London Restaurant Festival: Petrus

Petrus


When Gordon Ramsay and Marcus Wareing parted ways at the first Petrus (at the Berkeley Hotel, where Wareing has his current eponymous restaurant), Ramsay kept the name as part of the divorce settlement and earlier this year opened Petrus Mark II, almost within spitting distance of Wareing.  Given the very public and acrimonious nature of their split, spitting is probably an appropriate word to use.  From the off, not many critics have been kind to GR, painting the restaurant, and more importantly its food, as beige and bland.  Which is not a great endorsement, however when the everyday lunch deal is a bargain £30 for 3 courses we reckon it's worth taking a chance. 




We walk in to a setting that oozes luxe, with expanses of cream, oyster and silver offset by dark wood accents.  The circular restaurant has at its core a modernist glass rotunda housing the wine cellar and I keep feeling like I'm in the tardis waiting for it to jump the space-time continuum.  Our table backs up to this cellar, and we look out over a quadrant of the dining room where the tables are laid out to look back at us. The rotunda is the only distraction for them, so we feel a little like we're in a goldfish bowl even if it's not us our fellow diners are looking at.  There's no art on the walls, but we do face a carpeted wall with a design of an abstract woodland scene (I think) in moody shades of claret and burgundy. 



We choose easily from the daily lunch menu, and then spend a little longer discussing the wine before deciding on two half-bottles: a Chablis and a Qupe Syrah.  The wine list is extensive and of course there is an entire page of Petrus to choose from - the cheapest being £1150 for the 1981 vintage, obviously not that highly rated.  We'll leave those to the hedge fund managers.




Foie gras and duck confit terrine

 An amuse bouche of a beetroot mousse with goat cheese curd and toasted pine nuts arrives - the colour of crushed raspberries, the mousse is silky smooth and as our spoons reach the bottom we find a layer of tiny diced beetroot.  Next up are our appetizers - a foie gras and pressed duck confit terrine, and shellfish linguine.  I am beginning to dislike the current obsession of plating dishes on slate or wooden boards - I just don't get it.  Ok, ok, it's a visual thing, but really, why not just put it on a plate?  Yes, you guessed right, my terrine arrives on a piece of slate and whenever my knife slips it's like fingernails on a chalkboard - argghhhh!  The terrine itself is sublime: melt-in-the-mouth foie gras layered with finely shredded duck confit and served with paper thin slices of toasted sourdough. 


Linguine with shellfish

 The pasta is twirled and prettily surrounded by its component shellfish and some wood ear mushrooms and a lobster bisque is added tableside. It too is delicious, the bisque not overwhelming the perfectly cooked mussels, clams and scallops.  We're beginning to wonder whether the first critics got it wrong or maybe the chefs listened and made appropriate changes?  The food so far is impressive.



Bream with apple and fennel

On to the main courses: guinea fowl with puy lentils and a foie gras sauce and sea bream with apple and fennel and an apple veloute.  The latter is an unusual pairing, but the thin slices of apple and fennel add an extra texture to the dish while the veloute is not overly sweet and manages to bring the dish together well.  The fish is perfectly cooked and tender.  Both leg and breast of guinea fowl are presented in a generous serving and the sauce only subtly hints at foie gras.  Small cocottes of pommes dauphinoise and broccoli are shared between us and we finish every last mouthful. 

If we have a complaint at this point it is that the service has been a little rushed, and we'd rather take our time over a meal this good so we ask for a brief pause before dessert.   This gives us the chance to tune into what is becoming an increasingly merry party at a neighbouring table:  having started with Champagne, then at least one bottle of white, the quartet are on their second bottle of claret when the ringleader gets a call on his phone.  Apparently his horse (or the horse of which he is part-owner) has won a race, which calls for more celebrations.  As they are now on the dessert course he insists on Ch. d'Yquem which when we check the wine list is a cool £990 for the bottle.  And, oh Lord, they are drinking it with the chocolate sphere.  All four of them.  I want to wrest the bottle from them and save it from such Philistines - they could have paired it with the spiced toffee apple with a sage yoghurt parfait, or even the roasted fennel creme brulee with mango.  But chocolate??  I mourn for the layers of toffee, orange peel and honeyed pears that will never be tasted on their chocolate covered palates.  Oh well.

Chocolate sphere (imploded)

In due course we are presented with small ginger snap cones filled with lemon cream and topped with lemon zest - this is known as the pre dessert in a world where the dessert course is sub divided into three stages.  Next up are the desserts: hazelnut parfait with a chocolate centre and a praline crust and a chocolate sphere with milk cream, ice cream and honeycomb.  The frozen parfait is lovely, but the sphere is a diva demanding centre stage: the hard chocolate shell sphere melts dramatically when a warm sauce is added, revealing its inner core of ice cream and chocolate.  Oohh, and those lovely crunchy bits of honeycomb.  Yum.  It is a winning dessert that I suspect will be a menu staple if it isn't already. 



Now for the post dessert - I warned you - which is another dramatic presentation: a silver bowl which smokes liquid nitro when its lid is lifted to reveal skewered bonbons of Amaretto icecream covered in white chocolate.  Fabulous.  An order of espresso arrives with yet more nibbles - chocolate covered almonds and small slabs of extra dark chocolate, as much as you can eat.  Which, to be honest, isn't much at this point!



Coffee service

We leave the racing fans to their celebrations - they are calling for a vintage port - that horse must have won at long odds. They will probably still be there when dinner service starts and I would not like to see the size of the check.   Petrus may not be what it was when Gordon and Marcus were still together at the helm, but it's definitely on the way there and I don't think it will be long before it gets its first Michelin star.



www.gordonramsay.com/petrus