Gauthier Soho

Gauthier restaurant had been on my list for a long time prior to my visit last week.  Not sure what took me so long to get there.  Sold as 'modern French cooking with a twist of kitsch' I was intrigued.  What I find unappealing about the place is seeing the calories listed against each dish on the menu.  Is this really what diners want?  I don't.  I ignored it.

Anyway, we decided quickly to have 5 courses from the a la carte menu at £60.  Welcome cocktails, amaretto sour and negroni (£12.50 each) were excellent and the bread was amazing.  We were offered more bread so many times that we actually turned it down eventually.  These 2 are hazelnut and malted bread. 

 

Amuse bouches were served first, tuna tartare and cheese straws with aioli were the highlights.  First up on the menu proper are the premiere plat dishes.  I had the duck egg and soldiers, lurking beneath the top egg layer was a smoked eel sabayon and parsley jus.  Definitely kitsch presentation!  Really delicious.

My choice of deuxieme plat was the lobster, served in a shell shaped dish, in small pieces with mussels and a crustacean fricassee.

Troisieme plat was the Cornish cod with bass crisps, capers, bone marrow and sea urchin, this was seriously impressive, the bass crisps were incredible and the delicate fish was buttery soft, just lovely.

Of the whoppingly calorific choices for quatrieme plat I opted for the Welsh lamb.  Roasted loin and braised shoulder were served with herb and parmesan crusted celeriac.  Plenty of jus and a few sprigs of thyme added a wonderful aroma to the dish.  Another strong dish, my favourite on the night.

Next a little pre dessert of isle flottante.  This has to be my all time favourite pudding, so I'm always extremenly happy when it makes an appearance, particularly when it's an added extra!

We shared desserts, this was the Yorkshire rhubarb with lime mascarpone and lemon pepper.  This was interesting texturally and the fennel seed flecked crisps on top were great.  Ate some more flowers...

The other dessert we selected was the Golden Louis XV which I mistook for something else altogether, but it was great, hazelnut mousse, crunch praline and chocolate ganache topped with gold leaf, it's very decadent and rich, certainly needed something fruity to cut through it.  Very good though.

We drank a white rioja (I'd just flown back from Spain earlier in the day) and a couple of glasses of recommended dessert wines paired with the dishes we chose, I'm really into dessert wines at the moment.  Petit fours of madeleines, marshmallows and these other little sioux pastry creamy things were all fantastic.

Service was sweet, the room was intimate, ideal for a date and the place has plenty of nooks and crannies to explore, it's a townhouse so the restaurant spans 3 floors.  I'm glad to have been, not sure I'll rush back, but the savoury courses in particular really do shine.  Should probably have had the truffle risotto in hindsight, but I'm trying not to eat rice as a starter, things got silly a couple of months ago.

Gauthier Soho
21 Romilly St
Soho
W1
7/10

Blanchette

Nibs and I couldn’t believe our luck walking into Blanchette at 8pm on a Friday night and getting seats at the bar.  When does that ever happen in Soho?  I suspect it was due to lack of publicity at the time, Blanchette was a mere 2 weeks into existence and you’re not likely to be as lucky as we were, because on the quality of the food, and loveliness of the service, this place will no doubt be rammed for the foreseeable future.

They’re not taking reservations and the room is fairly small.  It’s on the site that was previously occupied by Nara on D’Arblay Street.  I realized this once inside when I saw the lazy susan.  Nara was pretty average and Blanchette is far from it.  Things started off nicely with a saucer of champagne, and many followed throughout the night.  Bread, baguette, comes in a paper bag with lovely salted butter (£2), we weren't going to get bread but the lovely lady behind the bar suggested we'd need it and I'm not the person who says no to bread.  It was excellent.

First to arrive were the goujonettes with gribiche sauce (£4).  Like little fish fingers with an eggy mayonnaise, love a hard boiled egg, love mayo.  A squeeze of lemon and a little crunch of watercress and we were away.  Next to come was the gurnard with brown butter, capers, lemon and braised baby gem (£6.50).  Nicely cooked fish in a tart but rich sauce, so far so good.

One of the most memorable things were the cheese beignets, served with an onion confit (£3.50), the confit made this but the beignets were special, cheesy and buttery and really moresish.  Great value.  These arrived with the frites with bearnaise (£3.75), perfect french fries with a classic eggy butter sauce.

Next up was the dish of the night, and the one Nibs had picked out from the start, the chargrilled chicken with white beans, savoy cabbage and smoked aioli (£6.50).  Again topped with watercress, the thigh meat was so tender and the beans provided a thick sauce for mopping up with the bread.  This was the one. 

The final savoury dish to arrive was the ox cheek bourguignon with ventrenche, a French bacon (£8).  There were little toasted soldiers too.  The meat was as cheeks should be, falling apart and the sauce was another candidate for the baguette.  Which seemed never ending. 

We ended with the chocolate pudding, with ice cream and hazelnuts, it was layers of crunchy pastry on top of a warm chocolate sauce, a little sweet for my liking but we were too full for cheese.

I absolutely adored everything I ate that night, and the whole thing would have been a steal had it not been for the £100 we spent on champagne, but we had an amazing time and I can't wait to return and try everything I didn't get chance to eat on the first occasion.  Especially the charcuterie and cheese selections. 

One thing that niggled me was the bar seating, I found the chairs really uncomfortable and I usually favour sitting at the bar.  You can see in this pic that there's something not right with them, they really dig into your back.  Anyways, it's a small gripe.  We had a brilliant evening.  I think it would be a great place for a date.  Or a large group, there's a large communal table to the rear.  Love the place.

Blanchette
9 D'Arblay St
W1F
9/10