LONG-WINDED! Executive Summary Room/ambience: a lot less naff than I had been led to believe Food: sub-naff There were 4 of us for Sunday lunch. Myself, my good friend of many years' standing, his best friend and his best friend's ex-bit of fluff - the diva. The diva, behaving true to type, decided in a flurry of phone calls to her ex as we sat in the reception area with our aperitifs not to partake in the lunch and so we were three. Menu was the same as that described on the web-site (see link which put itself at the bottom of this page for some reason) with the following changes: white truffle risotto with scrambled egg instead of open sweetbread raviolo, in the main courses: zander with choucroute and duck liver (not exact wording) instead of the brill and the gianduja & banana dessert replaced by something involving an apple sorbet - can't remember exactly. Dining room was perhaps 2/3 full. I had some difficulty making my choice due to frequency of eggs on the menu - I like them, but not in each course. I eventually chose the pork belly and the potato gnocchi and the maitre d' wisely suggested that I switch these dishes round and have the potato gnocchi first. Other first courses selected were the smoked haddock and the pork, and the others both had the zander for mains, my friend recalling a memorable dish of zander cooked on a stone with pine needles which I had a year or so ago in the Club Gascon. The amuse set the tone for the meal: a crispy slice of bacon on a bit of soft sausagey thing (very similar to Portuguese alheira) with a thimbleful of coco beans, topped with a fried quail's egg and with a few droplets of a strange sweet & sour sauce around. Well - thank you very much. I spend quite enough time as it is in dodgy bed & breakfasts, let alone the contractor's greasy spoon that has opened up a few metres from my office which keeps me supplied in bacon & egg butties. I don't want that kind of food at The Capital and no matter how fancy you make it look, it's still an English breakfast. My potato gnocchi dish: another bloody fried quail's egg on top; a much-appreciated mouthful of spinach, the only greenery of the entire meal, and some potato gnocchi which, although wonderfully light, still managed, along with the mushroom pieces (not convinced they were ceps) to feel like they were part of a fry-up. No particular definition or refinement in taste for the whole dish except for the sliver of Parmesan. The best friend consumed the smoked haddock with an uninspired expression. His comments: ‘OK, but not exciting’ and ‘not what I was expecting’. To me it looked like yet another example of the English breakfast/nursery food theme. That bloody quail egg made its appearance again, soft-boiled this time, and the ‘potato salad’ wasn’t – it was herb-flecked mashed potato. Then the pork combo plate: I’d already had a view of this from my friend’s first course. Small pieces of different kinds of cured pork: a sausage-like thing that we guessed was the Morteaux sausage (does anyone know what this is? I haven’t looked it up at home), the small slice of pork belly, some sautéed potato cubes with some more pork mixed in, a strange cubic croquette affair with very pink cured pork inside and what looked like a cylinder of fine white noodles, which was the apple – but so denatured in taste and texture as to be more like pasta. When I got mine, my sausage was a soft black boudin noir rather than the pale affair my friend got – much to my disappointment – I have an irrational mental blockage about anything made of blood. Flavours were heavy and porky but again lacking in definition. I found one end of my slice of pork belly overly dry and barely edible and would have been happy to have just had a plateful of the potatoes and pork (nothing more than what you would toss together at home). When a dish has a number of different elements there has to be some kind of symphonic effect of each one playing off the other in terms of taste and texture. Here it just felt like a lot of noise. The men looked considerably more cheerful when their mains of zander and duck liver arrived, although my friend had been worried about the prospect of choucroute, one of the few foods he dislikes. He left it on the edge of the plate so I tried a bit and almost spat it out. As if the kitchen was afraid of the potentially aggressive taste and had cooked all the flavour out of it, resulting in something like babyfood. The pork belly and Morteaux sausage made another appearance here (at least the maitre d’ had warned my friend about this), together with the duck liver, zander and choucroute and both said that, although this dish was better than their first courses, it was marred by far too many elements and they were unconvinced by the combination of zander with pork or duck liver. There was a transparent sauce which, however delicious it may have been, looked to me as an observer as if the plate was swimming in fat. There was no comment on the fish and I take that as telling. After all, zander is a fine freshwater fish. To throw a load of cured pork, duck liver and choucroute at it seems to me an insult. Then the highlight of the whole lunch, the cheese, for which I guess we have to thank Patricia Michelson. Served from a silver trolley with a glorious domed lid and presented by a girl with a charming French accent that had the men drooling. We ate with unreserved enjoyment for the first time. My friend had the pineapple lasagne instead of cheese and pronounced that it was ‘so sophisticated it doesn’t taste of anything’. I hadn’t been tempted by any of the desserts, but then I find that the case in most restaurants, despite fondness for sweet things. Espresso coffee was OK, but a bit bitter and, as I discovered to my cost when I went to bed, with a shockingly high level of caffeine. Something to do with inferior quality beans? Other bits and pieces: bread did not quite pass the test – not fresh enough, a little bun-like – effeminate was my assessment, to the bemusement of my companions. Later we were able to ask for slices from a nice looking loaf sitting neglected on a sideboard which was an improvement, with a mild sourdough flavour. Sauces in general were minuscule blobs, either of pretty tasteless foam, or so viscous that they impossible to get off the plate. Service was friendly and formal and all French, but somehow lacking in professionalism, except for the lady maitre d’. When service is that formal, then the protagonists need to be absolutely confident and physically dexterous. There was a strange combination of British amateurishness with heavy French accents, utterly incomprehensible to my Spanish friends. Choice of wine was left to the best friend who I had been led to believe was an expert. I think he got confused between Euros and pounds and ordered a ’99 Palacios Priorato at £49. It was fine although probably not worth that amount. The sommelier is clearly competent, but he left the work of decanting, tasting and serving the wine to a junior who didn’t look too sure of himself at all. Cost was £204 including service for 3 set meals @ £27.50, the above-mentioned wine, 3 portions of cheese @ £6.50 (the diva made her entrance in the middle of the cheese course and required a plate for herself), 2 glasses of Brunello, a (delicious) glass of Riesling Auslese for myself), water, aperitifs for 3 and 12.5% service. Normal for London but utterly shocking for Spaniards. Conclusion: I simply cannot fathom the motivation behind the cooking. Past reports have shown meals here to have been simply wonderful. Clearly at lunch they are going to be looking at how to reduce costs, for example by repeating ingredients in different dishes, and perhaps taking the opportunity to give the more junior waiting staff some practice. How has everything gone off the rails? Where is the culinary honesty? Has he just chosen a strange byway of inspiration? Has cynicism set in? Does he think that the great British public has no palate beyond the great British breakfast? Loud remark by a slightly inebriated grandmother that echoed round the dining room at one point “I’m wading through the Spanish Civil War…” to the puzzlement of my friends. My faith in the real taste of good food was restored in the subsequent two evenings – reports to come. Capital lunch menu
