skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Welcome to The London Foodie
Reviews of London's Restaurants, Supper Clubs and Hotels, Wine Tastings, Travel Writing, and Home to the Japanese and French Supper Clubs in Islington
For the latest food events, restaurant openings, product launches and other food and drink related news, visit the sister site The London Foodie News
Name: L'Unch at L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon
Where: 13-15 West Street, London, WC2H 9NE, http://joelrobuchon.co.uk/lunch/
Cost: The set-price three-course L’Unch menu costs £29, or £39 including beverages (bottled water, a glass of wine and coffee).
About: L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, set a few metres away from Cambridge Circus, is one of the most popular London restaurants, but not a place I would rush for a quick, cheap and cheerful meal. That was until L'Unch!
The 1-Michelin-starred restaurant is now offering its new L'Unch concept, launched in September 2016. The idea is simple – to provide an efficient and affordable Michelin-starred lunch for working people during the week. Happily it is also served on Saturdays, and so Dr G was able to join me to sample the January menu.
There are just two sittings (12 noon and 12.45pm), booking is only taken online (here), and guests select their dishes at the time of booking rather than at the restaurant. All dishes are helpfully and accurately illustrated on the website and detailed descriptions of the ingredients for each dish are given to help you choose.
L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon is glamorous in black and red with a lush green indoor garden wall on one side, set around a central open kitchen where the chefs beaver away in full view of all the diners, and an extensive chef’s table/bar spreads round three sides of the kitchen.
Headed by Chef Jeremy Page, the menu changes monthly, and from February 2017 the plan is to offer a choice of three options for each of the three courses. You can check this month's menu here.
What We Ate: Starters and main courses are served simultaneously on plates that cleverly interlock, so that you can remove them to eat each course separately if you prefer.
On our visit, the starters were L’Oeuf en Meurette – a delectable Burgundian dish of poached egg served in a Bourguignon red wine sauce, accompanied by smoky lardons and mushrooms, and toasted garlic croutons.
Starter 2 was line-caught sea bream, served sashimi-style on chargrilled aubergine, with cherry tomatoes and a Citron de Menton confit. I loved the presentation of the dish, with colour from the edible nasturtium flowers, height and texture from the wafer-thin crisps of bread.
For main course, a British pork tenderloin was served seared and roasted until pink but still soft, served with a smooth and creamy celery puree, braised carrot and a nut crumble.
The red mullet main course was a grilled fillet, accompanied by a light citrus and broccoli guacamole, butternut squash puree, and roast fennel.
Every diner also gets a serving of Joel Robuchon’s famous mashed potato, made from a 50:50 mix of potatoes and butter, which is almost too good to be true – unctuous, aromatic and utterly delectable.
Dessert included a Galette des Rois (King’s cake), a traditional French January classic made to celebrate the Epiphany, of delicate frangipane and almonds, encased in flaky puff pastry.
Our final dessert was a Paris Brest – light choux pastry, filled with an airy praline crème patissiere, garnished with toasted nuts. This is always a test of the pastry chef’s talent, and L’Unch’s did not disappoint.
What We Drank: We started in the upstairs bar with a couple of cocktails - the Islington Negroni combined Portobello Road gin, Kamm & Sons ginseng, Del Professore Bianco vermouth, a teaspoon of Pimms and grapefruit peel (£17). This was a lighter, less astringent version of the classic Negroni, well suited to a lunchtime aperitif.
The non-alcoholic Hibiscus Dazzle mocktail (£9) was a delicious concoction of fresh red berries, hibiscus, pomegranate, lychee juice, lemon and soda, with an aromatic sprig of fresh rosemary.
Inclusive in our meal (£39 with beverages), the white wine chosen by the sommelier was an Austrian Grüner Veltliner from Huber, with refreshing notes of green apple and mineral. The red wine was an Aglianico (Posso) from Campania, Italy. This was a fresh but powerful wine with ripe cherry fruit and plenty of balancing tannins.
Our meal finished with some excellent coffee, salted caramel chocolates and madeleines.
Likes: Glamorous but intimate setting, great views of all the action in the kitchen, and some superb cooking. All the dishes we had were exquisitely cooked and presented, but I particularly enjoyed the classic oeuf en meurette, the delicate fillets of red mullet, and the pork tenderloin.
Dislikes: None
Verdict: At £39 per person for a top notch 3-course Michelin-starred lunch with wine, water and coffee in the centre of London, L’Unch represents outstanding quality and value for money. The ability to select your entire meal before you arrive, from photographs on the website that are amazingly accurate, is a brilliant innovation, and I would not be surprised if it caught on. Very Highly Recommended.
Name: HKK - Duck & Champagne Saturday Lunch Menu
Where: 88 Worship Street, London EC2A 2BE, http://hkklondon.com/#home
Cost: The Duck & Champagne menu is available for Saturday lunchtimes only, at a cost of £49 per person. The menu is for two to share and includes a bottle of Louis Roederer Brut Premier NV Champagne (which alone costs £79 on the a la carte menu) as well as a 4-course meal including a whole cherry wood roasted Peking duck (valued at £88 on the a la carte menu).
The Duck & Champagne menu cost £98 plus service for 2; if the Peking duck and bottle of Louis Roederer Champagne were to be ordered together from the a la carte menu, they would cost £167.
About: Tucked away in the City, a 5 minute walk from Liverpool Station, the 1-Michelin starred HKK is part of the renowned Hakkasan Group of restaurants. I was intrigued to learn of HKK’s new Duck & Champagne menu, launched in October 2015, and so hurried along to give it a try.
The menu features a whole HKK’s signature cherry wood roasted Peking duck, which takes 48 hours to create, using myriad cooking techniques - each 1.8kg, 65-day old duck from Southern Ireland is marinated in a glaze of Chinese five spice, lemon grass, sugar, and garlic, then showered with boiling water, vinegar and lemon juice. It is then hung to dry for a minimum of twenty-four hours at 3°C a procedure that ensures that the flesh separates from its skin so that it can be made so divinely crisp during cooking. After this drying process, the duck is placed in a custom-made glass-windowed firestone oven for one and a half hours over a cherry wood fire until the meat is succulent and the skin glossy and crisp.
What We Ate: We went of the Duck & Champagne menu which includes a Blue Crab salad, a whole cherry wood roasted Peking duck served three ways, egg-fried rice in a duck & abalone supreme stock and dessert.
The Blue crab salad, dramatically served on dry ice, featured a pani puri shell filled with dragon fruit, pineapple and melon. On top sat a chicory leaf, and a piece of meaty blue crab, served with a dressing of vinegar, coconut, chilli and peanut. Pop the whole thing in the mouth for an explosion of crunchy texture, tropical fruit and sweet crab - sublime.
The main event was the cherry wood roasted Peking duck. The chef brought the whole duck to our table on a trolley (I loved this element of theatre when dining at HKK), and cut three choice delicacies for us to start with.
Crispy skin from the duck’s shoulder which we ate with organic brown sugar; breast served with a cress salad in sesame and vinegar & a streak of oyster sauce; and finally a manto bun filled with duck leg, leek, cucumber and hoisin sauce, with imperial caviar from Osetra.
While enjoying these delicacies, the rest of the duck was taken back to the kitchen to be carved. It returned expertly sliced and boned, served with slivers of cucumber and spring onion, plum sauce and freshly made sesame pancakes.
HKK’s Peking duck is in a league of its own – the crispy duck skin cracked in my mouth like thin caramel, the meat so utterly succulent, flavoursome and sweet. I've eaten Peking duck with pancakes hundreds of times, but never had anything approaching this level of sophistication and flavour.
To accompany, we were each served a little sphere of egg-fried rice stuffed with Palma ham, topped with dried XO scallop, and a deliciously rich duck and abalone supreme stock.
The dessert was a Nashi pear and Champagne mousse - a base of white chocolate mousse with pear puree, topped with a Champagne sorbet, and finished with cocktail candy and 24 carat gold leaf, bathed in a Chinese honey and Champagne consommé. This was a stunningly beautiful, refreshing dessert, served in a solid stone bowl - a reminder (as if it were needed) that these guys can cook.
What We Drank: We started with a couple of cocktails, both priced at £12.50. The pomegranate margarita blended tequila and plum sake with pomegranate and grapefruit juice, agave syrup and Absinthe. This had rich plum and pomegranate aromas, and a crust of Himalayan salt and grapefruit gave it a stimulating grip.
The Boulevardier was a reinterpretation of the Negroni, blending bourbon, cocchi di torino and Campari. I rarely drink a whisky-based Negroni, and this was an interesting and appetite-stimulating variation on a much-loved (by me, at any rate) theme.
With the lunch menu, we shared a lovely bottle of Louis Roederer Champagne - elegance in a glass.
Likes: The Peking duck is sensational - a truly extraordinary elision of taste and texture, and probably the finest duck dish I have ever eaten. For a very reasonable price, the menu also includes imperial caviar, XO scallop, blue crab and a fine bottle of Louis Roederer Champagne. Elegant dining room, excellent service.
Dislikes: None
Verdict: For the Rolls Royce, crème de la crème of Peking duck experiences, I can't think of anywhere else but HKK. For melt-in-the-mouth duck skin that crackles like caramel, meat that is sweet and tender as ambrosia, and a bottle of Louis Roederer Champagne thrown in at under £100 per couple, HKK’s Duck & Champagne menu is the place to be. It is excellent value for money too. Very highly recommended.
