on top adding an unusual texture of grown up Rice Krispies. It was a great flavour and texture experience on a plate and really pleasing to the eye. I fell in love with that little bambi on a plate.

Everyone else was equally impressed with their mains - a crackled hake wrapped in deep fried pig skin and a saddleback pork chop with a perfect duck egg but I think mine won best dish as it was such a feast for the eyes.

For pudding I went for the cheese from Brocknall farm - the cheese is produced in such small quanities they only sell it to four restaurants, Disco Bistro being one. It was beautiful - strong but creamy and perfect served with quite a sweet dressing and pickled onions.

They are only there for a few more months but I tempted to go back and try the Disco Burger in the bar.