Hélène Darroze à la carte is the ultimate lunchtime luxury
When it comes to fine dining, who says we shouldn’t have a choice, writes Carys Sharkey
There is a continual grumble in fine dining, a tedious debate that flares up every now and again when a critic complains about a sore arse from sitting through a tasting menu. I love tasting menus. I should get that out of the way early. I also love little plates, family style and set menus. I’m yet to meet a buffet I didn’t like. But I will not be stoking the insipid flames of a pointless debate around dining construct. As with the stomach, there’s space for everything.
However, a recent meal at Hélène Darroze at The Connaught was a bit of a revelation in the total, nostalgic pleasures of a knockout à la carte offering. Obviously this is not a normal meal. It’s a three Michelin starred restaurant from one of the most renowned chefs in the world. It’s really quite expensive (obviously).
It’s also in The Connaught, with its famous dining room clasped in wood panelling and cast in a salmony hue. The staff uniform has something of The Handmaid’s Tale about it… And yet somehow it’s not at all stuffy. Instead there is a languorous relaxed quality to the place that reminded me of the best meals eaten on holiday in France, when lunch slips imperceptibly into the winey haze of afternoon.
And what you order – minus a shared bite or two as tax – is blissfully yours. It’s nice to be a little selfish, a little lordly.
À la carte doesn’t just give you control over dishes, but over the pacing of the meal. Sometimes tasting menus can catch you like a riptide, a dizzying roll call of dishes that leave you discombobulated. During the meal at Darroze, some diners were in and out within 45 minutes. Others stayed for hours. A group of suited and booted older gentlemen outstayed everyone, conspiratorially gossiping in the corner over red wine and cheese. It’s unrestrained pleasure in the thickness of a very French lunch.
Commenting on the move from set lunch to à la carte, Darroze said: “I want each guest to feel that this meal has been made for them, that every choice they make is an invitation to discover something beautiful.”
The meal started with a perfect crudité: artichokes, pinball radishes and purple carrots dipped into a kind of yin-yang of tapenade/bagna cauda. The hit of brute salt on delicate vegetables. For starters, a cold jenga of white asparagus with whelks, finger lime and pike roe. So delicate, so delicious. Other options included a rice dish rich with Piedmont hazelnut and lemon that had a Quality Street quality, and Darroze’s signature tandoori scallop.
For mains, a John Dory dish pushed what I thought was possible with turnips. Little ones cooked until almost jammy, raw sheets turned into rosettes. The showstopper is a lobster and sweetbread ‘feuillette’ to share. The flakiest, butteriest puff pastry I’ve ever had houses hunks of meat, asparagus and morels. It’s so classically French while nodding to the British sensibility for pie.
One of my favourite things I ate was the baba au rhum, which is served in what looks like a TV dinner tray if it was designed by Barbara Hepworth. In each divot, the thickly glazed sponge heavy with Armagnac (you can pick your own vintage: 2005, 1995, 1985), then woodruff cream hedgerow-fragrant, a cherry sorbet, jelly and macerated cherries. It’s so good and the kind of substantial pudding you only really get with à la carte. One and done, washed down with a glass of Lambrusco.
Shadows trace across the wall but time feels elsewhere. I cancelled a meeting I was already late to.
Best à la carte in London:
Duh. Writing about St John has become tautological. Everyone loves it. It is the tote-bag-slinging symbol of the city, the ur-à la carte menu in London.
From one purveyor of offal to another, Camille delights in the dark thrum of organs and flesh. Unsurprisingly chef Elliot Hashtroudi previously worked at St John, and the menu at Camille shares similar hallmarks. Hearty (often literally) cooking.
Not quite as decadent as Darroze, the two Michelin starred Trivet is still a blow out à la carte experience. Overseen by Canadian chef Johnny Lake – previously of The Fat Duck – Trivet is the only double-starred establishment in the UK not to offer a tasting menu. A freewheeling menu dips and weaves across the map with total à la carted confidence.