Club Gascon confirms why we're off to cooking school

Balancing dinner and a show is never ideal.  You're either bolting down a pre-theatre meal at a ridiculously early hour, or your stomach is growling by Act 2 and you find yourself dining on a Waterloo burrito on the train home.  This time, with theatre on a Friday night and us both off for the afternoon, we thought we'd take another tack:  a big, leisurely lunch.

Our choice was Club Gascon.  As the only restaurant in London celebrating that particular region of Southwest France, I thought it was fantastically appropriate.  We're off to cooking school in Gascony in two weeks.  What better way to set the mood, and do a bit of research on the wines we might look for once we're there?

As it pushes past 17 years in operation, Club Gascon is one of the most dependable and well established of London's fine dining restaurants.  I'm not sure why I haven't mentioned it here before, since I've been here several times. Its location in Smithfield market made it an easy outing from the office when I worked at BT, and I've enjoyed many business lunches there.  All of them with exquisite food and, when we were drinking, an impressive wine list.  The menu has its gastronomic heart deep in Southwest France, with duck, foie gras and armagnac all given near-sacred prominence.

"But don't expect to find this in Gascony," the maitre d' warned.  "We've made it a bit more sophisticated."

Indeed, you're firmly in Michelin star territory here (they've held one since 2002) with artistic presentations, fanatical attention to detail, plates specifically designed for certain dishes, etc.  All served in an elegant, intimately-sized dining room with marble walls, neutral colours and an enormous, seasonal flower arrangement on the bar that could compete at Chelsea. As with any of the capital's pricier restaurants, a weekday lunch allows you to push the boat out for less money.  Currently, the five course spring tasting menu (seven if you count the amuse bouche and pre-dessert) is £65 and the matching five glass wine flight is £35.

Our two revelations of the meal were cardinale pulp and foie gras for dessert (pictured above).  The former is a tangy sauce made from carrots, beetroot and Worcestershire; given my constant quest to find red sauces in the face of my husband's tomato allergy, I need to play around with this one.  The concluding foie gras served with three kinds of strawberries (fresh, compote and dried) and a sweet Jurancon wine made perfect sense the minute the first bite hit my mouth.  Rich, soft, succulent and sweet.  Why didn't anyone think of this sooner?

On the long road leading up to that, we'd started with a creme Catalane (something like a loose flan) heavy with spring herbs, given a sense of the beach with a sea urchin jus.  Next up, white asparagus (pictured left).  I've never really grasped the Franco-German obsession for the fat, pale stalks.  Give me the English green version any time.  But if you're going to do it, then a black pudding emulsion and pork crackling beats the hell out of the usual hollandaise.  The umami blasts continued with the violet tea smoked trout, which made beautifully subtle use of a flavour that, when overdone, can taste like your grannie's talcum powder.  This is where that cardinale pulp came in, adding a nice kick of sharpness to the mild fish.

The wines were all white up to this point.  Each excellent, the unfamiliar Bergerac, Corbieres and Tolosan made me eager to get to know this region better.  The only red, as is usual with most tasting menus these days, came with the main course.  Domaine de L'ocre Rouge's merlot gets my vote for the most interesting wine of the flight, bound to fool anyone into thinking it was something else ... I would have said syrah ... in a blind tasting.  It had all the fruit of merlot but was also elegantly light and a bit peppery.  Probably from the mineral rich soils on this estate where Provence, the Languedoc and Rhone come together.  Perfectly paired with the roast guinea fowl.

My only disappointment?  Having stated our impetus for coming, I'd dreamed that Gascon's staff was going to deluge me with recommendations of quirky little wineries, armagnac distillers and foie gras producers to visit.  I'd pictured the sommelier pulling up a chair, sitting down with a map and giving us some hot tips.  No such luck.  Polite, efficient and pleasant, the staff had a no-nonsense approach, a successful restaurant to run and a private event to set up for that evening.  The quirky discoveries will have to be our own.

In two weeks, we'll be settling into the Gascon Cooking School, surrounded by similar ingredients and ready to drink in the same traditions that inspired this tasting menu.  While I don't expect to create anything at the Club Gascon level, I do believe my cooking will get more sophisticated, and I'll be happy to incorporate more of this kind of French into my repertoire.  Our long, lingering lunch was a fine amuse bouche for the holiday to come.