Heaton, Butler and Bayne in City of London

Heaton, Butler, & Bayne (alright we’re calling that HBB from now on!) is the newest addition to the Covent Garden line up and is all about the latest food trend – using local ingredients to serve up some quality food. It also has a bit of that quirky factor as it’s located in an old stained glass studio (as you may guess from the arched church-like windows) although sadly doesn’t display any of the stained glass it used to produce. The name also comes from the company that used to inhabit the space – and had the reputation for being a leading firm in the Gothic Revival.Anyways, history aside, the new HBB is pretty slick and serves up a pretty diverse menu. The head chef is Swedish (which may drive the desire to source locally and change the menu daily) so expect some Scandanavian style cooking. For me, this means a bit more emphasis on seafood and vegetables but overall a clean precisely designed and presented dish. And that’s pretty much what you get.Three fellow foodies and myself made it to HBB late on Wednesday night for dinner with the 50% off food deal through “The Nudge”. Since food was half off, we may have gone slightly overboard in ordering and more or less tried everything on the menu. The short version is the duck bresola is tender and tasty, the soft shelled crab tastes far better than it looks, and the fish mains are flaky and crispy. The food is good but needs a bit of tweaking to really get it to shine. The bar staff, however, are already spot on!All in all, a good dinner out with friends and I’m looking forward to coming back to HBB for another excellent Sazerac. I’ll give the dinner another go (it’s likely to be a different menu after all) and I have faith they will work out the slight kinks in the food as they find their pace.