It was half an artichoke heart, turned to such perfection it might have been engineered on a lathe, stuffed with a layer of umami goodness that might have been mushroom duxelles, covered with a perfect dome of some sort of light mousse and adorned with tiny crouton and micro herbs. It was only the accompaniment to the magnificent bit of skate wing that was billed as the main event, but it was so striking it took my mind back to one of the best dishes of my life … the decadent artichokes Lucullus at London’s iconic Le Gavroche.
“Who’s in the kitchen?” I gasped to the friend who’d invited me to this amazing lunch. “Is it a famous chef?” My friend wasn’t sure but did a bit of surreptitious Googling beneath the marble table and discovered a proverbial apple that hadn’t fallen far from the tree. Caractère is the culinary love-child of Emily Roux, daughter of Michel and grand-daughter of Albert, and Diego Ferrari, former head chef at the Roux-owned Gavroche and now Emily’s husband as well as business partner.
Their exquisitely-designed, smoothly-staffed Notting Hill restaurant is a beautiful fusion of Italy and France. Classics from both sides of the Alps dance together here, though a hard look at the menu shows that ingredients lean towards the Italian while preparation methods look to the French. The wine list, as pricey as you might imagine, tends to split right down the middle and does have some good value by-the-glass choices for those trying to stay on the right side of profligate. (Lesser-known wines from Southern Italy help there.) The menu organisation is a bit mystifying, offering two choices under each of a list of five adjectives (Curious! Subtle! Delicate! Robust! Greedy!). Plus a sixth, Strong, for the cheese course.
Nor do those adjectives really fit the dishes beneath them. I'd never call barbecued octopus delicate, and the desserts were far too petite to satisfy a truly greedy sweet tooth. Though they were perfectly-sized for a multi-course extravaganza that also featured a pre-dessert and petit four.
The perplexing menu set up may just be a clever marketing ploy to push you into the tasting menu (five courses for £90), or you can decide between the adjectives and select three courses at lunch time for £40. We were in a celebratory mood and went for the tasting, particularly appealing as it allowed individual choice for each course rather than mandating the whole table have the same. Some sanity prevailed, however, and we went for glasses of wine rather than the £80 accompanying wine flight. Thank heavens. I barely avoided the post-prandial nap home on the train as it was; nodding off might have ended my day in Cardiff.
The amuse bouche set the scene, as beautiful and packed with flavour as the rest of the meal would be.
Then a Red Sicilian prawn tartare with tomato ponzu jelly and Kristal caviar. Curious, evidently. I ordered it based on the memory of having those distinctive crustaceans in Sicily, where the natives all get very excited when fresh catches come in. The flavour, indeed, would have returned me to that magical island, had it not been for my fascination with what I could only call a blackberry of caviar on top of the jelly dome. Did they tweeze each egg into place? It was almost too beautiful to eat. I managed anyway.
Next came Caractère's trademark cacio e pepe, made with strips of celeriac rather than pasta. (That's subtle, evidently.) It sounds perverse, but is a substitute so perfect it's arguably better than the traditional tagliatelle. Lighter, a bit more bite, with just a hint of sharpness to balance the richness of the cheese. It is an almost laughable transformation of a humble peasant dish, and leaves you wanting more.
More comes not as pasta, but the exquisite skate and artichoke dish described above. aka delicate. Followed by a plate that deserved its robust description: roast loin of veal, layered potato, apple and smoked bacon, veal jus. I honestly can't tell you exactly what that triangle on top of the potato was. Presumably the apple and bacon pressed into a flat, crunchy delight. It tasted as good as it looked.
Greedy should have been applied to the cheese course, as anyone who moved on to that before the tripartite desert should consider a career in competitive eating. My oversized appetite is the bane of my existence ... or at least of my health ... but I couldn't have managed it. Although I would have loved to have seen what they did with it.
Beauty is an essential element of all fine dining; you eat with your eyes first. But that seems even more true at Caractère, where each plate did indeed seem like a little work of art. Did you spot the marbleised coating on those chocolate petit four above? The same attention is given to the dining room, all white marble, rich grey greens, terra cottas and burnished brass. The chairs are comfortable and the servers charming. Ours bore an almost-disturbing resemblance to Lin-Manuel Miranda, I wondered if we were going to end up in an Encanto flash mob as part of the soundtrack's Oscar bid. But the atmosphere remained quiet and peaceful throughout. They could cram more tables in here but I suspect have made a purposeful decision not to. It's a remarkably calming environment.
For me, Caractère's only drawback is the challenge of getting to and from it; as it's not on our usual London flight path. Which means, much as I'd love to try it again, I'm not sure when that will get into the diary. Though it should. Given that my husband and I have spent the entirety of our relationship bickering over whether French or Italian cuisine is better, Caractère feels like the ideal battleground to fight it out. Or exhaust ourselves trying.
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