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Marcus Wareing


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Anyone been to Marcus Wareing's restaurant lately? Since his departure from Gordon Ramsey, it will be interesting to see what he has done for himself. Rumors has it that a chef once worked for Marcus has come back to help him gain the third Michelin star. This chef's resume contains long stints at per se in New York and Noma in Copenhagen.

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Damn - if I'd read that last week, we would have asked him. We just did an interview with him and completley forgot to ask him anything about Michelin stars. Still, he didn't mention anything else about bringing back another chef and it would seem that it's important to him to give credit where credit's due:

http://www.hot-dinners.com/Features/Articles/marcus-wareing-interview-the-ambitious-man

Hot Dinners - London's Top restaurants, reviewed by the critics and you
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  • 4 months later...

Four of us had high expectation of Wareings kitchen team from reading previous postings saying how creative they are in making different tasting menus for each individual. Here is what happened to us a few weeks ago…

Something is still bothering me and I want to hear your thoughts. In the Gourmand Menu, one of the courses was pan-fried foie gras with blackberry and yogurt. When our waitress was explaining the menu to us, she said, Unfortunately, the pan-fried foie gras dish in the Gourmand Menu has to be replaced by another foie gras dish - a foie gras terrine dish instead! All of us love pan-fried foie gras so we were very disappointed and surprised -- how can a French restaurant, with 2-star, and even had the pan-fried foie gras in the tasting menu, but ran out of it?!!!

So we told our waitress that instead of terrine, we will pick something else from the à-la-carte as a substitute. Here is the 2nd surprise: She then told us the kitchen could actually do us pan-fried foie gras as it was in the Gourmand Menu!!!

None of us know how to react to her conflicting statements. Two minutes ago she was kind of implying pan-fried foie gras wasn't available but only terrine, but suddenly everything was fine. Its shocking! And to make things more interesting, I did take the terrine just to see how it was different from the pan-fried and below are the pictures:

Pan-fried foie gras:

IMG_2585.jpg

Foie gras terrine:

IMG_2584.jpg

I didnt know Wareings restaurant was full of surprises, but I was surprised again, for the 3rd time! Pan-fried foie gras and foie gras terrine are completely different stuff in terms of all 3 Ts: Temperature, Texture, and Taste. So, I expected the kitchen to do something different for the terrine dish, but surprisingly, it was exactly the same except for replacing the foie gras with a terrine!!!

I was confused and still confused. Its unlikely that Wareings kitchen was running low on a particular ingredient, let alone on foie gras. My only explanation is that they had leftover terrine from previous nights and needed to get rid of them before they turn bad. But whats worse is that they were too lazy to do something better to complement the terrine and just simply replaced the pan-fried foie.

What do you make of this incident? Are we being too picky? I mean, it wasnt a cheap meal, £110 just for food!

The rest of the meal is here:

www.finediningexplorer.com/london/mwareing

Edited by FDE (log)

Fine Dining Explorer

www.finediningexplorer.com

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Had dinner here on 11th January. Thoroughly un-impressed.

Had the rabbit n pigeon ballotine and then venison with beetroot n parsnip, ending with the lime mousse with a silly thin meringue coat.

Part of my disappointment was not seeing the veal sweetbread nor the turbot with frog n snails on the menu.

The venison dish was so simple.

Also one of the trolley bonbon had mould inside, couldn't have been fresh...

It contrasted with recent visit to Alain Ducasse.

Won't be visiting here again very soon.

There's plenty other fish in the sea !

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Had an extremely disappointing meal there last April 2009

Made a special request a week in advance for a vegetarian tasting menu, and while presentation was pretty,

it was just a mess of undistinguised not particularly tasty ingredients, one course after the other.

Big disappointment.

Now you could say they aren't known for their vegetarian tasting menus - bit neither is The Square or Hibiscus, and they did brilliantly.

(Yes, I eat meat, just sometimes like to mix it up to see what the Chef can do.)

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It's funny, neither Petrus or the new Marcus Wareing have ever really attracted me. The menus sound very heavy and with no clear culinary inspiration. Luxury seems to be the main aim. And although I do like luxurious ingredients, there needs to be something else as well. Something like Galvin or Le Gavroche is great because there's that clearly delineated French inspiration to reinforce the use of luxury ingredients. Perhaps the personality of the chef is an issue, Marcus comes across as a very focused, ambitious chef but the love of eating well doesn't come across when I've seen him in the media. In these cases I think going on the telly isn't actually that helpful. Mark Sargeant would be another example (I see a pattern).

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Perhaps better to illustrate with examples from the menu. Am I being unfair or does every dish have an ingredient too many?

Scottish scallops - charred, celeriac, sorrel, lemon curd

Lemon curd?!

Veal sweetbreads - roasted and glazed, sauce aïgre doux, black radish salad, toasted cashews

Toasted cashews?!

Dorset crab - marinated mackerel, brown crab, grilled potato bread, apple marmalade, hazelnuts

Apple marmalade!?

Pigeon and rabbit - ballotine, pickled cucumber, carrots, grated truffle, toasted homemade brioche

Brioche??

Foie gras - pan fried, pink pepper yogurt, ginger crunch, rhubarb muffin top, thyme cress

Pink pepper yoghurt??

Wild seabass- slowly poached, lemon confit, baby navet, watercress, winter truffle

Winter truffle and seabass?

Dorset turbot - carrot and liquorice, lettuce hearts, fennel dressing

Liquorice?

Aberdeen Angus beef fillet - roasted, baby root vegetables, beef and onion tea, pink onion galette

Beef and onion tea?

Best end of Cumbrian lamb - saffron braised shoulder, baby fennel, red pepper

I'd probably order this one :)

Venison - smoked and roasted, parsnip, heritage beetroot

Parsnip? I hate them at the best of times.

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  • 1 month later...

It's funny, neither Petrus or the new Marcus Wareing have ever really attracted me. The menus sound very heavy and with no clear culinary inspiration.

Yes, my friend just had dinner there last week and had the same comment as you... "with no clear culinary inspiration".

Fine Dining Explorer

www.finediningexplorer.com

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