Tonight:
10°c
Passengers using the Jubilee line face another six months of weekend closures to allow a botched upgrade to be completed
More...
New Moon is nothing if not an international advertisement for the hungry virtues of virginity and young people can’t get enough of it
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Theatre
A smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusion
Cock
Restaurants
Kitchen W8 is a bargain for this area, if such sophistication is what you crave
Kitchen W8
Too long and drawn out but very entertaining with excellent special effects
This is a peculiar play and does not work for me. Some of it is very funny but there are real flaws
Alex has a strong powerful voice and was faultless, she is far better now than she was on the X-Factor
London,
Fay Maschler's rating
Reader rating
Phone: 020 7373 7774
Open: Mon-Sat noon-2pm and 7-10pm
Gallic import: head-chef Jean Christophe Ansanay-Alex has two Michelin stars at his Lyon restaurant
Jean-Christophe Ansanay-Alex was once personal chef to Christina Onassis. I'm not sure why I'm giving you this titbit hot off the press release other than, if true, it is arguably more interesting than the fact that he is a chef with two Michelin stars in provincial France. His home restaurant is L'Auberge de l'Ile, situated on Ile Barbe in the Saône river which flows through Lyon. In 1977 the island was declared an independent sovereign state within France with a right to print its own money and J-C AA was made honorary governor. So his new restaurant in South Kensington - financed by City trader Marc Grosjean and Jean-Michel Aulas, founder of computer software company CeGID and president of the French League One football club Olympique Lyonnais - is called embassy of the Island or Ambassade de L'Ile. Such japes.
Refurbishment of what was originally a library, then Walter Baxter's 1960s gem, Chanterelle, and latterly the Danish restaurant Lundum's has consumed £2.2 million on the back of an 18-year lease. now this is the moment to invoke the credit crunch, but ambitious, expensive - the embassy can do you a set meal for £90 per person without wine - restaurants sometimes remain immune and this latest migration from France has settled in South Kensington where residents are not short of a bob or two. And many are French.
In an interior unrecognisable from previous incarnations, based on the colours (purple and white) of the flag of Ile Barbe - exemplified by aubergine shag-pile carpet and panels and chairs of buttoned white leather - we are handed a menu entitled July-August 2008. It opens with the sort of pseudophilosophising of which eric Cantona was, and perhaps still is, so fond.
The english translation starts "Family celebrations are no longer" (why?) and goes on to muse on the "aristocratic red mullet and simple sardine .... The last berries make children happy (surely there are still berries around?). The summer heat makes us want to have delectation in a lot of fresh vegetables" and more in a similar vein. It doesn't read any better in French.
An attractive woman who would seem to have missed her true vocation as an exam invigilator explains the menus. There are set-price fine dining and gastronomic "voyages" and an à la carte where first courses are priced from £17 and main courses from £29. Desserts, which you are urged to order at the beginning of the meal, start at £17.
It is the sort of list, in cost and content, where I feel appetite leaking out of my shoes as I study it. There is horse-trading among the three of us. "All right then, I'll have the watermelon gazpacho with langoustines and avocado purée if you'll have the cod with marmalade ravioli and almond milk." "You order a dessert. I don't know if I'll want one when the time comes." And so forth.
And then the amuses-bouches arrive. Surely only someone who didn't get out much would think it a good culinary wheeze to put a large round radish on a stick and top it with a headband of veal purée and put a bunch of these sticks in a pot. The radish I ate was flaccid, the purée tasteless, the look absurd.
Silver spoons with foreshortened stems, presumably designed specifically for the canapé trade, held ratatouille vegetables bathed in a sort of sabayon. Olive oil goes better with Provençal vegetables than an emulsion of egg yolks. Root vegetable chips and herbs in tempura batter were a better bet in the parade designed to show a chef's munificence and stretch out aperitif time.
The end of a bottle of Deutz champagne, which I am not sure comprised a full 125ml, was charged at £14. Tesco's Wine Club is currently offering the same marque at a special price of £13.50 a whole bottle. I know as well as any food-and-beverage manager that such a comparison is invidious but given the dregs quality of what was poured, it nevertheless seems one worth making.
In the dishes we chose that followed there was evidence of some skilful cooking and also prime ingredients such as the Scottish langoustines in the Germolene-pink watermelon sauce (full, no doubt, of the newly heralded, excitingly invigorating amino acid citrulline), the lovely goujons of grilled Dover sole on a salad of haricots verts, the cod with the marmalade ravioli and luscious, gilded gnocchi mixed with girolles served with milk-fed veal.
But pre-dessert "sweets" brought baby cones of liquorice ice-cream, each one topped with a whole star anise. Leaving aside whether liquorice is a winning flavour for ice-cream, what are you supposed to do with a whole star anise. Break your teeth? Raspberry popcorn also made an appearance.
This is not the sort of food - as our political masters at the G8 summit have so ably demonstrated - that feels right at the moment. It is not, I think, what most people want. The bill arrives. It is sealed with purple wax.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
Fay's biting review is regrettably over the top.
The restaurant has just obtained a star in the Michelin guide, as one would expect with a modicum of objectivity as to the culinary performance on display.
If forewarned about the "pre-economic bust" steepness of prices, nothing else should make a demanding gourmet used to top-flight cuisine uncomfortable with l'Ambassade de l'Île. Talent, creativity and impeccable execution will be there, on his plate, and are likely to put a smile on his face more than once. It will likely result in more than one visit from food lovers as they will want to explore more of the temptations offered on the undeniably tantalizing menu.
A worthy addition to London's culinary scene.
- Anonymous, London
Eye-wateringly expensive, pretentious and not for hungry people who like to identify easily the constituents of a dish. Incidentally, prices have at least doubled on the October menu:£33 lowest price for a starter. Not quite the same as Fay Maschler was asked to spend. Service was over-attentive, dishes being described minutely by a young woman who couldn't pronounce 'hollandaise' without its 'h'. Keep your sense of humour and you may enjoy the visit
- Liz Mountford, london
