Sketch - meal for £450

[dallardice]

Well, OK I was taken to Sketch last night, the posh bit, the Lecture Room. It was a celebration dinner and I wasn't paying, so I can't comment on the price (or the wine list) beyond what I saw on the menus. I'm also going to disappoint you because I can't remember everything we had to eat. But yes, it was fabulous.

The Lecture Room space is upstairs and very separate from the chaos downstairs. We had a look in the Gallery after dinner and it doesn't look like the sort of place I'd like to eat - noisy, frantic, canteen-like. Upstairs is calm, refined. The decor is somewhat eclectically exotic but works well. I'd say the Lecture Room was about 80% full last night - a few tables weren't taken all evening.

Dinner started with a glass of '89 champagne and the following eats: ginger and foie gras biscuit (stunning), salted gingerbread, cuttlefish and pepper parfait, and a couple of other nibbles. The first hint that the meal was going to be exciting.

At our table we were presented with 4 amuse-bouches to eat in order: the smoothest foie gras with avocado topped with raspberry coulis, duck with cucumber jelly, a red pepper soup with almonds and white beans, and a beef carpaccio with herring roe.

The menu is listed by ingredient - so the meat mains were, for example, 'Pigeon', 'Guinea Fowl', 'Lamb' and 'Beef'. There were 4 starters, 4 fish mains, 4 meat mains and 3 vegetable mains. I'll come back to desserts...

For my starter I had the 'Essence of Spring' (£38), which consisted of four dishes. A pea soup, poured over cabbage, parmesan and ham; A rye dumpling with cheese; A mousseline of crabmeat wiith snowpeas; A jura wine jelly with mushrooms. Fascinating, complex flavours, each individually exciting but which together provided a very satisfying but quite filling starter. We had an excellent half-bottle of Condrieu with our starters.

I had the 'Beef' main (£60). The mains were by comparision with what had gone before more traditional. I had three pieces of very tender fillet, with a bearnaise sausage (like boudin noir), marinated turnips that were deeply dark, spring onions and canneloni of snails. Presented separately was a tarte tatin-like dish of very finely sliced potatoes with very rich caramelised onions. This was all very tasty, but I felt it wasn't quite as exciting as what had come before. But then, this isn't El Bulli (gotta wait til August for that), and a traditionally-styled main with more interesting touches seems to fit with the ethos of the restaurant. We were guided to a Morey-Saint-Denis in place of the Gevrey-Chambertin we had first thought of. It worked well.

A few small bites of sweet things (including a gorgeous rosemary marshmallow) to tide us over until dessert, for which we both went for the Grand Dessert (£32), which had 8 sweet things. This was getting to overload, and if you wish you could select some from the list at £4 each. Highlights were an upmarket butterkist combination of popcorn, meringue, nuts and raspberries, a lemon soup, and a flower mousse. The d'Yquem 94 went well despite the sommelier's warning that it wasn't the best Yquem.

Coffee and fresh mint tea completed the evening.

As I say, this was a surprise dinner, for a celebration, so inevitably that colours my report (as does the fact that I wasn't paying). But I thought this was an exceptional dinner, where it was easy to see where the money was being spent - the food was sophisticated, elegant and excitingly tasty. The service was friendly once it had warmed up a bit, verging on the over-attentive, but when you're juggling eight plates for dessert it was quite useful for them to be efficient with the plate-clearing.

So, I'm a fan. I want to go again in somewhat more sober and rational mood, to better evaluate (and think about) what I'm eating, but that won't be for a while probably. But it's certainly the most exciting meal I've had in London for a very long time.

[rjs1]

I can't speak for the other Londoners but I'm just waiting for one person-a professional reviewer perhaps -to say "This is fantastic. Absolutely great. Cutting edge food which is amazing and delicious. Yes its expensiive but in my opinion its worth every penny for a unique and wonderful experience"

If I see a review like that I'll book up and go. Has anybody seen one?

I think that what Jay Rayner said in his review in The Observer a month or so ago was pretty much what you're looking for.

[Gavin Convery]

But it's certainly the most exciting meal I've had in London for a very long time.

And no-one else has been here yet.....I plan to make this my next night out(unfortunately not until June!). Having been to Paris recently this seems to be about par for the course money wise....