Madsen – Lunch, Dinner, Weekend Brunch – Kensington: Website

– reservations available –

Madsen is a Scandinavian restaurant that offers traditional and contemporary dishes.

They use fresh ingredients so that every mouthful is full of goodness and flavour.

“The emphasis at Madsen is on freshness, simplicity, purity and taste.”

I headed there on a Saturday evening with 3 friends.

We had made reservations but actually ended up wanting to move them forward an hour due to our schedule, and luckily the lovely people at Madsen were able to accommodate us. The setting was clean, stylish and modern – we were all impressed. I always order a starter and main, or a main and dessert, purely because I can’t eat anymore, so it’s always an internal struggle to choose between the two options. Madsen made this even more difficult for me as all of the dishes sounded delicious. Still, I was able to finally decided and ordered a Pear Rekorderlig as I waited for my veggie risotto dish to arrive, whilst the others ordered meat dishes; rump steak, pork belly and Danish meatballs. As our meals arrived we commented on how they had been presented so nicely – I like my food to look as good as it tastes, and taste as good as it looks….which thankfully these did. My risotto was perfectly creamy, and the Swedish cheese gave it a wonderfully strong flavour. The dishes may not look filling but they certainly were and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to tempt myself with a dessert, but the Swedish Waffle was calling to me and so I gave in. Thankfully it was very light, and tasted better than any other waffle I’ve had before. I think I may have also dreamt about it that night.

Madsen is a wonderful restaurant with delightful staff who went out of their way to help us. I’m not sure I would go back for dinner again though, purely because I feel that I’ve experienced the dinner menu, thanks to the 4 of us ordering 2/3 of the mains and desserts. However I am intrigued by their lunch menu and I would certainly pop in if I was in the area.