ROUX AT PARLIAMENT SQUARE: BIRTH OF THE DULL

The youthful sounds of Miles Davis’s “Birth of The Cool” leaked out of the speakers at a low almost imperceptible volume.

“That’s timeless” HP said to me, nodding upwards while prodding unenthusiastically at the latest dish placed before us during our meal at Roux at Parliament Square.

“This, on the other hand” he added giving it one more disdainful poke “is just dated”

As ever, Hermano Primero had summed up in one word, what it will take me over a thousand to achieve. We both agreed as we left, that our meal at Michel Roux Jr’s new restaurant felt horribly old fashioned and, even worse than that, it had been horribly dull.

I am, as usual, getting ahead of myself.

The evening had begun well at The Cask in Pimlico, London’s only home to the superb range of beers from Thornbridge Brewery in Derbyshire. As we walked towards Parliament Square with a warm glow in our bellies from two pints of Lord Marple, I dared to hope that I might help HP keep up his recent run of good meals at new restaurants.

R@PS was empty when we arrived at 7.30pm. We were ushered into the rather beige dining room and showed to a table by the window. We looked at each other and knew that we were both thinking the same thing, “good lighting for photographs.” Bloggers, eh?

There were plenty of staff on hand and buttocks had barely touched seats before we were handed a couple of menus each. The first contained a seven course tasting menu at £65 a pop, the second the a la carte priced at £55 for three courses. We plumped for the latter assuming correctly that the announced courses would be accompanied by a few little extras along the way.

Things began on a positive note with some terrific bread made to the restaurant’s specification by Rhodes Bakery of Greenwich, the same people who supply The Old Brewery. We had both polished off three slices by the time our first little mouthfuls arrived. A bite sized Pissaladière set the tone for the rest of the meal. It looked the part, topped by a dainty fleck of anchovy, but lacked any discernable flavour. Two ill conceived foie gras doughnuts were little better and tasted as if they had been prepared earlier and left to sit for rather too long, the tough outer casing taking a hard bite to reveal the cold, liquid liver inside. Not a good combination.

The next amuse also appealed to the eye more than it did the palate. A small sliver of kingfish had been “cooked” in the Mediterranean style of Escabeche and laid on a few fine fennel slices and topped with candied vegetables and micro greens. It showed admirable effort for a one bite dish, but again it passed our lips without causing us to pause for comment.

We had decided to add an extra starter to our meal in the form of English asparagus with a soft boiled gull’s egg and morel butter. The menu is keen to shout the provenance of its ingredients and I can understand why. Despite HP’s lack of enthusiasm for this and indeed just about every dish we ate, the Secrett’s Farm asparagus was delicious and its crunch matched well with the creaminess of the egg yolk and the equally seasonal mushrooms.

HP’s proper starter was a bit of a disaster. While I contemplated an artful plate of langoustines, pea puree and baked white onion topped with Jabugo ham, HP’s stared down with some dismay at a plate of food so ugly I thought they must have brought Tom Aikens into the kitchen especially for our visit. I am certain that the Aquitaine duck that gorged itself for our benefit would not have been made any happier with its lot if it had known that his glorious liver was going to be served under an incongruous “crumble” of pistachios and undercooked so that it was just a flabby, under seasoned lump. Two small cylinders of rhubarb were a good idea to cut through the fattiness of the foie, but the accompanying brioche lacked the essential buttery crumbliness of the best examples.

HP did not look particularly unhappy when we swapped plates to try each other’s dishes. Unfortunately for him, neither was I. My own starter brought together some potentially excellent ingredients but in such an overwrought fashion that each managed to overpower the other. The langoustines and the ham were exemplary, but lost out in the battle against the onions and the pea puree to the point that they just became so much texture.

It was as our main courses were delivered that HP levelled the accusation of being dated and old fashioned at R@PS. For him, veal fillet and sweetbread with wild garlic and pomme mousseline. For me, best end of lamb with Jersey Royals and a tongue salad. For both, a quick dousing with one of those all powerful reductions that we all hoped had been forgotten.

“It reminds me of eating a decade ago” HP whispered (it’s that kind of place) as he began to examine his meal more closely. The veal fillet had been cooked perfectly pink, but the little morsel of sweetbread had suffered a similar fate to the foie gras and lacked seasoning and the slight crust that should give way to the soft, almost liquid centre. This had just one texture. Mush.

My own lamb had been slightly overcooked, more medium than pink, which was unforgivable for a restaurant where technique seems to be paramount and certainly rules at the expense of taste. However, the poor execution could not hide the excellent quality of the lamb or the delicious little nuggets of tongue. They were a welcome relief to a meal that had been almost as beige as the room, but not enough to rekindle any enthusiasm as we waited for our desserts.

If we had been given a two course option, the preceding dishes would have surely made us skip pudding. However in the spirit of “well, we’ve paid for them so we should have them” we ordered a Passion Fruit soufflé and a Chocolate mousse. Neither did much to dispel our poor opinion of the kitchen.

I can still recall the chocolate soufflé I was served at Interlude De Chavot nearly twenty years ago. The deep, rich, velvety crust that broke to reveal the soft, air light centre and the sheer sense of indulgence as the waiter ladled melted chocolate into the centre and then left the bowl on the table to for me to help myself as I pleased. The fact that I can barely recall the version served at R@PS two days later should tell you all you need to know. If it helps, HP describes it as “over eggy.” The chocolate mousse was first year catering college pastry chef stuff and we barely took more than two bites each.

Fresh mint tea and coffee along with some decent petits fours brought the bill to a whacking £190 including a 12.5% charge for service. Let’s talk about the service for a moment. There was certainly plenty of it, particularly while we had the dining room to ourselves until about half way through the meal. But, while it was friendly enough, it also felt uncomfortable and slightly overpowering, another remnant of fine dining in days past.

The staff have yet to learn the all important lesson of when to leave you the hell alone and let you get on with your meal. This was particularly true of the sommelier who seemed unable to contemplate that two men with more time behind them than they have in front of them might be able to decide when they wanted more wine. He appeared at our side seemingly after every few mouthfuls to top up our glasses with a lovely Oregon Pinot and, while I am sure this was more down to over enthusiasm than anything more suspect, it added to the clumsiness of the rest of the service.

At the very end of the meal, when he was distracted by other customers, we managed to pour the last of our wine all by ourselves. The heavens didn’t crack and worlds didn’t end, but so mortified was the young man by this that we received two apologies for the, and I quote, “failure of the final pour”.

He really need not have apologised. We both know how to work our way around a bottle. But, perhaps it is the chefs who should have given us an apology for one of the most lacklustre and uninspiring fine dining experiences I can barely recall in a long time.

At the very least, they could have turned off the sound of Miles Davis reprising “Birth of The Cool” as they rushed to open doors for us on our way out.

GAUTHIER: SUPER SCRAN, SOHO

I don’t like Tasting Menus. They can be bloody hard work for a start - like enduring a long car journey when you're young, you find yourself thinking "are we there yet?". The saucing can be so rich that you're stuffed by the second course when you still have ten more to go. There's usually no choice so like a film soundtrack you have to endure a few clunkers before you get to the good stuff. And there's never enough of the good stuff. And so on and on - just like a tasting menu in fact.

So how come I've eaten three tasting menus in as many weeks? Well, the first two were in restaurants where there isn't any other choice. Both Viajante (in Bethnal Green) and Coi (in San Francisco) serve food that you're not going to come across too often and were both very enjoyable in their own way. More of Coi in a later post.

My third was at the newly opened Gauthier in Soho. Located in The Lindsay House (previous tenant: Richard Corrigan), the chef-patron is Alexis Gauthier who also runs Roussillon in Pimlico. The only times we've visited Roussillon we were pretty underwhelmed with the food so I wasn't particularly looking forward to my visit. I'd seen the menu ahead of my res and though it looked interesting but I still wasn't convinced.

The place has had a lick of paint since its previous occupant and the dining room (one of two) I was in was a light and pleasant space in contrast to the dark and gloomy rooms I’m usually to be found in. Quiet to begin with it soon filled up with Wine Merchants, PRs and diners who frequented Roussillon.

I thought my initial misgivings about the food were justified when I took a bite of one of my canapés, a chickpea "stick" which was a bit heavy and doughy - not great. I took a bite of another little amuse, this time one with a dice of langoustine and thereafter my meal followed an upward arc.

Although there’s a proper tasting menu I decided to construct my own from the list of small plates. These start off with the lighter, veggie-based dishes and get more protein orientated as you work through the list.

I always used to wonder how ex-restaurant critic Jonathon Meades managed to have a view on so many dishes on a restaurant’s menu. This was explained when a friend mentioned they’d seen him in a restaurant and basically he just ordered everything on the menu. Even when dining toute seul.

I was tempted to do the same to see how far I could get through a very attractive menu but I fancy living for a few more years yet before I have my Grand Bouffe moment so I contented myself with six ‘plats’ leaving some room for pud.

In the end it wasn’t a problem because M. Gauthier’s cooking has such a light touch that I never felt at all bloated during the meal. Even more surprising given the fact that like all French gaffs they’ll keep bringing you bread until you make like Mr Creosote. And very nice bread it was too with the bacon (mmmm...bacon) variety seeing most of the action.

As well as that light touch the cooking is also characterised by decent ingredients so a starter of Asparagus actually tasted of that vegetable.

Beautifully crimson Pigeon Breast was served slightly tiede and cleverly matched with Lobster. Wild Garlic in the risotto didn’t really come through and it was a tad salty but it was still a good risotto, the grains of rice retaining the right amount of ‘bite’ and the whole being soupy enough.

A small fillet of expertly cooked Red Mullet came with some Baby Squid and with their accompanying pieces of fennel and confited tomatoes was like a taste of the Meditteranean in minature.

The definition of the word savoury (or umami as is currently in vogue) would have a picture of my Veal Sweetbreads with Morels next to it. It delivered a huge hit of, well, whatever you want to cal it. But not so much that subtle favour of the golden glands was masked.

The Beef dish was the culinary climax. Combining the meat with olives is not an original idea but it’s still a good one and the chemistry between the rare beef, and the bitter elements of the olives and chard worked fantastically well. The marrow was the er, icing on the beef.

This could be a pretty full-on dish for some but I was still pondering upon another savoury dish after I’d finished it. So either portions were very small or I’m just a glutton. Ok, probably the latter.

After that little lot the desserts paled a little. I found my Duck Egg Soufflé a tad underpowered although this was probably not such a bad thing. I like my Ice Creams though, especially as they came on top of a refreshing pineapple granita.

After some PFs and a couple of Marshmallows staff had to administer emergency Espresso and Eaux-de-vie to stop me exploding. Thankfully, there were no waffr-thin mints.

Service at the start of the meal was a little hesitant but got better as the dining room filled up and they didn't miss a trick although I didn't get my little pre-dessert (boo). The meal was well paced too although inevitably, given the number of dishes I’d ordered, I was there for over three hours.

Wines by the glass were great value and actually appeared to have been chosen to complement the individual dishes. It isn’t always like this, you know.

Apparently there was a brief soft-opening for the resutaurant but if my visit was anything to go by M.Gauthier has hit the ground running. I don’t like Tasting Menus? I love them.

JW STEAKHOUSE: MISTAKEN

Is cooking a good steak really that difficult? Are there that many obstacles to getting a juicy slab o’ meat on your plate? In my world all you need is some decent, well-hung beef (huh huh huh…he said “hung”). It should be left to come to room temperature. Maybe salted a little beforehand and the moisture dabbed off. A griddle pan heated until very hot. The steak whacked on for a minute or two, then turned. Maybe the fat crisped up a bit. Then into a low oven to rest. And rest. And rest.

Recently I tried another technique, where the steak is cooked in a frying pan in plenty of butter. The finished result looked great but the steak tasted a bit “stewed”. Obviously this methods needs someone with more cooking chops than I possess. Probably more than was evident from the kitchen of the new steakhouse JW er, Steakhouse in the Grosvenor House.

Like that other disappointing US based chain, Palm (of which I said I would never speak of, damn) JW seems to have a problem with cooking steaks to order, well mine in any case. When asked to cut into my signature “Tomahawk” rib eye to check the doneness I saw very little of the medium-rareness which I had requested. I did a bit more searching and eventually the waitress thought it best to redo the whole thing.

One of the cardinal rules of cooking steak is always to slightly undercook it as a) it may go on cooking for a bit and b) it’s easy enough to rescue if people want it cooked more. Luckily we had also gone for a Strip Steak which was close enough to how we wanted it.

The blurb for JW had said they would be using USDA Prime Beef but the “Prime” bit was missing from the descriptions on the menus so who knows what grade it was. The high prices certainly suggested that someone was benefitting from the deal. The steak itself was ok but no more. The Tomahawk too, when it eventually came, was just average: under hung, not very interesting. They had managed to get a decent colour on it though.

All the supporting acts were mediocre. The room was pretty dreadful: a huge cavernous space made worse by having just a few tables occupied and by playing a bizarre mixture of eighties power pop.

Deep-fried Calamari had decent squid but the coating was too thick and tasted of oil. Onion rings were solid and came in a nasty batter. Creamed Spinach had taken the description to heart (the spinach was literally “creamed”). Chips? Well I’ve had worse but I’ve had plenty of better ones. Gloopy Béarnaise was left untouched.

More gripes. Well, my dining companion Gary knows his vine and picked out something which he thought offered reasonable VFM. Unsurprisingly (to him) it wasn’t available and the opportunity to up sell by the restaurant was too good to miss. We got one of the cheaper ones on offer.

The Marriott group have certainly got the money so how have they got things so half-assed with this “me-too” operation? As I talked about in my post about Bar Boulud you need to get the details right and to do that you need people who know about such things. People who are passionate about Beef. JW Steakhouse definitely seems to be missing the right people.

Nothing that can’t be remedied, of course, although god knows what they could do with that room – move out and turn it into flats? Certainly on their current showing JW Steakhouse won’t be causing the likes of Goodman and Hawksmoor any sleepless nights.