My First Restaurant Review: Le Gavroche

Thursday 22nd October 2009

Restaurant: Le Gavroche
Price Per Person exc service: £48
Rating: 5 out of 5…for now…

Currently Munching: Leerdammer and celery, Bacon Frazzles

As this is my first review, I think it's appropriate to start with my favourite restaurant, the place where I have enjoyed the most wonderful meals and service. Ok, a lot of you are now going to judge me based on the name of this establishment – but before you do, I assure you I am not some upper class snob who is going to only being reviewing places that have two star’s or more because the idea of eating anything less than that fills me with dread. I am not a food snob, I even went to Mcdonalds and had a chicken nugget meal deal two days ago and oh yes I totally went large on the fries! But this restaurant for me is the pinnacle of everything a luxury setting should have – the food is astonishing, the service is precise but not too stiff and the value for money is actually fantastic. Also, whenever I go it is only for lunch and it is to enjoy their insanely good value set meal deal where you get three courses, canapés, water and half a bottle wine per person for £48 – bargain!

I have been to Le Gavorche about five times now I think, for my 18th and 21st birthday’s, for the graduation of my Bachelors and Master’s degree, and once when I was going through a really rough time and my dad surprised me for lunch in London to cheer me up (genius). The celebration today was my mother’s birthday – she has one more year before she is batting half a century, and there is not better place to kick off the celebrations. Although it is a French restaurant, for me it has a real saturation of Britishness about it. The decor of the restaurant has been accused of being very dark, very shadowed and of course very masculine; indeed this is true, but this restaurant is steeped in history and I feel the darkness and the essence of genteel masculinity is part of the restaurant’s charm. As a woman I get an excitement from feeling I have crossed a boundary into the world of man – the surrounding tables are made up of about 10% women the rest chortling suited men with their chins rolling and their middle shirt buttons popping, sipping scotch and muttering ‘oh yes, oh yes’ dully whilst sipping their veloutte – yes I am essentially surrounded by tables seated with the dog from the Churchill advert. But again, here is part of Le Gavorche’s charm – here men are allowed to be men and allowed to eat food cooked in butter and drink in the day without their wives saying anything of it. It’s like sitting in a British comedy sketch waiting for the punch line – fantastic! Every table has a beautiful sculpture made of cutlery, today we have, to my father’s dismay, the goat…he wishes we had the lobster. After the eight of us cheers with a glass of house champagne we are treated with canapés of a small pastry tart filled with celeriac and duck and a large smoked mussel dresses in a light curry sauce. The tart was a bit tasteless if I am honest, but the curry sauce on the mussel was very unusual and worked very well. For my starter I enjoyed a silky velottue flavoured with lobster poured at the table over a bowl of salty French ham cubes and pumpkin. It was warm and autumnal and seasoned to perfection. Around the table Stuart opted for smoked eel and beetroot salad with a horseradish crème; lovely to see golden beetroots being used as their flavour is so rich with honey tones and works really well as a contrast to the oily eel. The others went for the squid dish, served as a salad (I am always surprised by how many people opt for squid when it is on the menu, what happened to all the squeamish people?!).

For my main course I decided to opt for the lighter option and take the fish. It was a lovely fillet of red mullet big and meaty and full of wonderfully light juices. It sat on a bed of crushed potatoes which was jewelled with little hidden lobster tails. For me crushed potatoes are all well and good, but if feel the lack of any skill required to create them makes me a little disappointed at their presence on my plate. In fact the lobster almost feels like an after thought to try and dress up such a basic use of potato that doesn’t quite feel succinct – look at the lobster not the fact that we can’t produce a mash! The plate is dressed in a browny green sauce which I have no clue of the ingredients because it just tasted like a miscellaneous vegetable smear. A lovely rich browny orange lobster sauce was poured on the opposing side of the plate by the waiter (love the theatre) and that was far more successful. All in all, the flavours were lovely and the dish did what was necessary but in honesty given the ingredients at home I feel I could Ready Steady Cook this meal without to much hassle. The other guests at my table had beef skirt cooked lovely and rare with a piece of melba toast spread with beef bone marrow – no one can remember what accompanied it which is never a good sign. The final option on the menu which none of us took was literally written on the menu as chicken cooked in beer. When I shared my surprise at seeing such a simple dish, everyone of course started exclaiming that there was nothing quite like a fantastic piece of chicken, and how in Australia it is normal to drink half a can of lager and stick the remains up a chickens bum then put it on barbeque it for a fantastic meal. However for me, I feel chicken is something that ‘one’ should never order when dining out as it is just too easy, and to see it on a menu of such calibre and in such a crass way was a real disappointment to me. It might have been the best chicken I ever had, I might have felt tears of joy and wonderment tumble onto my plate as I munched mouth after moorish mouth, but I just expect a bit more magic from my favourite restaurant than chicken in beer - I expect from Le Gavorche drama, excitement and flavours I would never get anywhere else. For dessert I took the cheese option for the first time, as I always normally opt for ice cream then wish I had had the cheese purely because you have NEVER seen a cheese board like it. It is literally the size of a door flipped horizontally with wheels attached and smells like stinky heaven. I had a piece of Comte, a very ripe Shropshire blue and a lovely runny stinky something French whose label I could not see but it was fantastic none the less. Cheese is served with a mountain of very thinly sliced fruit bread which is toasted and becomes all curled at the edges as it is so thin and it utterly delicious in place of boring crackers. I also have celery, quince and a lovely apple chutney; all in all a fantastic cheese plate. The ice cream trolley comes round for Richard who went for that option, on deciding he wants a scoop of everything he is delighted with his large plate of white chocolate ice cream, mint, strawberry, grapefruit and others that I wasn’t able to taste before they disappeared from his plate! The white chocolate, as always, is insanely beautiful. Everyone else went for a rich creamy rice pudding topped with poached pears and served with freshly baked flaky biscuits – totally divine. Finally coffees, and petit fours (the glazed physalis is always the one we fight over!) complete our meal and we all leave happy and full to the brim!

I think it is time to give you a reason for why I think this meal was disappointing compared to previous. I have already spied Michel Roux tucking into lunch across the restaurant and my dad informs me that Michel is slowly less and less involved in the kitchen after Rachel Humphrey’s was made head chef two years ago – it seems the master has cut the cord from his protégé. She is fantastic and it is certainly amazing and refreshing to see a woman heading up a restaurant so influenced my men in the past. I haven’t eaten their since before her time, literally a month or two before she was given the position of head chef so for me the contrast to what the food used to be was quite stark. I certainly will be lunching there again and hoping that next time I will be treated to the innovative and exciting dishes that I used to enjoy and celebrate there. All eight of us agreed that of all the visits (my father’s being larger than the average!) this one was not as good as standard. My next planned visit is February, and I am still very excited to see where the kitchen will be then, hopefully back to the magic it used to exude.