The Den restaurant review

For starters we had the homemade hummus served with tortillas. Priced at 7 euros we certainly weren’t expecting the absolutely mountainous portion which we received. It was certainly a sharer! The hummus was smooth and flavourful with a slight kick of spice and fresh flavours of lemon. The lightly fried tortillas which it was served with were light and crunchy. This starter was light and zesty and flavour and huge in portion!

For mains we had the seafood platter and the meat platter. The seafood platter is priced at 30 euros and is made up of smoked salmon with a homemade caper mayonnaise, sesame seared tuna served with wasabi, prawn gambas al pil-pil, squid calamari with aioli and a homemade mackerel paté. The smoked salmon and caper mayonnaise were served with lemon and on a bed of fresh dressed salad.

The mackerel pate was fragrant and powerful and perfectly smooth and luxuriously buttery. The seared seseame tuna on a bed of sautéed sea weed was a wonderful balance of salty and fishy and was brought alive by some seriously powerful wasabi. The tuna was cooked to perfection and melted in the mouth against the crispiness of the salty seaweed, this was a stand out ingredient. The winning element of the platter though was most definitely the gambas pil-pil. The huge prawns were cooked perfectly and were marinated in a buttery and spicy sauce with flavours of paprika and garlic.

Next, we had the meat platter. For 27 euros you can get tempura chicken, sirloin steak with a duo of sauces, smoked duck breast and reblochon croquettes. The tempura batter on the chicken was crunchy and golden and the chicken inside was moist and well seasoned. The chicken comes with a sticky sweet chilli sauce. The sirloin steak was flash cooked on the inside and rare on the inside, sliced finely and served with a selection of sauces, a punchy and sharp chimichurri dressing and a pungent Roquefort sauce. I found the Roquefort sauce preferable as I enjoyed the bold flavours of the blue cheese as a classic pairing with steak and reminiscent of delicious English gastro pub cooking.

The deep fried Reblochon croquettes were a great little element to the platter and the gooey, oozy nuggets went especially well with the steak. The smoked duck breast was bursting was flavour and was the star element of this platter. The duck was served on a little bed of rocket with an Asian style sweet cherry and soy sauce which had the perfect balance of spicy, sweet and salty. The Den also offers a great vegetarian platter and main course dishes like steak, burgers and Peking duck pancakes.

With our meal we drank a medium range wine, the Gran Fabrica Gran Reserva, Cabernet Sauvignon. It is a medium bodied wine which easily accompanied most of the elements of our meal.

For dessert we had the Kahlua cheesecake which we’d been recommended multiple times before our visit. This dessert was truly scrumptious! The base was buttery and the creamy filling was flavourful and not overly sweet with strong overtones of Kahlua. It was served with a homemade caramel sauce which helped to add a bit of sweetness should you need it.

As we finished our meal, live music by the talented Rob Cross began and we polished off our wine to some sweet serenading!

Next time you’re in Meribel head down to The Den, how about on one of their pub quiz nights or even one of their famous “Blues nights” and enjoy a wonderful and varied sharing platter alongside some brilliant craft ales.