After some urging from my mother, I decided to treat myself to a one-last-hurrah type of dinner in London.  Now, I know that in a previous post of mine I commented that most of the food here in England was total rubbish; I still stand by that, but if you’ve got the money to blow (which I really don’t) it is quite possible to have some truly grand gastronomical adventures in the UK.  We’ve all heard of The Fat Duck, after all.

I started off yesterday by very energetically researching places with tasting menus (to be specific and very precocious, I feel I should mention that my search originally began in French with ‘le menu découverte’).  Back in October, when my parents were visiting me for my Oxford graduation we went to L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon in the West End.  The food was excellent — I tried foie gras and Wagyu sliders — but I had desperately wanted to order the tasting menu, an eight-course culinary orgy with items like a Parmesan and port cappucino, caviar, and coriander panna cotta.  The thing with tasting menus, though, is that the whole table Must Agree, or the deal’s off.  My mother, bless her, is not very adventurous when it comes to food.

So what better way to get what I want than go alone?  I flittered through numerous reviews on the web, a venerable mountain of menus, and felt I had pretty much uncovered every restaurant with le menu.  Unfortunately, the average price was over one hundred quid, before alcohol (and I refuse to go through a nice dinner without wine!), and my dream of a farewell-to-London dinner was in danger of dying.  It was about this time that I stumbled upon L’Autre Pied, sister restaurant to Pied à Terre, a super pricey two-Michelin star restaurant in the West End.  At L’Autre (which yes, literally means ‘the other foot’), reviews said, you experience Michelin-star dining but not the prices.  I found this hard to believe, and rung them up for a table for one.

The decor, first off, was what you’d expect of a generation growing up on Sex in the City.  Dark woods and low-level lighting, the ambiance given off by L’Autre was posh and modern (the tables themselves were quite interesting; embedded in the surface was some sort of stone?  graphite? placemat), and while no doubt upscale, it refreshingly lacked the stuffiness that a higher-end French restaurant might.  Don’t get me wrong, though:  this isn’t some cheap little bistro (you won’t think you’ve been transported to Paris, for example).  It’s uber-chic.

Now, before I continue I must comment on the service.  It was some of the best service I have ever experienced, at least outside of Japan.  From the moment you walk in the door you’re treated to ‘sir, sir, sir’ by a very attentive and exceedingly warm staff.  It isn’t false courtesy, either — these people seem to enjoy what they’re doing and wanted to make damn sure I was having a good time.  The sommelier (or should I say sommelierre?), besides from being disgustingly knowledgeable about the wine, chatted eagerly with me about my Kindle, the server and I talked about Edgar Allan Poe, and, in my bad French, I had a remedial conversation with the maître d’.

But let’s get to the meat of the post (haha — pun more than likely intended):  the food!  After sipping some champagne, I very happily signed up for the £55 tasting menu, which consisted of seven courses, and the optional £37 wine selection, which paired six glasses to my food.  Basically, for under a one hundred quid, I was getting the culinary kit and kaboodle.  I have some pictures, but they’re very, very blurry as I didn’t want to use the flash.

L’amuse-bouche

A take on the classic egg and soldiers, except… well, better.  Celeriac foam and soft-boiled quail’s egg with soldiers made from pumpernickel.  I could have bathed in that foam; it was sex on a spoon.  When the soft-boiled egg mixed in from under it, the foam took on a texture of a very light, deliciously eggy velouté.  A promising start, if not a little complicated to eat gracefully.

Course 1

Jerusalem artichoke and hazelnut velouté with a mushroom vinaigrette.  Now, I’m going to throw it out there and say that I wouldn’t have had an amuse-bouche with a similar texture and then serve this.  But this was just… exquisite beyond belief.  A gelee of foie gras in the middle of the plate melted away as the velouté was poured into the bowl, creating an experience that was strongly artichoke, tempered with the rich earthiness of foie gras.  More, please.

Course 2

I don’t remember the full name of the dish, but it was braised pork belly stuffed with foie gras with some greens and a mango sauce.  More foie gras!  I was in fatty goose (or did they use duck?  I didn’t ask) heaven.  The deconstructed nature of the dish made it possible to try everything on its own, but this is really meant to be eaten at once, which makes it a bit annoying to navigate.  A huge fan of pork belly, and used to eating it in Japan, I have to admit I was a little surprised that the texture was just shy of melt-in-your-mouth.  Quite delicious, but perhaps my least favorite of the evening.

Course 3

Roasted cod with baby spinach, ragout of mushroom, and winter truffle foam.  This was hands down the star of the evening.  I took a bite and almost screamed, “For once, someone in England knows how to cook a fish!”  It was deliciously, almost indecently crispy on the outside, and perfectly moist and tender inside.  The cod was obviously Super Fresh, because there was not one trace of fishiness.  Again, I wanted to bathe in the foam.

Course 4

Cornish Lamb with carrot and cumin puree, white asparagus and some vegetables I didn’t recognize (they looked like Kewpie dolls!!), thyme jus.  The lamb was sensational (although in all honesty I like mine a little rarer), but unfortunately this is around the time when my body started to say, “Brian, you daft little boy, do not take another bite.”  Finishing this course took me some time.

Course 5

The cheese course.  Now, let me talk to you about the cheese.  I love cheese; it’s a common fact.  But this was cheese in excess.  This was a cheese platter for three people.  From left to right, it was a goat’s milk cheese, brie, a ewe’s milk cheese, a hard cow’s cheese, and then a bleu.  I purged halfway through and soldiered on.

Course 6

The pre-dessert was the goddamn best panna cotta I’ve ever had, a fruity pink explosion littered with meringue debris.  I ate this in about 45 seconds.

Course 7

The actual dessert was a chocolate mousse and hazelnut ice cream.  Hahahaa!  This one took me a few minutes, as it was so rich, but the port that this was paired with made this dessert a keeper.  The chocolate was not overwhelming, and when paired with the hazelnut ice cream, it kind of tasted like you were eating a Ferrero rocher that had nibbled ambrosia and become a god.

And then, like that, it was over.  It was 10:20 pm — I had been there two hours, twenty minutes — and boy, was I full.  I had read some reviews that people left hungry, and I’m going to stalk these people on the internet and tell them to get their damn stomachs stapled.  I deliberately didn’t eat much early in the day for this dinner, and I’m still full over twelve hours later.

Overall, the food, the service, and especially the price made this one helluva good find.  Under one hundred quid for Michelin-quality dining?  You can’t beat it.

(But you know what I should beat?  Myself.  1300 words is way too long for a blog post.  I will exercise more restraint in the future!)