The Maradona of fine dining
No stranger to the best restaurants, Richard McComb was bowled over by the cuisine of Alain Ducasse.
Birmingham, home of the Michelin Triangle, is Britain’s undisputed regional capital of culinary excellence.
Nowhere outside London can match the numerical strength of the city’s three one-star restaurants.
Simpsons, the trail-blazer, together with Purnell’s and Turners have transformed the restaurant landscape, and there is every chance the triangle will morph into a four-pointed square next year if Andy Waters continues to attract the plaudits for Edmunds at Brindleyplace. Certainly, The Good Food Guide 2010 cannot separate the quartet, awarding all of them 6 out of 10.
Excellence, however, counts for nothing unless it is maintained; and with consistency must come innovation. So what is the next level?
In the hope of answering the Brummie gastronome’s most vexing question, I went for lunch at Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester. I could leave you in suspense about how it went but that’s tiresome: it was the finest lunch I have eaten this year, possibly ever.
I will also deal upfront with another controversy. Restaurant guides, being compiled by egomaniac critics, are notoriously fickle. And so Monsieur Ducasse’s swish Mayfair outpost scores 6 in The Good Food Guide – the same as Brum’s illustrious top kitchens. The compilers of the Michelin Guide think differently. They rate Ducasse as two stars “rising to three”, which puts poaching, sauce reduction and carrot peeling in a totally different culinary stratosphere.
To put matters in context: Britain and Ireland have 118 one-star establishments and 16 two-star restaurants. Should Alain Ducasse fulfil Michelin’s prediction, it will become only the fourth (the others are the Fat Duck and The Waterside Inn, both at Bray-on-Thames, and Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea) to be awarded the hallmark of perfection: three stars.
I am fortunate to have dined at all of Birmingham’s big-hitters on several occasions and have nothing but admiration for their chefs and their food. That said, and without any disrespect (which is unusual for me), I’m inclined to go along with Michelin. It is an invidious comparison, akin to pitting a peak-career Gascoigne against Maradona. There are subtle differences, but the mercurial Argentinian, like Ducasse, gets the nod. This may explain why.
The restaurant’s dining room, overlooking Hyde Park, is light, airy and refreshingly unfussy. Park Lane may be gridlocked with Bentleys, Ferraris and Rollers, but all is peace and tranquillity in here.
There are light woods, creams, browns, organic brushed metal curves, a green lacquered wall and a spectacular “table lumiere”, ideal for seating sheiks and Russian oligarchs. The latter is best viewed at night. It is a grand table for six, sealed off from the riff-raff behind a theatrical circular curtain comprising thousands of silvery/white fibre optics which give the illusion of an ice chamber. Just don’t drop the plates in here – they’re Hermès china, changed according to the seasons.
Elsewhere, the table decorations set the tone for the meal. The place is a shrine to stylish French classicism with a nod to genteel modernism: creaseless white linen table cloths, pale pink napkins, unadorned glassware. Each table has a quirky white vegetable ceramic, mine a trio of onion bulbs. Or they may have been garlic.
On the table there is a revolutionary statement: none other than bijoux helpings of salt and pepper. Why is it that chefs in so-called fine dining establishments blow steam out of their ears when customers ask for salt? We’re all different and our taste receptors are a bit different. My palate is no doubt at odds with Mr Peter Andre’s. Applying a speck or two of salt does not diminish or rebuke a chef’s work. If anything it is a loving engagement between diner and creator. Bravo, M Ducasse, for breaking this ridiculous modern convention.
One is struck by the number of dapper waiters swarming about the place. They swarm elegantly, but nonetheless they swarm, fantastically marshalled by gentleman restaurant director Christian Laval, who looks like an undercover agent from a Bond flick.
No sooner had I sat down than a cheery chap smooched over with a vast oval ice bucket, proffering various Champagnes. My kinda town. As it was lunch, I went pink.
What fun, too, to meet an old friend. Slurping the fizz, I was approached by Yohan Morel, formerly sommelier at Simpsons, of Edgbaston, who is now deputy cork-popper at Alain Ducasse. “I saw your name on the reservations, Mr McComb. I knew it had to be you,” he said. Safe in Yohan’s hands, I knew matching great wines to the dishes would be a doddle, not least because I wouldn’t have to do a thing.
As I worked through the niftily presented menu, it soon became apparent that I could eat everything, although not in one sitting. A bowl of mini
