The Brinkley’s group has 6 venues dotted at various locales around London. This particular iteration is situated on Bellevue Road on the edge of the expansive Wandsworth Common, and is a great location, but is it a great restaurant?

For starters the outside is adorned a large raised seating area that would be great in the summer for a meal & drinks with views of the common. Alas, we arrived during the heights of the winter months so had to firmly aim for copious amounts of chilled cocktails not frost-bite.

The bar area is very smart, and we were greeted by a polite barman who duly prepared said cocktails whilst an equally polite member of staff took our coats. It was a good way to start with attentive service, and when the Mojito’s arrived some minutes later our evening was off to a solid beginning.

The seating area has a real contemporary style to it, smart and welcoming. To kick-off we ordered some marinated tuna carpaccio, deep-fried brie with cranberry sauce and steak tartare with shallots, capers, cornichons and toast. 

The portions weren’t massive but the quality of the brie was rewarding, rich but not ‘greasily deep-fried’ with a nice balanced cranberry sauce alongside. The steak tartare clearly had time spent on it with decent presentation and good quality meat. Alas the side was let down with the tuna capaccio; the tuna, although well sourced and rare was overpowered by the marinated sauce of soy and sesame oil; it should have been in a ramekin or other side dish to be added as needed by the customer. Shame.

For the mains, we delved into the brinkley’s burger, king prawn linguini, pan-fried sea bream and the grilled scotch fillet steak. The burger was packed full of tasty meat, delivered rare with the bun base having no sogginess (a classic mistake with a lot of burgers sold elsewhere). The prawn linguini was delivered on a large plate, with a plentiful portion and a zestful, yummy tomato based sauce. The sea bream was cooked to perfection with the fish flaking off easily and the samphire & creame fresh sauce a welcome balance of flavours. The last main was the obligatory steak and this was cooked commendably.  A lovely lean piece of fillet left rare as requested, and delivered with some very thick cut chips and a creamy béarnaise sauce.

The food was at a pleasantly admirable level, matching the service and decor, and beaten by the relatively cheap wine list. The first four wine’s on both the white and red lists are under £20, with the rest of the list remaining at a fairly moderate level compared with other restaurants of a similar quality.

I do rate this place as one of my favourite mid-level eateries. It’s just a pleasing place to go. You feel good when walking in and eating, the atmosphere is right up there, and it doesn’t hurt the wallet to boot. We also had a 4 year old with us, and the staff were excellent with her throughout the evening.

I do recommend it.

£35-45 pp – with wine

http://www.brinkleys.com/brinkleyskitchen.asp

Tel: 020 8672 5888

35 Bellevue Road, Wandsworth, SW17 7EF