|
Now independent of the Gordon Ramsay empire, Marcus Wareing at the Berkeley continues largely unchanged in the same room; a new restaurant manager was almost the only visible difference. The tasting menu is £90, a la carte is £75 and a good value lunch is £35 for three courses.
The wine list has changed slightly (e.g. they have dropped the good Greek wine that they had previously). The list appears in a vast black leather-bound tome, 43 pages of serious producers. Examples include Jermann Pinot Bianco 2007 at £48 for a wine that costs £12 or so retail, JJ Prum Spatlese Wehlener Sonnenuhr 2006 at a chunky £90 for a wine you can buy for around £19 if you look carefully in the shops, Ata Rangi Pinot Noir 2006 at £88 for a wine costing £27 retail, while at the top end Vega Sicilia Unico 1995 is £365 for a wine available for about £140 or so in the shops.
As we looked at the menu some nibbles appeared. A silky smooth hummus with onion bavarois was enjoyable, more so than a puff pastry sandwich of confit foie gras. The foie gras in itself was good, but was dusted with blackcurrant powder and a little quince puree; I found the blackcurrant powder just added sweetness without bringing the acidity that would have been welcome, while the quince puree could have played this role but was spread so thin that it did not (on average 6/10 for the two).
Bread is a choice of slices of either sourdough, Swiss brown, country bread or honey and potato bread. These are bought in from The Flour Station and Poilane, which are certainly very respectable bakeries, but this is hardly 2 Michelin star bread. If the simple pub the Duke of Sussex in W4 can make excellent home-made bread then it eludes me as to why most top restaurants in London can’t be bothered.
A warm tomato soup was the amuse bouche, served in a glass and topped with a basil foam with crème fraiche, and served with black pepper bread sticks. This had reasonably good intensity, and the basil is a classic combination with the tomato; personally I didn’t think the creme fraiche did much (just about 7/10). On the tasting menu the first formal dish was a piece of pan fried foie gras, with a compote of cranberry and Lapsang tea, gingerbread, chestnuts and quince jelly. The foie gras itself was of good quality and carefully cooked, but for me there were far too many accompaniments to make sense of the dish, which ended up just a confusion of flavours (7/10 if I am being kind).
A Scottish scallop was sliced thinly before serving (which I am never convinced about; I prefer scallops whole) and had nice sweet flavour, resting on a bed of braised pig trotters, garnished with a honey pork crisp and parsnip milk powder. Inherently pork and scallops can work well, but the parsnip milk powder added nothing useful as far as I was concerned (barely 6/10). Better was roasted and marinated quail with white onion fondue, butternut squash and a baked potato foam. The quail had good taste and was carefully cooked, the other elements giving a pleasant earthy counterpoint to the quail (a strong 7/10).
Monkfish tail was skillfully cooked (avoiding the chewiness that can so easily afflict monkfish in less than skilled hands), served with chanterelles, winter truffles and a bed of parsnip remoulade. The parsnips were cut so fine that their distinct flavour was barely distinguishable, and I didn’t find the combination of flavours particularly harmonious (6/10). My saddle of venison arrived as several tiny slices of meat with good flavour, cooked pink, with some over-salted black trumpet mushrooms, just a few pieces of nice buttered courgette, olive oil crumbs (why?) and some cooking juices. I didn’t think the venison had very good flavour; indeed the one I had at the Harwood Arms a couple of weeks ago was superior, while again I found the multiple accompaniments did not come together particularly well (5/10). It has to be said that the taste of Cumbrian lamb was much better (this was served with green olive and fennel and smoked lamb “bacon”). We skipped cheese, which is from La Fromagerie.
Pre-dessert was a little chocolate and raspberry gateau (too dry) with yoghurt cream, and a passion fruit jelly with lemon cream and a lychee and vodka sorbet. The latter again did not seem to me a well melded set of flavours (5/10). Pain perdu with apple puree and ice cream and candied walnuts was pleasant, but after my perfect apple dessert at the Bristol recently it did not excite me (6/10). Better was a taste of my companion’s dessert (orange crème, spiced brioche crisps, salted caramel popcorn, bitter chocolate sorbet.), which was 7/10 level.
Coffee is good, with rich flavour, served with a selection of chocolates, and dessert wine is properly served in a 125 ml measure. Service was excellent, attentive without being too fussy, and the new manager was a good listener.
Based on two meals now in a few months I still find the cooking here frustrating. Technique is of a high standard, but there is a recurring tendency to put too many flavours on the plate, and not all of the combinations make sense to me. I used to love Marcus’s cooking years ago when he was at St James Street, where the dishes were simpler and the flavours cleaner; for me in the striving for fancier and more complex food the soul of the cooking has got lost in the process. It is hard to criticise at a technical level, but so often less is more when it comes to food, and the meal today was a case in point. The bill with less than a (modest) bottle of wine between two was £134 a head.
For prior meals here see the entry for the old Petrus.
|
