BackLounge Review | The Glasshouse, Bangalore
Glasshouse is more all-day dining than a lunch and dinner kind of place
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The MasterChef revolution is well and truly upon us. At The Glasshouse (cue obligatory stone-throwing joke), the menu is buzzword compliant—it features hydroponic greens, purées, hay, emulsions, air, broths, pomegranate molasses and foam.
The Glasshouse—Deli Bistro Bar on Lavelle Road is in the beautiful setting which was previously Mocha; people who know the property will miss the tree that dominated this space. The restaurant makes wonderful use of light (we loved the backlit wall of wine) and, as its name suggests, the walls are mostly glass. It’s pretty in the evening but I am unsure what it would be like on a summer afternoon. The front has a lovely water feature and an in-progress herb and micro-green wall.
The menu folders are unwieldy—heavy metal covers clank against tables and crockery.
The cocktails, priced from ₹ 450-950, have ambitious names that don’t deliver on taste. Their presentation can be unnecessarily fussy too. For example, The Great Star of Africa, the modest whisky-based cocktail we ordered, was served with a side of smoking cinnamon under a glass bell jar.
At this point, our server placed a fishbowl with a fish named Shakira to be our dining companion, I assume. It seemed a little too theatrical and unnecessary when there were two of us at the table.
They forgot the bread basket and when reminded, brought an unremarkable selection of cold breads, served with virgin, not extra virgin, olive oil and a dukkah spice powder which tasted like a cross between raw garam masala and Pan Parag.
The menu is heavy on salads, has a page of burgers, sandwiches and pizzas and only one page of mains and a few grills. It lists San Daniele prosciutto, Napoli salami and San Marzano tomatoes, but nothing we ordered had these ingredients. Overall, Glasshouse is more all-day dining than a lunch and dinner kind of place.
My companion had a vegetarian Consommé Royale, a tofu panna cotta and porcini-scented mushroom broth, that she enjoyed, while I had a Cobb salad with chicken. The plating of the salad was more diner than fine dining—a mound of underdressed lettuce, two mounds of sharp Cheddar and two mounds of cold tasteless chicken. In hindsight, I am not sure it had any avocado either. The potato hay turned out to be not very well executed Salli Potato.
For the main course, I had a steak and my dining companion had Caramelized Goat Cheese with garlic and a tomato relish; she found the taste of garlic entirely missing. I ordered my steak medium rare but it was closer to medium and served with some kind of chunky mash. It came with caramelized shallots that had a nice sweetness and stickiness but the homemade steak sauce seemed to resemble Bisto gravy. A few overcooked asparagus stalks were the only other garnish.
Dessert was the high point. We ordered a French Lemon Meringue Dome that checked all the boxes—the sorbet was light, had an intense citrus tang, was not too sweet and had a few textural elements of a pastry shell, a lemon topping and a basil reduction, of which more would have been appreciated. The other dessert, Chocolate Espresso Mousse Balls, was a rich and intense chocolate brownie base that was too dense and topped by balls of a chocolate espresso mousse.
Talk plastic
It isn’t cheap with starters in the ₹ 300-500 range and mains in the ₹ 450-2,100 range. Dinner for two with a drink per person comes at ₹ 5,000.
The Glasshouse, 25/2, Lavelle Road, Bangalore. For reservations., call 080-65418888/9880322266.
Our Bangalore-based gourmand prefers to review anonymously.
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