Sometimes you have to bite the bullet and visit somewhere that has been recommended to you, written about to death and generally lived in the culinary fabric of the city for donkey's years. Aubergine of Chelsea is one such place. Or it was. Perhaps the one new thing I can give you with this review is that it no longer exists. Some weeks ago, the other half and I were walking past it but I had to check twice that it was indeed Aubergine. The place had been gutted and was in the process of being re-modelled. An equation sprung to mind: no more Michelin stars = desperate restaurateurs.
Aubergine was unfortunately one of a few London restaurants to lose a star at the beginning of this year. No-starred restaurants in Chelsea are not quite what the doctor ordered, so clearly a shake-up and a strip-down were quickly requested. The end product is the recently re-opened and re-named 11 Park Walk; a rather uninspiring name at best. This sort of thing can work if you're running an upmarket gastropub or bistro in the centre of town, but not in a leafy side street off the Kings Road. Looking at pictures of the new place, it seems they've pawned off the old charm of Aubergine in favour of a more sleek and modern veneer of uplights, stone walls and yellow haze. It's clinical and very dull.
Mind you, I'm only basing that on photography. I haven't eaten there or seen the finished product from the inside. Still, I am sufficiently haughty and experienced enough to make half-judgements, so I shall. It just looks wrong. It's suddenly a restaurant that has been cut adrift in search of a new mooring in London's harbour of foodie ships. If you'll indulge me a final maritime metaphor, the one saving grace is that this new venture is merely a tug towing the good ship A-Z Restaurants. The parent company of 11 Park Walk also owns a host of restaurants throughout the capital. Mainly Italian affairs and quite good too, they are in a similar vein to the D&D group, but with just the one Michelin star to their name now, with Zafferano of Belgravia leading their bill.
When we ate at Aubergine (may it rest in peace), the four of us were fortunate enough to have half off our final bill. The American equivalent of Toptable, Opentable (which recently acquired the all-conquering Toptable from the UK), happened to mention in an e-mail to me that Aubergine were taking 50% off their dinner menu in the week, so we went for it. One final side note before the meal: Opentable is not a particularly impressive website. Lacking all the user-friendly savvy of Toptable, it was more by luck than design that I came across this one. Still, thanks duly go to them for the deal.
We had a wonderful time at Aubergine for three reasons: 1) we did get a very reasonable dinner thanks to the offer; 2) the food is – despite the loss of the Michelin Star – generally very good; and 3) service was attentive, unobtrusive and polite throughout the evening. The place itself, despite not quite needing the cuisine and furniture change it has since undergone, was a little tired. Lots of pale pink everywhere, combined with some rather school-days skylights made for a slightly bizarre surround; as if you were eating in a stunningly-furnished conservatory. So backtracking slightly, I can see why A-Z decided to change things in that sense.
Yet it is this clinging to the old days that really struck a chord with me about Aubergine. Sure, the décor was a bit passé, but that's almost what you want in a former grand-dame of Chelsea's restaurant family. It was reminiscent of the heady days of the past two decades, a subdued lushness that doesn't really sit right, but hey – we're in Chelsea so we'd better sit up straight and enjoy it kind of a feel. There is a lot of pronounced restaurant history within these walls. In 1993, this is where Gordon Ramsay really caught his break. The restaurant was re-opened with him in his first head chef role, under the patronage of Marco Pierre White, where he went on to win his first two Michelin Stars by 1997. The weight of history rests heavy: I recently had a chat with a restauranteur, chef and culinary veteran who was telling me he still remembered every detail of a meal he ate at Aubergine many years ago.
They were still hitting some silky highs when we ate there. The pre-course canapés were a slick combination of spiced carrot purée and tomato with cheese and onion on little crackers. Pre-starters like these can often be irrelevances to the meal, but these just about did the job. Tasty morsels that were beautifully presented (left). Before we got stuck in, the staff showed they were on the ball by offering to turn down the air conditioning as they could see that two of our number were a little chilly. In a near-empty restaurant, this should be a given, but these touches always help.Starters bucked a recent trend in that they weren't quite as good as the rest of the meal. Too many times in recent months I've been wowed by the starter then left a little cold by the following courses. In an ideal world you want all three to be great, but rarely do we get this. Not to say Aubergine's starters were bad though. Some scallops with tomato (or sauce vierge) were fresh enough and whilst unspectacular they did go down well.
Mike and I went for some meatier options. The duck salad Mike ordered was summery in the extreme, littered with fresh vegetables and adorned with tomato. A showy starter for sure but nicely varied, with nearly raw smoked duck combining well with the soft and crispy vegetables. My criticism would be that it was a little muddled, and distinctive flavours were tricky to pick out at times. Duck this good deserves impeccable support.
I opted for something I felt would be right on the mark at Aubergine: marbled foie gras terrine with cherries and brioche (right). The stuff was predictably glorious; as I suspected, whatever has robbed the place of their Michelin star, it ain't the paté. Sharp and sour cherries were a great accompaniment to the rough brioche and smooth terrine. Lovely.Main courses were a better-rounded affair across the board other than the lamb with olives. This is something I've tried a couple of times and perhaps it's just my aversion to olives in general, but I'm of the opinion that the two do not mix. In the event, the stuffed saddle of lamb was a bit of a mess. Haphazardly layered with a couple of display wafers stuck in the top to make it look as if the dish was wearing bunny ears, I wasn't a fan. A shame indeed, because the lamb was deliciously well-cooked.
If lamb, a classic favourite of mine, let us down, something which surprised in no small measure was a divine fillet of seabass, served with tomato concassé (essentially rough-diced and fried tomatoes) and parmesan shortbread (left). Allowing for such absurdly-named fare as parmesan shortbread, the dish was a real winner. Cooked to a fall-apart T, the fish had been combined with its accompaniments to expert standards. I was definitely surprised, but there is so much to be said for great combinations. (Even if they do describe anything as pretentiously as parmesan shortbread.)
Mike and I decided to share something we were certain would bring home the bacon for our main course: a cote de boeuf with bearnaise sauce and vegetables (right). Indeed, the piece of beef was top-notch. Cooked rare, drizzled with a dark jus and all the correct trimmings (though this sort of thing usually comes with chips, I was more than happy with our roasted vegetable sides), we were seriously satisfied. You can't write an awful lot more about something which you expected to be good and it was. Consider it a generous hat-tip for Aubergine to deliver us a classic.
Desserts in a decent French restaurant are always worth the few weeks off the end of your life, so we indulged in more or less the most stereotypical way we could: with a creme brulée, a soufflé and a tarte tatin. All three were lovely. The creme brulée was well-received by the other half, who is nothing short of a creme brulée connoisseur these days (left). One small criticism was that they'd over-sugared the top.
Mike's cherry soufflé was a real winner (right). Served with a scoop of ice cream, the fruit flavours were perfectly complimented by the sweet chill. Perhaps not quite up to Le Gavroche standards a few weeks prior, but we'd never expect that. However, yet another French standard expertly presented.
Finally, my apple tart was quite as it should have been: buttery, crisp and chock full of body-creaking goodness (left). I do love me a good tarte tatin and this was. Dollop of ice cream on the top and the job was most impressively done.Desserts were a fairly accurate representation of the meal: French standards, delivered at a competitively high level. There were two things that struck me about the experience overall: first, that I might have been slightly miffed paying full price, which is never a good sign. Second, that it may well be the simple Gallic cuisine which characterised Aubergine's class for so long is no longer what deserves Michelin stars.
Writing about Aubergine seems not much more than glossy nostalgia at this point, particularly given how much I have written. I'll stand by it though. I was happy to have tried Aubergine whilst it still existed (though there is something of a distant relative in Buckinghamshire) because it is somewhere that stood for quite some time as a constant in London's culinary milieu. Whether 11 Park Walk turns out to be a master stroke or a failure, I'll always think Aubergine went too soon.
11 Park Walk (formerly Aubergine)
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