Dover Sole in London
 

Our 13 yr. old GD loves Dover Sole---the delicious taste plus the drama of filleting it tableside. In our area it's around $55. I would imagine in London it will be more.

I've been scouring Trip Advisor for a place to have Dover Sole in London and there are so many options. She's used to eating in good restaurants but some of the places I've found are just too formal and adult stuffy looking.

Where would you go for Dover Sole in London with a 13 yr. old?

We'll be staying near The Eye but could take a cab elsewhere.

Also, any suggestions of restaurants with good food but more interesting rooms would be welcome. All the stark, modern, very adult surroundings are fine for us but hold little interest for a teen.

Have you checked www.toptable.co.uk ? You could look at the reviews compared to your list of places...

I have long wanted to eat here and assume they'd have Dover sole.
http://www.j-sheekey.co.uk/
Covent Garden is a fun place to visit too.

Please be aware that Common sole, aka Dover Sole, is on Greenpeace list as an endangered species. It has been drastically overfished and is now on the edge of sustainability.
Wherever you buy it make sure it is MSC approved, and try not to eat fresh sole in April through June, the breeding season.

Just so your GD can continue to enjoy her sole when she is your age, and can pass on the delights of eating it to her grandchildren.

Menus change frequently so can be hard to foretell if a restaurant will have Dover sole. Not sure about the filleting at the table though, have ever experienced that.

Dover sole (solea solea) is not the same fish as the flounder relative (microstomus pacificus)served in North America as Dover sole.

Nor are all fish sold in Britain as Dover soles necessarily soleae soleae: there are a number of relatives in the soleidae family sometimes passed off, and good restaurants increasingly don't sell Dover sole, partly because of the difficulty in finding it any more (unlike the Pacific fake, it's never been plentiful or caught by industrial methods, and is generally caught only by small, usually day, fleets operating from Plymouth and Brixham.), partly for perceived stewardship reasons (there's now some debate about which allegedly "threatened" North Sea/Channel species really are in danger, but good restaurants want to avoid controversy)and partly because it's now very, very unfashionable: if there's one dish with a seriously stuffy image, it's Dover sole - especially if filleted at the table by a waiter.

Sheekey's doesn't routinely feature it on the menu, though it might be the catch of the day occasionally. The Loch Fyne chain features lemon sole routinely - and my local branch is usually full of teenage children, though the culture here is that they bloody well eat where the bill-payers want to, and we don't much hold with teenage whines about "too adult"

Places that can be relied on to sell solea solea tend to be very pricey: at Scotts of Mayfair (where the spirit ofthe crepe Suzette still lives on) it's £42-£55 - but it really is rarely served any more at truly reputable restaurants

Since your daughter won't find the taste she's used to anyway, lemon sole (see above) or Plan B might work. Fish called Dover sole (very likely to be cheaper soleidae) are a long-standing midprice choice at many oldfashioned Italian restaurants. Googling throws up Denises's in Southampton Row, where it's £19.95.

These ageing Italian places rarely run to "stark, modern" surroundings.

PS:

Dover sole (almost certainly solea solea) is on the menu at The Seashell in Marylebone. Doubt the waiter-filleting is part of the deal - but it feels like a posh chippy.

I'll definitely check out the above suggestions.

We have it at several restaurants in Wisconsin and it is always served on the bone and filleted tableside. I've also had the same at Le Dome(Montparnasse) and Le Tastevin(Ile St. Louis) in Paris.

It was just a thought because I know that our GD likes it. I didn't know it was overfished because it's readily available here. I don't want to offend anyone by ordering it. Also we'll be there in June so maybe that's a month it won't be available.

Is there another sole that looks the same, with the large bone structure that is removed? Maybe I'm just not up on fish in general?

Actually years ago I worked at a restaurant that had what was billed as Dover Sole and I filleted it at the table. It was the most popular item on the menu. I worked there 20 years and probably sold at least 10 a week so I have filleted thousands of them. I could do it in my sleep.

I'll keep searching the websites as it is quite awhile until we arrive in London. The research is fun and keeps the trip planning alive.

BTW, we don't have a teenage whinnie as flanneruk suggested.
We just want to keep it interesting for her and find some places that seem different in decor from the restaurants she goes to in the States.

>>I didn't know it was overfished because it's readily available here.<<

What you get in the States is probably not 'Dover sole' as flanner suggested.

And seldom do modern restaurants do the filleting at the table any more . . .

Dover Sole is routinely fileted tableside...this summer had it in London and just recently in Paris....saw it done at many tables not just ours. Le Dome was one...I am not certain where some of the ideas posted here come from and I do know Dover Sole from other species...and frankly the people ordering the sole and getting it fileted were far from "stuffy".

Le Dome is in Paris. Where did you have it in London? Yes - some restaurants there do filet at the table - but IME mainly at quite traditional (i.e. stuffy/old fashioned) places).

re J Sheekey - it may have it on the menu if it is in today's catch. But the last two times I've been there it was not listed.

Scotts is, like J Sheekey, another famous old fish restaurant that has Dover Sole on the menu. http://www.scotts-restaurant.com/menu/sole/

It's posh, mind you.

I don't know what Flanner is talking about with good restaurants avoiding endangered species – my other half worked for the best fish wholesaler in London until recently, supplying all the top restaurants, and pretty much all the chefs will sell whatever fish they can get without being splashed across the front pages of the Daily Mail. They won't sell you Blue Fin Tuna, but Dover Sole certainly isn't an issue.

Guinea Grill in Mayfair. I recommend reservation and a jacket for the gentleman. Charming. jcg

My husband has enjoyed Dover Sole in two different Mayfair restaurants:

Butler's (the restaurant at the Chesterfield Mayfair Hotel - "the home of the best Dover Sole in London"
http://www.chesterfieldmayfair.com/b...ers-restaurant

Le Boudin Blanc
http://www.boudinblanc.co.uk/

I do believe both restaurants filleted it tableside. I have seen teenagers dining in both.

If it is $55 at a reputable restaurant or fish shop in the States, it is very likely to have been flown in from its point of origin and to be what would be sold as Dover sole there. Now flanner's point is well-taken: all that is sold as sole is not solea solea, even at its point of origin.

That certain restaurants and some shop seem to feel that they can ignore the law, the limit on size is 24cm. If they offer you a fish smaller than that, then make a scene.

Can't comment on the sole but Sheeky's was stuffy the first time I went there before a show almost 30 years ago.

And the fish wasn't that great either - although part may have been different names for things. They offered scallops and I asked if they were bay scallops - and they insisted they were - and then they served these giant big floppy things - nothing at all like bay scallops and not even very good specimens of sea scallops.

Try Oslo Court restaurant, they would be the type of place to serve Dover Sole. They are in St John's Wood.

The Ivy restaurant also has Dover Sole on the menu. I would definitely recommend a visit.

I would ignore comments about a restaurant visit to J Sheekey from 30 years ago. It's not relevant for today. Cooking in UK restaurants has evolved quite a bit since then.

I don't think anyone has mentioned Sweetings. I used to love going there when I worked in the City (a long time ago). It's been there since 1889 and seems to still have the old-fashioned look I knew. They have Dover Sole at 35 pounds. http://www.sweetingsrestaurant.com/?page_id=102

Plus lots of other fish, marked sustainable.

Could you expand in what you mean by, "stuffy"?
Although I agree that a 30 year old observation may have no relevance to that restaurant today, your definition of what makes a restaurant "stuffy" to you may help others in their choices.