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An awesome and ridiculous film that leaves you thrilled beyond the point of your natural endurance
2012
Theatre
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Blood Brothers
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London,
Fay Maschler's rating
Reader rating
Description: This restaurant in the Dorchester hotel sells a three course a la carte menu for £75 and a seven course menu for £115. Alain Ducasse is the head chef.
Phone: 020 7629 8866
Website: http://www.thedorchester.com
Open: Open lunch Tuesday-Friday noon-2pm, dinner Tuesday-Saturday 6.30-10pm (last orders)
Dress code: Smart. No sportswear. Dinner jackets are preferred for gentlemen.
Payment options: All major cards accepted
Starring roles: Restaurant director Christian Laval and executive chef Jocelyn Herland, who has moved from Ducasse's Plaza Athénée
Alain Ducasse, whose signature London restaurant at The Dorchester opened last week, was asked by a journalist from Bloomberg if he was aiming for three Michelin stars. He replied that he would "like the clients to give him three stars in their hearts". All together now: "Aaah, how sweet". Other chef-entrepreneurs are not so insouciant.
Readers of The Observer last Sunday will have seen Gordon Ramsay on the cover of Food Monthly with 12 stars "tattooed" on his knuckles and naked torso (despite the platinum highlights, he is, of course, a hard man). The cover line reads: "On the Last Day of Christmas My True Love Gave to Me 12 Michelin Stars."
The fact that one of them - Angela Hartnett at The Connaught - is no longer trading seems not to bother Ramsay. He has said that he wants as many, if not more, stars than Alain Ducasse. Oh, those pesky magazine lead-in times. As of this week and the publication of Michelin guides for Las Vegas and Tokyo, Ducasse has leapt from having 12 to 15 stars. Joel Robuchon beats them both with 17.
The roll-out of the flying chefs-in-suits who, for the most part, no longer cook, would seem to mean that wherever they hang their hats - New York, Paris, Las Vegas, Tokyo, London - a Michelin star, or two, or three, will add lustre.
It strikes me as no coincidence that fashion retailers are buying into the restaurant business. Richard Caring seems to be emulating LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy) in assembling a stable of aspirational, luxury restaurants and clubs. Joseph Ettedgui of Joseph shops, and Stephen Schaffer, the chap from Knickerbox, have just bought Mirabelle, Drones and Quo Vadis from Marco-Pierre White.
Where once you might buy a Prada handbag in almost any capital city, now you will be able buy a meal also with a theoretically must-have famous label.
The cost of the meals makes the handbag comparison relevant. Dinner at Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester costs £75 per person for three courses plus 12.5 per cent service. And you can't hang it on your arm and take it home, although, upon leaving, customers are presented with a cardboard box containing two iced marmalade buns which make a jolly nice, unhealthy breakfast.
Ducasse has acknowledged that London is a lively, energetic city and says that the food at his restaurant will reflect that fact. Head chef Jocelyn Herland has come from Ducasse's Plaza Athénée but the menu differs from that in Paris and, indeed, from Ducasse's Le Louis XV in Monte Carlo.
Dinner starts with an array of crudités - rare-breed carrots and the like - served with a pouring version of anchoiade and truffle crème chantilly set in a bowl of ice which looks and tastes very much like cream squirted from an aerosol can. "It's one of those of ideas where less is less," says my friend Matthew, a chap who has done serious time as a restaurant critic.
Attention turns to the array of beautiful breads accompanied by lactic butter. "It's from Neal's Yard, the oldest butter maker in London," says one of the waiters. Yeah, right.
In the first course we avoid "silver EGG". "It makes my fillings ache to think about it," says Kate, who chooses squid bonbons with crunchy green vegetables and coconut chutney. The stuffing in the pallid parcels looking, as steamed squid is apt to do, like condoms, startles (pleasurably) with its vivacity of flavour.
Slices of cooked carrot are an ill-judged texture, colour and sweetness to add to pumpkin ravioli in a Parmesan foam. The best of the starters tried is an ethereal chestnut velouté made luscious with foie gras but it is a shame that the waiter who took Matthew's order didn't mention that foie gras also featured in his chosen main course of Landes chicken, sauce Albufera (£10 supplement).
Ducasse has adapted a sauce originally created by Carême for Marshall Suchet to honour his victory over the British near Lake Albufera during the Napoleonic wars. Foie gras, cream, truffle, port, Madeira and Cognac play a part. A Bresse chicken cooked in a pig's bladder - as featured in Ducasse's hefty tome, Grand Livre de Cuisine, might have had the wherewithal to shoulder such a rich blanket but the pallid breast of Landes chicken in London can't hack it. Caper sauce "Niçoise" is too punchy for halibut, which just lies down and gives up the struggle.
Steamed fillets of Dover sole with sauce vin jaune (£10 supplement) and roasted pigeon with a liver crostini and braised trevise are both sublime, evidence of what the fuss is all about.
Desserts and bonbons which come in waves until you could become hyperactive and impossible from a sugar-rush are also a strong suit of the restaurant if macaroons, madeleines and mignardises are your idea of treats.
The dining room is well-mannered to the point of being anaemic. It seems no coincidence that one of Ducasse's Tokyo outlets is called Beige. Blinds block the view of the trees in Hyde Park, an odd decision given the arrangement of silk buttons on the wall being described as a homage to the trees.
An arresting centrepiece is the private space - Table Lumière - surrounded by floor-to-ceiling fibre optic light strands. It is like something out of 2001: A Space Odyssey and at £1,350 for a meal there for six, a spot of intergalactic travel wouldn't come amiss. There are three stars in my heart for Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester, but they are Evening Standard stars. I feel a fourth one hovering.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
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