Angela Hartnett at the Connaught

[Hallie]

This has just been booked as a birthday lunch. Should I be excited?

[PoppySeedBagel]

I went about 2 months ago for lunch [the set menu I think, which was fine], and had some lovely food - it's quite refined, so you'll need to concentrate! The Gordon Ramsay influence showed, to me - there was that gorgeous dried pineapple crisp as part of the pudding.

[Andy Lynes]

I think you should be excited. I ate there a few weeks ago and had a lovely meal. I admit that I did get looked after a bit, but did pay the heart-stoppingly large bill at the end of the evening. Its a beautiful room (although quite masculine and more Autumn/Winter than Spring/Summer I suppose) and the service was very good apart from the Maitre'd who just rubbed me up the wrong way for some reason.

Nothing technically wrong with what he did, but he annoyed me from the get-go by saying "This is my menu for this evening" as he handed over the a la carte. Your menu? Have you been in the kitchen cooking all day? No, I don't think so. So whose menu is it again, um? In general, his manner was just a little on the self important side.

Not so the wonderful female French sommelier (didn't get her name unfortunately), whom I recognised from the Hotel du Vin in Brighton. Very knowledgeable and friendly and not at all sniffy.

I didn't take away a menu with me which I now regret as I can't remember the details of the food we ate, but highlights included a fantastic foie gras terrine, a sweetbreads dish that came with a side of canneloni that was apparently amazing, monkfish with olives done in the manner of Michel Bra's Darkness and Light (i.e. the monkfish cooked in "black" olive oil made by blitzing the oli with dried black olives ) and a duck main course. A rhubarb and custard dessert was disappointing, needlessly complex and served with some rather stodgy doughnuts.

[alexw]

I haven't eaten there for a while though when I did it was absolutely fantastic, with the exception of a still cling filmed terrine, (which I have had frequently at many other michelin restaurants), not a problem I can peel my own off. the rest of the meal was first class.

two things stood out on the prestige at the time, the pumpkin ravioli, which was the best pasta I have ever eaten and the pannacotta to finish. both were supremely executed and will be my reason to re-visit as soon as time permits.

answer - YES BE EXITED.

alex

[Andy Lynes]

with the exception of a still cling filmed terrine, (which I have had frequently at many other michelin restaurants)

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That's the trouble with these Michelin starred places, they all copy each other!

[adt]

was some time ago I went but the food was wonderful - confident and impressive without seeming at all attention seeking. I especially recall some wonderfully fine, film-like pasta that you (I mean, I) can't make at home.

There was a very high suits-to-jeans ratio (I think I was the only person in 'The Grill' not wearing a suit), and one of those wine list tomes where the £50 and £500 bottles are next to each other, to make ordering suitably nerve-racking.

There were some nice touches, such as intensely flavoured little sorbets served before the desserts on a glass mock cake stand.

[Raj Banerjee]

hey, i went there a couple of months ago for dinner.

i love the connaught, and have been going there for about 10 years now, so i am one of the few ppl i suppose that miss the trolleys of prime rib on sunday lunchtimes.

anyhow, by following the same greeting and service style as ever other posh restaurant in london, i think the connaught has lost something, altho judging by how busy it is nowadays, it has certainly gained a wider following.

we were offered a seat at the bar before dinner. reasonable i suppose. but i had booked a table for dinner. anyhow, table was good, theyre not too close together. the room has a nice buzz to it.

first course risotto was too alo dente and basil oil was more oil then basil. home cooks could have done way better.

pigeon main was almost unrecognisable as pigeon as it had been cut into funny pieces and strewn all over the plate. the jus tasted like a stock jus, the mushrooms gave the dish a much needed flavour injection. the meat was cooked to perfection. rhubarb parfait was delicious, souffle was outstanding. waiters/wine were well trained altho there was a lot of cutlery clanging around.

overall, we were well looked after and had a lovely evening. food is good certainly, and at 55 poinds for 3 courses for dinner, one could argue not bad value. but at this level, one expects a little more in terms of energy, inventiveness and flavour. not that it was bad. maybe an off day or a boring menu (no pun intended).

[Hallie]

Right. Now thoroughly looking forward to it. Especially the terrine de clingfilm.

[Suzi Edwards]

I found several dishes oversalted but it has been sometime since I ate there. Several other people have agreed that there's someone in the kitchen with a too-keen hand with the salt. Hopefully they will be off the day you have lunch.

I keep hearing nice things about this place and I think another good review or two would convince me to go back soon.

[cachan]

We had dinner there two days ago and we were very impressed but we did find some items a bit over-salted such as the scallops and the fois gras and the anjou pigeon. I have read other reviews in other forums which have made this comment for this restaurant.

[Pranian man]

Just been to the Menu for lunch today and I would recommend it highly to anyone. The set, three course menu (with three choices for each course) at £30 looked more than adequate and very reasonable.......but, cheekily, they do give you the £55 a la carte menu just slightly earlier, and by then I had caught sight of entrees involving fois gras, scallops, lobster and other favourites that just couldn't be ruled out.

We started with bread sticks accompanied by a really outstanding black olive tapenade that seemed to include some black lentils and a small dish of incredibly moreish and subtly fragrant olive oil.

A pleasant amuse bouche of melon juice/puree with a little mint followed which proved suitably refreshing for a hot day, but wasn't explosive in any way.

For my entree, I had a slice of pressed foie gras that had been built around two layers of pancetta and one of black truffles, served with toast (maybe not brioche due to their Italian influence?), chutney, a small collection of parsleys and a few dressed, raw, fine green beans. This was not groundbreaking, but executed to perfection.

The main course (perhaps unusually I have to say?) of Anjou Rabbit was the finest part of my whole day. It featured a kidney, a liver, 2 racks of ribs, 2 rolled joints and 2 fillets and was served with some extraordinary, crunchy green peas (or beans of some type) and a roll of mashed potato. This medley was topped with a thin meat jus and a black truffle vinaigrette, finished with a handful of white truffle shavings. Naturally the whole plate exuded an enchanting aroma of truffles and the flavour of it all perfectly complimented the rich, tender (obviously quite young) rabbit.

A slight disappointment here - no pre-desert!

I ordered a desert named something like...Carib semi-freddo. I get the freddo bit but am not sure about the Carib. Anyway, it was made of layers of quite hard (semi-chilled perhaps) chocolate with three layers of a kind of coarse sponge cake complemented by - what had really attracted me in the first place - olive oil sorbet. This was similar to an ice cream, probably due to the emulsification of the oil, but still seemed almost creamy and had only a subtle, but lasting, finish of marvellous Italian olive oil of the highest possible grade (well, maybe not quite Manni?). The whole plate was given the appearance of wings by two wavy chocolate tuiles inserted into the sorbet, around the size, shape and texture of rashers of crispy back bacon - but were otherwise not comparable in any way I must add.

Friandises was a tiramisu with two slender sponge fingers and a small basket of cherries. Another slight disappointment as I do appreciate some chocolate at this point....but maybe I have become to used to petit fours. Why couldn’t they have made, say, chocolate coated cherries?

Overall, this was the best meal I have had in some time and I wouldn't hesitate to go back. The entree and main course were more traditional in nature, but just perfect and the desert was a little more creative and still a tremendous success.

I know it was a special meal as I have still got that slightly ‘floating a cloud’ feeling now - if you know what I mean? Always a good sign.

Anyone else had the £30 lunch menu recently?

[GeoffC]

I’ve done weekend lunches there a few times (not so much bridge and tunnel more easyjet) and think the foods is generally excellent.

My recollection of the wine list is you can find a reasonable bottle for £35 if you look hard enough (especially if you start in France rather than Italy); certainly I’ve no complaints about the Dolcetto d’Alba. I had on my last visit, the prices do climb steeply but there’s some good wine on the list if money is no object – and it is after all your birthday – I have a vague recollection most of the Ramsay wine lists are hidden on his web site in pdf form if you look hard enough, and would like to swat up rather than getting the wine list cold.

The room itself is a little, eh, brown, which I agree gives the whole thing a rather autumnal atmosphere. My only real quibble is that on both occasions I’ve done Saturday there seemed to be a staff conference just before 3pm, so the four people who had been doing various bits of service on our table throughout lunch all vanished with the rest of the crew behind the cheese trolley and it made getting the bill a little difficult, only a problem because we’d finished our wine and the sommelier was also in hiding.

I’m also reliably informed, though I have no personal experience, that the little old lady who guards the women’s loo can be a little disconcerting on your first visit as she appears from nowhere like the shopkeeper in Mr Benn.

So yes, I think you should be excited; it just about pulls off the old school hotel meets new(ish) school cooking trick, in my opinion, better than Claridges, which is the obvious comparison.

Geoff

[cachan]

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Edited July 2, 2005 by cachan (log)

[cachan]

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Editor, Please delete this entry as it is an error and I cannot delete it myself. Thanks and Sorry.