The main dining room at Voyage
What can you tell us about Voyage?
This is the new restaurant that's launched at The Megaro hotel in King's Cross (taking over from Magenta). Alongside a redesign of the room, they've brought in high-end chef Adam Simmonds (most recently launching Home Kitchen in Primrose Hill) to open Voyage. It's a significant departure from the previous Italian restaurant, this time moving into a more high(ish)-end Scandinavian approach.
Where is it?
You'll find the restaurant at the front of The Megaro with its own entrance just across the road from King's Cross station (if you exit the station on the south side of Euston Road, you'll be directly outside it). Look for the very brightly coloured building (that's The Megaro) and it's at the foot of that.
Where should we go for a drink first?
There are two obvious choices right now. Outside of the hotel/restaurant and just across the road, you'll find The Gothic Bar that's part of The Midland Grand which is well worth a look (and it's about to get a new menu at the time of writing). Inside The Megaro hotel itself, their own basement bar Hokus Pokus remains a strong recommendation. It's a cocktail bar with a particular focus on botanicals in an extremely striking space. If you're visiting Voyage in the evening (we were there for lunch), working in a visit to this bar is a definite consideration.
Adam Simmonds serving up his "celeriac" dish. That mixes salt-baked, roasted and fermented celeriac with shiitake, walnut, truffle and he's finishing it with a celeriac broth. It's a great showcase of how as much thought is put into the vegetarian dishes.
Where should we sit?
The restaurant has had a light redesign on the whole. If you look at our previous Test Drive of Magenta, you'll see it's primarily been about opening up the space and making the decor a bit lighter throughout. The overall structure of the room was already quite striking and those huge windows mean that it's a wonderful light-filled space during the day.
Probably the biggest change has been to what was previously a central bar area. That's been transformed into the open kitchen (adding a lot of high-tech machinery both inside the counter and around it). Much of the food will be prepared there, so if you love watching all of that, the counter is the place for you (it's where we sat).
And what's on the menu?
The food here (and the decor to some extent) has been described as "Scandinavian-inspired minimalism", a description that fits the bill pretty well. The menu follows that approach with each dish listed by the prominent ingredient ("lobster", "langoustine" and the like). There's a lightness to the dishes but, particularly if you're sat at the counter watching them being prepared, there's clearly a great deal of work put into each creation.
There is a three-course set menu but if you want to do it properly, the recommendation is to go for the full tasting affair (also available as a vegetarian version). That's made of nine courses but don't let that put you off. Because of the Scandinavian-influenced approach, there's nothing too heavy throughout the notably well-paced meal. You'll leave full but not overly so, which is the best aim for a decent tasting menu, we'd say.
Here's just a taster from that 9-course "voyage".
"Oyster" with compressed, Granny Smith apple, raw white asparagus, sorrel oil, tapioca pearls and wood sorrel leaves. Even at this early stage of the meal, it's clear that a LOT of work is going into the menu.
"Langoustine" - This featuress two gloriously fresh langoustines, one confit and one that's lightly roasted in guanciale, with turnip, mushroom powder, juniper oil, golden saxifrage and a tomato and langoustine sauce. That sauce is poured last so even if you're not at the counter, there's a bit of tableside action.
"Sweetbread" - as regular readers will know, we do love a sweetbread dish and this is a great example. It's veal sweetbread, with salt-baked and raw kohlrabi, onion purée, pied de mouton mushrooms, a chicken and yellow mustard seed sauce and nasturtium.
"Venison" - Essentually the "main" of the tasting menu, featuring a beautifully cooked piece of aged venison, with salt-baked and raw beetroot, blackberries and spinach, parsley, and juniper purée.
The whole meal finishes off with petit-fours including some excellent bite-sized brown-butter madeleines that are baked just before serving.
What about drink?
As with any relatively extensive tasting menu, you're probably best going for the drinks pairing and there are some unique ways of doing that here. We went (mostly) for the wine pairing and we'd certainly recommend that with a standard pairing at £85 or a more fine-wine "Voyage" pairing at £120.
However, there's also a mixed pairing which adds some non-alcoholic options to the mix or a full non-alcohol pairing (both at £70). Simmonds himself doesn't drink alcohol so there's a particular attention paid to this section. In this list, you'll find many different non-alcoholic options - there's even a no-alcohol martini (they worked with Hokus Pokus bar to create some of these concoctions). Trying a few of these was a revelation and the strawberry wine with dessert was particularly fantastic (not as sweet as you'd imagine it might be). So if you're steering away from the booze but still want something interesting to drink, this is a great option.
Overall thoughts
It's been a while since we've done a relatively long tasting menu and sometimes they come with a little bit of trepidation. Here, however, Simmonds and the team deliver a very well put-together menu that doesn't overwhelm and instead reveals some real skill in the kitchen. There's nothing else quite like it in King's Cross right now and the inventive menu paired with the light-filled room (during the day at least) on top of some interesting drinks choices make this worth seeking out.
More about Voyage with Adam Simmonds
Where is it? 1 Belgrove Street, King’s Cross, London WC1H 8AB
How to book: Book online or call 020 3146 0222
Find out more: Visit their website or follow them on Instagram @voyage_with_adam_simmonds.
Hot Dinners ate as guests of Voyage. Prices are correct at the time of writing.
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