2012: My Ten Dishes of the Year

Another year draws to a close and yet again I'm left wondering where all the time has gone (probably spent in restaurants judging by this post I'm sure you're thinking). Anyway, I thought I'd continue my tradition of looking back at the most memorable restaurant dishes I had over the year. I've been really lucky enough to have indulged in some epic meals this year, the highlights of which have undoubtedly been experiencing the truly magical Fäviken for the first time, a return to Noma and The Ledbury, and of course Oslo's sublime Maaemo.

So, in reverse order here is a list of the ten best things I ate in a restaurant in 2012:

Sushi Tetsu, London – Restaurant Review

I could save you some time and just say that if you're after the best sushi experience in London then go to Sushi Tetsu and be done with it. But where would be the fun in that? This tiny restaurant in an obscure Clerkenwell alleyway is serving up some of the most authentic sushi I've had outside of Japan.

Sushi Tetsu quietly opened in June 2012 and is the creation of Toru Takahashi and his wife Harumi. In just a couple of short months the restaurant has received near reverent praise from many quarters. Such is the minuscule size of Sushi Tetsu (just seven stools surround its blonde wooden counter) that many dare not even speak its name for fear that the restaurant will be fully booked in perpetuity. But it would be a shame to keep such a wonderful place a closely guarded secret. If you love the precision, theatre and ritual of authentic Japanese sushi then a pilgrimage to Sushi Tetsu is a must.

Viajante, London – Restaurant Review

I was recently in London to embark on what can only be described as an epic week of eating. Over five days my fellow travelling companions and I ate at eight different restaurants with eight Michelin stars between them (reviews to follow, eventually). The damage to my waistline (and wallet) notwithstanding, it was a fantastic and truly memorable trip and confirmed to me just how exciting the food scene in London is right now. One of the highlights of the trip has to have been a monumentally good lunch at Viajante.

Koffmann's, London – Restaurant Review

It's not often you get the chance to eat at the restaurant of a genuine culinary legend, but chef Pierre Koffmann is just that. His first restaurant, La Tante Claire, opened in Chelsea in 1977 and went on to gain three Michelin stars, which it held for 15 years until it moved location to the Berkeley Hotel in Knightsbridge. There the restaurant continued until 2003 when Koffmann retired from cooking (or so he thought). The chefs that have trained under Koffmann read like a who's who of Britain's Michelin hall of fame: Marco Pierre White, Gordon Ramsay, Marcus Wareing, Eric Chavot, and Tom Kitchin. So it was with a huge amount of anticipation that Mrs. Nibbler and I went for dinner at Pierre Koffmann's eponymously titled restaurant.

Roganic, London – Restaurant Review

Of course, by now you probably all know about Roganic, the London restaurant of Simon Rogan, head chef and owner of the Michelin-starred L'Enclume in Cumbria. Since its opening last summer, Roganic has quickly become one of the darlings of the London restaurant scene. The reviews of the restaurant's particular brand of modern British cuisine have been glowing, and following a recent dinner there, the praise is totally deserved – Roganic dished up one of the best meals I've had in London.

However, it's all change at Roganic now. Head chef Ben Spalding recently made the surprising announcement that he was leaving less than a year into the restaurant's 2-year "pop-up" run. In addition to Spalding's departure, Roganic's front of house team lead by Jon Cannon and Sandia Chang is also changing, with Jon moving to the L'Enclume flagship up north and Sandia starting a new London venture involving hot dogs and champagne.

Goodman City, London – Restaurant Review

The debate about who holds the crown of 'London's best steakhouse' rages on. However, it's clear that there are two contenders streets ahead of the others: Goodman and Hawksmoor. Admitting a preference for one or the other can be as polarising as the Coke/Pepsi, PC/Mac, Stones/Beatles debate.

2011: My Ten Dishes of the Year

The year is rapidly drawing to a close and, as usual, I'm left scratching my head wondering where all the time has gone. One of my favourite things about writing a food blog is that you have a handy diary of memorable food experiences to look back on – something tangible like photos and words, something other than the ever rising numbers on the bathroom scales. Looking back at 2011 I've been lucky to have experienced some truly wonderful food, and it's good fun to look back and relive some of those memories.

Of course, what good would a year-end post be without that hackneyed favourite of work-shy journalists the world over? Yes folks, it's time for a top ten list! I did a similar post last year and really enjoyed the exercise of reminiscing over some fantastic meals, so I thought I'd repeat the process.

Young Turks at The Ten Bells, London – Restaurant Review

Let me begin this post with a little disclaimer. Way back when I was young and carefree and 5kg 10kg lighter, me and John and a couple of other friends bought a ramshackle East End boozer that was on its last legs. It was a complete and utter dive; the place was filthy with the windows coated in a seemingly impregnable patina of grime, and the rooms on the floors above the main bar were so dishevelled the place looked more like a crack house than a public house. The typical customer was some old dodgy looking bloke and evening entertainment consisted of "exotic dancers."

Hibiscus, London – Restaurant Review

Hibiscus has been on my radar screen for ages, yet every time I considered making a booking I ended up opting for another restaurant. I don't know why this was the case as on paper Hibiscus looks like a solid member of the two-Michelin star restaurant club and seems like as good a place as any when you're looking for a luxurious and special dining experience in London. So to celebrate a good friend's birthday recently I knew exactly where we'd go for dinner.

Bubbleology, London – Review

I'm a relative newcomer to the delights of bubble tea, having only first tasted it last year. However, I love the stuff and I've certainly been making up for lost time. Bubble tea originated in Taiwan in the 1980's and is essentially tea that contains large tapioca pearls. The sweet tea is served with a wide straw that allows you to suck up the moreish gelatinous pearls – a sort of drink/snack hybrid. Typically bubble tea is served cold, but you can also have it hot too.

Breakfast at The Riding House Café, London – Restaurant Review

Since moving to Norway, one of the quintessentially British things I've missed most is a proper fry-up. The full English breakfast done well is truly a thing a beauty on the plate; fried eggs quivering, sausages steaming, bacon glistening ... arteries hardening. It's certainly (and literally) not for the faint-hearted but, oh my, what a way to start the day! And it is a singular treat that I save only for those occasions when I am back in dear old Blighty.

NOPI, London – Restaurant Review

I’ve always loved going to Ottolenghi. When I lived in London it seemed no Sunday would be complete without a stroll up to Upper Street for a spot of lunch at their Islington branch. There by the window would be the most beautiful array of dishes from their unique menu of Mediterranean/Middle Eastern/Asian fusion dishes. I loved the food, the simplicity of the design, and the communal tables. And I always, but always made sure I left room for cake (see here for my favourite).

Spuntino, London – Restaurant Review

Spuntino is the third act in restaurateurs Russell Norman and Richard Beatty's burgeoning London restaurant empire. Their first two restaurants, Polpo and Polpetto, met with almost universal acclaim. Indeed, I had a wonderful lunch at Polpetto a few months back and loved the intimate and quirkily styled setting, as well as the wonderful small plates of homely Italian food. Norman and Beatty clearly understood they were onto a good thing, and Spuntino is created from a similar mould.

Byron, London - Restaurant Review

“When a man is tired of burgers, he is tired of life”. I think that’s an actual quote. Or maybe not. I might be paraphrasing Samuel Johnson slightly. But anyway, you get my gist – burgers are one of those universal foods that everyone loves to eat.

Maybe you like yours smothered with melting cheese, a dollop of controversial ketchup perhaps, or even some exotic kimchi. Maybe you’re of the besandaled bean burger brigade (but let’s be honest, those don’t really count as burgers) or maybe you’re an oligarch enjoying $5,000 worth of the World’sMostExpensiveBurger™ in Las Vegas, US of A. There’s no getting around it – your way, my way, or every which way but loose, everyone, but everyone loves a good burger.

Bob Bob Ricard, London – Restaurant Review

The bar at BBR

Bob Bob Ricard has been a darling of the blogosphere since it opened at the end of 2008. I had moved to Norway a few months earlier so missed out on its quirky blend of British and Russian food. Nevertheless I vowed to pay it a visit one day. So when I was tasked with organising a boys' night out with four of my closest friends from university, BBR was at the top of my list.

Pho, London - Restaurant Review

Pho first opened in London’s Clerkenwell in 2005. It is the brainchild of British couple Stephen and Juliette Wall, who first set upon the idea while backpacking in Vietnam. Although it’s been around for a few years now, Pho feels like a newcomer and there's still an exciting buzz about its relatively novel (in the UK at least) menu of Vietnamese street food. Indeed, it sort of reminds me of Wagamama circa 1994, and I suspect the ambition here is to do for Vietnamese food what Alan Yau did for Japanese ramen at the wildly successful, if imperfect, Wagamama – which is no bad thing at all in my opinion.

Pollen Street Social, London – Restaurant Review

The irony of going to a restaurant called Pollen Street Social alone is not lost on me. But needs must and the chance to eat at Jason Atherton's first solo project – one of the most anticipated openings of the year – was not to be missed. So it was that on an atypically glorious April afternoon in London I found myself at Pollen Street Social, nestled in a narrow side street just off bustling Regent Street.

Ottolenghi Apple & Olive Oil Cake with Maple Icing – Recipe

One of the many things I miss about living in London is wandering up to Islington's Upper Street for a lazy weekend lunch at Ottolenghi. I went there for the friendly communal atmosphere and the beautifully vibrant and fresh food that would be laid out in abundant piles. To this day I've yet to have a broccoli dish as exciting as their chargrilled version with garlic and chilli. Oh, and the cakes. Definitely the cakes.

Naturally, as a fan of Ottolenghi's food, I went out and bought the cookbook when it came out a few years ago. Unfortunately it became one of those that sat untouched on my bookshelf, for I was never quite able (unsurprisingly) to replicate the magic in my own kitchen. It remained untouched until, that is, the other day when I was struck by an insatiable urge for cake. I dug out the book, and found this interesting recipe for apple cake that uses olive oil. I'll admit to being a tad sceptical, but the olive oil really works. I used regular olive oil, but I subsequently found out that you're meant to use extra virgin olive oil, which I imagine gives it even more depth of flavour. Next time, I suppose. I'd also be tempted to substitute the water the sultanas are soaked in for some sort of booze such as dark rum or sherry.

Anyway, it's a fairly straightforward recipe and the end result is decadently moreish. The cake benefits from a day or two in the fridge to allow the flavours to mature (just make sure you wrap it well in clingfilm and take it out of the fridge a couple of hours before icing and serving).

Ottolenghi Apple and Olive Oil Cake with Maple Icing
(taken from Ottolenghi: The Cookbook)

Ingredients (serves 6-8)
80g sultanas
4 tbsp water
280g plain flour
½ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp salt
½ a teaspoon baking powder
1¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
120ml extra virgin olive oil
160g caster sugar
½ vanilla pod
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3 Bramley/Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and cut into 1cm dice (should be approx 360g)
Grated zest of 1 lemon
2 egg whites

For the Maple icing:
100g unsalted butter, at room temperature
100g light muscovado sugar
85ml maple syrup
220g cream cheese, at room temperature

Method

1. Grease a 20-24cm springform non-stick cake tin. Place the sultanas and water (or booze) in a saucepan and simmer over a low heat until all of the water has been absorbed. Leave to cool.
2. Preheat the oven to 170ºC. Sift together the flour, cinnamon, salt, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda and set aside.
3. Put the oil and sugar into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (or use an electric whisk). Slit the vanilla pod lengthwise and scrape the seeds out into the bowl. Beat the oil, sugar and vanilla together, then gradually add the eggs. Mix until smooth and thick. Add the diced apples, sultanas and lemon zest, then lightly fold in the dry ingredients.
4. Whisk the egg whites in a separate bowl until they form soft peaks. Carefully fold them into the batter in 2 batches, trying to lose as little air as possible.
5. Pour the batter into the cake tin, level it with a palette knife. Bake for 1½ hours, or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Remove from the oven and let it cool in the tin.
6. Once cold, remove the cake from the tin and cut the cake horizontally in half using a serrated knife.
7. To make the icing, beat together the butter, muscovado sugar and maple syrup in an electric mixer until light and airy. Add the cream cheese and continue to beat until the icing is totally smooth.
8. Using a palette knife spread a 1cm-thick layer of icing over the bottom half of the cake. Carefully place the top half on it. Spread the rest of the icing on top.

Hawksmoor (Seven Dials), London – Restaurant Review

Meat and fire have such primal appeals about them. Oh, how the first human to grill their woolly mammoth must have wept at that first bite of charred heaven. I mean is there anything better than great big slabs of Flintstone-sized beef seared over an open flame and washed down with some red Burgundy? Fire. Flesh. Wine. It's almost biblical! So when I set about organising a boys' night out with five of my dearest friends, it seemed appropriate to come to the church of carnivores that is Hawksmoor and worship at its altar of all things meat.

The original Hawksmoor opened in London's Shoreditch in 2006 and rapidly built up a fanatical following due to its sublime steaks and eclectic cocktails. This restaurant is the second venture of restaurateurs Will Beckett and Huw Gottby, and opened in late 2010 in the old Combe brewery in the heart of Covent Garden. It continues in the same vein as the original, offering an almost identical menu, but on a larger and slightly more polished scale.

On entering through the heavy double doors, I descended the steps to the underground bar passing a playful "Beef and Liberty" sign on my way – presumably a relic of London's legendary steak club, the Sublime Society of Beef Steaks, which was active in the 18th and 19th centuries, and from which Hawksmoor takes inspiration. I'm not a fan of subterranean dining spaces, the lack of windows usually make me feel like I'm in some sort of claustrophobic bunker, and the low-slung ceiling and dim lighting of the bar area here didn't help matters either. However, the main restaurant was cavernous enough, with a vaulted brick ceiling and beautiful parquet flooring adding to its charm.

As I was among the first to arrive, I took a seat at the bar to wait for the others. The bar menu here is quite an extensive affair, listing some classic and fantastically quirky cocktails, with names like 'Alamagoozlum' and 'Johnny-from-London'. I shouldn't have been surprised by the quality of the drinks as the bar is run by 'Shaky' Pete Jeary, one of London's best mixologists, and is definitely worth a visit in its own right. I ordered a 'Tobacco Old Fashioned', which is made with Hawksmoor's own tobacco-infused bitters, and was one of the finest examples I have tasted. My friend's 'Hawksmoor Fizz' was a cooling and zesty mix of gin, lemon, cream, orange flower water, and egg white. Both drinks were made with extreme precision, and we watched in awe as the barman carefully and methodically created our cocktails.

Once the rest of our group arrived, we were shown to our table in the adjoining dining room and presented with menus. Obviously, steaks would be the order of the day, and the available cuts and weights are chalked up on blackboards around the dining room. Given the amount of meat we planned on ordering, we somewhat hesitantly chose a selection of starters to share.

Half a dozen Cumbrae rock oysters, served with their briny juices intact and traditional mignonette sauce on the side.

Grilled Poole clams with bacon came served with a wedge of dense bread, perfect for soaking up the delicious juices.

Roasted bone marrow and slow-cooked onions were smeared over grilled bread and greedily wolfed down. A little went a long way though as the bone marrow was impossibly rich and creamy with a deep beefy taste.

We also ordered some Tamworth pork belly ribs. These had been slow cooked to a state of melting softness. By far the best of the starters, they disappeared instantly. So quickly, in fact, that I didn't even have time to take a snapshot of them. We had also been tempted by the Dorset blue lobster with hazelnut butter, but surprisingly the restaurant had already run out of lobster, even though it hadn't yet gone 8pm.

And so, on to the main courses. Although I have heard good things about the burgers at Hawksmoor (it seems no review of Hawksmoor is complete without a mention of their infamous kimchi burger), it was vast quantities of red meat we were craving. Unlike at London rival Goodman, the steaks at Hawksmoor all come from a single breed – grass-fed Longhorn cattle reared in North Yorkshire by The Ginger Pig – and are dry aged for at least 35 days. They are then grilled to perfection on a fiercely hot charcoal grill. Your choice is simply one of cut and weight.

I'm a sucker for Porterhouse steak – with a combination of succulent sirloin and tender fillet, they are a meat lover's dream cut, and we ordered 900g versions of this steak (medium-rare, naturally) to share in pairs. They arrived in cast iron skillets; handily pre-cut to make sharing easier. We also ordered some sauces on the side and managed to select from most of what the restaurant offers: Béarnaise, peppercorn, Stilton hollandaise, and bone marrow gravy. Sides of beef dripping chips, triple cooked chips, roast field mushrooms, and creamed spinach were the token vegetables in this veritable meat feast.

The steaks arrived beautifully cooked and well rested, with pleasing thin seams of creamy yellow fat running through them. The surface of the meat had a mouth-watering char to it that tasted every bit as good as it looked with an intensely savoury smokiness to it. The tender beef had a remarkable depth of flavour and an almost sweet mineral taste that only grass-fed cows can produce. A touch more salt was needed to lift the flavour, but that's to be expected, as it's difficult for the seasoning to permeate through a cut this thick. The side dishes were good too, although I couldn't really discern much difference between the beef dripping chips and the triple cooked chips. The only disappointment was the Béarnaise sauce, which didn't have enough acidity or tarragon and was far too creamy as a result. Goodman's version, in contrast, is a real joy.

Please spare a thought for my dear friend though. Such is his love of meat that he dispatched the waitress to find him his own personal cut of Porterhouse, the bigger the better. The end result was a 1.1kg behemoth that sat on his plate like some obscure anatomical specimen. To his (dis)credit, he finished the lot, leaving a huge T-shaped bone that looked like it had been bleached clean. He then spent the rest of the evening fending off incessant meat sweats. Maybe not quite as impressive as these two, but remember, my friend had already had starters too!

Desserts were a bit of hazy blur to be honest, as by this stage we'd had more than a skinfull. I seemed to have ordered a powerfully alcoholic jelly and cream number that wasn't very pleasant at all. A caramel and peanut thing was much better though, the ice cream in particular being luxuriously smooth and rich.

Throughout the meal we drank a truly stunning 2005 Vosne-Romanée. Packed with red fruit, it had a heavenly flavour and a fantastic sense of vitality. With our puddings we couldn't resist the allure of a 1998 Château d'Yquem – the nectar of the gods – which was sipped in near silence. Extraordinary!

After dinner, we gingerly took our meat-laden bellies back to the bar for some more drinks. There, we noticed a gruesome sounding "Zombie" cocktail, containing three different kinds of rum, grenadine, grapefruit, and lime, with a hefty slug of absinthe thrown in for good measure. Somewhat ominously, this drink came with a limit of one per person. Intrigued, we asked the waitress what it was like; "it's a good beginning to the end of the night" came her reply. We ordered two. Five minutes later, a couple of glass goblets the size of melons arrived. After that I don't remember too much to be honest, other than the bill being brought out, which came in just north of a rather sobering £1,600 between the six of us. Oh, and I may or may not have tried to hire a bicycle rickshaw to take me back home to Battersea, a 4 mile trek away.

Hawksmoor Seven Dials is a really fantastic addition to London's dining scene. I love the bar, I love the bustling, raucous dining room, and I love the super-friendly service, and of course the steaks are good enough to satisfy the most demanding of meat lovers. It's a perfect place for hanging out and laughing with a bunch of friends over good food and wine. As far as the steaks go, though, I think Goodman still has the edge, mainly due to the variety of beef they offer and their slightly better execution, but these two restaurants are probably the best steak houses in the capital at the moment and both are operating at a very high standard indeed.

So, Hawksmoor: Meat. Fire. Wine. What more is there to say? Just go!

Food:        7 / 10
Service:     8 / 10
Ambiance: 8 / 10

Hawksmoor (Seven Dials)
11 Langley Street
London WC2H 9JG
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)20 7856 2154

L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon, London - Review

So where do I begin? To say that Joël Robuchon knows how to run a restaurant is a bit of an understatement – the man holds 24 Michelin stars for crying out loud! He is culinary royalty across three continents. Last spring, I enjoyed a wonderful meal at Robuchon’s two-Michelin starred restaurant in Monaco, and I had craved more of his Asian influenced French cooking ever since. So it was on a chilly January day that I found myself gravitating to part of the Robuchon stellar constellation: L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon in London.

Of Robuchon’s 12-restaurant empire, only four are fully fledged starched white tablecloth affairs (Macau, Las Vegas, Monaco, and Tokyo). The rest are more informal dining spaces, which is not at all to say that the food is of a lower standard. Instead, the more casual Atelier (French for ‘workshop’) concepts are designed to be more laid back and accessible, allowing you to watch as the chefs grill, chop, and tweeze your meal right in front of you.

I’m usually too self-conscious to eat alone at high-end restaurants, but on this day I made a rare exception. So with a lunchtime table for one booked and my copy of The Economist in hand (I wonder if there are any solo diners that don't bring reading material with them), I arrived at this Robuchon outpost in the heart of London’s Covent Garden, which is run by the capable chef, Olivier Limousin. The restaurant has three levels, and I had booked a table in the ground floor L’Atelier. The other two floors contain a bar and a slightly more traditional dining room. Fortunately the layout of the ground floor restaurant lends itself to lone dining perfectly. In line with Robuchon’s fascination for all things Japanese, the restaurant is dominated by an open-plan kitchen surrounded by a sushi bar-style counter in Indian rosewood, which is where I was seated. There are other, free-standing, tables that are also elevated, giving the restaurant a more relaxed feel. The décor, though, is straight out of the 1980’s with bold shades of red and black dominating. The lighting inside was very dim, creating quite a sultry atmosphere, even at 1pm on a Wednesday. All in all, a very pleasant place to while away the afternoon.

The menu here is one of those irritating things that doesn’t list separate starters or mains. Instead there are smaller and larger portions, and you are left to decipher which is which by price alone, which is no easy task – is a £39 egg and caviar dish bigger or smaller than a £36 plate of langoustine? I decided to make things easier and opted for the nine-course menu découverte at £125.

To begin, an amuse bouche of “royale” of foie gras with port wine reduction and Parmesan foam woke up the palate with a bang. This was a great combination of silky smooth foie gras mousse, salty cheese and an intense sweet and sour port wine hit. I had begun my excellent meal at Robuchon in Monaco in an almost identical fashion, except then the port reduction was replaced by a layer of salted caramel, so this was a pleasingly familiar start to the meal.

Another old friend from my Monaco experience (and one of my highlights of 2010) was next, and this was simply titled “Le Caviar”. A caviar tin was placed in front of me and I watched as the waiter lifted the lid to reveal what looked like a tin full of Oscietra caviar. Of course, I already knew the punchline to this piece of culinary humour, and dug my mother of pearl spoon in to reveal a layer of intense lobster jelly and crab in fennel cream below the fish eggs. It was a beautiful mix of flavours, although I felt the execution of this dish was a touch better in Monaco.

Next was a salad of chicory, Fuji apples, and black Perigord truffles. This dish was full of clean and fresh flavours. The sweet acidity of the apples and vinaigrette dressing were well paired with the bitterness of the chicory leaves. The only let down was that there was not much flavour coming through from the truffles – quite a tough thing to achieve I would have thought.

A soup course was next, and what a bowl of soup it was! Butternut squash velouté sounded a tad tame when I first read it on the menu, but how wrong I was. I watched as a chef ladled thick and vibrantly orange soup into a bowl and then lovingly garnished it with small juice-filled segments of pink grapefruit, slivers of orange peel, coriander seeds, toasted pumpkin seeds, ground cardamom, coriander cress, and golden croutons. Wow! The soup had an earthy sweetness to it that was transformed by the freshness of the orange peel and grapefruit. The cardamom and coriander seeds gave a hint of winter spiciness and the toasted pumpkin seeds and croutons added a welcome bit of texture. This was one of the absolute highlights of the meal and every spoonful was slowly savoured.

A slab of seared duck foie gras was next, which arrived perfectly cooked with a good savoury crust and meltingly soft centre. Its richness was offset by a mix of grapefruit, apple and maple syrup, which provided the sweetness and acidity that foie gras needs.

This was followed by a fish course, and in a change to what was billed on the menu I was served a beautiful dish of grilled sea bass and Scottish langoustine tail served with clams and artichoke. This was another stand-out dish; the sea bass was perfectly cooked and the langoustine was impossibly sweet.

The main meat course followed and this was another Robuchon classic. Confit of quail’s leg and foie gras stuffed quail breast had been grilled and slicked with a soy and honey glaze. This was served with a dollop of black truffle mashed potatoes, and a little pile of dill and chervil. I am getting hungry just writing this as this was yet another delightful dish. The quail was cooked to perfection – so juicy and soft. I mean how can you complain when you have foie gras and truffles on the same plate? As if this wasn’t decadent enough, a small cocotte was served on the side containing Robuchon’s infamous and impossibly rich mashed potatoes. Rumoured to be a blend of equal parts of potatoes and butter, I could feel my arteries thicken in anticipation of the first bite. It was sensational.

Desserts, although good, were a little more muted. Yuzu ice cream covered in popping candy-studded white chocolate was a fun little number. The citrus notes of the yuzu making this quite a refreshing dessert.

Finally, a beautiful looking dessert consisting of layers of Manjari chocolate mousse, white chocolate ice cream, and chocolate biscuit crumbs. Sitting atop the serving bowl was a thin circle of chocolate. I'm not a huge fan of chocolate-based desserts in general, but this was fine, if a little ordinary.

Service throughout the meal was friendly and efficient, and the sommelier picked out two wonderful glasses of wine to go with my lunch: a young Austrian Grüner Veltliner went really well with the first courses, while a fruit-packed and spicy Argentinean Enamore was perfectly matched with the quail.

L'Atelier seems to be a somewhat forgotten gem in the London dining scene. Perhaps its informality is off-putting to people about to spend a good wad of cash on a meal. But although the atmosphere is relaxed, don't forget that this place still holds two Michelin stars, one of only eight such restaurants in the capital, and the level of cooking here is monumentally good (Update 26/09/13: In the 2014 edition of the Michelin Guide it was announced that L'Atelier had lost its second star). I'll definitely be back for more as there was so much on the menu I wanted to try. Although maybe next time I'll bring a friend to share the experience with, as a meal at L'Atelier is just too good to keep to myself.

Food:          9 / 10

Service:       8 / 10

Ambiance:   8 / 10

L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon

13-15 West Street

London WC2H 9NE

United Kingdom

Tel: +44 (0)20 7010 8600