The Fabulous Game Tasting Menu at The Lanesborough

Name: Céleste Restaurant at The Lanesborough

Where: The Lanesborough Hotel, Hyde Park Corner, London SW1X 7TA
https://www.oetkercollection.com/destinations/the-lanesborough

Cost: The 4-course game tasting menu costs £110 per person, or with paired wines at £190 per person. 

About: Céleste is a restaurant set in the gorgeous Lanesborough Hotel, an Oetker Collection Masterpiece Hotel.  The hotel itself is spectacular, a grand mansion overlooking Hyde Park Corner just a short walk from Knightsbridge’s Harrods, Harvey Nichols, and within a few minutes walk of Park Lane and Mayfair.

The restaurant’s setting could hardly be more sumptuous, with a domed glass roof, huge crystal chandeliers, powder blue walls and a Spode-like frieze of white figurines below the high ceiling.

Florian Favario is Executive Head Chef at Céleste, which is celebrating the award of its first Michelin star in October 2016, which was renewed in October 2017.  Having spent five years working at the 3 Michelin-starred restaurant at Le Bristol Paris, Chef Favario’s restaurant offers a three course menu for £42 per person, or £72 with matching wines, a 5-course tasting menu at £110, or a full à la carte service.  I was there to try their autumnal game menu, a celebration of British heritage and provenance, which is available for a very limited period: from 20 - 30 November 2017.

What We Ate and Drank: We opted for the 4-course game tasting menu (which in fact turned out to be a 7-course dinner), priced at £190 per person with matching wines. The amuse bouche were exquisite: a crispy quail egg stuffed with juniper mayonnaise, a smoked haddock tartlet with squid ink spherified "caviar", and in another example of spherification, a pumpkin and mandarin sphere. Deliciously crusty bread was served with smoked, salted whipped butter.

A second amuse-bouche of game brioche, cleverly rolled in doughnut dough and deep-fried to resemble an egg, was served with a delicate juniper sauce on a nest-like bed of pine twigs.

The first starter was hen pheasant, served with foie gras, black truffle and Jerusalem artichoke terrine, hazelnut oil and Tartuffon white truffle cream. Served with toasted country bread, this was a celebration of the rich, savoury flavours of autumn.

It was paired with a Chinon Philippe Alliet 2015.  A 100% Cabernet Franc from the Loire, this had a stalky nose, and gamey notes with blackberry fruit and fine tannins – a delicate wine but with more than enough structure to compliment the pheasant.

Next came wild duck pie, served in very light and buttery puff pastry with black truffle and giblets,  a wonderfully intense roasting jus and a fresh herb salad. Served daringly pink, the duck was tender and deliciously gamey.

It was served with a glass of Assisi Sportoletti 2012, from Umbria - a "Super Tuscan"-style blend of Sangiovesi with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. The wine had a rich nose redolent of ripe red cherries, with violets and vanilla on the finish and soft tannins.

Hare à la royale with foie gras was intensely meaty, velvety and rich, served with a glossy, concentrated jus, and with celeriac and chestnut ravioli glazed in horseradish.

A dish like this needs a powerful wine, and happily the Cheval des Andes, from Argentina’s Mendoza Valley was no shrinking violet. A collaboration between the fabled Chateau Cheval Blanc from Bordeaux and the Argentinian winery Terrazas de las Andes, this was a Bordeaux blend with plenty of black fruit and supple tannins. Massively concentrated and powerful, this was an excellent choice for the hare.
  

A pre-dessert of cucumber and elderflower granite with a green apple cream, topped with a purple shiso leaf was just what we needed to cleanse and refresh our palates after a rich medley of gamey dishes.

To end a meal celebrating all that is wonderful about autumn, what better than a dish of glazed Aubenas chestnuts, fondant chestnut cream topped with gold leaf, crushed pear and blackberry?

The dessert wine was an Austrian Burgenland, Beerenauslese, Kracher 2013. A late-harvest, botrytised Reisling wine, this had luscious sweetness balanced by high acidity, with nutty caramel and apricot aromas, making for a complex, satisfying wine.

Likes: Every dish and matching wine was worth savouring, for the high level of skill and the excellence of the ingredients. The setting is elegant, perfect for a celebratory meal.  

Dislikes: None.  

Verdict: The game tasting menu at the Michelin-starred Céleste Restaurant in the Lanesborough Hotel is available for a few more days, until 30 November. It is a celebration of all that is rich and plentiful in autumn, and in the hands of the Chef Favario, is an exquisite variation on a flavourful theme. Very highly recommended.

Nipa Thai - A Taste of Siam in London's Hyde Park

Words & Photography by Matthew Brown and Luiz Hara

Name: Nipa Thai

Where: Nipa Thai, Lancaster Hotel, Lancaster Terrace, London, W2 2TY,
http://www.niparestaurant.co.uk/

Cost: From the a la carte menu, starters and soups are around £11-12, with salads and curries at £16-19. There are a number of special fish dishes - from scallops in a red chilli and coconut broth to crisp fried sea bass - though none costs more than £24. All desserts are £9. Nipa Thai also offers a number of set menus, from £35 per person for six shared dishes to £40 for eight, with a choice of Thai wine pairings at £20 per person.

About: Nipa Thai is one of a small number of Thai restaurants to have received the prestigious Thai Select award from the Thai government for the quality of its cooking. It also has 2 AA Rosettes, and is situated within the Thai-owned Lancaster Hotel with views over Hyde Park, making it popular with visiting Thai dignitaries. Head-chef Sanguan Parr brought her experience from the partner restaurant, Nipa, in Bangkok’s Landmark Hotel. 

What We Ate: To begin, we ordered the Ruam Mitr - a sharing selection comprising several starters, the highlight of which was the chicken satay in a sweet and velvety homemade sauce, complemented by Thai fish cakes which were fresh and zingy with lime and coriander.

The Kao Krieb Pak Moh was also good - steamed rice parcels containing chicken, shallot and plenty of peanut, glistening like multi-coloured oysters on the plate, and eaten inside a crunchy lettuce leaf.

Next came a soup course, of Tom Kha Kai and Kaeng Jued Tao Hoo, both well made. I particularly enjoyed the Tom Khai Kai, containing tender chicken in a succulent coconut broth, made refreshing by lime and lemongrass. It is easy to miss out a soup course when ordering Thai food, but these dishes are a reminder that this is a mistake.

They were followed by an array of main course dishes. Pla Rad Prig featured fried seabass with crispy skin and succulent white flesh, with coriander, onion and chilli.

The Yua Ma Muang Poo Nim, a salad of soft-shell crab and mango, was also hot, but not as successful. The crab had crunch, but was over-battered and lacked flavour, and the mango salad wasn’t substantial enough to sooth the heat.

The curry - Phad Kiew Warn Ta Law - was better. Mixed seafood (including some large fat scallops) was served in a green curry with Thai aubergine and basil.

These dishes were served with Sanguan’s Phad Thai, named after new head chef Sanguan Parr. Sweeter than usual and with plenty of lime, this was as good as anything I have eaten in Bangkok. I also enjoyed the aromatic Kao Kati - steamed rice with coconut milk and pandan leaves.

Desserts are rarely the most interesting aspect of Southeast Asian menus, and true to form, the desserts at Nipa Thai were in my opinion a bit of a let down. The banana pudding was bland, and served with the tiniest dash of caramel sauce.

The Piña Colada panacotta, whilst innovative, had the consistency of a mousse and lacked the richness of the “cooked cream” that gives panacotta its name.

What We Drank: The drinks menu features classic cocktails (£9), champagne cocktails (£12) and a range of European and Asian beers (all around £5.50 a pint). Most of the wines are below £40 a bottle, with a good number under £30. There’s also a selection of Thai wines - most of which are World Wine Award winners - for £29 a bottle, and available in 175ml or 250ml glasses. 

We opted for a bottle of the Thai Monsoon Valley Colombard, a World Wine Bronze Award-winning white. Although this grape originated in Southwest France, the wine shares the medium body and acidity of Sauvignon Blanc. It had notes of apple and grapefruit, making it a good partner to the spicy aromatic food. 

For dessert, we had a glass of another Thai Monsoon Valley wine, this time a Late Harvest Chenin Blanc, which was well made.

Likes: The restaurant’s setting is impressive, and there can be few better London dining rooms in which to eat Thai food. The Kao Krieb Pak Moh (chicken-filled rice dumplings) and Phad Kiew Warn Ta Law (seafood green curry) were exceptional. 

Dislikes: The desserts were unexciting, although the course was rescued by a very enjoyable Thai Chenin Blanc.

Verdict: Thai Cuisine is more diverse and complex than many restaurants do justice to. Nipa Thai’s soups and seafood dishes are well made, and the interior is eye-catching. With a number of good-value set menus, anyone looking to experience authentic Thai food should head to Nipa Thai. Recommended.