The Clarendon – Notting Hill, Tuesday 14th July 2010

In the world of food, the margins by which good and bad ideas are defined can be extraordinarily thin. You only have to read any seasoned reviewer venting about how a restaurant has trashed their menu with unnecessary ingredients to appreciate this. In the world of fine dining – or even good dining – anyone serving food has to get the specifics just right to deliver. This is the problem food critics suffer from. One tiny flaw in a book or a film can easily be lost in the work, but in food, you have to look out for everything.

Of course, sometimes restaurants make it remarkably easy for you by fouling up the whole thing completely. Not too long ago, I was in a hotel restaurant in Brighton where I was unfortunately subjected to some of the very worst food it has ever been my misfortune to eat. You occasionally get food which looks like it has been kept under a heat lamp for a while. This stuff tasted like it had been cooked under a lamp from start to finish. There are a few reasons I only focus on London eating with this blog, one of them being that I don't get around outside London enough to warrant a broad enough spread of reviews, but if I did I would be sure to give this particular restaurant the panning it deserves.

The other extreme is where everything is just about perfect and it all works. I feel a bit guilty writing a perfect review (there haven't been many), but it rarely happens so I suppose we don't need to worry about that. The rest of the time, we pick through everything to find flaws amongst great works, flies in the ointment, plastic in the dessert (which has actually happened to me) and so on…

As happens so often in life, I turn to the stunning Frasier to illustrate a point. The perversity of the critic is summed up perfectly by a quote from Kelsey Grammar's character: "what is the one thing better than an exquisite meal..? An exquisite meal with one tiny flaw we can pick at all night."

Back in July I had stopped in at the relatively new Clarendon in Notting Hill, which is branded as "Holland Park and Notting Hill's newest pub, cocktail lounge bar and restaurant." I was already wary of the place with a description like that; they were clearly running the gamete with their introduction. However, it was a Taste London offer, so a friend (whom I owed a meal) and I went in for dinner.

The evening was a cavalcade of small flaws which brought the whole thing down. The first problem with The Clarendon is that it suffers from the same malady as Paradise By Way Of Kensal Green: it doesn't know what it's trying to be. You can tell from the description above (from their website, I might add) that they're trying to cover all the bases, which does not work in general. What you usually get is typified with The Clarendon: a hollow hall of confused nothingness. Which is a real shame because their main room is quite pretty in an earthy way.

The starter I sampled was a double-mistake. Mixing chorizo with scallops is a bad idea. Particularly when the chorizo is as dry as jerky and the scallops have been more or less bunged on the plate with little work. I'm all for simplicity and letting ingredients speak for themselves, but when you're preparing food so clumsily it doesn't work.

We split a chateaubriand for the main course which looked impressive but didn't deliver. Served with a roasted head of garlic, a deluge of red wine sauce and some mushrooms, it should've been fantastic. Instead it was a waste of steak and just about everything else on the plate. Average quality meat, poorly seasoned sauces and very uninspired on all counts. And that really is a shame, considering you're shelling out £45 for this. (You do get two sides with the dish, which is a nice touch, but even then they weren't up to much.)

A passable if dry sticky toffee pudding later and we were ready to settle up the bill. This seemed to require the energy and attention of every single member of the waiting staff and maybe even the manager. I don't know if they'd ever seen a Taste London card before but they appeared pretty baffled by it. Fortunately, we sloped off only having to pay half what the food was worth: I'd have baulked at having to pay full price.

So, far from being a critic's dream, this was closer to a consumer's nightmare. Enticing offers, lengthy introductions and snazzy faux-traditional dining rooms are only good if you're backing it up with real quality on the plate. The Clarendon is falling away here and it is not going to stand the test of time unless it bucks its ideas up. They have a reasonable location, a lovely building and one of the nicest areas in London in which to ply their trade. It's now up to them to get busy making it fulfil its potential.

The Clarendon

A Dream Realised: Le Gavroche – Mayfair, Friday 2nd July, 2010

They say you should never meet your idols. And of course, "they" have a point. As soon as you realise the natural flaws and failings of something or someone that you have built up to an improbable and impossible degree it all falls apart. I have had the same thing in some cases with restaurants before. Maybe you should never eat your idols. Does that work?

I had wanted to go to Le Gavroche for years. Literally. It had been more or less at the top of my London list for as long as I've been writing this blog. The risk of wanting something this badly is that it goes one of two ways: either it doesn't live up to your expectations (never eat your idols, as they might one day say); or you're just so determined it's going to be perfect that it is.

The chef patron of Le Gavroche is one rather famous Michel Roux Jr. He's more out and about than actually cooking in the kitchen these days, yet whilst his recent and frequent turns on Masterchef : The Professionals have detracted slightly from his work (yet improved his celebrity cache), the guy clearly knows flavour, style and how to construct a menu. The signature dishes and quality at his restaurant have near lead the way in London for years now. Suited and booted, late in the evening, ready to be impressed, in we went.

I loved Le Gavroche. Right down to its ludicrously plush carpets and piss-weak lighting. (Yes, I know all about terrible lighting, but it worked here.) I'm writing this review with an even more biased slant than usual (it was a birthday gift for me and I wasn't paying), but I was always going to enjoy this one. So, even down to the lighting, the evening was a success. But not a total one. Here's why…

There are several reasons to like Le Gavroche instantly. It is magnificently decorated, superbly furnished, opulently styled, yet somehow understated. Despite all the gloss on the surface, there is something rather modest about its manner and pace. There is a second reason for this: the staff. I was talking to a friend shortly before the meal who told me "there are staff everywhere…but you won't notice them." A remarkably pithy and precise comment. There are indeed staff fluttering about, yet in such an unobtrusive way that you don't always notice they're there. After food quality, service is everything and Le Gavroche delivers on priority two with aplomb.

Food-wise, the thing you remember from Le Gavroche above all else is they don't hold back. They do not stop feeding you. It's a seamless procession of pre- and post-courses which nearly meld into one massive experience. I say "nearly" because it isn't quite as smooth as it could be. We nearly lost out on one of our pre-starters as it was about to be taken away before we had finished it. Even so, the quality of these morsels in general was excellent. Bits of foie gras and cold fish, all on the mark.

On to the business of the meal proper, there were soaring highs and average middles. The starters were two of those said highs. Despite the moderately decadent nature of the restaurant, sometimes there's a lot to be said for simple, seasonal quality. And our first starter was a model of such features. Egg yolk and pea ravioli (one of the former, two of the latter) along with chicken wings and asparagus sounds all over the place. It looked it too, slightly (left). However, the texture and formation of the pasta was perfect, and everything was cooked right. I struggled a little at first, but the final bite, combining all elements of the dish - the fresh peas with the smooth pureé, the in-season asparagus, the salty chicken and the silky yolk - showed how local, seasonal and elegant are a stunning distillation of tastes and ideas.

The second starter, however, was something absolutely opulently French. A richer-than-rich combination of strong, bold and brash flavours, our mousse of chicken with foie gras atop a slice of artichoke, decorated with truffles was heart-stopping in more than just the literal sense (right). The deliciously fluffy and smooth liver mousse was exceptional with the perfectly-cooked artichoke base. Within lurked two slabs of seared foie gras which you could actually pick out amongst the bolder flavours of the dish; no mean combination. Slivers of truffle adorned the dome of mousse along with a rich jus, which eventually slid the whole affair into a gorgeous first course.

Our main courses were leaning towards the slightly more decadent side of things once again. A rare steak with foie gras was just about what you expect: rich, moist, dressed well… and served with crisps (left). Surprising for sure but generally speaking it was good. You can't say a lot more than that, because the individual parts of the dish were less pronounced than the starters and it was less spectacular in general. However, the one area of the plate which pushed the dish into culinary overdrive was the truffled hollandaise sauce: exactly as wonderful as it sounds.

The roast saddle of rabbit with parmesan and potatoes was lovely (right). The rabbit was stunningly well-cooked and combined with the potatoes and other miscellaneous vegetables. I must admit I do love the nature of classic French food in this respect: vegetables are only there to make up the numbers. The strangest parts of the dish were the accompaniments to the rabbit. The potatoes had been strung out, knitted into the thinnest chips you've ever seen and were a deliciously crunchy contrast to the soft rabbit and smooth sauce. The parmesan was crisp-fried into what I can only describe as a hat, which topped off the dish in eccentric but satisfying fashion. It was a dish of the most fanciful comfort food you could wish to eat.

By this stage, we were fairly stuffed in terms of both the richness and volume of food, but the non-stop nature of the evening continued. We were each presented with a long glass boat containing fruit jellies, macaroons and impressive sugar work. Unnecessary, lavish, sweet and quite pleasant: welcome to desserts.

Puddings came in the form of one which was far too complicated and didn't live up to the evening's standards and one which was superb. The former was a dégustation aux framboises or an assortment of raspberries to you and me (left). This sounded impressive but eventually failed to deliver on two fronts. The soufflé was miniature and tasty, the sorbet was fresh and zingy, but the rest wasn't up to snuff. The mille-feuille of chocolate and raspberries was neither luxuriant enough to allow the chocolate to flourish, nor inventive enough to really taste the raspberries. The doughnut served with raspberry sauce was something of a nuisance. They might have been better just giving us a decent-sized raspberry soufflé with sorbet.

Soufflé, it turns out, is one of Le Gavroche's strengths. As well it might be, given how whole-heartedly true to France it is. The passion fruit and white chocolate soufflé made up for more or less any shortcomings with the raspberries (right). Served hot at the table with a fresh passion fruit sauce, then extravagantly topped with a sublime white chocolate ice cream, it was just about the best soufflé I have eaten.

And so it was... I will say right now that Le Gavroche didn't completely live up to my expectations. And that's why eating your idols is bad. However, for the most part it was a very enjoyable meal, served expertly and tasting stellar at times. The only dish that could be described as average was the raspberry dessert, whereas more or less everything else was exceptional.

There is one thing that stuck in my craw though: price. As I said before I wasn't paying, but I did happen to catch a glance at the priced menu a couple of times. I do think the food is overpriced. For example, if you wanted lobster mousse to start, that would cost you nearly £60. Now I realise that a dish as magnificent as lobster mousse will always cost a lot, but consider the addition to your total meal cost with that. And the mark-up on your service charge. Le Gavroche might be a wonderful dinner, but your bank balance will know about it afterwards.

Miserly moaning out of the way, I did have a wonderful time at the London restaurant I had coveted longest. The evening was lovely, the service was great, the food was (for the most part) delicious and the place itself is superbly impressive. An institution for sure; one that deserves to continue to stand the test of time.

Le Gavroche

Wahaca White City – Shepherds Bush Thursday 24th June, 2010

I'd heard good things about the cheap, streetwise glory surrounding Wahaca for some time, so when I met up with a couple of friends for dinner there I was hoping for some heart and soul with my Mexican food. I wanted to taste the passion and spice that makes Central American food so lustily demanded in America and so fashionably lauded over here.

It might be no surprise to hear that I did not find it in a packed Westfield eatery. (Nice try with 'White City', Wahaca.) I suppose that's implied by the words "Westfield Eatery", though I have enjoyed the odd enjoyable meal there before. There is something that's quite nice about the Southern Terrace at Westfield, with its attempts at greenery and straight-from-Asia water features (though in Asia they'd be cleaner), especially on a summer evening. There are loads of people about and the mood is good.

Wahaca wasn't a disaster, but the place just doesn't deliver the sort of thrilling food you want it to. We sampled a variety of dishes which ranged from good to below average, but the feel of the place is not a satisfying one. Strangely, our waitress suggested that we'd asked for too much to eat, so we might want to consider dropping a dish. Now, firstly I do admire the honesty; not many places would encourage you to eat less. However, I don't think it was necessarily true – I could've eaten more but then again I am rather greedy. The drinks were terrible. I wish places would start offering more interesting ideas for non-drinkers than virgin mojitos. (I was not massively enthused by hibiscus water or horchata – rice milk?! – either.)

The other problem I have with this meal is that it left no impression on me whatsoever. I can't fully recall what I ate there. Yes, a lot of this is due to my tardiness; it's something like four months since I actually ate the meal. Still, if food is good enough, it usually leaves some sort of positive impression. There was some pork, some cod, some chicken, all served in or with a variety of Mexican carbo-fare: quesadillas, tortillas and rice. I won't complain about it, but neither will I praise it.

There isn't much more to say about Wahaca. It's convenience food that's a few notches above Nando's but not half as fun as it could be. But then again, the model that they have employed at Westfield is one that will make them a lot of money without breaking a lot of sweat. I won't go back to their White City branch, but there just might be something to be said for their flagship venue in Covent Garden.

Wahaca

Criterion – Piccadilly, Sunday 20th June, 2010

You know Criterion, even if you think you don't. You've walked past it but might not have recognised it when you did. If you've ever walked through Piccadilly Circus, you will have seen it. It's situated in the huge building right off the main pedestrian area of the place. It's been there forever, gone through a few facelifts in its time (Marco Pierre White used to have a place there) and generally is as much a rightful part of the area as the Trocadero.

Unfortunately, it's about as useful as the Trocadero too, which is to say it looks faintly impressive, attracts interest with ease but delivers annoying fluff and nonsense. The dining room is grandiose and pleasant, but that's all you can say really. When the food gets put in front of you, it all melts away into a void of hollow west end faff.

The Sunday lunch the other half and I sampled was, for the most part, lousy. The one shimmering beacon of acceptability was the first course. Oysters were fresh and tasted as they should (left). The expert dissection across the table was indicative that these weren't to be derided, and the glorious plop that was sent my way was good enough for me. I ordered the foie gras with wood pigeon, atop brioche with some dressings. Now, this dish should be magnificent. What I got was not. I don't know how it's possible to make foie gras taste cheap and un-worldly but Criterion managed it. The pigeon wasn't bad in the event, but the sauce (apple and tomato relish) was far too sweet and detracted from the main events. I enjoyed the first bite, doubted the second and was indifferent to the rest.

Main courses were a pretty hilarious failure. At least they would've been to people that were watching us. And I don't know who would've been: the place wasn't exactly brimming. We went for pork shoulder with potatoes and veg along with the asparagus risotto with summer truffle. I wish I could've just left it at reading those two dishes on the menu and let my imagination feed me. They were both poor.

Great Sunday meat should come in the form of very simple, rich and tasty hunks of local fare. It should be earthy, warm, reminiscent of childhood and basically do everything that modern eating society demands of English food. If it's good. Like Quo Vadis, for example. That was good Sunday meat. This was a joke by comparison. Unspeakably dry, tasteless pork served with potatoes that had been salted, prepared and cooked to death. Each step in their journey to the plate had been a way to make them awful.

Asparagus and goat's curd risotto with summer truffle should be just about the best thing you can eat in late June. The two key ingredients are in season and this should be corking all over. Nothing about it was good. Not a single thing. From the over-filled plate to the over-cooked asparagus (which wasn't too fresh anyway) to the terrible texture, I hated it. This is classic evidence of a simple dish that has been ruined to the point of no merit at all. It wasn't even over-complicated, just bad. I asked where the summer truffle was, because it sure wasn't on the plate. The waitress was suitably confused by my request, but emerged with a small dish of something which I had to sprinkle over the food.

I had a slight issue with this, since adding one of the main ingredients to a dish is something the kitchen should do. And they shouldn't forget about it either. But hey, I had my truffle and that can improve any dish. Well, if it's fresh. If it has been freshly grated or flaked on to, or in to, the dish, punctuating it with sweet, spicy bursts of glorious flavour, then yes, it will do just fine. This, however, was not truffle. Maybe it had been truffle last summer, but it seemed to have been shoved in a cupboard and lain dormant for a season before becoming petrified and losing all of its flavour. This dish of toenails that I sprinkled all over the plate certified the lunch time disaster.

Dessert couldn't save the day. Serving something called 'deconstructed rhubarb crumble' is a bold and daring statement. You have to firstly justify serving something so pompous and secondly quantify why such a ridiculous name has been given to the dish. In case you're wondering, Criterion did neither. It could've worked if it had been billed as 'summer rhubarb', but oh no; this wasn't a deconstructed crumble - it was a waste of rhubarb. Under-cooked, poorly-flavoured and not dressed as it should've been, I didn't enjoy it much.

The other half went for a chocolate tart which they would have been really hard pressed to mess up. Try as they might, they got us back on to the plateau of averageness that we had been gasping for ever since our mains came out. It wasn't bad, but that's the best compliment you could give it.

So, don't bother with Criterion. I don't want to sound unnecessarily harsh, but when a restaurant attempts to confound all your expectations and let you down at every turn, you don't really want to champion much about them. Let's leave this magnificent hall to a venture more deserving of its glory.

Criterion

Taste Of London – Regents Park, Saturday 19th June

Well, summer really is in full swing. Taste of London is a wonderful event in the London food calendar, and one that I hope I will be able to attend as long as it remains interesting. Since last year, my tastes have changed a little, but the appeal of the event is twofold: sample some dishes that have previously hit the spot, plus try a few new things too. The hopeful upshot..? A load of places get added to the 'to visit' list and a great day had by all.

This year, the organisers had obviously cottoned on to the fact that if they split up the allotted time available into separate sessions, they would make more money and sell more tickets. So myself and two others went for the afternoon session on the Saturday to hopefully sample the best London had to offer.

The day (or afternoon) as a whole was enjoyable and eye-opening. Unfortunately, London's classic fickle weather didn't bestow us with the sun-drenched glory of yesteryear, so eating a variety of dishes in the wind and rain of a gloomy June day didn't have the same appeal. However, we weren't about to shy away from some good eats, so off we went in search of food.

It's always helpful if you can start a day of eating off with a bang, so when we managed to experience two quick high points at the beginning of the event, things looked good. We immediately headed for a throng of visitors surrounding the Trinity stand and realised that they were serving their signature pigs trotter dish (left). Served well diced with gribiche sauce (fancy pickle mayonnaise, really) along with a quail egg and crackling, it was definitely worth the extra crowns and the slightly long wait.

Whilst all this queueing was going on, we spread the net a little wider to gather another three dishes to start the day with. Trinity was also offering the more standard pork belly (right), which was correctly seasoned, accompanied and served, even though the crackling was a little hard. We also stopped in at L'Anima's stand for some rabbit Siciliana (above left). This was delicious - well-stewed rabbit meat served with a rich, luxurious tomato sauce which was punctuated with delicious sweet, tart shallots. A fine dish and no mistake.

Having munched our way through a fairly rich set of first courses, we gave our bodies no rest at all and hit Fino for a double-whammy of some rather fresh and tender suckling pig and some surprisingly excellent squid (left). The latter was the show-stealer, ticking all the boxes for how baby squid should taste. Often you can get rather chewy or dry stuff, but I was very grateful for my companions' insistence that we give it a go. Top stuff indeed.

We made a stop in at Tom's Kitchen, which seemed a formality after last year. Fortunately for us the foie gras and chicken liver parfait (right) was still on the menu, as well as 'seven-hour confit lamb'. Those two descriptions alone are enough to make a lavish carnivore like me salivate, and the pay-off was as expected. The two dishes did the job: the parfait in its own right as a rich, full and stunning starter; the lamb as yet another reminder of how much I want to try the kitchen, or indeed Tom Aikens' main restaurant near Sloane Square. The lamb was intensely flavoursome, coupled with sharp balsamic onions and a classic mash. We drifted back past there to complete an Aikens clean sweep later on in the day to try their Eton Mess for dessert. As it turned out, this was something of a let-down; a pale if pretty take on an English summer classic. However, the proficiency of their first two courses made the stand a winner.

We stopped in at the Launceston Place stand for their (apparently) famous goose egg and chips. Disappointing, given how good I know eggs at the restaurant are. I don't know what they'd done with this, but it tasted like smooth mayonnaise spread over overcooked chips. Perhaps this is something they'll do on their menu one day, but until then I remain unconvinced.

Theo Randall's stand made an almost-winning contribution to the day, as we tried all three of the dishes they were offering. As expected, the orgasmic chocolate cake I fawned over last year, as well as on the visit to his restaurant, was still wonderful. I believe we ate three of them by the time the day was out. We also sampled some aubergine and tomato penne, which was as you expect from Theo Randall - an exceptionally-presented, unexceptionally simple dish. Unfortunately, the pan-seared scallops with chilli and lentils served only to annoy me. Mushy, poorly-flavoured and just bad. My companions got a kick out of it, but it was not something I'd ever want to waste time on again.

What followed were two slightly less impressive takes on dishes from a year ago. Again, Le Gavroche was serving beef, but this time with polenta (left). It wasn't bad, but as with last year, you get a sense that they're just wheeling this out in their sleep. It's not a dish that made me think "I have got to get to this restaurant". I do actually think that, it's just because of reputation, as opposed to what I tried here. Similarly, the show-stealing lamb from Odette's had dropped from last year. Still served with peas and mint, the dish had lost some of its impressive smoothness and finesse (above right).

After a short break for a juice cocktail and the nice surprise of bumping into a couple of other friends, we headed for the Grill at the Dorchester. Now I usually have to remind myself that this is comfortably apart from Alain Ducasse's venture at the same hotel, but even so I was looking forward to sampling what they had to offer. There was average and there was spectacular. The former was some fairly undersold lamb with tomatoes and shallot pureé. Even if the Odette's dish wasn't quite up to 2009 standards, it still knocked spots off this one. However, the other dish we sampled was quite simply one of the very best of the day. Sardine pie with scallop sounded amazing, looked amazing and tasted outrageous (above left). Flaky, buttery pastry with sharp, salty sardine, complimented perfectly with the sweet, warm scallop on the side. Cauliflower pureé too, which adds pizazz to any dish. The Grill is now on my list after a dish this good.

As we surveyed the festival and our watches, we realised that we'd eaten just about all we could - in terms of capacity and available funds - so we turned our minds to desserts. We still had room to revisit Theo's delectable cakes and Tom's average Eton Mess as I mentioned earlier, but we also discovered a couple of stunners to see us off. We wandered back past L'Anima to try their Delizia de Limone, which was less the classic lemon tart I'd anticipated and more a delightfully crumbly mess of a dish (right). By no means a pick of the day, but very enjoyable nonetheless, and a classic summer dessert to boot.

We saved two of the best for last. Whilst the Maze stand hadn't captured our imagination with it's first two courses, the dessert choice of strawberry cheesecake was sufficient to tempt us. And it looked ridiculous (left). A frankly unnecessary and pretentious re-working of a classic dessert. I thought. I was wrong. The choice of sprinkling the base crumbs over the top of wonderfully creamy, thick cheese, then lacing the whole thing with fresh strawberries, strawberry sauce and a sheet of strawberry sugar was perfect. We ate three of them overall. It's a good job we hadn't found them sooner because we might've spent even more of our day eating them if we had. The final piece of the day was a simply superb custard tart from Rhodes 24 (above right). Served with a gloriously dark and sweet raisin syrup, the smoothness of the dessert was sensationally complimented. A top dessert to close the afternoon.

So that's what we tried. And we were highly satisfied. It was a lovely day, despite the driving wind and occasional rain. If you have any sort of interest in food, events or what's out there in London, fork out £40 or £50 next year and have four hours of fun in Regents Park. As for a menu of the day... Well, it's really difficult this year, because there were a good few stand out dishes and very little I didn't like. However, the pressure is on, so here's what I'm going for:

Starter: Scallop and Sardine Pie from the Grill at the Dorchester. Maybe not a starter in the conventional sense, but it worked wonderfully well for me and I would love to eat this at the start of a meal.

Main Course: Pigs Trotters from Trinity. Give me trotters with quail egg and sauce gribiche any day and I will be a happy man. The dish was a winner.

Dessert: Chocolate Cake from Theo Randall. Sorry, but I won't budge on this one: the very best there is. Despite a huge effort from the Maze cheesecake and the Rhodes custard tart, nothing can knock my appreciation from the Theo torte.

Taste Of London