Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester (London): finesse

(Visited January 2013)

Here, finesse is as abundant as the stars,  finesse in conception and execution, though if one observed that these dishes are sometimes unspectacular, one would be capturing another truth. Nobody can accuse Ducasse of ever taking you by storm. At least in the savoury department, sweets tell a different story.

The nibbles (excellent gougeres), the amuse bouche and the starters were the savories that made an impression.

In the amuse, a royale of foie gras went very well with raisins and cauliflower, all exactly balanced. A starter of crab in two ways (cold/warm) was complex and refined, while a purely vegetarian, maybe even vegan, dish of vegetables in various cookings was pretty to see, meticulously prepared and delightful to eat, only held down by the quality of vegetables that was good, for sure, let’s say even very good, but not as spectacular as one would probably find at Ducasse’s places on the Continent.

The mains, a wild sea bass and a halibut, consisted of small pieces of the fish fillet with one vegetable and excellent jus (chicken for the seabass, meaty for the halibut), simply and precisely presented.

Fundamentally, there weren’t great motives of interest in these dishes, textural or otherwise except a pang of pepper, nor great complexity. In this type of relatively plain dish excellence depends on standout produce but this, while good, wasn’t near the best fish we’ve tried and it didn’t sing. For our taste, it was also a little overcooked.

What was truly spectacular was the patisserie. In the petit fours, the macaroons and pralines were masterful and the baba’ au rum was perhaps the best we’ve ever tried, also in virtue of the theatre of letting you choose among six rums, but especially because of its unreal lightness.

And a pear with chestnuts repeated the theme of extreme lightness married to great concentration of flavour. Structurally, it was a bit like a deconstructed Mont Blanc. Quite phenomenal.

Shock news: espresso was also very good: what a rarity.

The front room can be ugly or beautiful for the beholder. For us it is pleasant, tables are amply spaced, light is abundant, at least in the sector we were in. Service is incredibly unstuffy for a classical French place and extremely attentive, a real asset of this restaurant.

Prices are high of course but very much in line considering where you are, the three stars, the brand name, and what you eat (£5 for coffee seems too much though).

We put three pics just to show that it wasn’t a dream. We’re too lazy right now to put them all up, yet unwilling to delay this post any further.

Stay tuned…

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Weekend in London

There are many reasons why London is the greatest city on earth.

One them is that in the space of a walk you can eat Italian like in Italy, French like in France, Japanese like in Japan (granted, with a few local inflections…).

In an otherwise undistinguished Autumn weekend, this is just what we did, visiting in succession three of our long time favourites.

Latium continues to deliver immaculate ingredients prepared with simplicity and  flair, the secret of Maurizio Morelli’s dishes being an uncannily exact judgement in seasoning and flavour balance. Sometimes, in Tripadvisor sort of critiques, one reads complaints about the lack of a ‘wow!’ factor. But there is a sense in which the triumph of this cuisine lies precisely in the lack of any recourse to wow, as well as in the repudiation of gimmicks and fashions: this is a cuisine of classical equilibrium, of precise proportions, a classy cuisine. Think small Renaissance building as opposed to tallest skyscraper in the world. No celebrities here (go to Zafferano or Locatelli, for that, but better not), just lovely food and lovely service.

Smoked Swordfish with Puntarelle

Veal Ossobuco with saffron risotto

Kikuchi, this little joint tucked away in the unglamorous side street that it shares with a glamorous Hakkasan branch. We’ll admit, it may not be the greatest Japanese in the world, and yet it is bloody good, bloody authentic. How not be entranced by taciturn, courteous Mr. Kikuchi meticulously toiling away at his pretty, tasty sushis in front of his small clientele, hour after hour, evening after evening? There’s a sense of timelessness here. And how not to be charmed by those junior waitresses, probably students, with their faltering English, so polite and so barely comprehensible, bringing an apt sense of remoteness, and even by the veteran, grumpier waitress who hardly smiles at you after all these years? Try Kikuchi and you’ll see: you’ll get the addiction too, you’ll need his dishes again and again.

Seared very fatty tuna sushi

California rolls Kikuchi style

Koffman’s:  the old master, the most recent addition to our list of  favourites but it feels like it has always been there, an immense technique and capacity for powerful, full, knock-out flavours (starting from his bread basket, perhaps the best in London) put at the service of your sheer enjoyment, not giving a fig either about Michelin star strictures (he’s had enough three-starred glory) or your diet: if he judges that in a dish that amount of  butter and salt are needed to yield full flavour, that is what you get. No prissy calorie counting here. But relax: once in a while, you deserve it, and if you look well there are even lighter options on the menu. All served by one of the smoothest from of house teams in London.

Duck Pithivier

Tasting of braised beef cheeks

The great man was surveying the service while we devoured our excellent turbot:

(yes, we like our turbot cheeks 🙂 )

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Wallace Restaurant at the Wallace Collection

Woman spent an hour of the Sunday morning in the basement rooms showing some intricate works by the goldsmith Kevin Coates. Man, suffering from back-ache, unable to stoop to look at the details of the miniatures, irritated and very worried at the thought of Woman exposed to all that gold, took a stroll in the upper galleries looking at the portraits of rather ugly gentlemen and ladies and at terrifying armoury, and couldn’t wait to sit down in the comfortably pillowed, deep metal chairs of the fantastically bright (courtesy of a glass window) and spacious dining room at the Wallace collection.


There is something about satisfying first your eyes and then your palate, about eating surrounded by beauty…


We had a very decent duck terrine, accompanied by a lovely sweet sauce, clearly the work of a competent chef.

The combination of remoulade, Bayonne ham and cucumber pickles, while simple, worked and showed attention to flavour balance, and in all honesty the combination of sweetness, sourness, saltiness and umami was a pleasure on the palate.

The papillote butternut squash kept all its flavour, although we were suffering form carbohydrate withdrawal symptoms.

Luckily there was some creamy pearl barley accompanying plump courgettes, lavishly stuffed with black olives.

To finish, three cheeses, in more than acceptable conditions and generously accompanied by apples, grapes and walnuts – from a list of seven or eight we chose an Epoisse, a Livarot and a Comte D’Estive.

And a rather floury but overall good cherry clafoutis (no stones in the cherries!)

All this, plus two glasses of wine at £7.50 each and coffees, for £93. Some good pricing here. The cheeses are £10 for three piece, or £15 for five , or £7 for one. There is a set lunch of two or three courses at £22 and £25. We will not say that you can have the best fine dining lunch of your life at the Wallace, and with L’Autre Pied and Roganics so close for a Sunday lunch that’s where you should head to if you are only interested only in the food. But you can be a happy eater, you can be thoroughly content and relaxed, at the Wallace. There is competence and professionalism behind those dishes, and the environment is truly uplifting.




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Hedone (London): top produce does the job, sometimes

 (Note added December 2011: A second visit was distinctly less impressive than reflected in the review below. Between excellent dishes, the already noted amateurish mistakes were magnified to the point that a dish was tasting positively vile and verging on inedible (a salty cockle broth garnishing a turbot). When asked by the manager how it was, we told her how it was. The chef stormed out of the kitchen to confront us and assert that we were wrong. Unfortunately we were obviously right, saltiness is just that thing that anybody can spot…it was probably just hurt pride on his part that prevented him from admitting the mistake – a rather unpromising attitude for future developments. At those prices and with that attitude, we will not risk Hedone again for a long while).


Long cut through London from E1 to W4, for what? Well, for a good cause we hope. We look at the lunch menu, which offers 3, 4 or 5 courses (with two choices only for mains and desserts). Everything is enticing, so we ask for everything.

We are a little disappointed though that a lamb, which has been judged by this guy the best he’s ever eaten, isn’t on the menu. As it happens, this illustrious gourmet happens to be sitting right at the next table (we know it but he doesn’t, ah the joys of anonymity) and we become green with envy when we see chef Mikael Jonsson himself step out from the full open view kitchen area to personally bring the sought-after lamb to the next table! But this and other special treats are well deserved: our gourmet neighbour has been at Hedone six times in two weeks, a feat that we could never match, has written a glowing review, and has scored the cuisine at 2* level. Do we agree? 

Let’s be frank: with such a high bar set, no.

With us, excellent bread such as the one on show today is always a winner: nice crust, texture and flavour, even  if of only one type, which is a slight disappointment. Some at least minimal variety is important with bread.


An umami flan, topped by seaweed coulis (we think), suavely unctuous, offers unusual and crystal clear flavours, a striking opening to the meal, a work of simple genius. It was preceded by an also striking nibble of a sable’ buckwheat biscuit in which Berkswell cheese flavour comes through intensely, subtly accompanied by a blackcurrant powder.

A gazpacho is bursting with vegetable flavour and vibrant colour (good produce and good judgement in proportions and seasoning do the job), served spectacularly in a transparent bowl, and the dill seed sorbet worked very well indeed at all levels, flavour, temperature and consistency.

A simply grilled mackerel with Japanese flavours was incredibly soft and succulent, perfectly seasoned and accompanied by the tenderest of green leaves. A dish of great simplicity and effectiveness.

So far so good. But the the cooking was not perfect across the board. A wild salmon was reduced to a squashy texture by slow cooking. You can see from the photo some signs of the massacre. A nicely crispy skin or at least some firmness of flesh would better serve the splendid beast which died for us. Yet the peas were very good.

Conversely, we found too much firmness in a thickly cut pork of superb quality and exploding flavour, due to being a little overdone (great potato mash with just a hint of mustard (we think) and Grelot onions though, and the simple jus was perfect! And the crispiness of the skin!).

And, no matter how good and fresh the scallops were in another dish (and they were again fantastic), just steaming them (admittedly very precisely) with no contrast or complement for their natural potent umami and sweetness seems a bit like raising the white flag as an ambitious cook. Cuisine has been developed to enhance the natural flavour of the raw materials, after all. Isn’t this is what cooks do?

For desserts, a texturally very pleasant, smooth almond blanc manger provided a nice contrast to the acidity of an apricot, but perhaps the acidity itself was too much for balance.

On the other hand the Hedone chocolate bar (72%) was minimalistically but chewily gratifying. 

We always order espresso coffee with some hesitation. Especially when, like here, most of the personnel is French… But it was of excellent quality and reasonably well executed.

We paid £183 with a £44 wine and water, which may seem steep but isn’t, really. Not only will you find here some of the best quality produce around, but the dishes are generously portioned and allow you to enjoy them in several morsels (accumulating flavours and impressions) instead of disappearing in just one or two . 

Chef Jonsson seems a remarkable kind of chef, with his unusual pedigree of former gourmet and his ‘obsession’ with raw materials. He is very clever in keeping it simple, staying within his comfort zone of cooking, and focussing on sourcing. For what we’ve seen he would not excel at complex preparations, not having an assured hand in cooking, nor always stunning ideas on layering flavours. Hedone is already one of the best addresses in London – provided you are not in search of intricate dishes or complex culinary ideas or ambitious presentation, but of a potently good meal of dishes that are not pretentious yet do have some subtlety. Their only pretention, really, is great ingredients that are encouraged to speak mostly for themselves.

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Koffmann’s (London)

We would like to keep this brief – although we probably will not succeed – because there isn’t much to say about Koffmann’s at the Berkley Hotel: It is simply a place where you eat darn well and where you can be truly happy. We could finish here.


But of course we won’t.


Freed from the constrictions of three Michelin star cooking (for he held 3* at the famous Tante Claire), the old man (just a manner of speaking, Pierre…), often – believe it or not – behind the stoves himself, with his brilliant team serves you dishes that, while backed by an immense culinary knowledge, are there not to comply with the formal fussiness and strictures of multistarred Michelin dining, nor to show you how clever, funny, artistic, inspired, etc. the chef is, but simply to please you, the customer. You are the centre of the experience at Koffmann’s, you are the king and the chef cooks for you, not for himself.


This is not at all to say that food here is boring or drab. To the contrary, there is sometimes a gentle humour, like in this Squid Bolognese

where the squid has been meticulously sliced and reduced to tagliatelle, while the tentacles have been made into a ragout. Splendid savoury flavour and splendid, concentrated tomato sauce (only criticism: verging on the salty side).


The classic Scallops with ink:


are the embodiment of simplicity and elegance. Cooked until the exact second when they had to be removed from the heat, this is a triumph of sweet, salty and umami balance.  Some people overdo it with scallops in excessively complicated preparations, others underdo it (in the next review we’ll provide an example). This is the just middle. This is wisdom.

In passing, can we say that the Koffmann breads are for us the best in London? For a French restaurant, of course, for who can beat good Italian breads? 🙂 Strong in structure and in flavour, they have a lovely homemade feel, though of course they are technically perfect – and the “melting” quality of the flaky roll is lusciously decadent





We’ve been here several times, and of course we’ve tried the legendary pig’s trotters, which are extraordinary as they say (although certainly not to everybody’s taste because of the fatty gelatinous texture with not too much to contrast it, something that irks some people). In the colder months we also never miss the profoundly satisfying game pithiviers. But this report is from Summer (besides, you can find the trotters photographed and reviewed everywhere), so this time we go for something lighter. A clever seafood paella with some of the freshest and best molluscs you can find in London and lovely moisture with intense flavour.


And then a roast monkfish with lentils

The fish of excellent quality (by the way, all seafood is wild here) and cooked as you would expect, the lentils concentrating masses of flavour.


Among the desserts, we can never miss the stupendous Pistachio souffle’:

It was partially destroyed by an otherwise superbly talented new member of staff who hadn’t yet mastered the art of inserting the ice-cream in the souffle’… but this dessert is beyond destruction, it is indescribably good, really, go and try it.


The chef being an encyclopedia of French cuisine, this venue is also a splendid opportunity to sample some classics. This time we tried a Peach Melba,



exactly as you would expect it: a beautifully poached (white) juicy peach, vanilla icecream and raspberry puree, simple, light, elegant, delicious.


One word for the service. Over time we’ve seen various people come and go, but we’ve always felt very well treated by each and every team. The current team is particularly sweet, from the maitre d’ down to the last waiter. On this occasion we were also very well advised by a confident, knowledgeable (and also enviably tanned) Sicilian sommelier.


We had three starters (the unpictured one was a gazpacho), two main courses, two desserts, a £32 wine, a £8.50 dessert wine, tap water, and we spent  less than £150. How did we do it? Well, there’s a fantastic value lunch menu of three courses at £26, and we had one of those. And unless you plump for the reeeeally expensive dishes from the a la carte (Dover sole and Lobster will set you back £40 and more each, but now that we are in Scotland of course we do not need to have expensive seafood in London any more…), the dishes for choice are really not that expensive considering that you are in one of the most luxurious parts of London. The nice, interesting wine list, including carafes and by the glass, also offers wines for all pockets, from cheap bastards like us to Russian tycoons.


As feared, we didn’t keep it brief in the end… For us, a meal at Koffman’s represents the pure joy of eating simple (mind you, relatively speaking!) dishes prepared by a master. Many say this is bistro style, but it isn’t quite that really – there is far more subtlety. His joy in cooking is evident, you can see and taste it, he must have transmitted it to his assistants. Unless you go there looking for 3* food or a revival of La Tante Claire, you too will be joyous, and your palate (if not you coronaries, unless you choose the lighter dishes, as we did…) will say a big thank you.


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The new Kikuchi: wow!

The charming Kikuchi (on which we reported here) has had a facelift! From a slightly old-fashioned room to a slick, contemporary black-dominated environment (and the toilets also are now very stylish, too – pity the makeover did not include any electronic Toto WC 🙂 ).

We found the food as good as ever, the impeccable sushi of course

but also a special of airy tempura

(sucking those prawn heads was a task reserved for Man only, though) and especially a special of grilled fatty tuna ,

a concentrate of plump, oily smokiness.

Just send this all down with some cold, fat, thick noodles:
And we declare an addiction to their aubergine with sweet miso!

Coming just after a disappointing dinner at Gauthier, we found this evening as joyful and relaxing as ever. Out of the media and blogger circus (ehm) Kikuchi is a little gem, a secret which we like to share only with our seven readers. Here you can have a feast for less than £100 for two.

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Hélène Darroze’ at the Connaught Hotel

The day: 29th December 2009, Lunch.

The place: Carlos Place Mayfair, London W1K 2AL

The venue: Helene Darroze at The Connaught

The food: Modern French

The drinks: Beside the usual suspects, also very good value by the glass options.

We sought a lunch refuge from unremitting heavy rain in multistarred Helene Darroze’s venue at the Connaught.

(Us, drenched) ‘Hello, do you have a table for two?’

(Receptionist, looking dubious & worried) ‘Ehm, have you had a look at our menu?’

But we appreciated her concern that two miserable looking fellows like us might come to regret a fickle fine dining urge…

In fact, in this luxury, wood-panelled stucco-ceilinged Baccarat-crystalled environment, one of those places where service goes to the absurd point of not even letting you make the effort to open the bathroom tap as somebody does it for you,

we were on the verge of a fine experience which was very far from breaking the bank.

The amuse must be a clear self-introduction by the chef, and these

chorizo cake, leek and potato Vichyssoise with Bellini foam

suggest a liking for rich textures and muscular dishes, with no national boundaries. The velvety and lightly unctuous Vichyssoise is paired with pungent and strong, decisive flavours. And it works (except that the crumbly cake tends to disintegrate in your hands – maybe they should call the bathroom guy to pick up the crumbs for you, lest you get tired).

The bread, arrives after the amuse, a selection from a lined banneton taken from the rustic stone topped workbench that sits in the middle of the room, hosting a triumph of bread types, olive oil bottles, rosmery and sage pots, the look of which puts you immediately in a good mood… and we opt for a rye and a fig bread.

Two very different starters. One, an almost vegetarian dish, a

Poivrade Artichoke…simply roasted, herb and salad ravioli gratinated with Brebis basque cheese, Culatello di Zibello, Chicken jus pearled with Sicilian olive oil

which Man liked more than Woman, especially the cut of the artichoke (which you cannot appreciate, as it is hidden by the Culatello of Zibello sliver), the overall neatness of the presentation, the fine jus, the seductive sweet saltiness of the Culatello, and the ethereal encasing of the chunky filling of spinach and ricotta (a recipe Helen has probably stealed from the Sainsbury’s ricotta tub 🙂). Woman, ever the Italian, found the proportion between pasta and spinach in the parcel to be unbalanced, and the artichoke not particularly intense in flavour.

Whereas we enter international fusion territory again with this

Line caught Calamari…sauteed a la minute, black and creamy Carnaroli Acquerello rice, light bitter jus with chorizo and confit tomatoes, Reggiano parmesan emulsion

where a creamy, enveloping ink black risotto accompanies four slightly too hard yet obviously very fresh calamari. And if the parmesan cream, poured on the dish at the table, wasn’t just a touch over-salty, we would appreciate its overwhelmingly intense perfume and flavour and rich texture even more.

A venison reached the highest culinary echelons, and we will give it the place of honour, but this

Halibut…roasted with a crust of hazelnut and rosemary, potato gnocchi, watercress, walnut emulsion

wasn’t bad either…enveloped in its fine, tasty hazelnut crust, cooked perfectly.

Oh, look, the gnocchi even have the all-important indentation which is so rare to find even in Italy…but, but, wait a minute…they are very hard! We bite the bullet (ah ah) and are confirmed in our belief that Italian and French people have different concepts of pasta and starchy food in general… Gnocchi aside, we found this an elegant, well-structured and subtly complex dish, where the walnut foam was an intoxicating actor.

Our state so far can be described as extremely comfortable, relaxed and satisfied, both by the food and by the setting. The sweet offerings that followed did nothing to alter this state…

Chestnuts biscuitrs, chantilly, wafer, yuzu curd, yuzu sorbet

A chestnut triumph: the intense chestnut cream cubes are an impact piece. On the whole, very intricate and teasing play on flavours and textures, from the light crunchiness of the chestnut wafers to the soft chunkiness of the sponge base to the – perhaps the lime sorbet too much of a contrast, both temperature-wise and tartness wise. On the other hand…

Hazelnuts, home made pralinee’, Carupano chocolate cremeux, lemon and ginger foam

The lime and ginger foam well suits the hazelnut dessert: striking flavours, very good, with multilayered textures: tangy and airy lime and ginger, frothy but consistent praline and creamy chocolate: yummy!

The service

Amiable and correct (except for a rather hurried tall blond). And generous, with a sense of pampering. They let you try the wine by the glass, which not everybody does even at this level.

The low

Some noisy customers who may have all the money in the world but obviously cannot buy themselves manners. And the hardish calamari, tsk, tsk…one wouldn’t expect them in this sort of restaurant.

The high

Roasted fillet of Venison with a coffee Bernoisette, celeriac fondant and crispy, intense jus perfumed with robusta, Stilton chantilly

What a sumptuous, very deeply and chromatically flavoured meat and reduction. We keep wondering what that delightful pungent burnt hint comes from; until we check the menu and remember the coffee. The meat is served not sliced as for some reason we were expecting, but in a whole succulent fillet chunk, on top of a very powerful celeriac (for Woman almost too powerful), and made memorable by the cheesy (Stilton) cream. As in many great dishes, an air of simplicity masks craftsmanship and complexity, and the flavours are at the same time robust and subtle.

The treat concluded with a nice filter coffee (we still tend not to trust espresso in French restaurants, despite our excellent experience at Hibiscus), a stunning selection of petit four, a whole trolley from which you can choose, and even a canele to take home (more on this story later…). How spoiled can one be?

we behaved…

The Price

The tasting menu would have cost a standard £85. Our 3 course (in fact more) lunch menu at £42 included two glasses of wine each, water and coffee, so that the total bill including service came to less than £95. Unbelievable value. Now, we are, as you know, tight fisted bastards; but with such generosity and quality one really feels one has to express some tangible gratitude, and so we did.

Conclusion

What the amuse bouche promised, the rest of the meal delivered: rich, solid, elaborate dishes, elegantly presented, classically conceived but with a search for interesting, unusual, complex combinations. To be stern, we can’t say that every single dish was executed or conceived faultlessly or that every one of them was a total success, in our opinion. But this is to be stern and maybe too much so. This is a place where one can enjoy a wonderful, relaxed, lunch of unquestionably high standard and technical complexity, in an elegant environment, and feeling pampered. At lunch, incredible value too. One feels strongly like going back.

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Apsleys

The day: 5 December 2009, Lunch.

The place: Hyde Park Corner, London SW1X 7TA

The venue: Apsleys-A Heinz Beck Restaurant, The Lanesborough

The food: Modern Italian

The drinks: Luxury list but also by the glass and more easy-going options.

(Added January 2010: Apsleys has been awarded its first Michelin star)

One day after the very impressive Hibiscus, we set off again from our humble base in gritty East London towards the bright lights of Central London. We honestly weren’t expecting this Heinz Beck venue, for all the chef’s fame and his 3* at ‘home’ in Rome, to top our lunch at Hibiscus.

Little did we know we were in for a truly stellar lunch, in an elegant, comfortable, spacious, light-filled, no-expenses-spared, room.

An unpromising start with the waiter frantically trying to read the label, unable to tell us clearly where the two olive oils on offer come from (Imola, Florence…uhm). But from then on it will be a steep and endless rise to the sky.

The bread is – of course- home-made, coming in several varieties, including cereal and olives. Very tasty, and well made, touching both the bodily and the ethereal. The latter, a most refined version of Sardinian pane ‘carasau’, much thinner than the standard one, probably obtained by brushing a ‘batter’ on the baking sheet (very similar to what we had another very fine restaurant). This bread deserves a photo.

The amuse bouche takes us by storm.

A ‘pannacotta’ with olive tapenade and tomato concasse’, veal terrine with mustard seeds and candied Kumquat. Soft flavours, temperatures and textures, yet vibrant and fresh. The cheesy pannacotta plays well indeed with the two flavours. Great. (we wonder: where does he get tomatoes in December?).

Mellowed down by the food and the relentlessly charming waiter, we are all salivating expectations. He tempts us with a white truffle put under our nose (mercifully he does not say ‘from Alba’) but, even though inebriated by the noble smell, that lingers on well after he has taken the precious treasure away, we opt not to go bankrupt.

The primi establish beyond doubt that pasta can be pure fine dining. There were the celebrated ‘fagottelli carbonara’ (more on this story later).

And there was an unbelievable rabbit reduction in

Ravioli of rabbit and pistachio

That reduction, so intense but not heavy; the ravioli, well filled and simply wonderful, among the best we’ve ever eaten. Just wanting to be picky, the pistachio plays, surprisingly, a bit second fiddle here – we were expecting some crunchy textures and a more definite appearance in the form of flavour.

Will a lamb have been slaughtered and a pigeon shot for a good cause?

Yes, yes, yes!

Lamb crepinette

The movingly tender, moist, flavoursome lamb is enclosed in a crepe (egg and cheese) and spinach leaves. The warm provola cheese layered over aubergines adds power and a subtly bitter note, and the finely finely chopped peppers with the courgettes green are sweetly delicious. A stunning, boldly flavoured, beautiful looking dish rooted in tradition and taken much higher. (we wonder: where does he get the pepper and aubergines in December?).

Pigeon Royal

Once again, this pigeon’s cooking deserves the adjective ‘perfect’ (the breast poached and the leg slow-roasted).Very far reaching flavours all round, multidimensional, with an unadvertised rhubarb compote sublimely acidic and an added foie gras a seductive smooth, rich match for the gamey, earthy meat. And the succulent pearl onions, and the mustard seed sauce. What balance. What power.

We share one dessert. We’re glad about this decision as the specimen turns out to be a giant one:

Ricotta cannoli, cassata and Sharon fruit sorbet

Sicily reigns in this dish, the ricotta from stratosphere and encapsulated in the classiest of crispy cannoli, the pistachios now screaming flavour and texture, and we actually wanted to scream (of pleasure) after tasting an added glass of almond milk. The sorbet is not sweet which, in a dessert with plenty of sugar, makes for the right balance.

The petit four accompanying our (excellent) coffees spans an impressive range in terms of flavours, textures and recapitulate several regional Italian traditions: gianduiotto, pistachio and almond meringue with berry compote, ricciarelli, raspberry sugar, brownie. Simply excellent.

The service

Friendly, polite, attentive, unintrusive. We just wonder, miserable picky sods that we are, why in a restaurant of this class and obvious ambitions, they do not iron the tablecloths.

 

The low

What low?

 

The high

Fagottelli carbonara

We could not believe it. We could not believe that this famous signature dish was as good as it was. This is genious. The carbonara eggs springing in your mouth when you bite into the entire fagottello picked up rigorously with your spoon, the absolute balance, the perfect seasoning, the rustic, often heavy tradition brought to unprecedented heights and delicacy, the vivid colours (that courgette green again): this dish has it all. It moved us and it will remain in our tasting memories. (we wonder: where does he get courgettes in December?).

 

The Price

There’s a 3 course lunch menu at £45 including a starter version of the fagottelli. We went a la carte with two starters, two mains, a shared dessert, water, coffees and just a glass of wine and paid £145 (including the usual 12.5% discretionary service charge). A fuller a la carte meal with a basic wine will set you back around £200 for two, which, in truth, is fair for such cuisine (we must remark the generous portions, too). Tasting menus at £65 and £85.

 

Conclusion

Heinz Beck is a genius and this London enterprise of his does not fail to communicate it through executive chef Massimiliano Blasone and the rest of the team. This cuisine attains the clearest and most potent flavours and is never heavy, never unbalanced, never showy or egotistic. We are glad that London has such a true superstar, heavy calibre Italian cuisine restaurant.

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Hibiscus

The day: 5 December 2009, Lunch.
The place: 29 Maddox Street, London W1S 2PA
The venue: Hibiscus
The food: Modern French
The drinks: Optional glass of wine with Saturday lunch, and a list you might expect in a 2* French restaurant.

We stroll down Maddox Street, stop staring at a closing down sale for golfing item (might need them soon, if we do not want to be social outcasts in the golfing reservation we have now moved to), and the owner chats us up, and tells us that it has never been this bad for business. Well, ought we not to support local business? The Golfman tries to dissuade us from the object of our desire: ‘too expensive’, he claims, while trying to talk us into a beginners set of clubs, a real bargain at £125 – well, the set lunch at Hibiscus still sounds more attractive, thank you very much.

An oak panelled room which feels fresh and informal in spite of a large chandelier. Chef Bosi in the kitchen, with his two stars. All looks set for a promising Mayfair experience, during a London weekend which featured a double culinary bill for us (the other one at Heinz Beck branch at Apsleys – more on this story later). And a very fine experience it was.

The bread is home-made, warm and good – puzzling that it only comes in one variety, though.

The amuse bouche…
where are we, at Dolada (thankfully not). But the amuse bouche in an egg shell is all the rage now, as we recently sampled there a similar idea. Here at Hibiscus it is a very interesting amuse of complex flavour. We ask two different waiters but we manage not to fully understand either. One says that there are 17 Moroccan spices, the other 20. One says it’s a walnut veloute’, we are dubious because we cannot recognise the walnut (are they mushrooms? or is it all confused by the 27.5 spices?). The only spice we clearly distinguish is cinnamon (we hope it was there). At any rate, it was impressive, pleasantly unctuous, light, complex and balanced (but no acidity).

The

Raviolo of Scottish scallops and Brixham brown crab, fricassee of Puy lentils, cep veloute’ and coconut milk

was, beside having a very long name, a very accomplished dish, the seafood springing flavour out of a fine, light, well-cooked raviolo. Delicious the contrast with the acidically tangy lentils. If ceps were there, though, they were entirely overpowered.

And a

Warm Royale of toasted rice and walnuts
was pure elegance, the toasted notes so intense that they struck your nose even while the dish was being brought to you, the contrast between smoothness and crunchiness in this simple looking dish a minor masterstroke.

Our mains were in different registers.

The

Roast Shropshire partridge with smoked beurre blanc

was in a sense more ethereal despite a general assertiveness, the meat cooked very precisely and melting in your mouth. The broccoli (we think) ‘mousse’ with a on top toasted bread with on top a meaty taste (the lot of which was there, we think, in place of an advertised caramelised Savoy cabbage) a solid, gracious complement. What a pleasant dish, and look at the care for the vibrantly coloured garnishes.

We touched overall more ferine, earthier notes with the pheasant and foie gras pithivier (puff pastry encasing), which we shall nominate the dish of day (read on).

Also two very different desserts.

Iced chestnut parfait, Sharon fruit sorbet

A great classic combination, and a very satisfying dessert: the parfait was topped with a thin sugary crust, though in spite of this the dish was somewhat lacking in sweetness – fine for Man, less so for Woman – which was most evident in the sorbet and the fruit puree. We put this down to the variety of the Sharon fruit and on it not being quite ripe enough (we mean this). Thin slices of raw chestnut added an interesting contrast in texture and clean flavours.

As for the

Dark chocolate tart and white fig ice cream

again, the fruit was muted – the icecream had the perfect consistency, but alas wanting in flavour (why use figs in December?). The pastry in the chocholate tart was the wrong side of firm, but the chocolate filling was truly seductive, intense and rich.

At the end of the meal, some impressive petit-fours appear, together with coffee.

Now, we always have problem with espresso in French restaurant, but this is actually fairly good. Yet, ‘fairly good’ is not enough as an answer… the charming Italian waiter aims at perfection, and insists on bringing us another one to prove he can do better. The second one – well, actually it is the third one, as what we suspect was the second one meets the disapproving eyebrow of the Manager. So, the third one is creamier and attains perfection. The now caffeine-soaked Man looks happy indeed.

The service
Extremely friendly, formal but approachable. A smiling, efficient and smooth Manager in full control, we were taken good care of by an Italian waiter, a sweetie, and he gained brownie points with Man at the moment of coffee…Maybe they could speak slightly louder ad more clearly when describing the dishes.

The low
Nothing in particular, details here and there. The not quite ripe Sharon fruit, some lack of ‘sculpted’ flavours, some defects in the table cloth (e.g. a velcro strip bulging out). All stuff it would be too ludicrous of us to count against Hibiscus except if it has ambitions to perfection.

The high

Warm Pithivier of pheasant and foie gras, roasted root vegetables

In principle a more rustic dish than the others, the presentation is truly haute cuisine, those brown tones in the sauce ‘pool’ a veritable painting. The classily made puff pastry, suitably imbibed, encloses a livery, earthily flavoursome filling which is elevated by the deep, deep reaching sauce. We were struck by the judicious use of foie gras; and, for a change, in this dish the salad was apt and not a pointless addition.


The Price
The three course Saturday set lunch with a glass of wine, coffee and petit fours comes at a very attractive £48 per head. Tasting menu for 6 or 9 courses at £75 and beyond.

Conclusion
Chef Bosi produces superbly accomplished cuisine of real finesse all round. Multilayered flavours and complex combinations hang together beautifully. We are not surprised his restaurant holds two stars. In our modest opinion, what the place is missing to reach the absolute top is an absolute precision and definition in flavours that we found missing, compared to other restaurants (e.g., Jasmin or Apsleys). Having said this, Hibiscus is obviously an obligatory stop for any gourmet in London, a place where you will have a wonderful and relaxed dining experience.

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Luciano

The day: 4^th March 2009, Dinner.

The place: 72 St James Street, London SW1A 1PH (tel: 020 7408 1440)

The venue: Luciano

The food: Italian

The drinks: Interesting wine list, heavily Italian. Also by the glass.

 

 THIS RESTAURANT HAS CLOSED (as this review concluded, ‘Perhaps the bar is its most useful part. It’s hard to see a bright future for the rest.’…)

Our Toptable booking calls this restaurant (unlike their business card) ‘Luciano – Marco Pierre White’, showing a burning desire to emphasise the association with the great and prematurely retired chef. It remains to be seen whether he should also be equally proud of this association…(we aren’t sure, nor sufficiently interested to find out to be frank, whether he is part patron or he just acts as a consultant).

Located in monstrously wealthy St. James, the interior is suitably chic in both large rooms, the first mainly occupied by a large bar area, and the other comprising the restaurant proper, the wall displaying many photographs of scantily dressed women, the floor made of nice wood planks. We sit at the corner end of an impressive leather upholstered bench, with soft lights and an abat-jour on the table. The tables themselves are very close to each other, but thanks to the vast space you will only be forced to breath your neighbour’s breath when the restaurant is completely full, which looks quite a feat.

The menu offers many simple Italian classics, mostly overpriced. We will be choosing from a restricted Toptable special menu which offers three courses for an enticing £21.95.

The bread arrives.

The accompanying oil is of high quality, slightly citrusy, probably Tuscan. The bread itself pleases us with some variety: ciabatta, olive bread, casareccio, rosemary, walnuts and raisins. And we cannot complain about the quality, either.

No amuse bouche, of course, and so we move straight to our first courses:

– Soup of the day

– Cold beef salad with mustard sauce

The soup of the day turns out to be a Ribollita which, for those of you who don’t know, is a traditional rustic Tuscan thick bean soup. It ought to ooze rich flavour. This one doesn’t. It is strikingly unmemorable, a typical product of soulless cooking, though not at all unpleasant, except for the slightly undercooked beans.

The beef salad is supported by the good core raw material. The unadvertised ungraceful, lame rocket mountain is redolent of 90’s memories. The parmesan is also surprisingly lame. The mustard fails to light up this dish, which is however not unpleasant thanks to the beef, and to a style that, while soulless, at least does not lack balance.

For both dishes, the portions are generous.

At this point the waiter tries to take away our unfinished bread basket. We almost faint. After making our need for bread (especially having skipped pasta) clear, the waiter will come back with a new full basket, and even with fresh olive oil. Nice touch, and even half a smile!

And here come our mains:

– Rib-eye steak.

– Chargrilled tuna with rocvket and tomato

What a good steak, the rare cooking as requested allowing the beef to express its full flavour and texture! It really is very good, and compares more than favourably, for example, with the one we had here. But the chips, oh dear, the chips, what a disaster. Typical mushy texture inside of defrosted and badly cooked stuff. Well, you too can probably tell from the picture. MPW would not like that.

Like the rib eye, the tuna, too, is good, perfectly cooked so as to be moist and succulent, and even excellently seasoned. There are no horrible chips to spoil the feast here, just once again the banal rocket salad. Were the advertised tomatoes there? We think not, and much better this way.

And finally, our desserts:

– Ice cream selection

– Torta del giorno

The ice-cream (vanilla and chocolate) is just OK, the vanilla exceedingly sweet and the chocolate lame. Uhm, to be fair we are being generous: this is just passable.

The cake of the day is a chocolate tart. The crust is good, crumbly, the chocolate is ifairly deep, though it leaves a burnt aftertaste. For the vanilla ice-cream, see above.

Overall, including a Dolcetto D’Alba Parusso 2007 at around £30 and a bottle of water, the total bill comes to £91.69 thanks to the special deal. Otherwise, you’d be looking very far North of £100.

This venue has a service problem, at least on the night we were there. The manager is utterly charmless and useless (we spare you the details), and the waiters, while professional and kind overall, look so sad that you wonder whether the manager tortures them before and after the service.

Cuisine-wise, we fail to see the point of Luciano. Nothing except for the chips was totally bad, something was good, most was deeply average. At full prices, it would not make sense to head there, we think, given the many superior Italian choices nearby. This is neither a destination venue, nor a proper neighbourhood restaurant. The very plain and unimaginative food is trattoria style, a trattoria in the middle of St. James’, at St James’ prices and, especially, without much of the flavour impact you’d find in a real trattoria (though, we repeat, we found some trattoria generosity in the portions). Marco Pierre White surely does not advice on dish presentation. We leave it to him to decide what this establishment is. Perhaps the bar is its most useful part. It’s hard to see a bright future for the rest.

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