pont st. with zomato

Last week, the lovely team at Zomato invited 20 bloggers to another of their foodie-central events, this time at the restaurant Pont St in Belgravia. When the exciting email I received mentioned a cooking demonstration by the head chef Sophie Michell (she is the youngest female Executive Chef in the UK and started building her career at the age of 15!), amongst great food, drinks and company, I was all in.

We started off with cocktails in the swanky bar of the Belgraves Hotel where the restaurant is situated - I went for the Lavender Mogul which was sweet but fresh and extremely drinkable. It was a good chance to catch up with a few familiar faces from the previous event I attended by Zomato, as well as meet some new ones. It's always nice to finally talk to the people behind the blogs I read regularly!

After a good bit of chitchatting, we were lead down to the maze-like kitchen downstairs where all the real work happens. Armed with our cameras and smartphones, we gathered around as the chef herself gave us a demo of how she makes fresh butternut squash ravioli, and a brave few tried their hand at it as well! (pictured below: Angie from Silverspoon London, Lucy from Diamondintheashes, Zoe from Love and Limoncello

That definitely whet our appetites for the dinner to follow! As we took our seats upstairs in the restaurant, we found these adorable and very useful packets with all the twitter handles of everyone at the dinner, the full menu, and wine and cocktail details. All made with love by the amazing Alexandra at Zomato!

It's safe to say that we were all impressed by the sheer variety and selection of the starters that were offered. We had sharing plates of pork belly, crudités, carpaccio, sliders, oysters, superfood salads - you name it, we had it. You can see more details of the food in the picture of the menu above.

We all chose a main course ahead of the event, and luckily at my end of the table we all took different ones - meaning we could all take turns photographing each other's dishes. I have to admit, it feels good to be amongst others who patiently take photos of their food before digging in!

Pictured below are Angie's tuna steak, Zoe's lemon sole, Aftab's (from Fresh and Fearless) chicken, and my dish, lobster pasta with bone marrow (not very photogenic unfortunately).

I thoroughly enjoyed my pick - they were generous with the lobster, and the pasta was very al dente which I definitely like.

We had been given so much food for the starter, that we were pretty stuffed by this point. However, we could't exactly leave without any dessert - of which, again, there was plenty.

Along with individual plates of madeleines with lemon curd, there were also platters of flourless chocolate cake, and salted caramel donuts with mini vanilla milkshakes. I am seriously regretting not trying the donuts as they looked so good, but I was up to my ears with food I could't manage!

I definitely stayed longer than I intended after the food was done and dusted, enjoying our wines and chatting away - it really is amazing how a love for food brings people together, and makes for such a great evening with people I would't have met had it not been for this little blog!

I've listed below just some of the blogs by the fellow foodies I got a chance to talk to at the event, and hopefully those that I missed I'll have a chance to see them again soon!

Thank you so much to Zomato for spoiling us rotten, and to Sophie Michell for a lovely evening and all that deliciousness. If you ever need any restaurant ideas or trustworthy reviews, head over to their site or download their app - I genuinely use it and love it.

Fellow Zomato-ers and bloggers:

Zoe :: Love and Limoncello

Angie :: Silverspoon London

Lucy :: Diamondintheashes

Aftab :: Fresh and Fearless

Ella :: The Little Brown Book

Serena :: Into the F World

Anglea :: The Awkward Blog

Le Binh :: The Food Connoisseur

Ali :: London Is My Playground

Alexandra :: Where2dowhat 

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