Bar Boulud, Knightsbridge

Late last Wednesday, when I got home from dinner at the recently opened Bar Boulud, I tweeted: "So underwhelmed by Bar Boulud that I'll need a serious mainline fix from my enthusiasm dealer before I can even think about writing it up." This was no exaggeration; bar the ever-effervescent and aesthetically-delightful company of my strapping Welsh pal Will, my evening at New York superchef Daniel Boulud's new 'informal' restaurant had delivered so little to be excited about that I genuinely wondered if I would ever be sufficiently arsed to put fingertips to keyboard. I certainly couldn't be bothered to take any photos hence this post being illustrated with my favourite picture of Will from our trip to Madrid last year.

To preface, particularly for those who don't follow restaurant and catering news with the slavish devotion of the blogosphere and Twitterati, 2010 is to be the year of the superchef hotel restaurant. Riding the crest of a wave which started last year with the arrival (albeit in name only) of Heinz Beck at Apsleys, 2010 has already seen Bruno Loubet launch his insanely successful eponymous Bistro at The Zetter and, just a few weeks ago, the opening of Bar Boulud, the London off-shoot of thrice-Michelin-starred Daniel Boulud's New York gaff of the same name. Treats still to come include Heston Bloomineck's first London restaurant (which like Bar Boulud will be at the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park) and perhaps most excitingly of all, Pierre Koffmann's return to The Berkeley. By Autumn you'll be hard pressed to find a fine diner in the capital which doesn't have a three-star chef's name above the door.

You'd expect then that with a big-name chef patron, a five-star-deluxe location and a track record of success in the bear pit which is the NYC restaurant trade, Bar Boulud would be something pretty bloody special. Alas, your expectations would be for naught, because the actual product is pretty mediocre. 

First - and worst - of all, there's the quite spectacularly unattractive room. The floor, chairs, tables, bar and panelling are all made of the same harsh, hard wood in the same harsh, hard shade. There are accents here and there of a deep terracotta-ish red, offset by rendered walls painted the colour familiar to tenants everywhere as 'landlord beige' and adorned with bought-in-bulk generic black and white photography. The overall effect, I put it to Will, was of the breakfast room in a Thistle hotel; Will, who was a high-up with the chain for eight long years, concurred. I provide here an interior shot of the Thistle Hotel Cheltenham as my Exhibit A and invite anyone who has been or might go to Bar Boulud to spot the difference. 

Menu-wise, Bar Boulud offers a wide and appealingly described range of brasserie fare; a long-ish list of charcuterie options is joined by a selection of sausages, soups and salads in portions geared towards sharing. If you're after something more substantial there are burgers (apparently a Boulud speciality) and 'plats de resistance', a rather grand name for fish and meat main courses which include classics like coq au vin and steak frites. So far, so Cafe Rouge.

While deciding what to have we sampled a couple of cocktails, neither of which bowled us over. My Negroni was insipid - too much sweet vermouth possibly - and Will's Cosmopolitan (Who dear? Gay dear? Us dear?) was just silly, poured at the table from a miniature pitcher, into a cocktail glass containing a giant ice ball, in which were encased rose petals which perfumed the drink as the ice melted. Sometimes cocktail theatre can be fun, sometimes it's just naff; the latter was the case here, made worse by the fact that rose petals have no place in a Cosmopolitan.

We ordered a selection of dishes to share, a small charcuterie platter, a tourte de canard (duck terrine in pastry), boudin blanc with truffle mash and cervelas de Lyon, one of the day's specials described as pork sausage baked in brioche - I envisioned a high-end pork pie. Additionally I ordered chilled pea soup with baby carrot for no better reason than that I love chilled soups.

The charcuterie is made in-house to specifications laid down by Parisian master charcutier Gilles Verot and I thought it rather grand that rather than have the charcuterie bought in, Boulud had had a charcutier brought in. Particularly enjoyable on the platter were slow-cooked beef cheek which had an intense, almost curried flavour and a terrine of pulled (sort of braised) rabbit. Accompanying pickles were lively and piquant. Less impressive were the various hams and meats, which were indistinguishable from anything one could buy in a half-decent deli.

Our tourte de canard was very good, layering gutsy pressed duck, abundant nuggets of goose foie gras (their foie gras is all goose - I checked) and sticky, squishy figs, the whole encased in a deliciously sweet, glazed pastry. Boudin blanc was also a pleaser, the sausage's delicate smoothness of texture belying its concentrated pork flavour; the truffle mash it nestled on was rich, buttery and utterly luxurious. My chilled pea soup, listed as also incorporating rosemary cream, did not taste of the herb at all but was tasty and primaveral, providing a welcome cleansing contrast to the salinity of the charcuterie. The worst dish by far was the cervelas de Lyon which consisted of dense sausage-meat - "Is this Spam?" I wondered more than once - within claggy, dry brioche which stuck in the throat. Removing  the bread rendered it barely more edible.

Although we were fairly full, we decided not to order desserts less from being full than for lack of any interest. A combination of the ugly room and far too formal service - from far too many staff - had made it impossible to relax all the time we were there and we just wanted to get the hell out. Our bill, including a glass of wine each (Will's a Sancerre, mine a lovely, light Irancy, at about a tenner apiece) and 12.5% service came to £104 which we both clutched our pearls at; individual plate prices don't raise eyebrows in isolation but boy do they add up. As we left, Daniel Boulud himself was working the room, but neither he nor any of his copious staff felt it necessary to thank us or wish us goodbye.

I'd struggle to recommend anything about Bar Boulud though damn it I have been racking my brains to try. Sure there's the good quality of the charcuterie but anywhere can sell someone else's established product. Otherwise I really don't see anything special about Bar Boulud to make up for the awful design, the dull stiffness of the ambience and the 'so what?' OK-ness of the food offering.

Perhaps it will make a nice breakfast room.

Bar Boulud, Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, 66 Knightsbridge, London SW1X 7LA Tel: 020 7201 3899 http://www.barboulud.com/ 

Apsleys: A Heinz Beck Restaurant

Before I launch into what is going to be, let me warn you now, a gushing eulogy to my incredible dining experience at Apsleys, let me first get out of the way my one, solitary gripe: that inelegant, clunking name. Until about four years ago, the restaurant at The Lanesborough Hotel on Hyde Park Corner was known simply as The Conservatory; then, following a tasteful and no doubt very expensive make-over, it was renamed Apsley's in honour of Apsley House, a.k.a. No. 1 London, the one-time residence of the Dukes of Wellington just across the road. In September, it was announced - to great excitement in the foodie community and not least in my small corner of it - that the kitchen was to come under the control of German-born, Italy-based superchef Heinz Beck, holder of three Michelin stars for his restaurant La Pergola in Rome.

Now, you'd think, wouldn't you, that this momentous occasion might merit a change of name to - say - 'Heinz Beck' or perhaps 'Heinz Beck at The Lanesborough'. Losing the Apsleys name would be no great loss; while well-respected and reasonably renowned, scoring fairly highly in (to give just one example) Zagat's 2010 guide, it has always been a stealth-wealth, cognoscenti type destination which could have survived a more radical name change. Even 'Heinz Beck at Apsleys' would trip off the tongue more easily if they really had to keep the name; but no, the powers that be have lumbered this astonishingly brilliant restaurant with an astonishingly dreadful moniker. Which, as this little rant will have made apparent, rather grinds my gears.

Crap name notwithstanding, Apsleys gets absolutely everything else very right indeed. To start with the room, it's a very beautiful space, the soaring glass ceiling adding drama to the luxuriously decorated, two-tiered space, done out in shades of mauve and taupe with plush, swirl-patterned carpet, modernist chandeliers and a mural the length of one wall. It's the polar opposite of many contemporary restaurant interiors with their minimalist, neutral decor and calculated absence of elaboratory flounces, but I liked Apsleys all the more for it; it strikes me that the perfect antidote to the current on-going economic doom and gloom is a little bit of unapologetic, conspicuous luxury, and Apsleys offers an abundance of it.

Another wonderfully old-school aspect of the experience is the service, boasting the highest ratio of waiting staff to tables I've experienced since Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's (of which, while I mention it, note the thoroughly sensible name - but I digress). Many restaurants make the mistake of thinking that having an army of staff will guarantee good service, but fail to train their people to a sufficiently high level and end up oppressing diners with over-attentiveness. Not so at Apsleys, where the battalion of staff from head waiter to junior tray-bearer via a couple of 'ranks' in between, has been drilled to perfection, ensuring that every diner's every need is not only met but also pre-empted, and those little acts that in lesser diners feel like fuss for fussing's sake - re-folding napkins while one's in the lav, topping up wine and water - just happen as if by magic.

Finally, and importantly, the staff have that rare quality of a sense of humour; our waiter played along with my shriek of mock-shock when he announced that 'Ze chef 'as prepared for you a little surprise' and our playful eye-rolling which greeted the detailed introductions and explanations of successive dishes. I don't mind this particular, new-ish quirk to fine dining as long as it genuinely adds something to my knowledge of the dish - here it does - but I nonetheless find it insanely amusing.

Speaking of which, it wasn't just me being amused but also my bouche, which leads me rather neatly to the important matter of what we actually ate, we being myself and my artist pal PV, like me not averse to a swanky dining room and a bit of top quality nosh. First to hit the table was a selection of wonderful freshly baked breads (special mention must go to the pancetta-infused rolls), accompanied by some excellent olive oil and rock salt served in dainty china dishes.

Then, as we sipped a glass of delicious Prosecco, we were presented with chef's aforementioned 'surprise' - not Heinz Beck popping up from beneath the table shouting 'Boo!' but a trio of quirky amuses: a liquorice allsort-sized slice of pepper and aubergine terrine, a melting veal beignet on a wisp of basil cream, and a piquant cube of kumquat jelly. The unlikely combination worked to serve the intended dual purpose of these things, namely to give a taste of what to expect from the meal ahead and to awaken the palate in readiness for it.

Palates awakened we started on our starters; PV had chosen potato cream with slow-cooked egg, while I went for Iberian suckling pig with pomegranate emulsion. Both were superb, PV's rich, thick soup marrying nicely with the almost jelly-like texture of the gently poached egg, the former being gently and ceremoniously poured over the latter at the table. My dish surprised me slightly by being not a simple dish of robustly-flavoured meat as I'd expected but actually a quite delicate salad, the slices of tender, rare meat joined on the plate by a scattering of wild herbs and pomegranate seeds as well as the tart, refreshing emulsion. It worked well, the meat and fruit complementing each other as comfortingly as roast pork and apple sauce but in a much lighter incarnation.

For our main courses we both fancied fish; I chose gilthead sea bream with pepper coulis and cucumber, while PV decided to try the mackerel in filo with olives and celery. Each dish was elegantly and imaginatively presented, the sea bream in angular herb-dusted goujons accompanied by an unexpected (and delicious) panzanella-stuffed pepper, and the mackerel in a long, appealing 'cigar' of crisp pastry. Each dish perfectly represented Beck's description of his style of cooking, 'light cuisine of Mediterranean flavours', bringing together delicately flavoured components in order to produce complex, rewarding layers of taste in each mouthful.

After a short rest we were brought a selection of palate cleansers, as I had fully expected we would be, Chef having already surprised us quite enough for one evening. Chilled mango puree, served in a shot glass with a hemisphere of crystal clear mint jelly on the side, did an excellent job of refreshing the taste buds without entirely obliterating the lingering flavours of what had gone before. What went after however was, for me at least, the real highlight of a meal that had been full of them.

Billed as 'chocolate tart', what I actually received was three mini-desserts; the tart itself, a shallow bowl of crunchy, spiced pastry filled with rich, warm, viscous melted chocolate laced with ginger; a mound of coarse strawberry 'salsa'; and a quenelle of awesome rosemary ice-cream. Each by itself was speech-arrestingly gorgeous, but when combined on the spoon and taken together almost brought tears of joy to my eyes. The only other dish which I can recall having reacted to with anything like this degree of sheer enjoyment was a strawberry souffle at Guillaume at Bennelong (note, again, the name...) in Sydney; this dessert topped even that. PV's pear cake with cinnamon and crunchy amaretti ice-cream was, he told me, extremely good, but I was so carried away with my plate of Manna that at the time it seemed impossible to countenance anything else on the table being in the same league. I am sure that this was unfair of me and that PV should be taken at his word.

Although I'm certain that coffee at Apsleys would be as carefully selected and presented as the food, we agreed that it would spoil rather than complement our state of pleasant satiation; but this wasn't to be the end of our meal. Whether ordering coffee or not, Chef likes to spoil diners one last time with a plate of hand-made chocolates and petits fours, five per person no less, which like everything to leave his kitchen are exquisite - innovative, light, delicious. A little slab of chocolate ganache spiked with popping candy was particularly memorable and fun.

And there I think is a word to sum up the whole experience of dining at Apsleys (now, let's not forget, 'A Heinz Beck Restaurant'); it really is great fun, being treated like royalty in a gorgeous space, enjoying clever, imaginative food served by adept staff who manage to maintain a studied elegance and formality without ever taking themselves too seriously. PV and I left on a real high, both I think aware that we hadn't just had a great meal, we'd had a really great experience.

So many restaurants, or rather restaurateurs, have gone out of business because they have invested more time and energy in gimmickery and spin than they have in getting the basics of food, ambience and service right. In contrast, assuming that the standards we experienced are maintained, I can see Apsleys quickly becoming one of the hottest tables in town and racking up another few Michelin stars for Mr Beck. Who knows, he might even work his magic outside of the kitchen and get them to do something about that damn silly name.

Apsleys: A Heinz Beck Restaurant, The Lanesborough Hotel, Hyde Park Corner, London SW1X 7TA Tel: 020 7259 5599 http://bit.ly/5giP7



Posted by +Hugh Wright