Paul is positioned right outside South Kensington tube station, meaning it caught my eye as I passed through. Conveniently for them, but not so conveniently for my bank balance, I was thirsty, and a bit hungry.
I decided to get a drink, as one usually does when thirsty... and was about to order a fruit frappé when something else caught my eye. Twice in one day was getting a bit too much for things catching my eye but it was a macaron frappé. Intrigued by this combination of a macaroon, ice, cream and milk and with a choice of which macaroon to blitz I chose raspberry.
I watched in awe as the server went to the window, prised one of the large raspberry macaroons out from its other macaroon friends, then put it in a blender with all of the other ingredients. The result was a delightful pink liquid which tasted wonderfully of raspberry (I had initially thought that one macaroon would have just created a vague hint of the fruit) and had lots of macaroon bits floating around in it. Divine. And for good measure, and because they were in sight and I'd never tried one before, I had a canelé as well.
If you don't know what one is, and I didn't either, a canelé is a little eggy custardy pastry flavoured with rum and vanilla. It was delicious, lovely and caramel flavoured on the outside, and with a good bit, but not too much of rum on the inside, vanilla washing through. A lovely treat to end my lunch.
My only criticisms of Paul were price and service as I thought the food itself was fantastic and if I manage to find some money down the back of my drawers or the sofa, I would head back and try something savoury as well to see if the same quality is present in their sandwich range. Everything there is a bit pricey though, and I don't think I saw any of the staff smile once while I was in there, but it's a lovely place, and I spied some seating tucked away upstairs which may require further investigation. 'Til the next time! read more