Roussillon stays true to form, delivering masterful French cuisine with great service

Balance, I've always believed, is the secret to life. Whether it's spices in a dish, decorative elements in a room or the things keeping you busy, balancing the elements around you leads to contentment.

Letting things slide out of proportion is a recipe for stress.

Of course, sometimes you can't do anything to avoid the madness. I'd been doing pretty well on the balance beam lately, managing to keep the Mom, work, travel, Piers and wedding planning balls up in the air. I did this by temporarily jettisoning a few things ... pro-active management of my social life, diet and exercise ... but things were going well. Then came the element I couldn't control. Work has exploded, with time required and related stress roughly doubling. Without an ability to adjust the balance any further, spots of well-managed stress relief become critical. Sleep. Weekend hours doing nothing (and ignoring the to do list while doing so). Long hugs. Good meals.

This is all my excuse, and I'm sticking to it proudly, for heading to Roussillon and opting for the chef's menu on a totally average Wednesday night, without a special occasion in sight to justify the flagrant expense, the copious alcohol or the high calorific content. (Well that, and the fact that we were just up the street for a pre-nuptial session with our vicar. As long as we were in the neighbourhood...)

This is, without doubt, one of my favourite restaurants in London, right up there with Locanda Locatelli for delivering something beyond the ordinary every time. (See 8.11.07 for a previous visit's write up, though I have been since.) Like Locatelli's, it takes traditional food ... in this case, French ... and delivers with twists and nuances that present a whole new level. My French boss admitted that this was a far better French restaurant than the majority of fine dining establishments in his home country. It certainly beat any of the meals we had in Paris, and as this blog records, we ate well.

Things started happily with the triple whammy of a cozy corner table next to a window, a tasty amuse bouche (parmesan puff with goat's cheese) loaded with tomato, so I got to eat them all, and an unprompted offer of tap water. Three cheers for restaurants who don't try to guilt you into paying exorbitant prices for something you don't need. Another fine example of their service mentality? The moment they heard Piers was allergic to tomato, another plate of parmesan puffs hit the table. Accompanied by a chatty maitre d' and sommelier who steered us towards some exceptional and little known French varieties in the bottom third of the price list. How can you not love these guys?

We started with Salcombe crab with mango and passion fruit and coriander. The white crab and the orange of the fruit (it came as a sauce encircling the meat) made for a gorgeous plate, and one we'll try again at home. But with more crab. It was a tiny serving. Of course, we had a lot of courses still to come. Next up, pan fried foie gras with kumquat jam, pistachios and a slight dusting of dark chocolate. A mouthful of unctuous richness, cut through with the sharpness of the fruit, given a hint of bitterness by the cocoa and a bit of salt from the nuts. Bliss. And at the beginning of this course our friendly maitre d' had appeared with glasses of sweet gewurztraminer on the house, because the white we were drinking with the rest of the meal was very good, but just wasn't going to do the foie gras justice.

It was at about this time that the stresses of work and life started to slide away. A process helped by the confit of Scottish salmon (so beautiful we wondered, would it be totally pretentious to put a sous vide cooker on our wedding registry?) atop a velvety slick of curried parsnip. Then, just as a little palate cleanser, mind you, came the wild mushroom cappuccino with coffee jelly and cep veloute. A necessary break to separate the salmon from the next fish course, Atlantic halibut with Yukon gold potatoes, bergamot, lemon and clams. An incredibly simple dish, but cooked with such skill I knew I could never get close in my own kitchen.

And then, as any good chef's menu should, they finished the mains with a hearty, meaty option to put the savoury icing on the cake. Anjou squab pigeon with almond milk puree and ravioli of the confit leg with a sauce of cherry and pigeon jus. (We had, of course, ordered a couple of glasses of red to go with this course.) The almond puree was the only real misfire of the meal; far too sweet for the dish, we decided it would make a fantastic filling for a chocolate cake but didn't work here. The confit ravioli was, however, absolutely sublime and one of the high points of the meal.

That was really the climax from the rich, comfort food perspective, as the desserts that followed were about cutting those heavy flavours and leaving your taste buds on a light and lively note. First Yorkshire rhubarb with goats curd and macadamia nuts ... an airy take on a cheesecake ... then a blood orange souffle with dark chocolate sorbet. I've never been a sorbet fan, figuring that if I'm eating something cold, scoopable and sugary I want the hit of dairy as well. But this did a remarkable job of making me forget the absence of the cow's contribution. And of course, it would have been low fat as well! The two desserts were accompanied by another complimentary glass from the maitre d', because you really shouldn't finish your meal without it.

This is such great guest management. Two free glasses of wine on top of the chef's menu and our existing wine purchases is hardly going to put a dent in their profit margin. But it leaves me feeling like I got fabulous value for money, rather than wondering in horror how I could spend that much on a mid-week dinner. Why don't more people figure this out?

And so, I feel a lot better. I was pampered and treated like a queen. I marveled at the artistry set before me and relished every bite. I got to do it looking into the eyes of the love of my life. Frankly, my faith in the worth of mankind was restored. As long as there are evenings like this to be had, then I can put up with the stress required to earn the cash to pay for them.