Chi Kitchen Restaurant Review – A colourful and exotic family meal.

Bonjour lecteurs! I hope you had a lovely weekend and you made the most of our Frenchie giveaways (if you want to win some cute baby clothes, click here & if you want a new gadget to get fit, click here!)… You should know it by now, I love food! Beaucoup! (maybe too much…) So when Chi Kitchen invited us to try their food, I said ‘Oui!’ straight away. Especially when j’adore eating pan-Asian food! We went two weeks ago  to the fabulous restaurant situated on the ground floor in Debenhams Oxford Street.  The plan was to have a date there with Grumpy Boyfriend, but Baba crashed the party and joined us in the tasting! Here is exclusively for you the Frenchie Chi Kitchen Restaurant Review.

About Chi Kitchen

Chi Kitchen is a contemporary pan-Asian restaurant created as an exclusive departmental brand for Debenhams. Chi Kitchen is celebrating 1 year since the opening on the ground floor in Debenhams Oxford Street.

The word Chi means energy in Chinese. The aim of the restaurant, therefore, is to build a brand that is not only going to offer great food but also provides good energy to Debenhams customers, as well as the new customers that Chi Kitchen will attract. The place has also a Chinese symbol “”, which means Fire. A great combination in my opinion!

If you decide to visit, you will have the chance to enjoy some great dishes influenced by Thai, Chinese, Malaysian, Japenese, Vietnamese and Korean food. A great choice of saveurs for sure!

MasterChef 2014 winner Ping Coombes is the Executive Chef for Chi Kitchen, so you will be in for a great meal.

First impressions

Situated at the back of Debenhams Oxford Street, the place is quiet and clean. The interior design of the restaurant is inspired by the five elements, namely fire, water, wood, earth and metal. Le restaurant is really stylish with an elegant and very welcoming setting. I particularly liked le décor and the subtle but original lights.

The magic happening in front of your eyes!

Seated by the window, it was nice to see people wandering around in London. We were straight away at ease, and even though the restaurant was quite busy, it didn’t feel crowded and we had plenty of space for Baba (he was sleeping in the buggy when we arrived).

Frenchie Mummy was in her element with a glass of Merlot in her hands 🙂

The staff was extremely helpful and gave us great advice about what to choose.

The lovely waitress gave us a tour of Asia!

‘Enough talking about décor Frenchie Mummy!’ I hear you! You want to know what we ate! Well, a lot of nice things! Off we go for a full Chi Kitchen Restaurant Review! Enjoy! And get inspired!

Starters

Grumpy Boyfriend used to live in Japan so we obviously started with some drinks and Edamame. We always do when we eat Asiatic food!

Being gourmets, we decided to try some of the restaurant’s specials. We had some Chi Kitchen rolls. I have never seen something like that (I probably need to go out more but we have a few occasions with a baby…). The presentation was amazing and they simply tasted delicious! Topped with tuna and prawn, this first dish looked so colourful and fun! It’s classic when I go to such a place! A great start! Plus Grumpy Boyfriend liked it too.

A rainbow of nice food!

Excited by this, we carried on with Prawn Tempura and Salt and Pepper Baby Squid.

Loving this…

The sauces for each of these dishes were perfect and we equally enjoyed them! I am usually not a big fan of Baby Squid, but they were nicely cooked.

… but also this!

And to finish the little selection, we chose the classic Aromatic Duck Spring Rolls. We always love a good Duck Spring Roll. I find the vegetarian version usually a bit blunt. But nobody was disappointed with these.

A great selection of starters

The starters were all very delicious. I have not been disappointed by any of them and even Grumpy Boyfriend broke his rule of not eating meat for once. It was simply too delicious to pass on the opportunity!

Main Dishes

As I am a good girlfriend, the next dish was fish. So we had some rice with Sea Bass with Chilli and Lime. I am generally not super keen on this type of food (I am very Frenchie and prefers meat), but the spices made this so tasty. I could not resist but steal some from my partner…

The Frenchie lady ate fish!

Even thought I was spoilt for choice as I ordered some Miso Aubergine which I finished without minutes. I never cook any at home as Grumpy Boyfriend is not a fan. It was as nice as the rest of the food we had so far!

Yummy!

But at this stage, we were getting really full! So we didn’t make the most of the curry we were also served.

Serving all the family but deep down, she is already dreaming about her dessert…

A shame, it was not too spicy.

This main dish was very tasty

The waitress recommended it as it’s a signature dish.

Desserts

Now, the real reason why I didn’t finish the main dish mentioned above is that I had dreamed about my dessert the minute I walked in! Oui! I had the most extravagant dessert ever! The Chocolate Sphere! If you like naughty food that includes a lot of chocolate and sugar, you must try this!

The Frenchie bébe also wanted a piece of this merveille!

To my despair, Baba woke up at the time this wonder landed on our table and I had to let him taste it. Yes, the concerned look on my face says it all… I was going to miss the final piece of our lovely lunch!

Au secours! He is going to have it all!

Hopefully, Grumpy Boyfriend was quick to finish his Mango Crème Brûlée and took Baba for a walk while I was peacefully making the most of this chef-d’œuve.

The Crème Brûlée didn’t last long

Chi Kitchen Restaurant Review – Le verdict

There is no need to say that the Frenchie family is a great fan of Asiatic food. It won’t be a surprise to you, but we loved our lunch at the Chi Kitchen restaurant. It needs to be said that Chi Kitchen is not your local restaurant! It’s more than that. I had the best rolls ever and the choice of food is amazing!

If you’re in town and you want to try something different, this place is a must. Even if you are only keen on having small plates, you won’t be disappointed. It’s also really affordable and so close to the shops, if like me, you are a shopping addict.

It’s also a great place to visit for a work lunch as the service is very good and you have a great choice of sushi and other snacks.

And it’s a family friendly restaurant too! Baba really enjoyed looking at one of the chefs cooking!

One of the cooks in action!

I can’t wait to come back with my mum when she comes to London again!

Have you been to Chi Kitchen before? Do you like this type of food? What do you fancy trying next time you are in town?

Thank you so much for reading our Chi Kitchen Restaurant Review. I hope it got your mouth watering! Just writing it, I want to go back now!

Disclosure: We enjoyed a free lunch at the Chi Kitchen Restaurant for the purpose of this review. All opinions are my own.

 

 

 

 

 

13 Comments

  1. June 13, 2017 / 10:14 am

    The food looks absolutely yum! fair play to you

  2. June 14, 2017 / 7:36 pm

    It’s not really my sort of food but my husband, sister and BIL would absolutely love it!

  3. June 14, 2017 / 8:51 pm

    It looks and sounds great! I’ll keep it in mind for my next London visit.

  4. June 15, 2017 / 7:28 pm

    Oh my goodness, this looks delicious – the starters in particular have caught my attention. I bloody love a tempura battered prawn!!!

  5. Musings of a tired mummy...zzz...
    June 15, 2017 / 7:36 pm

    What a relief you got to have most of your pud! Glad the food was delicious for you and I hope your mum likes it!

  6. Tooting Mama
    June 15, 2017 / 7:49 pm

    Oh, this looks delicious, I feel a spending spree coming on and this will fuel it!

  7. June 15, 2017 / 8:33 pm

    Your meals look’s delicious, it sounds like such a great place to visit. Trust Baba to wake up for dessert xx

    • Cecile Blaireau
      Author
      June 16, 2017 / 8:48 pm

      haha of course! x

  8. Lisa
    June 15, 2017 / 9:44 pm

    I love Asian food!! this all looks so yummy!!

  9. Honest Mum
    June 22, 2017 / 11:04 pm

    Wow drooling! You’re mum will love it x

    • Cecile Blaireau
      Author
      June 23, 2017 / 1:55 pm

      I am sure she will 🙂 Thanks for reading x

  10. Ashleigh Allan
    August 13, 2017 / 8:11 am

    We’ve never been but it sounds fab

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