Roux at Parliament Square

[howardlong]

Folks,

They open to the likes of you and me on Monday, although I think they've had some sort of soft opening this week. I have yet to see a telephone number online elsewhere, so here it is: 020 7334 3737.

I booked earlier this week for Monday evening, no problem. I called up to increase the number of covers this morning, again no problem.

When I spoke to Michel a couple of weeks ago about it, I asked how it would compare to Roux Brasserie Roux on Pall Mall. He said that unlike BR, it'll definitely be "fine dining" but "not Le Gavroche".

I look forward to reporting back next week.

[PS: just found this: Website that is not coming up in Google yet]

Cheers, Howard

[howardlong]

Quick comments about my Monday evening.

I turns out it was their first service, and it showed I'm afraid. Although the food side was really good, certainly based on the quality of the ingredients and the obvious accomplishment of the kitchen, front of house was altogether another thing.

Food is pretty good French certainly teetering on the M*. Apparently there are some different techniques used in the kitchen which went completely over my head about emulsifying things using seaweed or something. Chef Dan Cox came out during service for a nice chat with everyone.

Decor was rather bare, and you could smell the paint drying, which I suppose was different to watching it dry, while we waited for an hour in a bar area upstairs to be called to the table.

Regarding service, it was a big case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing. Part of this is due to a minority of the junior FOH staff just being completely out of their depth, and part of it I am sure was simply that no one had never worked in that team before, although I knew three from previous places such as The Capital, Le Gav and Aubergine.

The wine list has a fairly decent selection, and it's astonishingly reasonable with plenty around the £20 to £30 mark. Thank God there seems to be a correction finally in this department, I've been getting sick of wine list piss taking over the past few years, although I am sure Ramsay will continue to lead the way in the worst value wine lists. Sadly many bins were missing, again an indication of early teething troubles.

In addition the cheese trolley hasn't made it yet, although the assiettes of cheese that we had were of excellent quality.

A la carte was £55 for three courses, and the tasting menu £65.

We were automatically given a 30% discount on the food menu although we hadn't complained.

Wine wise we had a bottle of posh Sancerre Daniel Chotard (£40), a bottle of Cos d'Estornel 1999 (£109) and a down to earth bottle of Beaulieu Vineyard Chardonnay (£27). After the G&Ts to start with and a cheeky Sauternes with the foie gras, total was £496 for four. After the 30% food discount, it was £415 including service.

Hmm, I just looked at the bill. We had four G&Ts on arriving. Two were £5, one was £6 and one was £8. Go figure!

Still, we all enjoyed it, and we had a really good chat in the kitchen afterwards, they were all really friendly in there.

I would anticipate it being a busy lunch venue, what with all those hungry MPs looking for ways to spend their expenses.

In short, I'd give it a couple of weeks. Funny, I think I've said that before about somewhere else I turned up at on opening night. Must make a mental note.

Cheers, Howard

Edited May 12, 2010 by howardlong (log)

[david goodfellow]

Nice to see you enjoy a bit of food with your wine Howard but what was it like?

Best, Worst dishes?

[howardlong]

David, after a conflab with my three dining companions, food was declared unanimously good. We went ALC on this occasion, although normally for a first time I'd do the tasting menu. What I like is that it's all well accomplished cooking with excellent quality ingredients. Nothing's over egged (pardon the pun) with too much going on, everything was well balanced. I had asparagus with a poached seagull egg for a starter and the lamb for my main. The other diners tried pan fried foie gras, langoustines, and tomato based soupy thing starters. For mains, it was veal and an assiette of pork.

Depite the two top fellas running the kitchen that night having some Fat Duck experience, food was down to earth, classically based stuff. So nothing surprising, but equally it was well thought out, balanced and executed. If you're looking for liquid nitrogen or a hundred indistinguishable ingredients on each plate, go elsewhere. Perhaps most importantly I felt like I was getting good value even without the 30% off the grub.

So the kitchen's sorted from day one, they just need to work on those deliveries, service and sprucing up the decor.

Cheers, Howard

[david goodfellow]

Thanks very much for the report Howard, much appreciated.

[howardlong]

A couple more comments on this.

I went back last week about Wednesday or so for dinner for a second punt, but it was about 21:45 before I got there while I waited for my habuitually late dining companion. There were only three other tables occupied (one, for the zeleb lovers, was home to Andrew Lloyd Webber who appeared a lot more normal than he's portrayed on screen).

Again, I found the decor rather sterile despite the recent publicity about a collection of historical mirrors, which must be upstairs in the bar, as we couldn't see any in the dining room. And there was still a bit of that fresh paint smell lingering.

But the big change was the service. What a transformation! Today, everyone was working as a team, and the left hand knew exactly what the right hand was doing.

We both had the same dishes on this occasion, ordering asparagus and gull's egg to start, followed by halibut. It wasn't exactly the same presentation for the asparagus dish that I'd had the first time, but the ingedients were the same - almost. Shortly after ordering, I was informed that there were no gulls' eggs to be had and would a pheasant's egg do instead? Of course I replied positively, but would I ever have known the difference? Still, at least I know that I am unlikely to be fobbed off.

In juxtaposition to the wine recommendation I'd received the first time to go with the asparagus, this time it was a Roux labelled Leon Beyer Alsatian Pinot Blanc. The problem with the wine list for me is that I would normally hunt for a semillon/sauvignon Bordeaux for asparagus, but there's nothing on the fairly extensive list to fit this bill.

For the halibut I chose the 2003 Petaluma Tiers chardonnay. An awesome drop, this, if you like big buttery chardonnays. More modern vintages are now marketed as Tapanappa Tiers, still under the watchful eye of South Australian winemaker Brian Croser. This was probably a bit overpowering for the halibut, but as it's one of my favourite wines I couldn't resist. I reckon this 2003 could go on for quite a bit longer, certainly I have some earlier vintages back to 1999 that are still drinking well. But equally I had a 2007 at home last week, currently fairly widely available, and it already drinks very well right now.

I had cheese to finish, and a sadly rather lame cheese trolley came out with perhaps a dozen different items on it. They were in good condition, all were tasty, but it's a far cry from the trolley at Le Gavroche.

My dining companion had the passion fruit soufflé, which was a mighty big one by anyone's standards.

We were comp'd a couple of glasses of dessert wine too which was a nice touch, a vin de Constance and a Muscat de Rivesaltes.

By the way the other half is still banging on about how good the the Tomato starter dish is that she had the first time we went. Described as "Marinated English hothouse tomatoes, Ragstone, black olive toast", her inquisitiveness about the dish was responded to by divulging that apparently it uses "tomato essence" as one of its ingredients. Crikey.

Cheers, Howard