I’d been wanting to try Bonheur ever since it was announced that Matt Abé would be taking over the site of the legendary Le Gavroche (the home of the Roux family and first ever UK restaurant to be awarded as Michelin *** back in the ‘80’s). For the last few years, Matt Abé was Head Chef at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, where he took over from Clare Smyth (big shoes to fill!). We ate Abé’s food at RGR two years ago and felt that it was still a great restaurant, if not quite at the level of its early noughties hey day.
The basement dining room is a lot lighter and airier, compared to my memories of Le Gavroche. Disconcertingly, my wife and I were the only guests for around 30 minutes during our lunch there this Thursday – a couple of other tables were filled later, but it’s worrying that a highly anticipated restaurant that has only been open for a couple of months would be so sparse in the busy run up to Christmas. I guess this is another example of the current financial difficulties that the UK hospitality industry is facing.
On to lunch… we went for the longer “Dream” 7 course tasting menu, priced nominally at £225, but I also had a supplementary black truffle dish.
Photos are:
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Otoro, wasabi, yuzu, shiso tartlet. Rich yet refreshing, nice start
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Potato and chive dauphine with oscietra caviar. Again quite a rich bite, nicely seasoned with the caviar.
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Parmesan cracker with pickled walnut and iberico ham. This was the pick of the canapes for me – delicious combo of flavours
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Rather weirdly described “bird liver” (I’m assuming it was chicken, but didn’t ask) parfait tartlet with toasted pecans. Ok, but I felt that the pastry could have been more delicate.
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Root vegetable consommé with beef fat. This was lovely – clean, deep flavours.
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Celeriac royale with roasted hazlenuts and Oscietra caviar. Lovely tasting nuts and caviar, but, as a fan of celeriac, unfortunately not much taste of celeriac!
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Milk bread. Lovely, soft, salty.
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Isle of Skye scallop with picked carrot, mandarin and yuzu koshu. My favourite course so far – beautifully sweet scallop paired nicely with the sweet/sharp citrus flavours.
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Quail blanquette with black garlic puree, Jerusalem artichoke, Morteau sausage and a quail jus. Visually very pretty and a pleasing subtle flavour of the quail that was a match for the strong flavours it was paired with.
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(Supplementary dish). A ragout of toasted spelt with lots of shaved Catalunian black truffle. I’m a big truffle fan, so this was a disappointment as the truffle didn’t have the strong aroma and taste that I was hoping for. I think this was my first experience with Catalunian black truffle and I wasn’t impressed! The spelt however, was delicious!
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Monkfish with pumpkin, buttermilk and rapeseed. Again, quite delicate flavours but harmonious, cartainly.
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125-day aged Cumbrian blue grey beef, with potato and smoked bone marrow. The extra-long aging certainly gave the beef a deep flavour, but I would have preferred a more tender cut, as I found it quite dense.
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Pre-dessert “Le Trou Normand”: absolutely stunning apple sorbet with a granita of calvados, I think. I can still taste the sorbet now!
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Pecan praline. We were told that this was Chef Abé’s signature dish – and you can see why. Rich but refreshing, decadent, delicious.
Wine pairing: we had the Dream wine pairing – I can’t remember how much this was, but was less than £200. Some nice selections, such as an Alheit chenin blanc, a Ridge grenache blanc and a 2014 Chateau Quinault l’Enclos that paired really well with the beef.
Overall, for a new restaurant this was solid Michelin * territory, with some of the dishes pushing **. It will be interesting to see how it fares in next year’s guide – my hunch would be * but he’s clearly aiming higher (and it’s priced accordingly- our lunch for two, with pre-drink cocktails/champagne and the supplementary truffle dish was just over £1200). As I mentioned earlier, whether there are still enough people in London happy to drop that sort of money for lunchis a different question.
by Holiday-Let-2804