La Petite Maison

[Hallie]

Other than all the critics that is. Gory, mouth watering details please.

How difficult is it to get a booking?

Edited July 23, 2007 by Hallie (log)

[Andy Lynes]

La Petite Maison has been reviewed by Fay Maschler, Marina O'Loughlin, Jay Rayner, Giles Coren, Jenni Muir in Time Out and Terry Durack, all of which are available online. In addition, Jan Moir reviewed it on her blog and there are no less than two reviews on former eGullet contributor Simon Majumdar's website. Quite a lot of gory detail to be going on with I should think.

[Gary Marshall]

didn't realise jan moir was still food writing, thanks.

[John Whiting]

Yet another example of why it can be cheaper to eat well in Paris, including the cost of transportation.

[MobyP]

Expensive, but one of the most pleasurable meals that I've had in London for a while.

pics here

[ravelda]

The black leg chicken is outstanding and worth every penny!

[Matthew Grant]

That bodes well for me, I'm going tomorrow night and pre-ordered it to make sure they didn't run out

[ravelda]

Good call Matthew- I pre-ordered and was glad I had as they had apparently sold out that evening by 7.00!

[Matthew Grant]

A good dinner at Le Petite Maison last night although service and dessert left a lot to be desired so I’ll get those gripes out of the way first. I had asked that the Poulet noir with Foie Gras be kept aside in for me and during the day I had a call suggesting that they could have it on the table at 10pm, I asked them to hold back on that as I wasn’t booked in until 21:30, they obviously didn’t listen because the chicken turned up on my table at 22:10 while we were still eating starters, which surprised us as they had advised us when we were having our order taken that the chicken would take an hour and we would have 30 minutes to wait after our starters. Subsequently we were having our first glass of a wine which was unsuitable for the chicken so the end result is that they lost out on me ordering a £47 bottle of wine to go with the chicken. It took a good 15 – 20 minutes before somebody took our order and the tables are ridiculously close together requiring the table next to you to move in order for you to get in. I should also mention the wine list with very little choice under £40

Right, gripes over, the Aubergine with Mozzarella and Shrimp was good, lovely shrimp, very well cooked, the Courgette flowers were encolsed in a beautifully light batter with onion rings and sage leaves with anchovies. The Chicken arrived complete with black legs, portioned in a wooden bowl along with the juices and, in my case, a relatively small piece of foie that hadn’t been deveined, otherwise it was nicely cooked. The Chicken itself was very good, nicely browned, and well rested. There really isn’t much more you can say about a roast chicken, it was very good though. The accompanying Dauphinoise were merely ok and I thought a little fatty though Rachel disagreed. I should mention at this point the excellent baguette which can be put to good use mopping up the juices. For some reason they seemed reluctant to reveal the source of the bread.

For Dessert we shared a dark Chocolate tart with Orange cream which seemed neither dark enough or worthy of being called a tart the pastry was so poor. Limp, pale pastry which was quite an achievement as it was rolled so thin it should have been crisp in the oven within 5 minutes. A disappointing end to a good meal.

Really simple but well executed cooking. I hope they manage to keep it up and sort out the minor issues that can spoil a meal like this.

[Scott]

Matt,

a couple of things. you went for dinner on saturday night? that's the busiest night they've ever had. 150 covers, previous high was 110.

they were nervous all day about that.

speaking with Raphael revealed that he hates the chicken, too hard, too much work, ties up the oven for too long... so not too surprised that this wasnt quite as smooth an experience as you might have hoped for.

he only does a max of 10 per service.

Edited July 30, 2007 by Scott (log)

[Matthew Grant]

Funny enough I was thinking about how much oven space the Chicken must take up, it must be a bind. I'm curious as to what makes it such hard work though?

Did they really only do 10 chickens on Saturday night - I'm sure I could see three in the space of 5 tables!

Hopefully the service will pick up a bit, serving the chicken on the table before I've even had a chance to finish our starters was still a little out of order, especially as I had asked them not to earlier in the day.

[Scott]

Funny enough I was thinking about how much oven space the Chicken must take up, it must be a bind.  I'm curious as to what makes it such hard work though?

Did they really only do 10 chickens on Saturday night - I'm sure I could see three in the space of 5 tables!

Hopefully the service will pick up a bit, serving the chicken on the table before I've even had a chance to finish our starters was still a little out of order, especially as I had asked them not to earlier in the day.

←

I'm led to believe so. it's not that they don't "have" anymore chickens, he's just not prepared to cook anymore!

I think it must just be farting around that he could do without.

front of house does need sorting.

[martinwa]

They must be doing good business if they can't be arsed to answer a booking enquiry email I sent last Saturday