It's a starry week as L'Ortolan delivers once again, and Murano changes my mind

I knew the week was going to be a Weight Watchers disaster when I brought up my diary on Monday morning. Here's what I saw.

Wednesday: Lunch with Martin (at Michelin-starred L'Ortolan)
Thursday: Game dinner/wine tasting at Newlyn's
Friday: Dinner for Lisa's Mom (at Michelin-starred Murano)
Saturday: Penny's birthday party (expect heavy drinking)
Sunday: Medill Dinner (Bumpkin, South Ken)

Oh, dear. Dangerous. But a great deal of fun. Let's start with the starry spots for this entry. 

It was my third time at L'Ortolan, but my first on a business outing. I already knew the food was good, but now I can add that the venue is quiet enough to have undistracted conversations, it offers broad tables for spreading out documents and has a staff ready to work around the ebbs and flows of your business conversation. And who'll tuck you away in the conservatory with more coffee when your meeting goes on so long they need to start setting the place up for dinner. Additional kudos to the sommelier and head waiter who recognised me and treated me as a returning regular. (Either they have remarkable memories, or we made a very big impression at last month's anniversary dinner.)

The food on this third outing was consistent in quality of taste and presentation, but completely different once again in specific dishes. No resting on laurels here, rather a consistent rotation of food influenced by the seasons. Lunch is always the most cost-effective way to try a Michelin-starred place, and this is even more true outside of London. The five course tasting menu at L'Ortolan is £38, with no difference in quality from dinner. (But perhaps slightly smaller portions.)

We started with a plate elevating the humble beetroot to art: slices of red and white root, cubes of solid red accenting scorched, smoky goat cheese. On to a duck bon bon. A meatball of confit leg, rolled in strands of something delicate and crispy, fried and served on a bed of celeriac remoulade, with a couple slices of fir-smoked duck on the side. Absolutely exquisite. I could eat that for lunch daily! The fish course was a delicate morsel of plaice served with a finger-sized cannelloni stuffed with brown shrimp and chicken, brought together on the plate with ribbons of zucchini on a bed of very light red sauce. Finally onto a dish that heralded the oncoming winter: oxtail filled with mushroom mousse with a turnip puree. Hearty, substantial flavours made delicate by its small serving size. Just a few bites to satisfy.

And, of course, to leave room for pudding. Billed as a dark chocolate mousse, I would have described it as a lighter chocolate truffle rolled in dark chocolate shavings. Better, to my mind. Served with a sheet of salt caramel jelly draped enticingly over a scattering of toasted hazelnuts. Perfect. And, because my colleague Martin and I are as serious about our food as about our corporate copywriting, we had to order an extra dessert. Because we were both keen to experience squash ice cream. More delicate than pumpkin (which is, of course, very familiar to the American palate), served on gingery biscuit with hints of cinnamon and nutmeg. This would be an exquisite gourmet twist on Thanksgiving tradition.

 That amazing meal would satisfy most people as their special meal out for months. Thus it was with just a hint of embarrassment that I crossed the threshold at Angela Hartnett's Murano 50 hours later. Don't blame me, blame Lisa. Her mother was visiting from Minnesota and we were giving her the star treatment. Readers may remember that Piers and I dined here for his birthday in July and, though we were impressed, I questioned whether the Michelin star and the price was worth it. Was Murano that much better then less-famous Italian spots in London? Then, the answer was no. This week, it was a definitive yes. 

Perhaps it was that dinner there is superior to lunch. Perhaps we got lucky at Como Lario our first time around, since our return visit in September was decidedly average. Perhaps it was the fact that the maitre d' not only remembered us from July, but remembered Piers' tomato allergy. And perhaps it was that our hostess Lisa, one half of that dangerous duo of Northwestern Girl wine expertise, teamed up with the sommelier to keep a steady flow of unique and memorable bottles coming with each course. Whatever the reason, the combination jumped Murano into the pantheon of one of the best Italian meals I've had in London. Or maybe anywhere.

One of the innovations of Hartnett's place is that, though the menu is organised roughly into starters, pastas, fish courses, etc., you can have anything you want, in any sequence. The kitchen simply adjusts the size to match your order. We went for five courses at £85. Knowing two of those would be dessert and cheese, the five of us set to work choosing our trio of savouries.

I started with slow-cooked aubergine (eggplant) with tomato, mozzarella and basil, one of those dishes that shows off how, when you have the best ingredients, you don't have to muck them up with complexity. On to quail agnolotti (a type of ravioli typical of the Piedmont region) with white onion puree, rosemary jus and black truffle. Delicate pasta, rich meat, the foresty flavour of the fungus. Wow. Building up to monkfish on a potato puree with smoked bone marrow and glazed chicken wing, demonstrating that particular fish as worthy of 

appearing on the meat menu as on the watery one.

There were many shared forks and eyes rolling in ecstasy around the table, though I can happily report that none of the samples I had of other dishes made me wish I'd ordered differently. (Although Piers' astonishing pork belly, pictured, came close.) There's the standard of a perfect meal, I'd say, when everyone has tastes of each others' plate, agrees it's all good, yet each individual is convinced she or he made the best choice.

Dessert was a heavenly pistachio souffle that managed to be light and airy while capturing a strong essence of the nut's flavour, spiked by the dark chocolate sauce poured down a hole poked in the souffle's centre. And then the cheese cart. Heavily French with a few Italian and English choices, notable for my favourite pouligny-St.-Pierre (a pyramid-shaped, crumbly goat's cheese) and a baked vacherin they brought out of the kitchen and served in steaming tea spoons.

The wine list here is a weighty, hard-backed tome, difficult to navigate without the sommelier because it's skewed towards tiny organic, bio-dynamic vineyards that supply the restaurant direct. Everything we tasted was a wonderful discovery, but this isn't stuff you're likely to find on offer in your local shop. The most memorable bottles were Sicilian and French. The first a frappato, a little known blending grape used exclusively in the 2010 from the Occhipinti vineyard. The light colour belied a deep, complex wine loaded with soft fruits. The second, from La Terrasse d'Elise, was the 2009 Le Pradel. Another red, this one spicier and moving to a port-like flavour, perfect with the diversity of the cheese course.

Most people don't eat this well in a lifetime, and I've done it twice in a week. Yes, life is good.