Detroit – Spirits

Met up at short notice with a friend for drinks in Covent Garden. Where to eat?

  • Passed by Dishoom, looked interesting but my friend was not a fan of Indian food.
  • Next door was Jamie’s Italian (part of the Jamie Oliver chain – I am wary of celebrity chef chains following our Abode experience), plus it had a huge queue outside – No Way.
  • Thought we would try the new Hawksmoor in Seven Dials just 3 days after it opened, on a walk in – No Chance.

Getting desperate. I vaguely remembered an OK basement cocktail bar I had been to years ago. Did it still exist? Could I find it?. Yes Detroit was still there. So we wandered down into the cosy bar with its alcove tables, and ordered cocktails and bar snacks.

It all worked out in the end, seriously good chips and rather nice cocktails. I would highly recommend the Strawberry and Cream cocktail. I had a few of them, but at £6.85 each they did not break the bank.  Nice atmosphere, with friendly staff and unobtrusive music – could actually have a conversation!  Next time I won’t leave it quite so long before I return to Detroit.

Marks out of 10

Food 6.1

Service 6

Ambience 5.8

 

 

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Bécasse Cellar Night

A post from No Experts Australian Correspondent

I joined the Sydney Wine group several months ago, but seemed to keep missing the monthly events, because of previous engagements. An off “piste” Cellar night at Bécasse was a fabulous opportunity to meet some of the members for the first time. I love the concept that you can take your own wines to a restaurant to match a pre-published taster menu. With 10 in our group, this allowed a very generous couple of bottles per course. We kicked off with a couple of fabulous  champagnes, including a 2002 vintage Veuve Cliquot. The Canapé tarts were accompanied by lovely soft, warm artisan breads.

Three courses stood out for me,  Our first course of a delicately flavoured Civet of Cloudy bay clams, prawn and scallop. This French Broth was delightful, if a little cold, due to the wait for our whites to be opened.  The 2nd course of Cobia which is a meaty fish, and accompanied by lightly battered Oyster Beignets that just simply melted in the mouth. Both were accompanied by a beautiful German Riesling and the lovely Mount Pleasant Lovedale Semillon that, had layers and layers of complexity.

Lastly our cheese course of Holy Goat La Luna with preserved rhubarb and toasted kugelhopf, a fruit cake/bread that is believed to be of either Austrian or Alsatian origin. Legend has it that the kugelhopf recipe was brought to France by Marie Antoinette who was born in Austria.  Regardless of it’s origin, the toasted kugelhopf made a lovely accompaniment to our slightly warmed goats cheese.  The caramelised apple tart deserves a mention too, however I felt that the veal dish was a little dry, although the sweetbreads and roast garlic accompaniments were delicious. The Wagyu beef rib, was a little tough.   This may have been because my dish was sitting under lights to keep it warm, while I had popped to the loo, or simply because the accompanying wines were so magnificent that the courses accompanying them, simply paled into insignificance. Our host had very generously provide a bottle of Penfold’s Grange 91, which was still showing a fair amount of American oak! A description offered by one of my fellow diners of “pop corn” proved very apt!

Our increasingly rowdy group, didn’t seem to bother the other diners too much, although normally you cannot here a pin drop in this hushed establishment. Staff were friendly and jumped through hoops in order to double decant our wines, and assist with crumbling corks! They were extremely helpful and accommodating, although some might argue that with a 15% service charge, they should be! Adding a service charge is not common practise in Australia, although I always leave some sort of tip if the service is good.. Overall a superb evening, and I will certainly return for another cellar night!

The Menu

Canapés
Bécasse artisan bread
Veuve Cliquot 2002 and Champagne Grand Cru Marie-Noelle Ledru 2006
Civet of Cloudy Bay clams, scallop and prawn
Seared fillet of cobia with horseradish and baby gem butter, oyster beignets
Fricassee of 12 hour cooked veal shank, tendon and sweetbreads with beetroot and roast garlic gnocchi, beetroot shoots
Roast rib of Gundooee organic wagyu beef with parsnips en papillote, Tuscan onion rings
Holy Goat La Luna with preserved rhubarb and toasted kugelhopf
Caramelised apple tart fine, chewy apple sorbet and brown butter veloute

Marks out of 10

Food 7.6

Service 8.2

Ambience  8.0

 

Update June 2012 – The group of restaurants run by Justin North which includes Becasse, have gone into administration.  See Smartcompany artical.

 

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What’s coming next?

LONDON

It’s Chocolate week – 11th to 17th October,  so we will be making the most of that.

SYDNEY

There will be more posts from our Australian correspondent.

Post planned will include Bilsons and Tetsuya’s, two restaurants that have been the subject of recent controversy due to losing hats – Chefs Hats are awarded for outstanding restaurants and range from one hat through three hats – both were demoted from 3 hats to 2 hats in the SMH Good Food Guide 2011 Awards –  The Good Food Guide, published by the Fairfax Newspaper Group in Australia, is the Australian guide listing the best places to eat. See Bilson bites back

SINGAPORE

There will also be a post for Iggy’s in Singapore, which is number 26 in the S.Pellegrino World’s Best Restaurants list.

POST COUNT

We have now reached our 200th post count. No plans to slow down.

L’Autre Pied – Pied à Terre Lite

Had lunch at L’Autre Pied in Marlybone yesterday. This restaurant  has been on our wish list for a while.  It is the sister restaurant to an old favourite Pied à Terre. The set lunch at £17 for 2 courses and £22 for 3 courses is a good deal, you really do not need to spend hundreds of pounds here, although you could if you wanted to, by following the example of the Commonwealth Development Corporation who allegedly claimed for a £700 dinner on expenses – see Telegraph artical.

For each course of the set menu a reasonably priced matching glass of wine is recommended. They also do a 4 course and a 7 course tasting menu.

l’Autre Pied is much more casual than its sister restaurant Pied à Terre, certainly at lunch time there is not a white table cloth in sight.

We had an interesting amuse bouche –  a tiny tasty sausage roll presented on a piece of slate.  Then we started with the Canneloni of Confit Guinea Fowl, Lemon Thyme, Roasted Button Onions, Tarragon Cream, followed by Roasted Breast and Confit Leg of Partridge, Root Vegetables and Turnip Fondant. The Partridge  was beautifully cooked, moist and full of flavour, we also had a couple of stunning matching wines.

For dessert they had to change the set menu as they had ran out of the Treacle Tart, so I had a Caramel parfait instead, with hazel nut ice cream and Caramel foam. My companion ordered her dessert a la carte, going for Baked Alaska  Poached White Peach, Vanilla Ice Cream and Raspberry Sorbet. The dish looked rather like a small white hedgehog when it arrived. The Baked Alaska had not been cooked in the conventional manner, rather than being in the oven it looked like the meringue had been added by hand and heated with a blow torch, which meant the sorbet was a little bit too hard, however it was still a delicious dessert.

On the whole I found the food at L’Autre Pied to be quite similar to Pied à Terre, which is praise indeed.

Marks out of 10

Food 7.2

Service 6.9

Ambience 6.5

 

UPDATE: October 2016, L’Autre Pied no longer has a Michelin Star.

 

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Roux at Parliament Square – Private dining (Closed)

Had a lovely evening at Michel Roux Jnr’s new restaurant, even if it did mean battling my way through the crowds outside Westminster Abbey waiting for a glimpse of the Pope.  Roux at Parliament Square is just around the corner from the Abbey located in one of the most beautiful buildings in Westminster, a period building designed by Alfred Waterhouse, the architect of London’s iconic Natural History Museum.

We started with drinks and canapes in the upstairs bar, then strolled down to the private dining room to indulge, we had pre ordered the 8 course tasting menu.

The Private dinning room is lovely and the service was unobtrusive, it was like being at a fabulous dinner party.

The food did not let us down either. The menu was well balanced. I liked the mixed style of modern and traditional french cuisine. The standout dishes for me were, the Brill with razor clam, mussel and shrimp  and the chocolate mousse, Caramel foam and banana sorbet with popping candy.

One of the advantages of being in the private dining room was that the matching wines were presented punctually by the Sommelier just prior to the food service. The  wines were all French and selected by Albert Roux. I especially enjoyed our second dessert wine, the Maury, Dom.Lafage, Landuedoc-Rousillion, 2008.

Our visit was on a Friday evening, which is actually a quiet day for the Restaurant. This Roux outpost is definitely worth a return visit.

UPDATE Dec 2020 Closed.

The Old Brewery – Good enough for Johnny Depp!

As we walked through the grounds of the Old Royal Naval college in Greenwich we passed a sign from the Producers of Pirates of the Caribbean 4 apologising for the inconvenience caused by the filming, not sure you can be inconvenienced by Johnny Depp filming next door!

The Old Brewery certainly has the look of a venue that would suit an A list celebrity. It has justifiably won the Time Out 2010 Eating and Drinking Awards for Best New Design.

It is a lovely location, with great outdoor space, a stylish bar and a large restaurant that somehow manages to be cool and artistic as well as warm and inviting. This is acheived by using very effective lighting and a having  huge artwork made from beer bottles hanging from the ceiling (sounds naff but it works). Even stranger is that by day, the restaurant space acts as a cafe  for the Discover Greenwich tourist attraction.

The food is British and each course can be matched with a Beer. The Old Brewery is owned by Meantime Brewing Company.

I started with a bowl of Devilled Whitebait with caper mayonnaise. My companion had a beautifully presented pork dish (it looked rather like an ice cream wafer), and a steak cooked exactly to order. For my main course I had mutton served with new potatoes.

The service was a bit weak, we brought our drinks in from the bar and only ordered one other glass of wine with the meal, they missed several opportunities to sell more alcohol, but I am being picky here, as on the whole I really rated this place.

Also on the question of cost, the meal here was actually about the same price as Fish and Chips in the Mayflower.

Marks out of 10

Food 6.7

Service 5

Ambience 7

 

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