- Location
- London
A couple of previous visits had provoked a little mild jealousy on the home front so when it came to a small celebration the choice of venue was clear. What pleasure the restaurant provides for those of us who yearn for a largely fictitious gastronomic past, everything here somehow offers the flavour of things as they used to be in my imagination even while my lived experience tells me that they are in truth much better now.
I had rather banked on the magnum of Roederer Brut Premier on the list to take us right through lunch, but sadly there were none left. Instead I ordered a bottle of Billecart-Salmon Reserve, a lovely if ultimately not thrilling bottle the pleasure of which was at least doubled by drinking it in the matchlessly hokey yet ultimately not vulgar dining room in which for a small investment one can pretend to be a plutocrat for three hours, and a new wine for me, the Travaglini Gattinara 2018, a wine by which I was absolutely thrilled, so much so that I am only half inclined to seek out more and instead enjoy the memory. It may after all not taste quite so ravishingly rosehip bitter sour savoury radiant in the slightly more modest surroundings of a West Ealing kitchen.
The cuisine here could not be further from the neo-Scandi cutting edge the spirit of which is more and more pervasive in ambitious kitchens, it is entirely about the calme, luxe and volupté of the international squillionaire who wishes ultimate deliciousness without challenge. The tiny amuses-bouches were exactly as they were in July, a duck-liver mousse covered in cherry glaze and a sphere of Ragstone garnished with basil. The eye-watering technical perfection of the pastry section here is I suspect unmatched elsewhere in the UK, and the same may be true of the quality of ingredients brought into the kitchen.
We followed quite elaborate dishes of pristine crab and lobster with a Bresse duck served for two, the breast carved at table with unflappable skill and alacrity and served with a variety of apposite and bewilderingly precise yet not obtrusive garnishes, a fairly light gravy heightened by discreet smoked beetroot puree and the legendary soufflé potatoes. One doesn't really need to eat such things but they are technical marvel. The restaurant manager told me that they are made with Maris Otter potatoes. It only occurred to me later that Maris Otter is a brewing barley, so he must have meant Piper or Peer, I suppose, and that the secret is an incredibly sharp mandoline which has to be replaced every month. The legs came later on on a very classic salad with orange segments. What puzzled me was that rather than being grilled and returned with a bit of crunch and toughness as I had hoped they had been confited in duck fat and covered in a sort of Christmas Ham breadcrumb. I didn't really see how that could have been done in twenty minutes and confronted the manager with my perception and he admitted that it was the legs of a previous duck which we were eating. It was jolly nice, though confit being a preserved product should have more salt, but I must admit to a certain disappointment and the same sense of being deprived of all the other bits as at Min Jiang. Perhaps international squillionaires are not prepared to tolerate the coriaceous.
I'm afraid it was probably rather childish of us to order Crepes Suzette for pudding rather than something more outlandishly virtuosic from the pastry department, but I am in some ways a sad L'Ami Louis obsessed old fool and they were done with as much panache, generosity and perfection as one would expect and I loved them even though I don't like pudding. Petits Fours with excellent and probably staggeringly costly coffee continued the theme of jewel-like precision.
Obviously quite expensive, about the same price as a mid-range 'weekend break' which would probably have made me thoroughly miserable, but money very well spent.
I had rather banked on the magnum of Roederer Brut Premier on the list to take us right through lunch, but sadly there were none left. Instead I ordered a bottle of Billecart-Salmon Reserve, a lovely if ultimately not thrilling bottle the pleasure of which was at least doubled by drinking it in the matchlessly hokey yet ultimately not vulgar dining room in which for a small investment one can pretend to be a plutocrat for three hours, and a new wine for me, the Travaglini Gattinara 2018, a wine by which I was absolutely thrilled, so much so that I am only half inclined to seek out more and instead enjoy the memory. It may after all not taste quite so ravishingly rosehip bitter sour savoury radiant in the slightly more modest surroundings of a West Ealing kitchen.
The cuisine here could not be further from the neo-Scandi cutting edge the spirit of which is more and more pervasive in ambitious kitchens, it is entirely about the calme, luxe and volupté of the international squillionaire who wishes ultimate deliciousness without challenge. The tiny amuses-bouches were exactly as they were in July, a duck-liver mousse covered in cherry glaze and a sphere of Ragstone garnished with basil. The eye-watering technical perfection of the pastry section here is I suspect unmatched elsewhere in the UK, and the same may be true of the quality of ingredients brought into the kitchen.
We followed quite elaborate dishes of pristine crab and lobster with a Bresse duck served for two, the breast carved at table with unflappable skill and alacrity and served with a variety of apposite and bewilderingly precise yet not obtrusive garnishes, a fairly light gravy heightened by discreet smoked beetroot puree and the legendary soufflé potatoes. One doesn't really need to eat such things but they are technical marvel. The restaurant manager told me that they are made with Maris Otter potatoes. It only occurred to me later that Maris Otter is a brewing barley, so he must have meant Piper or Peer, I suppose, and that the secret is an incredibly sharp mandoline which has to be replaced every month. The legs came later on on a very classic salad with orange segments. What puzzled me was that rather than being grilled and returned with a bit of crunch and toughness as I had hoped they had been confited in duck fat and covered in a sort of Christmas Ham breadcrumb. I didn't really see how that could have been done in twenty minutes and confronted the manager with my perception and he admitted that it was the legs of a previous duck which we were eating. It was jolly nice, though confit being a preserved product should have more salt, but I must admit to a certain disappointment and the same sense of being deprived of all the other bits as at Min Jiang. Perhaps international squillionaires are not prepared to tolerate the coriaceous.
I'm afraid it was probably rather childish of us to order Crepes Suzette for pudding rather than something more outlandishly virtuosic from the pastry department, but I am in some ways a sad L'Ami Louis obsessed old fool and they were done with as much panache, generosity and perfection as one would expect and I loved them even though I don't like pudding. Petits Fours with excellent and probably staggeringly costly coffee continued the theme of jewel-like precision.
Obviously quite expensive, about the same price as a mid-range 'weekend break' which would probably have made me thoroughly miserable, but money very well spent.
