Pied a Terre

Pied a Terre was founded in 1991 by David Moore, located on busy Charlotte Street. It has been the home to some serious chefs including Richard Neat, Tom Aiken and Shane Osborn.The executive chef here now, taking over from Asimakis Chaniotis, is Alberto Cavaliere, who worked previously as sous chef at Sabor. Before that he was sous chef at the Paris branch of Atelier de Joel Robuchon after training at Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley. The full tasting menu here was £155, but there was also a shorter tasting menu available at lunch at £100, and a three-course set menu at £69.

The dining room has been revamped since my last visit, with banquettes and more comfortable chairs than there used to be here. The dining room has a small section at the front facing the street, the main room being illuminated by a skylight in the ceiling, decorated with an attractive hanging flower display. 

A series of canapes started the meal. Egg with soy and mirin marinated egg yolk with wasabi sabayon sauce topped with bacon bits was served in an egg shell. This worked very well, the wasabi noticeable but quite gentle, the sabayon carefully made. Devon crab croustade was made using charcoal pastry stuffed with soft shell crab, sesame mayonnaise and topped off with cured trout roe. This was seasoned just right, the mayonnaise working well with the crab. Beef tartare used fillet of beef from butcher HG Walter, the beef not too finely chopped and mixed with smoked mayonnaise, topped with high-quality N25 royal oscietra caviar (good 16/20 canapes).

Tuna was served with ceviche of watermelon that was resting on a base of nori and rice wine vinegar with pickled black radish, pickled mustard seeds and a ponzu sauce with cucumber. This was a simple but very enjoyable dish, the acidity of the ponzu cutting through the natural richness of the tuna, creating a refreshing dish (16/20 canapes). Bread was a selection of brioche, baguette and country bread. All made from scratch in the kitchen, accompanied by Normandy butter.

Orkney hand-dived scallop was cut into pieces and served with a yuzu dressing and a salsa verde made with basil, coriander, lemon, flaked almonds and coriander oil. This particular take on the classic salsa verde (whose origins go back to the Aztec empire) was very well judged, the balance of the acidity of the yuzu contrasting with the natural sweetness of the scallop, the coriander flavour not too strong. This was an original and very successful dish (17/20).

French veal sweetbread, this one from the pancreas rather than the thymus, was served with guanciale (pork jowl) and barbecued Tropea red onion from Calabria with Albufera sauce and a garnish of Chinese chives. Albufera sauce is one of the classic sauces of French cuisine, based on a supreme sauce, itself based on a velouté, which is a light veal stock thickened with a blond roux. The supreme sauce takes this base sauce and adds cream to thicken it before being sieved.  A meat glaze is then added to the supreme sauce to make the rich Albufera sauce. As elsewhere in this meal, the sauce was of a high standard, the sweetbread itself good but not the very finest I have encountered in Paris. This was quite a rich dish but was very enjoyable, the star being the sauce (16/20).

Fillet of turbot was from a large 7kg fish, with a sauce of blanched white asparagus, N25 caviar and a champagne and smoked eel foam. On the side was milk brioche grated with smoked bottarga. The turbot had excellent flavour and was cooked carefully, the eel adding an interesting touch to the sauce (16/20).

Pigeon was prepared in two ways. Pigeon leg confit was wrapped up like a lollipop, served with a garlic puree, fermented blackberry and pickled blackberry. There was also a morel stuffed with chicken mousse and sausage and then glazed, as well as the pigeon breast itself. For me the dish could benefit from something green such as wilted spinach to provide some relief to the richness, but this was a lovely dish. The pigeon had goof flavour and the sauce of the cooking juices was again excellent (17/20).

It was nice to see a cheese selection, a rarity these days in English restaurants. Epoisse was in lovely runny condition, and there was Irish Cashel Blue, St Nectaire from Auvergne, Pont l’Eveque from Calvados, Beaufort from the French alps and Brillat-Savarin triple cream cow cheese from Burgundy. These were all in excellent condition, served with a choice of baguette or crackers.

A first dessert of loquat from Spain came with an almond biscuit and a reduction of Pedro Ximenes sherry. The was nice, the tart crispness of the loquat comfortably cutting through the richness of the sweet sherry (15/20). White chocolate cremeux with basil oil, lemongrass and ginger foam was harmless enough but not really a climactic dessert. The ginger worked quite well, and although white chocolate offends some purists as it is not really chocolate (it is made from cocoa butter, milk solids and sugar, with no actual cocoa solids) I don’t mind it. However, it is hard to make it exciting (14/20).

Coffee was from Difference Coffee and came with petit fours. A canale was very good, crisp on the outside and soft inside as it should be, along with a marshmallow with coca bib powder and caviar, which was harmless, and a very good lychee pate de fruit that had excellent texture.

Service was charming. The bill came to £185 per person. This meal was a distinct step up in standard from the last one that I had had under a previous head chef. David Moore seems to have recruited another talented person to run his kitchen. I think the cooking standard here could move up a notch with a specialist pastry chef, as the desserts were the relative weak link in the meal, but the meal today was very enjoyable and the savoury dishes were classy. Pied a Terre is back on form.

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Further reviews: 05th Jun 2018 | 17th Sep 2014 | 17th Oct 2013 | 04th Sep 2011