Sketch

[tony h]

Just trying to resurrect - anything happening here yet or has the ventrue folded before it began?

[Kikujiro]

london-eating.co.uk says late Oct/early Nov. But what do they know?

[dallardice]

Caterer.com today reporting 26 Nov.

[jayrayner]

And, on this occasion, caterer is correct. or at leats Nov 26 was the date given to me by mourad Mazouz and I suppose he should know.

[Andy Lynes]

Will you be reviewing it anytime soon? I want to know if it's going to be worth £100.00 a head food costs alone or not.

[Kikujiro]

Did it open on 26 Nov? There was apparently a 'pre-opening party' this weekend. My source reports as follows:

its beautiful but insane. there`s chocolate-coloured resin poured on the floor, the main bar room is huge and all white. everything. its so overdesigned minimalism. its great. all the chairs face inwards so you can be seen from all angles of the bar.

Also says the food was great and the drinks were awful.

[cabrales]

Below are links to certain limited information on Sketch:

http://www.art-review.co.uk/html/site2.html

(photo of top floor)

http://www.art-review.co.uk/html/features3.html

(description, not of cuisine)

[Matthew Grant]

All we've got is links and hearsay! Did it open? I wanted to go before Christmas!

[circeplum]

it opened to the paying public on monday. reservations on 0870 777 4488.

[Kikujiro]

... a national-rate number, folks.

[Matthew Grant]

Ok heres the lowdown:

The first 3 weeks are a soft opening. According to the receptionist you will get 4 starters, 6 Amuse Bouche, 4 different preperations of your main course choice and Dessert. As for the cost, I was advised that it would be approximately £150 per head before any drinks were added.

I couldn't bring myself to book until I've read some reviews and even then I'd have to think long and hard. This is approximately double the cost of the Waterside Inn and GR@RHR and it hasn't got a star name chef cooking there - merely advising. ON the plus side it does have plenty of luxury ingredients (Foie Gras, Truffles and Caviar), presumably without surcharge.

I've booked at the Gallery (£35-£40)for a Friday night, they won't confirm until 48 hours before due to the soft opening.

Here is the menu for the Library, excuse any spelling errors, I scanned it and converted it to a Word doc before Cut and pasting it here.

STARTERS

Red Mullet

Whole red mullet cooked in its own juice;

velvety rock fish soup and foie gras powdered with ceps Cauliflower aioli, ricotta gnocchi

Vegetables

Fresh pressed parsley, coriander and tarragon juice; conserve of cucumber, preserved lemons, Paris mushrooms and young fennel Artichoke in 3 different ways

Wilted young winter salad; celeriac Colombo; turnip broth with farm Cider

Stems of spinach beet with a cream of sweet potato and honey

Charcuterie

Goose foie gras, portuguese cured pork loin and browned celery;

pressed figs flavoured with sherry

Flaky shallot pastry and andouillette from Vire

Pigeon breast with juniper, bellota acorn-fed barn;

Brussels sprouts with lardo di Colonnata

Langoustines

Langoustines in three ways;

Langoustine mousseline with Malabar pepper, crearned passion fruit butter and little dice of langoustine

Walnut shortcake; grilled langoustine and caramelized pomegranate

Langoustine tartare with green mango, pressed grapefruit and ginger

Crab

Potted crab with pig’s ear and breast of albacore tuna from Germond; velouté of root chervil and sorrel cream

MAIN COURSES

Fish

Sea Bass

Cutlet of seabass grilled and braised in chicken broth and smocked tea; semi-confit aubergine and caramelized salsify Spicebread butter

Tuna jellied with Cóte de Jura and daube of squid with berries

John Dory and Scallops

Fillet of John Dory in a chorizero pepper butter; little stew of red peppers, green papaya and white grapes

Grilled scallops; durum wheat semolina with pinenuts and flaky muscavado sugar caramel

Turbot

Thick-cut turbot poached in a shrimp and prawn infusion; wilted cabbage, pears and glazed radishes

Cucumber veloute; haddock with pearl barley and dried apricots

Lobster

Fricassee of lobster ‘Dodo’ with semi-confit fruits; the claws steeped in cider vinegar

Shellfish

Oysters, carpet-shell dams, whelks, cocckes and Venus clams mariniere

Mackerel, broth flavoured with seaweed, with a foie gras liaison

‘Land and Sea’ Toast

MEAT

Poultry and white Truffles from Alba

Breast of Chalosse chicken poached in Meursault;

creamed ratte potatoes with olive oil and fresh butter, grated white truffles and diced scallops

Lamb

Fillet of Lozere lamb perfumed with oregano, seized its Vadouvan

butter; endives with olives from Taggia

Sheeps’ milk curds with creamed sweeteorn and shavings of Ardi

Gasna cheese

Lamb Sketchup

Beef and Caviar

Heart of Charollais fillet of beef, slow cooked and served pink; fondue of caramelized onion with watercress; oscietra caviar and salted capers

Cream of avocado with pressed caviar; beetroot sorbet

Partridge

Young grey partridge roasted confit-style in clarified butter infused with bay leaves; marmalade of red cabbage with blackcurrants; Quetsch plums with walnuts

Succulent potato cake with cured wild boar ham

Farm House Veal

Pan-fried milk-fed veal, dariole of cep-flavoured egg custard, baby spinach with mild garlic.

Loin of veal with its kidney, braised lettuce, the juices bound with mango

THE CHEESES

A selection of cheeses from Maison Anthony and Neal’s Yard, served with blackberry jam, cream of celeriac and a fresh goat’s cheese muesli

Crisp peanut crusts

DESSERT

‘Pierre Gagnaire” Grand Dessert

Rose blossom Crisp dessert

Praline biscuit with tiny artichokes “Poivrade”

Liquorice soft caramel

Winter 2002 Sketch chocolate

Ice blood orange mousse

Can-span jelly, coriander and green apple sorbet

Crispy “Muscovado” sugar waffle

[Gavin Jones]

Lamb Sketchup

Given there extraordinary subliminal Europop promotion of the restaurant I wouldn't bet on failure just yet.

[Matthew Grant]

Do you think that if the restaurant survives, we will find other high end restaurants raising prices. As Andy said recently, MPW at the Oak room used to be approx £90 a head, since then 3 star prices have not reached quite the same level (although The Waterside inn approaches £90 per head), will this be a spur to a new pricing level?

[Steve Plotnicki]

That price is in line with what tasting menus cost at the three star restaurants in Paris. Whether people will pay that in London, or pay that for this chef's food is another thing. But the tasting menu at Arpege is 300 euros and this sounds to be about 240 euros. Depending on whether VAT is included, you could be at the same pricepoint. And excuse me if I say so but, that's one hell of a menu.

[Andy Lynes]

Matthew, great effort in getting the menu onto the site. Now all we need is the instruction manual that goes with.

[clb]

Here's the first review I've seen. You may need to register.

clb

[Steve Plotnicki]

Reviewers do themselves no favors when articles that contain important information about food designate 50% of the copy to sensationalism. But other then the prices it sounds great. Those prices make the tasting menu appear to be a bargain.

[Kikujiro]

Here's the first review I've seen.  You may need to register.

clb

You don't need to register. I had an extended spat once with Hollinger NM about the Telegraph privacy policy once which resulted in me de-registering. Link brought up the article fine, for now at least

[Kikujiro]

Reviewers do themselves no favors when articles that contain important information about food designate 50% of the copy to sensationalism. But other then the prices it sounds great. Those prices make the tasting menu appear to be a bargain.

I don't think mentioning the restaurant's insistence on asking who your employer is when you try to book is sensationalism

edit: cnat spel

Edited December 7, 2002 by Kikujiro (log)

[Steve Plotnicki]

This restaurant from a food perspective is the most important restaurant to ever open in London. If the writer had any doubts about it going in, he certainly knew that to be the case after he ate the food. Not that the story about asking him what company he works for isn't relevant, but it does limit the amount of copy he could provide about the food. It's sort of like reviewers writing about the choice of pens at ADNY. Who cares? Tell us about the food please. How about instead of telling us the Chicken dish is on the menu, eating it and telling us how it tastes?

[Jonathan Day]

I agree with Steve's comment here. Equally, I find it irritating that the reviewer didn't report on dessert, or on wines that would match the meal, on the pretext that her budget didn't allow it. If the Telegraph covers the cost of the dinners being reviewed, it should.

Clearly a meal of this sort would be beyond the reach of most diners, but how can a review help people make an informed choice if the reviewer only dabbles with the dishes on offer? Even those on moderate incomes might choose to save for a long time and then enjoy a meal of a lifetime. This is what I did as a student: trips to New York for fine dining and the opera were few and far between, and each represented many hours of washing and chopping vegetables. But once there, I took great seats and ate very well indeed.

It's the reviewer's business to report on prices and perhaps comment on the relationship between price and quality. After that, it's up to the customer to decide.

[Steve Plotnicki]

It isn't unusual for a publication where a sizeable portion of the readership can't afford to eat in a place like this to ridicule something that appears excessive as a way of making their readers feel better. Look at the two examples raised, the pens at ADNY and their asking for your company name here. Two things that have nothing to do with the meal. Yet their mention played a huge role in the respective reviews they appeared in. Pretension is something to report on, but it shouldn't be at the expense of gastronomy.

[Kikujiro]

Steve, while the choice of pens is clearly an amusing but irrelevant aside, I don't think the booking policy is. It's part of the experience of Sketch and surely a restaurant review should take aspects other than food (service, ambience, yadda yadda) into acount? I didn't think the mention of the customer cross-examination was just mentioned because it was funny ha-ha. It's in danger of sounding like screening.

On the other hand, the fact that the Telegraph's budget doesn't stretch to dessert is a bit pathetic.

Edited December 7, 2002 by Kikujiro (log)

[Steve Plotnicki]

What's wrong with screening?

Restaurant reservation books have changed significantly since they have been computerized. I made two reservations today, one at Red Cat and one at Blue Hill. In each instance after I gave them my last name, they asked me if it was Steve P. and is my phone number the same and they repeated my cell phone number. When I remarked to the person on the phone (this was at Red Cat,) that they kept good information, they were able to tell me when I ate there. So the type of information that restaurants keep these days has changed since the days of yore. And why they need to know your company name can be for any reason from their own market analysis, to they want to pitch companies about having private functions at their faciilities. And if their special events manager is armed with a list of employess who patronize a place that might not be a bad piece of information to start out with when you're pitching an ad agency on having their x-mas party there. But the person who wrote the article prefered to treat the request as an intrusion and not as something that could be potentially benefitial to the diner. That's why I used the word sensationalize. Now the pens at Ducasse on the other hand are completely frivolous. Unless they ever decided to give away the pens .

[Kikujiro]

Hm. Maybe you're right. I do feel that it's a bit intrusive to ask someone that's just trying to make a reservation who they work for. At the very least they could make it clear that's an optional market research question. And it's quite a different matter from keeping records on existing clients to provide good service, as in your experiences at Red Cat and Blue Hill.

Supposing they ask: are you single? Because they might want to pitch the place to singles nights? Or, are you gay? Or which football team do you support? (And what if you don't want your employer to be told you've been dining there?)