Cornus, Ecclestone Yards

Tucked away in Eccleston Yards, Cornus is a Michelin-starred restaurant from the team behind Medlar in Chelsea, with Gary Foulkes heading up the kitchen. It opened in 2024 and earned its first Michelin star the following year, making it a relatively new addition to London’s starred dining scene. I visited on a Saturday to try the set lunch as part of my ongoing search for the best value Michelin menus in London.

The Details

Cornus offers a two-course set lunch for £55 or three courses for £65, with two options for each course. Alternatively, you can try all six dishes in a longer six-course lunch tasting menu for £90. For comparison, the full dinner tasting menu is priced at £195 per person, and there is also an à la carte option.

Interiors

Cornus sits at the top of Eccleston Yards, reached by its own lift, and the restaurant is flooded with natural light from floor-to-ceiling windows. The room itself is elegant, with white tablecloths and a bold veined marble bar, but the natural wood and banquette seating stop it from feeling overly formal. The real draw, though, is the terraces. We visited on a particularly hot day and had the choice of the covered terrace at the front of the restaurant, overlooking the rooftops and the yard below, or the slightly more exposed square terrace at the back, with round tables, parasols and string lighting. We opted for the covered terrace on account of the 30°C-plus heat, but the back terrace would be a gorgeous spot for a long lunch on a cooler day.

Drinks

We started with the house Champagne before moving onto an Amalfi lemon and St-Germain spritz, which was perfect in the hot weather. Cornus has a serious wine list, but there are enough interesting options by the glass that you certainly don’t need to commit to a bottle. They also have a lunchtime corkage fee of £20, which is worth knowing if you have something good at home you’ve been looking for an excuse to open, as the table next to us appeared to be doing.

Starters & Snacks

The meal began with a series of wonderful and unexpected amuse-bouches. A Gruyère gougère with a molten cheese centre was crisp on the outside, intensely savoury and essentially liquid cheese in the middle. Next came a pork head croquette with walnut ketchup, a squid ink rice cracker with taramasalata and a cheese and onion tartlet.

The croquette was probably the least interesting of the snacks for me, although still very well made. The squid ink cracker was much more memorable, with the fishy intensity and creaminess of the taramasalata working brilliantly against the crisp cracker. The cheese and onion tartlet was my favourite. The onion flavour was sweet and concentrated, the cheese was properly strong, and the whole thing sat inside a very thin, crisp tartlet shell. It stuck to the roof of my mouth in the best possible way.

Considering none of these counted as one of our ordered courses, and they were completely unexpected, it was an incredible start to the meal.

Matt chose the vegetable tartlet for his starter, which had a base of pea purée and garlic buttermilk, topped with wild garlic oil, pickled raw vegetables and a deep-fried quail egg. The tart case was exceptionally thin and crisp, the peas brought sweetness, the pickled vegetables acidity and crunch, and the buttermilk and quail egg gave the dish enough richness to make it feel properly indulgent. It was everything I want from a summer starter: light, vibrant, creamy and interesting. Somehow it managed to feel both indulgent and vaguely healthy, which is quite a feat.

I chose the seared tuna with tomato, olive and caper concassé, tomato gazpacho and melon sorbet. I am aware I may be in the minority here, but I prefer my tuna with just a touch more cooking on the outside. A harder sear would, for me, have brought much more flavour to the fish itself. The rest of the dish, however, was excellent. Bright, fresh and very summery, with plenty of salinity from the olive and capers against the tomato. The melon sorbet was particularly inspired, bringing sweetness, freshness and a welcome change in temperature.

Mains

For mains, Matt ordered the slow-roasted Cumbrian lamb with Turkish peppers, borlotti beans and sheep’s yoghurt. The quality of the lamb was excellent and it arrived perfectly cooked, but the peppers, cooked in an almost ratatouille-style preparation, were what really stood out. They had an intense sweetness alongside a tangy, peppery flavour that worked beautifully with the lamb. When you managed to get a little of everything together on the fork, it was fantastic, but our only criticism was that it needed more of the sheep’s yoghurt and a little more sauce generally. The yoghurt was delicious, bringing acidity and creaminess to the meat, and Matt found himself rationing it towards the end. More sheep’s yoghurt, please.

I opted for the hand-cut cavatelli with cuttlefish Bolognese, summer tomatoes, Amalfi lemon and Aleppo chilli. The pasta had a lovely firmness to it and the sauce was exceptionally well balanced. I don’t always love tomato-based seafood pasta, particularly when the tomato begins to dominate everything else, but this somehow remained light while still having plenty of depth from the cuttlefish. The cheesy pangrattato over the top added crunch and another savoury layer without overwhelming the seafood. It was absolutely excellent and the unexpected standout dish of the meal. More than anything, it really showed what the kitchen at Cornus was made of.

Dessert

For dessert, I chose the strawberry and bee pollen trifle, which arrived at the table in a large serving dish, as seems to be the trend with scoopable desserts at the moment, before I was served a generous dollop in a retro bowl. It was very tasty, but a touch on the creamy side for me. I would have preferred a slightly stronger fruit flavour to cut through the thick, creamy layers.

Matt took home the top prize with his choice of the 70% Mekonga chocolate custard tart with dulce de leche ice cream. This was nothing short of sublime, and I would return just to have a mouthful of it again. The pastry was thin and crisp (come to think of it, there had been some serious pastry talent on display throughout the entire meal) and the chocolate custard had the perfect smooth, soft texture and an incredible depth of chocolate flavour without becoming unbearably rich. The dulce de leche ice cream was the perfect accompaniment.

Wow.

Service

The service throughout was fantastic. It felt informal, but there wasn’t a single misstep and everything ran smoothly at exactly the right cadence. It wasn’t particularly busy when we visited, so the staff eagerly showed us the various table options and invited us to choose where we wanted to sit.

Value

At £65 for three courses, Cornus is one of the more expensive set menus I’ve tried in this series so far, so let’s break down what you get for that. All four amuse-bouches were included, along with bread and butter, three full courses and petits fours at the end. The only supplementary option was an additional cheese course, which we were quite glad we hadn’t ordered given the generosity of everything else.

That said, £65 is still £65, and once you add drinks and service the bill rises quickly. Ours came to around £220 for two, including a couple of drinks, coffees, water and service charge. So while I wouldn’t call it cheap, I do think the overall experience justified the price, and it certainly wasn’t a bill I was disappointed to receive.

Final Verdict

Cornus is one of the more technically accomplished restaurants I’ve tried during this series. There were only a handful of very minor criticisms within an otherwise exceptional meal. What I loved about Cornus, though, was that it wasn’t just technically good. It was exciting too.

There were classic, safer moments, of course, but the best dishes had enough personality and originality to keep things interesting. The cuttlefish cavatelli in particular was unusual, brilliantly executed and the dish I kept thinking about afterwards.

For the quality of the cooking, the amount of food and the overall experience, Cornus has shot straight to pole position in this series and I implore you to go. Next time, I’m booking a table on the other terrace and settling in for the afternoon. Delightful.