A recommendation from my partner’s work, Rosemary Lane serves what is best described as French fusion food, and very good it is too. Although only 5 minutes from Tower Gateway DLR, it resides in one of the few ungentrified parts of the area, although this doesn’t affect the excellent food they serve up.

First off, the restaurant was pretty empty, although as it was a Friday night in the City before 6.30pm, this was hardly surprising. I imagine weekday lunchtimes and evenings are a lot busier.

The waitress and maitre’d were very helpful with the questions we asked about the dishes and wines on the menus, and we weren’t made to feel like philistines just because we didn’t understand some of the French culinary terms. The wine was personally recommended by the Maitre’D and was very agreable. It was a white wine called Gruner Veltliner (a grape/wine I had never heard of before) from the Hopler vineyard in Austria. Crisp and ever so slightly sparkling.

Once we’d ordered our starters and mains, we were brought a complimentary cup of mushroom and chestnut soup, served with a dollop of creme fraiche, as a appetiser. Lots of taste and a velvety texture, it went down very well indeed.

The seafood bisque was a very generous portion (main course size in some other restaurants) and contained 4 scallops (!), along with crayfish tails, red snapper and prawns and had lots of flavour. My seared foie gras with roast Colombian mango ona bed of spinach was very good, but not as impressive as the bisque.

A raspberry sorbet was brought to refresh our palate, before the mains of Roast Vegetable Napoleon and King Diver scallops arrived (see pics above). The Napoleon consisted of layers of pastry, filled with red cabbage on a bed of winter veg and was superb; my favourite dish of the night. The scallops were served with lime oil and a ginger and mango puree, which tasted great, although I think I would have preferred a little more sharpness to the sauce.

To finish, we had Pecan muffin (it wasn’t called that, but I don’t remember the exact term) with a cinnamon creme chantilly and a selection of Neal’s yard cheeses with a glass of Sauterne dessert wine. Despite the fact we’d already eaten two generously portioned courses, the glutton within us won and we managed to finish off the desserts. The pecan dish was good and the cheeses were also good, although I think the cheese portions were a little too generous (about half a pound, at least) considering how much we’d already eaten. The cheeses were Ragstone Goat’s cheese, Coolea (a Northen Irish hard cheese, similar to Gouda) and Cotherstone, a moist, crumbly cheese.

Considering the quantity and quality of food we received, although the bill was high (£106 inc service), we still both thought the meal was value for money. The Napoleon vegetable dish was one of the best vegetarian dishes I have ever had, with all the other dishes a consistently high standard. Definitely worth a visit.