When you hear the idea of a themed menu, you can assume it’s well known dishes or drinks with a unifying ingredient clumsily added to each item on the list, often ruining them all. This could not be further from the truth at the brand new Guinness Terrace at the Parlour in Canary Wharf.
Their menu, where everything is themed around the black stuff, consisted of three cocktails, a pint of both alcoholic and non-alcoholic Guinness and three tasty bar snacks: and I can wholeheartedly say that all of the items I tried (all but two as it was a school night) were fantastic.
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Before I go into the menu, I would like to take the time to shine a special light on the quality of service the Parlour offered us. Both the maitre d’ and the waiter who served us couldn’t have been more welcoming and attentive to our needs for our evening.
The first cocktail we tried was the Guinness Old Fashioned. It is not usually a drink that is to my taste as I find the bitterness too overpowering and well… bitter. However, their version, with the addition of Guinness, was mixed in a way where all the ingredients complimented each other perfectly and added to the taste of the whiskey, rather than overpowering it.
Second on the list was the Guinness Espresso Martini, which I’d say was my favourite drink of the night. As it passes your lips you get an instant hit of the raspberry puree which was sweet and stimulating, followed by the bitter coffee aftertaste.
True to form, the accoutrements maintained the high standard set by the cocktails. We decided to get all three at the same time giving us the choice of: Guinness glazed popcorn, Guinness glazed peanuts and Guinness glazed popcorn chicken. The glaze was delicious, working with the salt of the chicken and the peanuts excellently. But as a surprise to me, my favourite of the three was the popcorn. It managed to maintain a buttery quality, while still maintaining the rich flavour of the stout-y syrup.
The Parlour is located in Park Pavilion, Canary Wharf, and this new menu wholly proved that in E14, every day can be a ‘lovely day for a Guinness’.