Plum + Spilt Milk          King’s Cross

 Great cities should have great railway restaurants. Paris displays its hauteur through Le Train Bleu in the Gare de Lyon. New York’s old-school sophistication is written into the DNA of the Oyster Bar and Restaurant at Grand Central Station. But for London? Where would you go? Points of destination and arrival   are markers of a country’s self-confidence. The question is does our town deserve better than the chain restaurants that bedevil our eating culture?Fiona and I are going to try to find an answer as we have been invited to review Plum and Spilt Milk at the Great Northern Hotel, just across the way from St Pancras International. We enter a handsome, buzzing room decked out in pea green and cream livery-it won awards for Interior Design of the Year and Best Restaurant Interior at the European Hotel Design Awards in 2013-and feels classic but functional, like the first-class restaurant lounge at an imagined Victorian airport.

Plum and Spilt Milk announces itself as ‘Celebrating Modern British Cuisine’ and chef Mark Sargeant, a Gordon Ramsay alumnus, sets out his stall with a menu that ticks all the regionally-sourced produce boxes. So you will find Orkney scallops, Cornish mackerel, Balmoral estate venison and Berkswell cheese.

A Cornish Fish Soup, herb mayonnaise, croutons and Gruyère (£8.50) is rich and deeply satisfying-like the best kind of lover, demanding that you want more. I fantasise about all of London’s great train termini being able to supply a fish soup of this quality, ingredients flying up to London in a steam loco with John Betjeman at the controls, declaiming as he drives, his poetry celebrating the oyster and lamprey, samphire and seaweed…

R.R. Spink and sons thick cut and very smokey smoked trout arrived sitting pertly on a starchily gooey griddled potato cake(£12) . A horseradish Crème Fraiche reestablished a little order and discipline cutting gently through the other flavours. We drank glasses of a lemon buttery 2014 Hen & Chicken Chardonnay (£9.50) made by the delightfully named Larry Cherubino somewhere in Western Australia.

Orkney scallops came with roasted cauliflower, samphire & sherry vinegar caramel (£30). The scallops were perfectly seared on the outside with a sweet, juicy interior and were well served by the unmediated flavours of the vegetables delivering a balanced savoury collage. But here’s the problem-the dish was tepid when it arrived-it needs to be redesignated as an express to allow for swift plating and delivery to the table…My glass of 2015 Devil’s Staircase Pinot Noir was a classic light cherry infused Kiwi Pinot, perfect with the scallops.

Fiona’s loin of Balmoral estate venison, salsify, watercress and Perigord truffle (£32) was very tender and rare with a lovely rich jus. She drank a glass of 2011 Izadi Reserva, a complex Rioja made from the Tempranillo grape-great with the venison.
It’s a mark of a good restaurant that they can do the simple things well and Plum & Spilt Milk achieves that. Rosemary salt fries (£4) were crisp and fluffy and winter greens had a buttery bite (£4).
I’m really not sure where Baked Alaska (£16 for 2 to share) fits into a British food offer but what the hell. Doused with cognac, the eggy meringue enfolds mango ice cream  and passion fruit sorbet  with mango and passion fruit coulis on the side. A dessert like this fills me with a childish sense of glee and our Hungarian Tokaji sweet wine had just the right amount of bite to offset the sweetness.