Pic
Sept 2, 2017 7:10:07 GMT -5
Post by Uncle Henry on Sept 2, 2017 7:10:07 GMT -5
Sept 1, 2017 2:52:54 GMT -5 @kleinesc said:
The FT gave the new 'Queen of Spades' restaurant a good review in June, Uncle Henry, so it should make for an interesting lunch Sunday week. The reviewer's wife was as right as she always is. “La Dame de Pic is perfect FT territory,” she declared recently. “We ought to go.” So we headed off one evening to Ten Trinity Square, the former headquarters of the Port of London Authority, which has recently been reconfigured into a hotel managed by the Four Seasons group.On the ground floor is the restaurant, and above it a wine-focused private members’ club founded by, inter alia, Frédéric Engerer, the president of Château Latour, which is in turn owned by François Pinault. Both restaurant and club have menus overseen by Anne-Sophie Pic, the chef and proprietor of the much revered Maison Pic in Valence in the Rhône Valley. All of which provides an impressive pedigree but also high standards to live up to. As we arrive, a couple of attentive and expensively outfitted doormen are on duty at the hotel entrance. The view from the front steps is pure picture-postcard: the Tower of London lit up, with a brooding sky behind it. The restaurant itself is down a plush corridor, though it will soon have its own entrance at the rear of the hotel. The first obstacle to the building’s new life is immediately obvious — the room’s massive height. More than five metres tall, the space hardly conveys the cosy atmosphere the word “restaurant” implies. This uninterrupted height is not helped by the low seating — it’s a combination that means the conversations on other tables are invariably easier to listen to than one’s own. Still, the staff in the dining room combine their skills effectively: there is Alex Muir, the charismatic Irish maître d’, and the Italian chef, Luca Piscazzi, ably assisted by predominantly French waiting staff, alongside Erik Simonics, an extremely knowledgeable sommelier from Slovakia. Overseeing them all is Jan Konetzki, the German-born wine director.
Each member of the team has clearly felt the lure of London but, like so many in the hospitality business, they must be wondering about their long-term future here post-Brexit. Before I go on to discuss the food, let me get two other causes for criticism out of the way. The first is the choice of typeface on the menu. It is small and not dark enough to be easily read, particularly when the restaurant’s lighting is on the dim side. Then there is the kitchen’s seeming infatuation with coffee. It came mixed with the butter served with the bread — we asked for this strange combination to be changed for the salted variety. More coffee came with yuzu as one of the amuse-bouches, and baked on top of veal sweetbreads. This is too much. Happily, the execution and choice of first and main courses more than made up for this heavy-handedness, as befits the world’s top female chef. The preparation of dishes involves considerable marinating, often in Asian spices and liqueurs.
Unquestionably, the best of these was a first course of a Scottish scallop in black cardamom, jasmine, apple granita and sake lees. It was served on a white dish, the scallops thinly sliced and the black cardamom clearly discernible. But it was the addition of the sake lees, poured from a small jug, that lifted the whole dish and made it truly inspirational. This was matched in its intensity of flavour, if not quite in its attractiveness, by a dish of Brittany abalone served with lemon balm, geranium and sage-infused dashi. These rare sea molluscs, now successfully farmed off the Breton coast, are an unusual treat for anyone who enjoys the taste of the sea. Slightly chewier than oysters, abalone have a richer, nuttier, deeper flavour. None of the main courses we tried offered the same interest as those two starters. There is no doubting the quality of what the kitchen produces, particularly the Basque pork and Cornish wild turbot — but serving them relatively bare means there is a lack of contrast in the flavours. The same is true of the desserts (£14 each), which are too bland and sweet. The wine list is exceptional, both by the bottle and by the glass, and fairly priced. But the food needs more oomph, something that will distinguish La Dame de Pic as a restaurant of its own standing rather than one that conveniently happens to be in a hotel.
www.ft.com/content/d2dbc24e-4a3f-11e7-a3f4-c742b9791d43
With deadlock in Brussels this weekend, ahinton, your best bet is to come to London for Sunday lunch. Join us!
www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/deadlock-in-brussels-gbn8cncwp