There's nothing quite like justifying spending money you shouldn't really be spending. The excuses we use to justify the outgoings can get so ridiculous: "I didn't have three courses last week so I can have dessert now", "The saving means the cost is worth it", "This week is the anniversary of when we first went to the cinema together". Whatever spin we try to put on it, the ends are rarely justified and we end up spending money we shouldn't have for no good reason at all.
In a classic episode of unaffordable spending, the wife and I chalked this one up to a half-price deal and a friend leaving the country. Putting two together like that was just about enough reason to go for it, so we went back to a restaurant that had surprised us some years ago.
A table for five was booked and we perused a fairly extensive menu, happy in the knowledge that we'd get half off at the end of it all. Three of the table started with scallops served with crispy pancetta and regretted it pretty quickly. It was a badly executed dish in all sorts of ways, the worst being that the whole lot was dry. The scallops didn't taste at all fresh and none of the ingredients combined with any sort of coherence.
The wife went for a duck egg served with cured ham and a sauce of celeriac & apple. It was a well thought-out dish but one that wasn't presented with panache. It was the sort of springy starter you'd love to eat as the weather warms but in this case it was a fairly iffy plate of food that occasionally hit the spot.
My starter was a smoked haddock and chervil soufflé with chive & saffron cream. It was by far the best starter on the table and one that instantly caused much jealousy amongst the others. A fine, light but punchy soufflé combined the salty haddock with the more delicate hint of the herbs. The cream sat thickly coating the coarser flavours from the fish which made for a beautiful starter.
Steak & chips was a classic from our first visit and two of the party went for it here. Again it proved to be a relative success: triple-cooked chips which were rather fine with some properly-cooked steak. Not the kind of dish you'd want to pay the normal asking price of £37 for by any means, but for £18.50 it was about right. We decorated the table with various sides also, the pick of which were some simple field mushrooms.
The fish dish sampled with the main courses was some pan-fried halibut. It was a plate of food which confused on first inspection because it was unfortunately overfull and a bit sloppy. A good piece of fish should need little in the way of support if it has been cooked to a succulent turn but this came with a terrine of cod & potato, carrots, cabbage and spinach foam. All of which added up to an unsurprisingly addled, dry and overcooked main event. The terrine was the highlight but that's not good enough when the central part of the dish is under-delivering.
Continuing the theme of under-deliverance, the wife chose our main course as the pot-roast black-leg chicken for two. It might sound a slightly strange choice but when I read that it came studded with truffle, I could see where her mind had been unshakeably made up. It wasn't a bad choice, reading the accompaniments: roasted root vegetables, bread pudding, truffle jus and dauphinoise potatoes. One thing was for sure: we weren't going to be hungry at the end of it.
Sadly, the whole thing was a botched effort in that it was more or less a standard roast bird which they'd tried to dress up. There was no taste of truffle anywhere in the chicken or the gravy. A huge disappointment for sure. Sadly, the dauphinoise potatoes were as bad, given that they were practically uncooked. A real shame since the sauce was lovely. The whole thing was a stodgy, misjudged, poorly-developed dish.
The wife and I risked desserts in the hope that we'd salvage a halfway decent meal out of this. It was, predictably, a mistake and we were left ruing our decision. The white chocolate cheesecake the wife ordered was a predictably haphazard rendition of a startlingly standard pudding, where my "lemon plate", a mixture of tart, panna cotta and sorbet was a dull trot-out of yet more uninteresting dishes.
So clearly Athenaeum has let its standards slip since our first visit. Or perhaps it was never that good in the first place. Either way, we did not enjoy ourselves as much the second time around. The fact that they seem to have a never-ending 50% off deal on Toptable is testament to the fact that this place is just spinning its wheels. There are some good things about this place, but as far as generic hotel eating goes, it's more or less what you expect for a place that's merely knocking on the door of exclusivity and prestige.
Athenaeum
Monday, 30 April 2012
Sunday, 29 April 2012
Bistrot Bruno Loubet & Spuntino: Clerkenwell & Soho, Saturday February 11th, 2012
MasterChef remains just about my favourite show when it's on. (Narrowly ahead of The Apprentice if you're interested.) Aside from the forced drama, the boisterous shouting and the increasingly over-wrought personal stories, the evolution of the contestants and the cooking skill on show remain wonderful entertainment. The most recent series was great fun, containing a bit of everything: great cooking, terrible dishes, excellent professional guests, worthy finalists and a deserved winner. What more could one want?
One of my favourite features was a day out learning to cook popular European cuisine at a prominent restaurant: French, Italian or Spanish. All three looked massively appealing and this was one of the more attractive challenges in the series: learning how to cook great quality European food at the hands of a top chef is something anyone with a fleeting interest in food would envy.
The French element of the show was where I was most intrigued. (Give over John Torode: "I admire French food but I think it's very rich...") The restaurant was Bistrot Bruno Loubet and the chef was the man himself. He showed the contestants how to make his boeuf bourguignon which interested me greatly. What I find fascinating about watching chefs describe their dishes is the amount of control and calmness with which the best ones do it. Bruno was replete with a well-worn assuredness as he showcased his skills and style.
Bistrot has been just about the most evenly-enjoyed new restaurant in London since it opened a couple of years ago. At first I was somewhat bemused: 'who is this Loubet?' I asked myself. I was most out of touch with the culinary pulse of the city because this guy has serious London pedigree. Having worked with Pierre Koffman and been head chef of Raymond Blanc's Manoir Au Quat Saisons, he has had just about the best experience of working under the great UK-based French chefs as anyone.
Bistrot was the first time he'd put his name on a London restaurant in a long time. It was the first time he'd struck out on his own in the UK for almost ten years. The decision to return and try again after an abrupt departure to Australia was a big one, so the fact that the place was adored by all was most probably a big relief. In the week that we watched Bruno prepare some stewed beef for three contestants on MasterChef, we spent Saturday lunch there. And guess what I was after?
The restaurant itself is part of the uber-trendy Zetter Townhouse, a hotel which oozes modern chic like nowhere else I can think of in London. It's close to the east end but not so deep in to be kitsch, it's easy to get to but not by tube, it's light and airy but sniffily exclusive in terms of price. Perfect, essentially.
The restaurant doesn't really have the same scruffy rich elegance as the building does. It's not particularly cool-looking or well designed. It suffers from the god-awful cliché of filling empty spaces with random objects and ugly furniture. The bar is long, curved and a scene-dominating eyesore. The kitchen is exposed but only through a big window, so it looks like the pass has been made too big by accident rather than design. It's a pretty horribly thought-out space.
All that said: to food. We were hungry, chilled to the bone and eager to have a great meal to match all the good press I'd seen about the place. Our starters set the tone in the best way: beetroot ravioli and snails. What is great about Bistrot is its embracing of French food as nourishing and fulfilling plates. They don't mess about here and the starters were a perfect fit. The ravioli was a stunning mixture of firm pasta, delicate filling and bullish rocket salad (left). It was a great combination of ingredients that would trick you into feeling healthy, but the small touches such as fried breadcrumbs and parmesan put paid to any chance of that.
The wife's snail dish was something of a masterpiece (right). The combination of snails and meatballs was a strange-sounding one but when they were put together on the plate, served with a sumptuous mousse of mushrooms in the middle, it made perfect sense. The whole thing was tied together with a tomato sauce which on the surface looked like too many big flavours to work on the same plate, but the balance in the dish was exquisite.
When I'd looked at the main courses, I was disappointed to see no bourguignon. Happily, this was a special they were offering. It made sense, since I'm sure many others like me had arrived looking for 'that MasterChef dish' in the same week. It was served at the table in a metal oven dish on the side of a plate of mashed potato (left).
The result was as good as I had hoped for. A perfectly succulent daube of beef, meltingly soft and rich as you like, was surrounded with a luxurious braising stock. Mushrooms, carrots, lardons, onions; all the little ingredients that make French food special when they're done perfectly. This was indeed just about perfect. The sauce was so exquisite I had to tip the remaining drips from the dish.
The wife's main course was another exercise in simply executed, well thought-out combinations. Grilled quail with lemon, thyme, rocket and mushrooms is a delightful mix of flavours, which means the kitchen is duty-bound to deliver them properly (right). This was another winning plate of food in that each mouthful was perfectly balanced. The salty game bird was complimented by the peppery rocket and the soft, sweeter mushrooms which made for another brilliantly unpretentious and lovably humble dish.
We went for another special when it came to dessert. What was pitched to the wife as some sweet French toast turned out to be a pain perdu with sliced pear and ice cream (left).The bread had been cut in the shape of a pear and the whole thing tasted as imaginative as it looked. The wife adored it and was seriously impressed that anything with a hint of cinnamon could be so good. It's a spice she usually cannot stand but this was testament to the inch-perfect balance of sweet and not-so-sweet on the plate. The toast was slightly crisp which sat beautifully with the soft pear and chill of the ice cream.
I chose the bitter chocolate délice, which essentially means 'delight', the same sort of way that parfait means 'perfect'. When choosing a pudding like this, all you need is the confidence that the restaurant will execute it properly. I was pretty high on confidence at this point, so the délice was most certainly a winning prospect. It turned out to be excellent too: like a thick mousse topped with a rich and strong sheet of chocolate (right). The final touch was a splurge of coffee sabayon. The rich dessert cream was a softer compliment to the chocolate which made for a bitter-sweet dessert that I greatly enjoyed.
Bistrot Bruno Loubet was a lovely lunch out and it has a perfect menu for a special occasion. It is in no way pretentious or showy but it delivers in such a satisfying, fulfilling French way that it's hard not to be drawn to it. We did spend around £80 but that included two specials and there's no obligation to order three a la carte courses at lunch as we did.
We wandered around the east-central areas of London, taking in the beautifully eerie sights of a deserted Smithfield Market and the hulking Barbican. The weather was searingly cold so we decided to go somewhere warm to complete our day. That turned out to be Spuntino, the trendiest jewel in Russell Norman's crown.
I had read a few promising things about this place so I thought I would surprise the wife by taking her there as part of a day of food visits. (It was more or less my Valentines Day gift to her a little early.) It is basically the next step in Norman's bid to informalise Soho eating to the point of ridiculous hipster-minimalism. Taking things one step further from the Italian places he owns (both Polpo and da Polpo have my stamp of approval), Spuntino is essentially the kind of place Norman would have wanted to own if he was living in 19th century Brooklyn.
It is a bar which serves food, going for light bites and snacks whilst customers sit at the counter, struggling to see anything in a carefully crafted boozy haze. It's a remarkable place in that it does make you feel like you're in some sleazy side street bar in New York, albeit with the colours of Soho passing by the window. The surly charm of the place won me over pretty quickly since they were playing The White Stripes' cover of St James' Infirmary Blues as we arrived.
After a few minutes' wait, we shuffled along the back wall to two bar-side stools, in front of which were empty enamel plates and menus. As with the other places in the Norman canon, it is a simply-put list of fun foods, laid out in an easy to read way with maximum potential to over-order. It's a very clever formula, littering the menu with morsels that look so inviting and easy that punters will be spending £30 a head before they know it.
We went for a small selection of dishes, still feeling rather full from lunch. The first was something I'd read about and was champing at the bit to taste: truffled egg toast (left). This had been whispered about in all corners of London as something worth trying and it looked like a real picture when it was presented to us. Deep yellow yolk speckled with truffle on top of melted cheese, sunken into a well in the centre of a thick slice of white bread toast. Heaven on a plate, surely? Sadly not quite. The cheese was too thick, the toast slightly burnt and the truffle too fleeting.
The menu also featured one of those oh-so-American titbits one sees on trendy menus and Hell's Kitchen re-vamps: sliders. The little burger snacks that - if done well - can make you wish all burgers were such tasty morsels, but when done badly can make you wish for finger sandwiches. We picked the beef & bone marrow mini-burger and were unfortunately regretting it after a bite (right). The texture was too stodgy and it was impossible to pick out the bone marrow from the too-thick bun.
Our last choice was a bowl of macaroni cheese which cost £9 (left). It was a little pricey but was also the best thing we ate at Spuntino. The small pan was brimful of beautifully gratinated pasta swirls with an outrageously rich sauce. It was too much for us at this stage of the day after our big lunch but it was damned tasty. I'm not entirely sure it was worth £9 but it was a cosy dish of pasta which encapsulated Spuntino's appeal quite well.
I don't know if I'd go back to Spuntino any time soon. It's certainly a very cool place but the prices are at a point where you need to know exactly what you're ordering to make it a worthwhile outing. Playing roulette with the menu here might end up costing you way more than you intended and give you a meal you weren't too happy with. As a novelty though, it's right up there with just about any eating experience in Soho. Just make sure you can get in.
It was an indulgent, expensive and freezing cold Saturday but it was a lovely day out. Bistrot Bruno Loubet unsurprisingly took the plaudits and it was there that I am happiest to have gone. After a few years of hearing about how terrific the place is, I'll say it was worth the wait.
Bistrot Bruno Loubet
Spuntino
One of my favourite features was a day out learning to cook popular European cuisine at a prominent restaurant: French, Italian or Spanish. All three looked massively appealing and this was one of the more attractive challenges in the series: learning how to cook great quality European food at the hands of a top chef is something anyone with a fleeting interest in food would envy.
The French element of the show was where I was most intrigued. (Give over John Torode: "I admire French food but I think it's very rich...") The restaurant was Bistrot Bruno Loubet and the chef was the man himself. He showed the contestants how to make his boeuf bourguignon which interested me greatly. What I find fascinating about watching chefs describe their dishes is the amount of control and calmness with which the best ones do it. Bruno was replete with a well-worn assuredness as he showcased his skills and style.
Bistrot has been just about the most evenly-enjoyed new restaurant in London since it opened a couple of years ago. At first I was somewhat bemused: 'who is this Loubet?' I asked myself. I was most out of touch with the culinary pulse of the city because this guy has serious London pedigree. Having worked with Pierre Koffman and been head chef of Raymond Blanc's Manoir Au Quat Saisons, he has had just about the best experience of working under the great UK-based French chefs as anyone.
Bistrot was the first time he'd put his name on a London restaurant in a long time. It was the first time he'd struck out on his own in the UK for almost ten years. The decision to return and try again after an abrupt departure to Australia was a big one, so the fact that the place was adored by all was most probably a big relief. In the week that we watched Bruno prepare some stewed beef for three contestants on MasterChef, we spent Saturday lunch there. And guess what I was after?
The restaurant itself is part of the uber-trendy Zetter Townhouse, a hotel which oozes modern chic like nowhere else I can think of in London. It's close to the east end but not so deep in to be kitsch, it's easy to get to but not by tube, it's light and airy but sniffily exclusive in terms of price. Perfect, essentially.
The restaurant doesn't really have the same scruffy rich elegance as the building does. It's not particularly cool-looking or well designed. It suffers from the god-awful cliché of filling empty spaces with random objects and ugly furniture. The bar is long, curved and a scene-dominating eyesore. The kitchen is exposed but only through a big window, so it looks like the pass has been made too big by accident rather than design. It's a pretty horribly thought-out space.
All that said: to food. We were hungry, chilled to the bone and eager to have a great meal to match all the good press I'd seen about the place. Our starters set the tone in the best way: beetroot ravioli and snails. What is great about Bistrot is its embracing of French food as nourishing and fulfilling plates. They don't mess about here and the starters were a perfect fit. The ravioli was a stunning mixture of firm pasta, delicate filling and bullish rocket salad (left). It was a great combination of ingredients that would trick you into feeling healthy, but the small touches such as fried breadcrumbs and parmesan put paid to any chance of that.
The wife's snail dish was something of a masterpiece (right). The combination of snails and meatballs was a strange-sounding one but when they were put together on the plate, served with a sumptuous mousse of mushrooms in the middle, it made perfect sense. The whole thing was tied together with a tomato sauce which on the surface looked like too many big flavours to work on the same plate, but the balance in the dish was exquisite.
When I'd looked at the main courses, I was disappointed to see no bourguignon. Happily, this was a special they were offering. It made sense, since I'm sure many others like me had arrived looking for 'that MasterChef dish' in the same week. It was served at the table in a metal oven dish on the side of a plate of mashed potato (left).The result was as good as I had hoped for. A perfectly succulent daube of beef, meltingly soft and rich as you like, was surrounded with a luxurious braising stock. Mushrooms, carrots, lardons, onions; all the little ingredients that make French food special when they're done perfectly. This was indeed just about perfect. The sauce was so exquisite I had to tip the remaining drips from the dish.
The wife's main course was another exercise in simply executed, well thought-out combinations. Grilled quail with lemon, thyme, rocket and mushrooms is a delightful mix of flavours, which means the kitchen is duty-bound to deliver them properly (right). This was another winning plate of food in that each mouthful was perfectly balanced. The salty game bird was complimented by the peppery rocket and the soft, sweeter mushrooms which made for another brilliantly unpretentious and lovably humble dish.
We went for another special when it came to dessert. What was pitched to the wife as some sweet French toast turned out to be a pain perdu with sliced pear and ice cream (left).The bread had been cut in the shape of a pear and the whole thing tasted as imaginative as it looked. The wife adored it and was seriously impressed that anything with a hint of cinnamon could be so good. It's a spice she usually cannot stand but this was testament to the inch-perfect balance of sweet and not-so-sweet on the plate. The toast was slightly crisp which sat beautifully with the soft pear and chill of the ice cream.
I chose the bitter chocolate délice, which essentially means 'delight', the same sort of way that parfait means 'perfect'. When choosing a pudding like this, all you need is the confidence that the restaurant will execute it properly. I was pretty high on confidence at this point, so the délice was most certainly a winning prospect. It turned out to be excellent too: like a thick mousse topped with a rich and strong sheet of chocolate (right). The final touch was a splurge of coffee sabayon. The rich dessert cream was a softer compliment to the chocolate which made for a bitter-sweet dessert that I greatly enjoyed.Bistrot Bruno Loubet was a lovely lunch out and it has a perfect menu for a special occasion. It is in no way pretentious or showy but it delivers in such a satisfying, fulfilling French way that it's hard not to be drawn to it. We did spend around £80 but that included two specials and there's no obligation to order three a la carte courses at lunch as we did.
We wandered around the east-central areas of London, taking in the beautifully eerie sights of a deserted Smithfield Market and the hulking Barbican. The weather was searingly cold so we decided to go somewhere warm to complete our day. That turned out to be Spuntino, the trendiest jewel in Russell Norman's crown.
I had read a few promising things about this place so I thought I would surprise the wife by taking her there as part of a day of food visits. (It was more or less my Valentines Day gift to her a little early.) It is basically the next step in Norman's bid to informalise Soho eating to the point of ridiculous hipster-minimalism. Taking things one step further from the Italian places he owns (both Polpo and da Polpo have my stamp of approval), Spuntino is essentially the kind of place Norman would have wanted to own if he was living in 19th century Brooklyn.
It is a bar which serves food, going for light bites and snacks whilst customers sit at the counter, struggling to see anything in a carefully crafted boozy haze. It's a remarkable place in that it does make you feel like you're in some sleazy side street bar in New York, albeit with the colours of Soho passing by the window. The surly charm of the place won me over pretty quickly since they were playing The White Stripes' cover of St James' Infirmary Blues as we arrived.
After a few minutes' wait, we shuffled along the back wall to two bar-side stools, in front of which were empty enamel plates and menus. As with the other places in the Norman canon, it is a simply-put list of fun foods, laid out in an easy to read way with maximum potential to over-order. It's a very clever formula, littering the menu with morsels that look so inviting and easy that punters will be spending £30 a head before they know it.
We went for a small selection of dishes, still feeling rather full from lunch. The first was something I'd read about and was champing at the bit to taste: truffled egg toast (left). This had been whispered about in all corners of London as something worth trying and it looked like a real picture when it was presented to us. Deep yellow yolk speckled with truffle on top of melted cheese, sunken into a well in the centre of a thick slice of white bread toast. Heaven on a plate, surely? Sadly not quite. The cheese was too thick, the toast slightly burnt and the truffle too fleeting.
The menu also featured one of those oh-so-American titbits one sees on trendy menus and Hell's Kitchen re-vamps: sliders. The little burger snacks that - if done well - can make you wish all burgers were such tasty morsels, but when done badly can make you wish for finger sandwiches. We picked the beef & bone marrow mini-burger and were unfortunately regretting it after a bite (right). The texture was too stodgy and it was impossible to pick out the bone marrow from the too-thick bun.
Our last choice was a bowl of macaroni cheese which cost £9 (left). It was a little pricey but was also the best thing we ate at Spuntino. The small pan was brimful of beautifully gratinated pasta swirls with an outrageously rich sauce. It was too much for us at this stage of the day after our big lunch but it was damned tasty. I'm not entirely sure it was worth £9 but it was a cosy dish of pasta which encapsulated Spuntino's appeal quite well.I don't know if I'd go back to Spuntino any time soon. It's certainly a very cool place but the prices are at a point where you need to know exactly what you're ordering to make it a worthwhile outing. Playing roulette with the menu here might end up costing you way more than you intended and give you a meal you weren't too happy with. As a novelty though, it's right up there with just about any eating experience in Soho. Just make sure you can get in.
It was an indulgent, expensive and freezing cold Saturday but it was a lovely day out. Bistrot Bruno Loubet unsurprisingly took the plaudits and it was there that I am happiest to have gone. After a few years of hearing about how terrific the place is, I'll say it was worth the wait.
Bistrot Bruno Loubet
Spuntino
Thursday, 26 April 2012
Hereford Road: Bayswater, Saturday 4th February, 2012
Fergus Henderson is a man whom I have lauded many times in my short tenure as a critic. His simplistic approach to British food and the translation of tradition into modern mainstream is peerless. It's a wonder more restaurants aren't doing things in the same way: get good quality local produce, dress it up in the simplest way possible and sell it at fair prices.
Maybe it isn't a wonder, because it relies on two things: faith in your customer base and absolute conviction in your own ability to execute dishes where there is no margin for error. Whilst there are few finer things in life than excellent British cooking, there are few worse than lousy food that makes one ashamed of one's culinary heritage. And as for the first point: regrettably there's no-one like the English when it comes to fussy eating.
Hereford Road is one of those places one would expect to see popping up all over the place given the trend in recent years to celebrate what's on our doorstep. Unsurprisingly, the man behind it is Tom Pemberton, once head chef of St John Bread & Wine. That was enough of an endorsement for me, so I booked a group meal there as a last-night hurrah to conclude the visit of one of my best friends, who had spent a week with us whilst visiting from overseas.
Six of us took to the Bayswater streets after watching a nailbiting start to the 2012 Six Nations and the winter snowfall having just about hit. We slipped and struggled through the exquisite Notting Hill residential streets with the snow coming down harder and practically fell inside the restaurant, so keen were we to be somewhere warm and comforting.
The place was once a Victorian butchers shop - not that surprising considering Pemberton's early career - and it has a slightly retro-fitted charm to it. The colours and interior design are rather seventies-themed in their panels of simple colour and the furniture feels like it was ordered a season or so late. I quite liked it in a way, even though it felt like the meal was an exhibition as much as dinner with friends.
The menu reads like something that you'd see at St John Bread & Wine which I suppose it should. The descriptions are simple and unassuming, allowing the main ingredients to stand out. The best thing about reading a menu like this is it never looks overfull. With nine main courses and eight starters on the menu, the page of A4 in front of us was a long list of dishes that didn't daunt in any way. It looks and feels right when food is put so matter-of-factly on a menu.
Starters were something of a mixed bag, at the better side of which was kale & potato soup (left). Thick, almost broth-like soup was perfectly formed, with the kale a delightful note of semi-sourness. The texture was perfect and for £5.20 it was the cheapest dish on the menu. Here's to cheap starters I say. This was delicious soup.
The wife went for potted crab with toast (right). This was primarily quite good in terms of the freshness and taste of the crab meat, but disappointingly let down by bits of shell in the mix. My brother went for braised cuttlefish served with red onion and aioli. A strange choice in that he doesn't like much seafood at all. There was sadly no revelation or epiphany when it came to the taste of the dish. I have to say it was a rather different take on a seafood salad to start but it was too dependent on the garlic mayonnaise to be a winner.
The two remaining starters featured no meat; both were centred around cheese. One was a rather fruitier mix of pear, chicory and Cashel Blue. It was not a cheese I'd heard of before, but investigation revealed it to be a rather unique and relatively recently developed Irish cheese. It wasn't too strong, and the combination of pear and chicory had hints of expertise within, just not quite enough to win me over. This was a big contrast to the goats curd, sorrel and beetroot we also sampled. The notes of bold beetroot were tempered exceptionally by the mild green leaves of sorrel and the smooth curds. It was a wonderfully executed dish, one that quite proudly emphasised all the good things about modern British food.
Main courses promised a hell of a lot. Everything we ordered sounded delicious and with the form of some of the starters, I expected us all to be happy with our lot. Let's start with those who weren't. Two at the table ordered braised veal breast with fennel & green sauce. An interesting description which I think was the main factor in ordering the dish.
In the event, the combination was a strange but fleetingly impressive one (left). I'd never eaten veal breast and I can understand why it is not the most popular cut of the meat. It's quite chunky, but at times stringy and tough to get through. It might be nice if sliced but as a piece of meat it is too much. The fennel was stewed and the whole lot was served with a thin broth which I assume it had been cooked in. There were hints of a fine combination with the parsley-riddled green sauce but overall it didn't work.
I went for a faggot of Middelwhite pork with mashed potato and its humble glory was as rewarding as my first course had been. A delicious and tender-moist meatball with some divinely creamy mash was a wonderful and basic combination made to be brilliant by the quality of ingredients (right). Similarly, the Middlewhite shoulder with red cabbage was another dish which showed off the quality of the meat with one well-executed accompaniment.
The wife's pheasant with lentils and wild mushrooms was rich and gamy but suffered from the lentils overwhelming the bird slightly (left). They along with the sauce went unfinished, but the meat was devoured with relish. The final main course was a saddle of lamb with anchovy & celeriac. The combination sounded fantastic and Mike, who had braved no meat with his starter, went for this one in a shot. It was a delicious piece of meat but the anchovy was somehow lost in the mix with the celeriac supporting well. It was decent but we expected more.
Desserts were all priced at £5.50 which seemed very reasonable. Three went for a melting chocolate pudding with vanilla ice cream which was as stickily delicious as we expected it to be (right). Perhaps not as fine as a chocolate fondant, this was a more honest, thickly spongy pudding deserving of a place on any English menu. The sticky date pudding (AKA sticky toffee pudding anywhere else) was a delicious reminder of how wonderful English desserts can be too: a syrupy, sweet and not-too-thick sponge ticked all the boxes.
My effort was a classic apple crumble with vanilla ice cream (left). It was on the menu as being served with cinnamon ice cream and when I asked to change it, the waitress said it might not be possible since they weren't serving vanilla. We wondered how that was possible since vanilla was coming with the chocolate, but happily the kitchen weren't as confused as our server. It was pretty nice: not too sweet and a properly soft texture. There wasn't a lot else to say since it was not fantastic and they did their best to ruin it with a flaking of nuts on top of the crumble.
Lastly, there was a gorgeous surprise in store with a rice pudding, served with cranberry jam. This was a new one on me, partly because I don't especially enjoy rice pudding and I'd never heard of cranberry used as a jam to sweeten a dessert. It worked fantastically well in that the pudding itself was slightly sweetened and creamy, with the jam cutting through it with a pleasant note of acidity. I was shocked at how good it tasted.
As we left the restaurant, we found we'd eaten through a full-blown snowstorm from the looks of things. There was a good inch of snow all over the streets, giving the meal we'd just eaten a romantic wintry glow. It is with a great fondness that I look back on the meal at Hereford Road because it reminded me that there is a great deal of local quality to be found in London's restaurants.
Not every dish was great, or even particularly good in some cases, but the philosophy behind the restaurant is so staggeringly simple I don't know why more aren't subscribing. There is just so much to like about a place like this, from the ingredients down to the reasonable pricing (no main course cost more than £15). It might take a go or two to find the dishes you're going to love, but Hereford Road is worth a visit.
Hereford Road
Maybe it isn't a wonder, because it relies on two things: faith in your customer base and absolute conviction in your own ability to execute dishes where there is no margin for error. Whilst there are few finer things in life than excellent British cooking, there are few worse than lousy food that makes one ashamed of one's culinary heritage. And as for the first point: regrettably there's no-one like the English when it comes to fussy eating.
Hereford Road is one of those places one would expect to see popping up all over the place given the trend in recent years to celebrate what's on our doorstep. Unsurprisingly, the man behind it is Tom Pemberton, once head chef of St John Bread & Wine. That was enough of an endorsement for me, so I booked a group meal there as a last-night hurrah to conclude the visit of one of my best friends, who had spent a week with us whilst visiting from overseas.
Six of us took to the Bayswater streets after watching a nailbiting start to the 2012 Six Nations and the winter snowfall having just about hit. We slipped and struggled through the exquisite Notting Hill residential streets with the snow coming down harder and practically fell inside the restaurant, so keen were we to be somewhere warm and comforting.
The place was once a Victorian butchers shop - not that surprising considering Pemberton's early career - and it has a slightly retro-fitted charm to it. The colours and interior design are rather seventies-themed in their panels of simple colour and the furniture feels like it was ordered a season or so late. I quite liked it in a way, even though it felt like the meal was an exhibition as much as dinner with friends.
The menu reads like something that you'd see at St John Bread & Wine which I suppose it should. The descriptions are simple and unassuming, allowing the main ingredients to stand out. The best thing about reading a menu like this is it never looks overfull. With nine main courses and eight starters on the menu, the page of A4 in front of us was a long list of dishes that didn't daunt in any way. It looks and feels right when food is put so matter-of-factly on a menu.
Starters were something of a mixed bag, at the better side of which was kale & potato soup (left). Thick, almost broth-like soup was perfectly formed, with the kale a delightful note of semi-sourness. The texture was perfect and for £5.20 it was the cheapest dish on the menu. Here's to cheap starters I say. This was delicious soup.
The wife went for potted crab with toast (right). This was primarily quite good in terms of the freshness and taste of the crab meat, but disappointingly let down by bits of shell in the mix. My brother went for braised cuttlefish served with red onion and aioli. A strange choice in that he doesn't like much seafood at all. There was sadly no revelation or epiphany when it came to the taste of the dish. I have to say it was a rather different take on a seafood salad to start but it was too dependent on the garlic mayonnaise to be a winner.The two remaining starters featured no meat; both were centred around cheese. One was a rather fruitier mix of pear, chicory and Cashel Blue. It was not a cheese I'd heard of before, but investigation revealed it to be a rather unique and relatively recently developed Irish cheese. It wasn't too strong, and the combination of pear and chicory had hints of expertise within, just not quite enough to win me over. This was a big contrast to the goats curd, sorrel and beetroot we also sampled. The notes of bold beetroot were tempered exceptionally by the mild green leaves of sorrel and the smooth curds. It was a wonderfully executed dish, one that quite proudly emphasised all the good things about modern British food.
Main courses promised a hell of a lot. Everything we ordered sounded delicious and with the form of some of the starters, I expected us all to be happy with our lot. Let's start with those who weren't. Two at the table ordered braised veal breast with fennel & green sauce. An interesting description which I think was the main factor in ordering the dish.
In the event, the combination was a strange but fleetingly impressive one (left). I'd never eaten veal breast and I can understand why it is not the most popular cut of the meat. It's quite chunky, but at times stringy and tough to get through. It might be nice if sliced but as a piece of meat it is too much. The fennel was stewed and the whole lot was served with a thin broth which I assume it had been cooked in. There were hints of a fine combination with the parsley-riddled green sauce but overall it didn't work.
I went for a faggot of Middelwhite pork with mashed potato and its humble glory was as rewarding as my first course had been. A delicious and tender-moist meatball with some divinely creamy mash was a wonderful and basic combination made to be brilliant by the quality of ingredients (right). Similarly, the Middlewhite shoulder with red cabbage was another dish which showed off the quality of the meat with one well-executed accompaniment.
The wife's pheasant with lentils and wild mushrooms was rich and gamy but suffered from the lentils overwhelming the bird slightly (left). They along with the sauce went unfinished, but the meat was devoured with relish. The final main course was a saddle of lamb with anchovy & celeriac. The combination sounded fantastic and Mike, who had braved no meat with his starter, went for this one in a shot. It was a delicious piece of meat but the anchovy was somehow lost in the mix with the celeriac supporting well. It was decent but we expected more.
Desserts were all priced at £5.50 which seemed very reasonable. Three went for a melting chocolate pudding with vanilla ice cream which was as stickily delicious as we expected it to be (right). Perhaps not as fine as a chocolate fondant, this was a more honest, thickly spongy pudding deserving of a place on any English menu. The sticky date pudding (AKA sticky toffee pudding anywhere else) was a delicious reminder of how wonderful English desserts can be too: a syrupy, sweet and not-too-thick sponge ticked all the boxes.
My effort was a classic apple crumble with vanilla ice cream (left). It was on the menu as being served with cinnamon ice cream and when I asked to change it, the waitress said it might not be possible since they weren't serving vanilla. We wondered how that was possible since vanilla was coming with the chocolate, but happily the kitchen weren't as confused as our server. It was pretty nice: not too sweet and a properly soft texture. There wasn't a lot else to say since it was not fantastic and they did their best to ruin it with a flaking of nuts on top of the crumble.Lastly, there was a gorgeous surprise in store with a rice pudding, served with cranberry jam. This was a new one on me, partly because I don't especially enjoy rice pudding and I'd never heard of cranberry used as a jam to sweeten a dessert. It worked fantastically well in that the pudding itself was slightly sweetened and creamy, with the jam cutting through it with a pleasant note of acidity. I was shocked at how good it tasted.
As we left the restaurant, we found we'd eaten through a full-blown snowstorm from the looks of things. There was a good inch of snow all over the streets, giving the meal we'd just eaten a romantic wintry glow. It is with a great fondness that I look back on the meal at Hereford Road because it reminded me that there is a great deal of local quality to be found in London's restaurants.
Not every dish was great, or even particularly good in some cases, but the philosophy behind the restaurant is so staggeringly simple I don't know why more aren't subscribing. There is just so much to like about a place like this, from the ingredients down to the reasonable pricing (no main course cost more than £15). It might take a go or two to find the dishes you're going to love, but Hereford Road is worth a visit.
Hereford Road
Monday, 23 April 2012
Red Peppers: Teddington, Friday 27th January, 2012
When friends return, memories return with them. A dear friend of mine came home from Australia earlier this year for a short visit, which led to the re-enactment of many old traditions, gatherings and tomfoolery. Naturally, a couple of meals were included in this period, the first of which was the return to one of the oldest haunts I can remember.
Back in the first year of writing this blog, I was not eating out as much as I do now and was frequently less busy than I am now, so I wrote about memories of food. My first truly memorable meal out was at Bunter's Pizza Pie in Teddington, as a young lad with a fussy outlook and a love of spaghetti. Even though Bunter's isn't there any more, the Red Peppers which replaced it has seen its fair share of family action. In fact, this was the last meal a group of us shared before my friend left for Australia some two years ago.
Red Peppers is one of those chains that's comparable to Garfunkel's, Strada or Zizzi: you'll go there, spend £20-£30, order dishes you're sure will suffice and be done with it. They're not special places but they're convenient, easy and consistent. Having said that, given that a few months prior I'd experienced just about the worst return to any restaurant ever, I wasn't taking anything for granted.
The short of the matter - and this will be short - is that we had a lovely evening. The meal did exactly what we anticipated: delivered a no-frills set of okay dishes that nobody paid over the odds for. I had a steak & chips which, I was almost embarrassed to admit, I enjoyed more than the one I'd eaten at Dinner By Heston a week earlier (left). Okay, it clearly wasn't as good, but since my expectations were that much lower, I have to say it was a pretty decent piece of meat.
The wife went for ribs & chicken, which is something of a cult classic for anyone who knows Red Peppers (right). Essentially it's a trough filled with a couple of racks of ribs and half a chicken, liberally doused with barbecue sauce. It's a massively gluttonous main course and one that should only be ordered if you've got some serious staying power. It's hard not to enjoy it though, reminding us of a time when finishing such a dish had no effect on the waistline.
Potato skins, nachos, prawn fritters, pizzas... this place doesn't tend to do 'awful' as much as one might assume given the size and diversity of the menu. Everyone got on with it and enjoyed themselves. There isn't much point in analysing the detail of everything that was eaten because there's no way every dish needs much of a mention. It was all of a decent and unadventurously comfortable standard.
What I will say for Red Peppers is that, given most middle class upbringings, you'll have eaten at a good few places like this in the past. And as such, it's a trip down memory lane in a slightly indirect sense. Or a direct one if you grew up in Teddington or Esher. And as I found out in late January, it's a pretty good one too.
Red Peppers
Back in the first year of writing this blog, I was not eating out as much as I do now and was frequently less busy than I am now, so I wrote about memories of food. My first truly memorable meal out was at Bunter's Pizza Pie in Teddington, as a young lad with a fussy outlook and a love of spaghetti. Even though Bunter's isn't there any more, the Red Peppers which replaced it has seen its fair share of family action. In fact, this was the last meal a group of us shared before my friend left for Australia some two years ago.
Red Peppers is one of those chains that's comparable to Garfunkel's, Strada or Zizzi: you'll go there, spend £20-£30, order dishes you're sure will suffice and be done with it. They're not special places but they're convenient, easy and consistent. Having said that, given that a few months prior I'd experienced just about the worst return to any restaurant ever, I wasn't taking anything for granted.
The short of the matter - and this will be short - is that we had a lovely evening. The meal did exactly what we anticipated: delivered a no-frills set of okay dishes that nobody paid over the odds for. I had a steak & chips which, I was almost embarrassed to admit, I enjoyed more than the one I'd eaten at Dinner By Heston a week earlier (left). Okay, it clearly wasn't as good, but since my expectations were that much lower, I have to say it was a pretty decent piece of meat.
The wife went for ribs & chicken, which is something of a cult classic for anyone who knows Red Peppers (right). Essentially it's a trough filled with a couple of racks of ribs and half a chicken, liberally doused with barbecue sauce. It's a massively gluttonous main course and one that should only be ordered if you've got some serious staying power. It's hard not to enjoy it though, reminding us of a time when finishing such a dish had no effect on the waistline.Potato skins, nachos, prawn fritters, pizzas... this place doesn't tend to do 'awful' as much as one might assume given the size and diversity of the menu. Everyone got on with it and enjoyed themselves. There isn't much point in analysing the detail of everything that was eaten because there's no way every dish needs much of a mention. It was all of a decent and unadventurously comfortable standard.
What I will say for Red Peppers is that, given most middle class upbringings, you'll have eaten at a good few places like this in the past. And as such, it's a trip down memory lane in a slightly indirect sense. Or a direct one if you grew up in Teddington or Esher. And as I found out in late January, it's a pretty good one too.
Red Peppers
Friday, 20 April 2012
Dinner By Heston Blumenthal: Knightsbridge, Saturday January 21st, 2012
Treating yourself to something special at a meal table is pretty much what I live for these days. The wife and I like nothing more than having a great meal that costs a little more than usual but having a downright lovely time as a result. I was recently discussing with a group of friends the merits of pushing the boat out whilst eating. The consensus was that, once in a while, a bit extra on the bill is worth it for a good time.
There are key factors in weighing up whether or not the boat out-pushing has been worthwhile. Happily for the sake of my writing, they are the most classic and predictable factors ordinary punters consider after a meal out: food, service, value, atmosphere, occasion. Easy-peasy.
Of course, when you decide to take a punt on a place that everyone has raved about from the day it opened, a place that has been coveted extensively by all your friends and contemporaries and a place which earned a Michelin Star within a year of opening; you ensure that your standards are at that exorbitantly high level which warrants spending as much as you're about to.
Dinner By Heston Blumenthal (or 'Dinner' from here on in) is one such restaurant. Actually, it is the restaurant that I mention above. It has garnered nothing but praise in its relatively young life so far and is generally at the top of most people's to-eat list if they haven't been there already. I have, so here we go...
Getting into the place isn't easy. The only booking we'd managed to secure for a Saturday night (well in advance, too) was the late seating. It was late in the evening when the wife and I stepped into the Mandarin Oriental to celebrate a week of being married. We'd had a pretty excessive day of working in the kitchen preparing for Taiwanese new year and if there was one thing that could lift us out of our weary stupor, it was a decent dinner.
And 'dinner' is the word. Ever since Heston rolled into town promoting his historically British menu, a million miles from the sort of science experiments going on at The Fat Duck, this has been just about the hottest place to eat in London. The idea is great: trawl through the annals of history looking for the coolest, quirkiest dishes to put on an exclusive hotel menu. There's nothing about that formula that shouldn't equal success.
The place itself is one of those cooler-than-cool bar-fronted suit-fests which lead into the quieter restaurant. It's hellishly dislikeable whilst you're slaloming through the noisy crowds in order to get to your table but it's a lot nicer inside. It's even moderately tranquil without being stuffy which is always a good sign. The most impressive thing about the restaurant itself is that the kitchen is right on display in the middle of it all. Glass-panelled, the chefs' activities are on show for all to see which makes for some theatre whilst you eat.
We had a seat right in front of one of the meat preparation stations which, interesting as a small insight into a modern kitchen as it was, made me ironically nostalgic for a time before I was a teenager; of ramshackle, slap-dash kitchens where a dozen chefs ran around screaming at each other. Here, the team serenely glides from one section to another without the faintest whiff of any drama. Mind you, if kitchen knives were still being hurled about, we wouldn't be looking at how kitchens worked anywhere.
First things first, we were unimpressed with some bread that was more or less burnt when it was brought to the table. It was hard-crusted which is fine, but we were worried for our gums when we bit into the stuff, so we asked for some more. The waitress obliged, but half-hinted that the bread was supposed to be like that and we were a couple of know-nothings. I'll leave you to ruminate on the nature of myself and the wife as diners but the bread wasn't great. The second helping was decidedly more palatable and away we went...
I was genuinely interested in the origins of the dishes. Some going around 600 years back in time, there is plenty to learn here. The back of the menu even has notes about the origins of the food. One thing I'd heard enough about to know I was desperate to try was the meat fruit. Aside the attraction of eating paté in a fruit jelly, the fact that it is a recipe from around 1500 means the attraction is one of pompous curiosity if nothing else.
When presented at the table, the fruit has that look of something special; a surprise you're expecting but are damned excited all the same (left). The Smooth mandarin jelly gives the dish that look of plastic-y perfection, with a decorative green stalk thrown in for authenticity. I was warned not to eat the stalk, but anything else goes. The jelly on the outside was acidic-sweet and very robust. It spread on the toast yet was slightly resistant to the knife. I guess it's exactly what you want from the outside of your meat fruit. Sadly, the hyper-strength of the sweetness was a little too much, yet this was rescued by a delightful chicken liver parfait inside: simply excellent.
The wife ordered Salamugundy, a word I'm sure I've heard in passing at some point in my life but I couldn't tell you from where. It turns out the definition of the word is as disparate as you'd expect: a mixture of stuff in a salad. (I have taken the liberty of modernising - you're welcome.) In the event, it's a far nicer plate than the description suggests, combining chicken oysters with bone marrow, salsify and horseradish (right). Actually, that still sounds close to idiotic, so let me just assure you it's a fine mix. The chicken could be picked out above all the heady strength of the horseradish and marrow, with the salsify grounding the whole thing. It was a delicious and well-executed starter.
I did not go particularly adventurous with my main course. Steak & chips might feel a bit of a cop-out at a place of this exuberant calibre, but I had to give it a go. After all, we ought to expect the very best for our money when we are at a place such as this. Especially given the fact that it comes with red wine juice ('jus' anywhere else in the world), mushroom ketchup and triple-cooked chips. The sides, let me tell you, were stupendous. Possibly Heston's greatest gift to the world of food is his triple-cooked chip and the crunchy-soft beauties on the table were a testament to that. Mushroom ketchup was a silkily punchy reminder of how versatile mushrooms can be and how great they are with meat, whilst the juice/jus was spot on: rich, a little smoky and superbly flavoursome.
The steak was a Hereford ribeye, which should deliver on every front. It should be the zenith of flavour when it comes to beef on a plate. (I prefer a fillet but that's me being pretentious.) The sad thing about this particular bit of beef is that it didn't hit the spot (left). It should've done though: served with a sliver of bone marrow, some Japanese panko breadcrumbs on top, a perfect sheen of juice from the meat and sides to die for. I was sadly unmoved though: it was too salty, not smooth enough and didn't have a soft enough texture. It was, ironically, just too meaty.
The wife had spiced pigeon with ale & artichokes - a modest description for a delightfully artful plate of food (right). The pigeon was perfectly rare which gave it that fantastic gamy flavour you get from properly cooked pigeon. The artichokes had been grilled which gave the dish a fantastic balance of textures, as well as sweetening the vegetables nicely. The whole thing had been tied together with a rich ale sauce which made the dish a meaty, earthy one whilst the delicate spicing of the pigeon added notes of citrus and a light variety to the array of tastes. It was exceptional.
We opted not to order the popular tipsy cake with spit-roasted pineapple for dessert and went for Taffety tart and baked lemon suet pudding. The tart was an amazing looking thing, with a layer of piped cream sitting on top of wafer-thin pastry and fruit underneath (left). Sadly, there was an unpleasant, gravelly note of nut running through the whole thing which was to the detriment of the dish. The thinness of the pastry didn't help either, with the whole thing becoming a splintered array of shards with cream by the end. The blackcurrant sorbet was lovely, but the lack of anything soft, warm or pudding-y let this one down.
Happily, the wife's lemon suet pudding was more of what you'd expect from a classic English pud. It was a comforting and warm combination of basic but bold flavours which resulted in a winning finisher. The pudding was as thick as anything, housing a deliciously sharp lemon filling. Ordinarily, I would have expected lemon caramel to push the whole thing into the realms of bathroom cleaner-levels of zesty citrus but it somehow helped to temper the flavours, combining beautifully with the spongy suet. Jersey cream merely made the whole thing a great marriage of textures.
Evaluating this meal seems best done in light of the five factors I started this piece with. The occasion was lovely: the two of us really enjoyed ourselves and the restaurant is certainly not lacking when it comes to a bit of a show whilst you eat. The service was stop-start but there is something in the blue-shirted darlings gliding around that is both professional and graceful: pretty much what anyone wants.
The next three features are where it gets tricky. The food was at times outstanding. All of the wife's courses were rather special. Two of mine lacked in some capacity though. The dessert looked a picture but was clearly a bad choice for me: it was not a great pudding. The main course was a superb chorus supporting an average main act which was just infuriating.
The ambience at Dinner is a slightly muted, slightly confused one. It's supposed to be representing classical English cuisine, which is well accomplished in the design of the menus and the informal nature of the dishes. However, the atmosphere of the venue is more grandiose, akin perhaps to some more glamorous eating which I think strikes a slightly uncomfortable contrast. The price is a tricky one too because this place is not cheap. £32 for a steak which is left wanting is pretty scandalous, and even the pigeon which delighted so was expensive at £33. It is certainly trading on its celebrity fairly well.
I think that may be the problem with the place in all honesty. When somewhere has been fawned over as much as this place has, any small imperfection is massively magnified. The one thing that you can be sure of with Heston Blumenthal's name being on an exclusive Knightsbridge hotel restaurant is that the price truly reflects it. For a restaurant which bangs the drum for English cooking, this leaves a strange taste in the mouth. Yes, you feel you've had a good evening out, but it's one that leaves a lasting impression on the wallet above anything else. There is a lot to admire about Heston Blumenthal. Sadly, what really makes him a treasured chef has not quite made it down to London.
Dinner By Heston Blumenthal
There are key factors in weighing up whether or not the boat out-pushing has been worthwhile. Happily for the sake of my writing, they are the most classic and predictable factors ordinary punters consider after a meal out: food, service, value, atmosphere, occasion. Easy-peasy.
Of course, when you decide to take a punt on a place that everyone has raved about from the day it opened, a place that has been coveted extensively by all your friends and contemporaries and a place which earned a Michelin Star within a year of opening; you ensure that your standards are at that exorbitantly high level which warrants spending as much as you're about to.
Dinner By Heston Blumenthal (or 'Dinner' from here on in) is one such restaurant. Actually, it is the restaurant that I mention above. It has garnered nothing but praise in its relatively young life so far and is generally at the top of most people's to-eat list if they haven't been there already. I have, so here we go...
Getting into the place isn't easy. The only booking we'd managed to secure for a Saturday night (well in advance, too) was the late seating. It was late in the evening when the wife and I stepped into the Mandarin Oriental to celebrate a week of being married. We'd had a pretty excessive day of working in the kitchen preparing for Taiwanese new year and if there was one thing that could lift us out of our weary stupor, it was a decent dinner.
And 'dinner' is the word. Ever since Heston rolled into town promoting his historically British menu, a million miles from the sort of science experiments going on at The Fat Duck, this has been just about the hottest place to eat in London. The idea is great: trawl through the annals of history looking for the coolest, quirkiest dishes to put on an exclusive hotel menu. There's nothing about that formula that shouldn't equal success.
The place itself is one of those cooler-than-cool bar-fronted suit-fests which lead into the quieter restaurant. It's hellishly dislikeable whilst you're slaloming through the noisy crowds in order to get to your table but it's a lot nicer inside. It's even moderately tranquil without being stuffy which is always a good sign. The most impressive thing about the restaurant itself is that the kitchen is right on display in the middle of it all. Glass-panelled, the chefs' activities are on show for all to see which makes for some theatre whilst you eat.
We had a seat right in front of one of the meat preparation stations which, interesting as a small insight into a modern kitchen as it was, made me ironically nostalgic for a time before I was a teenager; of ramshackle, slap-dash kitchens where a dozen chefs ran around screaming at each other. Here, the team serenely glides from one section to another without the faintest whiff of any drama. Mind you, if kitchen knives were still being hurled about, we wouldn't be looking at how kitchens worked anywhere.
First things first, we were unimpressed with some bread that was more or less burnt when it was brought to the table. It was hard-crusted which is fine, but we were worried for our gums when we bit into the stuff, so we asked for some more. The waitress obliged, but half-hinted that the bread was supposed to be like that and we were a couple of know-nothings. I'll leave you to ruminate on the nature of myself and the wife as diners but the bread wasn't great. The second helping was decidedly more palatable and away we went...
I was genuinely interested in the origins of the dishes. Some going around 600 years back in time, there is plenty to learn here. The back of the menu even has notes about the origins of the food. One thing I'd heard enough about to know I was desperate to try was the meat fruit. Aside the attraction of eating paté in a fruit jelly, the fact that it is a recipe from around 1500 means the attraction is one of pompous curiosity if nothing else.
When presented at the table, the fruit has that look of something special; a surprise you're expecting but are damned excited all the same (left). The Smooth mandarin jelly gives the dish that look of plastic-y perfection, with a decorative green stalk thrown in for authenticity. I was warned not to eat the stalk, but anything else goes. The jelly on the outside was acidic-sweet and very robust. It spread on the toast yet was slightly resistant to the knife. I guess it's exactly what you want from the outside of your meat fruit. Sadly, the hyper-strength of the sweetness was a little too much, yet this was rescued by a delightful chicken liver parfait inside: simply excellent.
The wife ordered Salamugundy, a word I'm sure I've heard in passing at some point in my life but I couldn't tell you from where. It turns out the definition of the word is as disparate as you'd expect: a mixture of stuff in a salad. (I have taken the liberty of modernising - you're welcome.) In the event, it's a far nicer plate than the description suggests, combining chicken oysters with bone marrow, salsify and horseradish (right). Actually, that still sounds close to idiotic, so let me just assure you it's a fine mix. The chicken could be picked out above all the heady strength of the horseradish and marrow, with the salsify grounding the whole thing. It was a delicious and well-executed starter.I did not go particularly adventurous with my main course. Steak & chips might feel a bit of a cop-out at a place of this exuberant calibre, but I had to give it a go. After all, we ought to expect the very best for our money when we are at a place such as this. Especially given the fact that it comes with red wine juice ('jus' anywhere else in the world), mushroom ketchup and triple-cooked chips. The sides, let me tell you, were stupendous. Possibly Heston's greatest gift to the world of food is his triple-cooked chip and the crunchy-soft beauties on the table were a testament to that. Mushroom ketchup was a silkily punchy reminder of how versatile mushrooms can be and how great they are with meat, whilst the juice/jus was spot on: rich, a little smoky and superbly flavoursome.
The steak was a Hereford ribeye, which should deliver on every front. It should be the zenith of flavour when it comes to beef on a plate. (I prefer a fillet but that's me being pretentious.) The sad thing about this particular bit of beef is that it didn't hit the spot (left). It should've done though: served with a sliver of bone marrow, some Japanese panko breadcrumbs on top, a perfect sheen of juice from the meat and sides to die for. I was sadly unmoved though: it was too salty, not smooth enough and didn't have a soft enough texture. It was, ironically, just too meaty.
The wife had spiced pigeon with ale & artichokes - a modest description for a delightfully artful plate of food (right). The pigeon was perfectly rare which gave it that fantastic gamy flavour you get from properly cooked pigeon. The artichokes had been grilled which gave the dish a fantastic balance of textures, as well as sweetening the vegetables nicely. The whole thing had been tied together with a rich ale sauce which made the dish a meaty, earthy one whilst the delicate spicing of the pigeon added notes of citrus and a light variety to the array of tastes. It was exceptional.
We opted not to order the popular tipsy cake with spit-roasted pineapple for dessert and went for Taffety tart and baked lemon suet pudding. The tart was an amazing looking thing, with a layer of piped cream sitting on top of wafer-thin pastry and fruit underneath (left). Sadly, there was an unpleasant, gravelly note of nut running through the whole thing which was to the detriment of the dish. The thinness of the pastry didn't help either, with the whole thing becoming a splintered array of shards with cream by the end. The blackcurrant sorbet was lovely, but the lack of anything soft, warm or pudding-y let this one down.Happily, the wife's lemon suet pudding was more of what you'd expect from a classic English pud. It was a comforting and warm combination of basic but bold flavours which resulted in a winning finisher. The pudding was as thick as anything, housing a deliciously sharp lemon filling. Ordinarily, I would have expected lemon caramel to push the whole thing into the realms of bathroom cleaner-levels of zesty citrus but it somehow helped to temper the flavours, combining beautifully with the spongy suet. Jersey cream merely made the whole thing a great marriage of textures.
Evaluating this meal seems best done in light of the five factors I started this piece with. The occasion was lovely: the two of us really enjoyed ourselves and the restaurant is certainly not lacking when it comes to a bit of a show whilst you eat. The service was stop-start but there is something in the blue-shirted darlings gliding around that is both professional and graceful: pretty much what anyone wants.
The next three features are where it gets tricky. The food was at times outstanding. All of the wife's courses were rather special. Two of mine lacked in some capacity though. The dessert looked a picture but was clearly a bad choice for me: it was not a great pudding. The main course was a superb chorus supporting an average main act which was just infuriating.
The ambience at Dinner is a slightly muted, slightly confused one. It's supposed to be representing classical English cuisine, which is well accomplished in the design of the menus and the informal nature of the dishes. However, the atmosphere of the venue is more grandiose, akin perhaps to some more glamorous eating which I think strikes a slightly uncomfortable contrast. The price is a tricky one too because this place is not cheap. £32 for a steak which is left wanting is pretty scandalous, and even the pigeon which delighted so was expensive at £33. It is certainly trading on its celebrity fairly well.
I think that may be the problem with the place in all honesty. When somewhere has been fawned over as much as this place has, any small imperfection is massively magnified. The one thing that you can be sure of with Heston Blumenthal's name being on an exclusive Knightsbridge hotel restaurant is that the price truly reflects it. For a restaurant which bangs the drum for English cooking, this leaves a strange taste in the mouth. Yes, you feel you've had a good evening out, but it's one that leaves a lasting impression on the wallet above anything else. There is a lot to admire about Heston Blumenthal. Sadly, what really makes him a treasured chef has not quite made it down to London.
Dinner By Heston Blumenthal
Sunday, 15 April 2012
L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon: Covent Garden, Sunday January 15th, 2012
Pushing the boat out was a common theme in January. Certainly not a month where boat out-pushing is considered de rigeur, but I suppose it's excusable when a wedding is concerned. After the scrumptious Chinese food on Thursday, a swift lunch in Carluccio's on Friday, lunch at Le Vacherin and dinner in Les Deux Salons on the Saturday, we came, bleary-eyed with overwhelming emotions and overfull stomachs, to Sunday.
Sunday January 15th was without doubt the coldest day of 2012 at that point. Thinking about it, it probably still is. However, it was a glorious day: the sun beat down with strength but no warmth, the sky was a stunning azure and the air was thick with mist off our breath. It was a great day for photos, walking and sightseeing with the in-laws. And given all the excesses of the weekend prior to this, one last blow-out on the Sunday seemed apt.
L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon is a small link in a very exclusive global chain. Joel Robuchon, chef extraordinaire and holder of too many Michelin Stars to count, has outposts in various notable cities on almost every continent. London's establishment has two stars and has long-cemented itself as an important part of the West End's top end. I've been to the ground floor 'counter concept' room a few times and it's a sight for sore eyes. The kitchen is open in the middle of the restaurant, with many of the customers eating at the bar as the chefs prepare their food. On my past visits here I've always gazed longingly at the a la carte menu and thought 'one day'... January 15th was that day.
We were on the ground floor again (the first floor has more of a classic restaurant feel) and brimming with extravagant greed as we surveyed the card, I was struck by one thing instantly: this place is not cheap. It is actually one of those kinds of place that people turn their noses up at, sighing how trivial and biased the Michelin Guide is and how no food could be worth that much. They have a point, but if the food is as good as its price tag, that's another matter...
An amuse bouche of a royale of foie gras with port reduction and parmesan was as fancy and French as you're likely to get anywhere in London. The slightly sickly onset of the foie gras liquid was unpleasant at first, before quickly becoming a smooth and well-combined mouthful of richness. I found it quite amusing (pardon the pun) in that it was one of those things that you tasted at first with the tentative stubbornness that you had to like it because of what it was, before realising that it wasn't actually bad at all.
We started extravagantly. Pigs' trotters and mushrooms on toast as a sharing plate was summarily ordered and devoured by the four of us (left). It was an interesting dish: warm, soft and comforting without touching some of the levels of pretence one might associate with a place like this. In a way, it was touching the origins and roots of great French country food. It was rich, elegant and simple. Delicious too.
Starters were where things got rather more fancy. Langoustine fritters with Basil pistou ('pesto' to you and me) cost £47 (right). That's almost fifty pounds for four langoustines. Fifty.These deep-fried langoustines were delicious: succulent, moist and imaginatively wrapped with a basil leaf within their light and crispy batter. But it cost £47. As accustomed as I have become to high-end eating, there is enough common sense in me to know that that is silly money.
Elsewhere, some chicken broth with foie gras ravioli and 'zesty whipped cream' was a slight let-down in that the broth contained too much ginger (left). Even so, the ravioli was excellent and the cream mixed well with the broth. It wasn't a let-down overall though, my mother-in-law really enjoyed it. Maintaining the theme of dressed-up simplicity, the wife went for L'Atelier's version of Iberian ham with tomato bread (right). Their adaptation of one of the classic Spanish dishes was actually quite nice. Fresh, superbly greasy ham was laid across the plate and served with some dainty crostini covered in soft tomato. It was light and lent itself beautifully to sharing.
I realised that for all the eating I'd been indulging in over the long weekend, I hadn't yet had any foie gras (aside from the amuse bouche). I went for some with apple (left). Assorted purée, jelly and crisp of the fruit contrasted well with an oblong of seared foie gras which sat rather nicely. At first. In the event it was marginally too rich, but the construction of the dish was fancy enough to be entertaining and the taste was strong enough to be worth it.
So far I was a little underwhelmed. The dishes all looked amazing and were as nouvelle as you'd expect, but they were all rather expensive and unfortunately a case of style over substance for the most part. And the langoustines cost £47.
Main courses were happily better. My father-in-law went for the head chef's signature dish, something I was able to recommend having seen it on Masterchef: The Professionals a month or so earlier. At the time of watching, I was unconvinced by the dish: veal sweetbread with pine nuts, almonds and savoy cabbage. It didn't seem particularly substantial and it looked a little drab. The plus point of this dish for me was that Ash Mair - the eventual winner - prepared it and excelled. For that alone I was curious to have a look at it first hand (right).
The dish was, in the event, a bit of a treat. The sweetbread was very creamy and supple which gave a great variation to the dish when combined with the pine nuts and almonds. The whole thing was brought together by the thick savoy cabbage leaf at the base, with the rich jus luxuriously coating each mouthful. This was a sudden upswing.
Elsewhere, a slab of uncooked rib-eye steak was brought to the table and we selected a juicy cut which was duly brought back, cooked to a turn (left). It was, however, a little smoky and salted for my tastes. It just didn't taste as fine as it looked, or indeed as it should have tasted. Happily, they made up for this with some turned new potatoes on the side and some of the famous Robuchon mashed potato for the table. The latter is just so wonderfully creamy and buttery, it deserves the recognition it has received as arguably Robuchon's greatest culinary achievement.
The wife and I both went for truffle dishes for the main course. Hers was a combination of perfectly-fried scallops with fregola sarda, the Italian equivalent of cous-cous (right). The tiny specks of toasted pasta were beautifully brought together with a thick and creamy sauce and some white foam, with the Perigord black truffle residing regally over the top.
The truffle on my main course was combined with pommes purée on the side of some foie gras-stuffed quail. The dish was, in essence, perfect for me, all its main ingredients among my favourites. The result was similar to that of the starters, sadly. All wordiness and pretence leaving a rather small plate of half-finished morsels. This is not the kind of old-fashioned Michelin-starred nonsense I want on my plate when I ask for quail and mashed potato.
We were fairly stuffed at this point and dessert wasn't necessary but our curiosity and greed got the better of us. Our waiter offered us the chance to have our puddings in the top floor salon, which we thought might be nice. Predictably, the restaurant had whacked the heating right up to compensate for the freezing temperature outside, which was making us all a little sleepy. When we were shown upstairs to a small bar room with some comfortable seating, the four of us promptly drifted off until our desserts arrived.
We were awoken by some fairly impressive looking puddings. The wife and her father had gone for Le Mango-Mango, a mixture of mango coulis & mousse with some sorbet and biscuit (left). This was a light, fruity explosion of sweet intensity. Plus a strange sign which read "MANGO" in case we'd forgotten. It was something you'd eat one spoonful of and then continually shovel it down until nothing remained.
My choice was warm yuzu soufflé with banana toffee sorbet (right). I was curious how this might work since yuzu is a hybrid citrus fruit from Asia, commonly used in Japanese food. It was a heavenly creation, combining the soft citrus shard of the soufflé to the refreshing comfort of bananas and toffee on the side. It was quite exceptional.
That was that. We wrapped up and braved the cold again before bidding adieu to the in-laws and reflected on a wonderful few days. The meal at L'Atelier was not one of them, sadly. There had been some impressive high points, the desserts most so, but the rest left a slightly disappointing reflection on just how much it costs to eat at this place. The atmosphere is modern, dark and special but the overall experience was lacking in a few key areas: sadly the quality of the food was one. Not that it was bad, just not that good. Not so good you'd want to spend nearly £50 on four langoustines.
L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon
Sunday January 15th was without doubt the coldest day of 2012 at that point. Thinking about it, it probably still is. However, it was a glorious day: the sun beat down with strength but no warmth, the sky was a stunning azure and the air was thick with mist off our breath. It was a great day for photos, walking and sightseeing with the in-laws. And given all the excesses of the weekend prior to this, one last blow-out on the Sunday seemed apt.
L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon is a small link in a very exclusive global chain. Joel Robuchon, chef extraordinaire and holder of too many Michelin Stars to count, has outposts in various notable cities on almost every continent. London's establishment has two stars and has long-cemented itself as an important part of the West End's top end. I've been to the ground floor 'counter concept' room a few times and it's a sight for sore eyes. The kitchen is open in the middle of the restaurant, with many of the customers eating at the bar as the chefs prepare their food. On my past visits here I've always gazed longingly at the a la carte menu and thought 'one day'... January 15th was that day.
We were on the ground floor again (the first floor has more of a classic restaurant feel) and brimming with extravagant greed as we surveyed the card, I was struck by one thing instantly: this place is not cheap. It is actually one of those kinds of place that people turn their noses up at, sighing how trivial and biased the Michelin Guide is and how no food could be worth that much. They have a point, but if the food is as good as its price tag, that's another matter...
An amuse bouche of a royale of foie gras with port reduction and parmesan was as fancy and French as you're likely to get anywhere in London. The slightly sickly onset of the foie gras liquid was unpleasant at first, before quickly becoming a smooth and well-combined mouthful of richness. I found it quite amusing (pardon the pun) in that it was one of those things that you tasted at first with the tentative stubbornness that you had to like it because of what it was, before realising that it wasn't actually bad at all.
We started extravagantly. Pigs' trotters and mushrooms on toast as a sharing plate was summarily ordered and devoured by the four of us (left). It was an interesting dish: warm, soft and comforting without touching some of the levels of pretence one might associate with a place like this. In a way, it was touching the origins and roots of great French country food. It was rich, elegant and simple. Delicious too.
Starters were where things got rather more fancy. Langoustine fritters with Basil pistou ('pesto' to you and me) cost £47 (right). That's almost fifty pounds for four langoustines. Fifty.These deep-fried langoustines were delicious: succulent, moist and imaginatively wrapped with a basil leaf within their light and crispy batter. But it cost £47. As accustomed as I have become to high-end eating, there is enough common sense in me to know that that is silly money.
Elsewhere, some chicken broth with foie gras ravioli and 'zesty whipped cream' was a slight let-down in that the broth contained too much ginger (left). Even so, the ravioli was excellent and the cream mixed well with the broth. It wasn't a let-down overall though, my mother-in-law really enjoyed it. Maintaining the theme of dressed-up simplicity, the wife went for L'Atelier's version of Iberian ham with tomato bread (right). Their adaptation of one of the classic Spanish dishes was actually quite nice. Fresh, superbly greasy ham was laid across the plate and served with some dainty crostini covered in soft tomato. It was light and lent itself beautifully to sharing.
I realised that for all the eating I'd been indulging in over the long weekend, I hadn't yet had any foie gras (aside from the amuse bouche). I went for some with apple (left). Assorted purée, jelly and crisp of the fruit contrasted well with an oblong of seared foie gras which sat rather nicely. At first. In the event it was marginally too rich, but the construction of the dish was fancy enough to be entertaining and the taste was strong enough to be worth it.So far I was a little underwhelmed. The dishes all looked amazing and were as nouvelle as you'd expect, but they were all rather expensive and unfortunately a case of style over substance for the most part. And the langoustines cost £47.
Main courses were happily better. My father-in-law went for the head chef's signature dish, something I was able to recommend having seen it on Masterchef: The Professionals a month or so earlier. At the time of watching, I was unconvinced by the dish: veal sweetbread with pine nuts, almonds and savoy cabbage. It didn't seem particularly substantial and it looked a little drab. The plus point of this dish for me was that Ash Mair - the eventual winner - prepared it and excelled. For that alone I was curious to have a look at it first hand (right).The dish was, in the event, a bit of a treat. The sweetbread was very creamy and supple which gave a great variation to the dish when combined with the pine nuts and almonds. The whole thing was brought together by the thick savoy cabbage leaf at the base, with the rich jus luxuriously coating each mouthful. This was a sudden upswing.
Elsewhere, a slab of uncooked rib-eye steak was brought to the table and we selected a juicy cut which was duly brought back, cooked to a turn (left). It was, however, a little smoky and salted for my tastes. It just didn't taste as fine as it looked, or indeed as it should have tasted. Happily, they made up for this with some turned new potatoes on the side and some of the famous Robuchon mashed potato for the table. The latter is just so wonderfully creamy and buttery, it deserves the recognition it has received as arguably Robuchon's greatest culinary achievement.
The wife and I both went for truffle dishes for the main course. Hers was a combination of perfectly-fried scallops with fregola sarda, the Italian equivalent of cous-cous (right). The tiny specks of toasted pasta were beautifully brought together with a thick and creamy sauce and some white foam, with the Perigord black truffle residing regally over the top.The truffle on my main course was combined with pommes purée on the side of some foie gras-stuffed quail. The dish was, in essence, perfect for me, all its main ingredients among my favourites. The result was similar to that of the starters, sadly. All wordiness and pretence leaving a rather small plate of half-finished morsels. This is not the kind of old-fashioned Michelin-starred nonsense I want on my plate when I ask for quail and mashed potato.
We were fairly stuffed at this point and dessert wasn't necessary but our curiosity and greed got the better of us. Our waiter offered us the chance to have our puddings in the top floor salon, which we thought might be nice. Predictably, the restaurant had whacked the heating right up to compensate for the freezing temperature outside, which was making us all a little sleepy. When we were shown upstairs to a small bar room with some comfortable seating, the four of us promptly drifted off until our desserts arrived.
We were awoken by some fairly impressive looking puddings. The wife and her father had gone for Le Mango-Mango, a mixture of mango coulis & mousse with some sorbet and biscuit (left). This was a light, fruity explosion of sweet intensity. Plus a strange sign which read "MANGO" in case we'd forgotten. It was something you'd eat one spoonful of and then continually shovel it down until nothing remained.
That was that. We wrapped up and braved the cold again before bidding adieu to the in-laws and reflected on a wonderful few days. The meal at L'Atelier was not one of them, sadly. There had been some impressive high points, the desserts most so, but the rest left a slightly disappointing reflection on just how much it costs to eat at this place. The atmosphere is modern, dark and special but the overall experience was lacking in a few key areas: sadly the quality of the food was one. Not that it was bad, just not that good. Not so good you'd want to spend nearly £50 on four langoustines.
L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon
Friday, 6 April 2012
A Family Dinner - Les Deux Salons: Covent Garden, Saturday January 14th, 2012
After the day we'd had, starting with a wedding in the morning and a glorious Le Vacherin lunch, there wasn't much fight left in the wife and I by the time Saturday night came around. However, my father in law was insistent he wanted to show his immense generosity once more by taking the immediate family out to dinner.
The whole day had been special, but this was a lovely way to round things off: by celebrating the coming together of two families in a private way in what, apparently, is one of the best 100 restaurants in the UK. The search to find somewhere reasonably priced for ten people had lead to a few dead-ends. Most places wanted everyone to have the exact same menu which was no fun at all. This seemed like as good a place as any, since we could easily hit the minimum £60-a-head spend whilst enjoying the privacy of their smallest function room.
Les Deux Salons is a strange place when put into context. There's nothing particularly strange about a two-storey restaurant in Covent Garden serving European-British stuff to hundreds of diners, but when it's part of the Arbutus group, who already have Michelin Stars in their other two places (Wild Honey and Arbutus), it seems a little peculiar. Of course, there is nothing wrong with expanding one's portfolio to include more affordable dining, but it is less exclusive than one might expect.
The menu reads like a disaster waiting to happen. Trying to cover every angle, it appears to be a menu in dire need of a massive trim. There's something I just can't fully trust about a restaurant where the menu reads like an inelegant list of anything the kitchen is capable of producing, as opposed to a well-thought-out, structured and innovative list of dishes. However, for a family meal it looked like somewhere that might just suffice.
The private room itself was a narrow, street-side affair which comfortably sat ten people plus coats and bags. In the event, it was just what we needed. Rather than being a stuffy, eerily silent formal surround, it was cosy enough to be comfortable and casual enough to be a little loud.
As an experience, the place was enjoyable in a low-key midweek kind of way. There is a lot of fun to be had here provided you've got the cash. It's informal and educated eating: the kind that you might find in Joe Allen and other restaurants in Covent Garden.
To business, the starters were a mixture of horrendous and rather pleasant. My snail & bacon pie had the descriptive look of a huge winner. A rough and humble French country dish it should've been, but a disaster inside a pastry crust it was. Dry, tough and salty were the three adjectives which adequately describe the misery I was putting in my mouth: horrible stuff. The wife's oysters were nothing to write home about either, a little too firm and not as slippery as great oysters can be.
Happily most of the other starters on show were received more positively. A happy combination of haddock, scrambled eggs and creme fraiche was gobbled down with relish by my sister's partner - a brave choice for him since he can be an unadventurous eater - whilst my sister-in-law exuded nothing but happiness in polishing off an assortment of crab, grapefruit and avocado.
Main courses were a happier affair, which I believe reflects on what Les Deux Salons is good at: hearty, uncomplicated comfort food. Three of the table ate the burger and my mother declared it the best she'd ever eaten. The wife and her dad both went for the Barnsley double lamb chop which was served in the pan with its juices (left). I'm not a huge fan of chops unless they're chops like these: big, thick and with a beautiful caramelisation on the outside.
Having had a steak for lunch, I was in the mood for something a little lighter for my main course. Sea bass with Lyonnaise potatoes was a good choice in the event (right). Sweet, tender and fresh fish was complimented by a medley of crispy potatoes and mushrooms. It wasn't a perfect dish, but it had a lot of the rustic charm that was missing from my disappointing starter.
My brother went for 'slow cooked beef with carrots, red wine sauce', which is usually called boeuf bourguignon. In the event, this was also a traditional and simple dish of the kind of quality that Les Deux Salons should be producing on every course, rather than in select cases. Therein lies the issue with a massive menu.
Desserts were enjoyable yet forgettable. A decent enough apple tart fine, creme brulee and a meringue presented as a floating island in a bowl of custard were about as good as it got, but there was nothing to scream and shout about. Maybe that's what can be said for this place: unexciting standards, some touching great.
The appeal of Les Deux Salons is its location, its lack of pretence and its wide-ranging menu. Unfortunately, the menu is what's going to hinder it from becoming much better than it is now. It hasn't got enough refinement to push the dishes on show to the next level. I can't imagine it's a place I will be desperate to go back to, but it is likely to become one of those tricky restaurants where 'it depends on what you order' becomes the mantra.
Somewhat contradictorily, the place will always hold a special resonance for me since this was the location for a lovely evening meal with a newly-joined family. We all had a lovely evening despite being fairly worn out from a long day. Maybe this is the key selling point for Les Deux Salons: a great venue for a family meal out in central London.
Les Deux Salons
The whole day had been special, but this was a lovely way to round things off: by celebrating the coming together of two families in a private way in what, apparently, is one of the best 100 restaurants in the UK. The search to find somewhere reasonably priced for ten people had lead to a few dead-ends. Most places wanted everyone to have the exact same menu which was no fun at all. This seemed like as good a place as any, since we could easily hit the minimum £60-a-head spend whilst enjoying the privacy of their smallest function room.
Les Deux Salons is a strange place when put into context. There's nothing particularly strange about a two-storey restaurant in Covent Garden serving European-British stuff to hundreds of diners, but when it's part of the Arbutus group, who already have Michelin Stars in their other two places (Wild Honey and Arbutus), it seems a little peculiar. Of course, there is nothing wrong with expanding one's portfolio to include more affordable dining, but it is less exclusive than one might expect.
The menu reads like a disaster waiting to happen. Trying to cover every angle, it appears to be a menu in dire need of a massive trim. There's something I just can't fully trust about a restaurant where the menu reads like an inelegant list of anything the kitchen is capable of producing, as opposed to a well-thought-out, structured and innovative list of dishes. However, for a family meal it looked like somewhere that might just suffice.
The private room itself was a narrow, street-side affair which comfortably sat ten people plus coats and bags. In the event, it was just what we needed. Rather than being a stuffy, eerily silent formal surround, it was cosy enough to be comfortable and casual enough to be a little loud.
As an experience, the place was enjoyable in a low-key midweek kind of way. There is a lot of fun to be had here provided you've got the cash. It's informal and educated eating: the kind that you might find in Joe Allen and other restaurants in Covent Garden.
To business, the starters were a mixture of horrendous and rather pleasant. My snail & bacon pie had the descriptive look of a huge winner. A rough and humble French country dish it should've been, but a disaster inside a pastry crust it was. Dry, tough and salty were the three adjectives which adequately describe the misery I was putting in my mouth: horrible stuff. The wife's oysters were nothing to write home about either, a little too firm and not as slippery as great oysters can be.
Happily most of the other starters on show were received more positively. A happy combination of haddock, scrambled eggs and creme fraiche was gobbled down with relish by my sister's partner - a brave choice for him since he can be an unadventurous eater - whilst my sister-in-law exuded nothing but happiness in polishing off an assortment of crab, grapefruit and avocado.
Having had a steak for lunch, I was in the mood for something a little lighter for my main course. Sea bass with Lyonnaise potatoes was a good choice in the event (right). Sweet, tender and fresh fish was complimented by a medley of crispy potatoes and mushrooms. It wasn't a perfect dish, but it had a lot of the rustic charm that was missing from my disappointing starter.My brother went for 'slow cooked beef with carrots, red wine sauce', which is usually called boeuf bourguignon. In the event, this was also a traditional and simple dish of the kind of quality that Les Deux Salons should be producing on every course, rather than in select cases. Therein lies the issue with a massive menu.
Desserts were enjoyable yet forgettable. A decent enough apple tart fine, creme brulee and a meringue presented as a floating island in a bowl of custard were about as good as it got, but there was nothing to scream and shout about. Maybe that's what can be said for this place: unexciting standards, some touching great.
The appeal of Les Deux Salons is its location, its lack of pretence and its wide-ranging menu. Unfortunately, the menu is what's going to hinder it from becoming much better than it is now. It hasn't got enough refinement to push the dishes on show to the next level. I can't imagine it's a place I will be desperate to go back to, but it is likely to become one of those tricky restaurants where 'it depends on what you order' becomes the mantra.
Somewhat contradictorily, the place will always hold a special resonance for me since this was the location for a lovely evening meal with a newly-joined family. We all had a lovely evening despite being fairly worn out from a long day. Maybe this is the key selling point for Les Deux Salons: a great venue for a family meal out in central London.
Les Deux Salons
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