Over two decades in England, Thanksgiving, Black Friday and the Fourth of July are holidays that ... with the exception of one office-based emergency ... I've always taken off to celebrate the traditions of my homeland. This year, however, is my first as an independent contractor. And in my new world of you-don't-work-you-don't-get-paid, taking a four-day weekend seemed excessive. So I hit the office on Thursday, lined up a celebratory dinner, then took off Black Friday to start the Christmas decorating and indulged in a spectacular feast that night.
I have certainly squeezed in the appropriate American essentials of shopping, holiday decorating and eating yourself silly ... though that last bit was a good deal more elegant than your average family feast, and didn't quite hit the traditional buttons. Though the chef tried.
We had our Thanksgiving Dinner at the Landsdowne Club in London. Thanks to its American heritage (built by the prime minister that settled the American Revolution, later home to department-store magnate Selfridge), the club has always prided itself in hosting Thanksgiving dinner. As we were both up in London, we gave it a try.
It was delicious, though a bit off piste for what most Americans would recognise as traditional Thanksgiving. Posh plating (see turkey, left). No green been casserole. Bread sauce with turkey? Most Americans don't know what bread sauce is, and when you explain it to them they can't wrap their heads around the concept. Most amusing was American pancakes for dessert. Putting pancakes in the meal-finishing slot is a typical European mistake; wildly puzzling to Americans who see this dish solidly in the breakfast category. Meanwhile, there was no pecan pie. But the turkey was delicious, as was my smoked haddock and clam chowder that preceded it. They managed the best pumpkin pie I've had in Europe. Light, airy and a long gourmet mile from the Libby Pumpkin original ... but probably better. The revelation of the night was an Austrian Pinot Noir that was the wine discovery of the month.
This was just the warm up, however. Friday's dinner made your average Thanksgiving meal look like a humble snack.
We've been using L'Ortolan, the only Michelin-starred establishment in our neighbourhood, as our special occasion restaurant since we moved to our current house. A couple years ago I heard people raving about how incredible the chef's table was there, and it's been on my bucket list ever since. We finally took the plunge, booking about five months ago for this exclusive 4-seater table in the heart of the kitchen.
It's a measure of just how much food culture has changed in England that sitting in the kitchen, watching chefs work their magic and having the chance to chat with the staff throughout the evening has become the hottest option in any top restaurant. It must be a delight for the restaurant owners, who are charging premium prices to squeeze people into unloved, undecorated nooks in their kitchens, then charge them for the most extravagant meal the place is able to deliver. But if you're seriously into your food, it's worth it.
There is only one chef's table here, seating just four people a night, thus it must be booked many months in advance.
We've never had a bad meal at L'Ortolan, which always delivers the exceptional tastes, beautiful presentations and intriguing wine matches you expect from a Michelin star restaurant. The chef's table is more of the same. MUCH more. It's as if they want to show off everything they are capable of producing. Even though they're small plates, it can be a bit of a trial by the time you get to your fourth dessert.
Yes. FOURTH. That is excessive, even for me.
But before you get to those sweets, you'll start with canapés followed by four fish courses. Then a
foie gras course. Then, for some odd reason, another fish course. Then comes the venison. Then the cheese. And after the aforementioned desserts there are, of course, petit fours to go with the coffee. Counting every plate with food that passes before you, that's fourteen courses. And eleven of them each come with their own carefully matched glass of wine.
It's four times more expensive than your average dinner out. But since you're eating and drinking four times as much, it's hard to quibble with the value for money. Of course, you don't weigh up value in a place like this by quantity. It's about quality and ... for the kind of people who'll fork over the cash for a chef's table ... unique tastes and experiences combined with a highly individualised experience.
The dish of the night for me was, rather predictably, the foie gras. The new twist? Pan-fried fresh liver served atop a gingerbread puree (we'd discovered that flavour pairing in Gascony, but this refined preparation kicked things up) with blueberries. A novel combination for me, and magnificent. Even more unusual was pairing it with red wine. Logic and tradition says it shouldn't work, but the Barbera d'Alba actually balanced with the fruit and cut some of the fat with its acidity.
Nipping at that course's heels was an extraordinary venison, served on a white plate painted with a slash of chocolate, dotted with spheres of roasted beetroot, blackberries, deep-fried crispy kale and a quenelle of purple mashed potato. A few years ago, dark purples, blacks and browns were all the rage at the Chelsea Flower Show; this was that trend on a plate. And it tasted as good as it looked.
Other noteworthy entries in this parade were: salmon that was both cured and cooked in a sous vide, for delicate flavour and texture; a crab salad with watermelon and tempura; and a forest floor-inspired dessert with a mushroom carefully constructed out of dark and white chocolate ganaches. The wines were uniformly excellent, though relatively traditional with the exception of that foie gras match.
The most outstanding element, as you would expect, is being in the kitchen. L'Ortolan's chef's table is exactly across from the pass, where all the savoury courses are plated up and sent into the dining room. The four of us sat along one side, theatre style, to watch the show. And what a show it was. If you're as big a fan of Masterchef as we are, you could sit there for three hours watching plates come together and never be bored. We saw the mood move from enthusiastic "game on" energy to diligent delivery up to high pressure as 9pm, a full dining room and two private parties crushed into a peak of demand. (The action came with equivalent language; this is not a place for the meek hearted.) And then we watched as service wound down, the team spirit reappeared and jollity took over as they cleaned the kitchen and prepared for the next day. Most of the team lives in adjacent staff accommodation, and the camaraderie reminds you of a tightly knit college fraternity.
Though everyone was polite and some section heads engaged more than others, I sense the head chef would have been more relieved if he hadn't had to deal with us that night. It certainly wasn't the chatty, interactive experience we had at the
chef's table at Niche in St. Louis, but L'Ortolan has at least twice the covers and a Michelin star to defend. So I'll forgive them for paying a bit less attention to us, and a bit more to running their business. Still, once they realised how interested we were, everyone did their best to answer questions and give us detail on dishes. In what's famously a male-dominated profession, I found it interesting that it was the women ... sous and pastry chefs ... who were the stars of the evening.
My night reached its zenith when the latter invited me onto her station to check out her sourdough starter and gave me tips for improving my own. Sure enough, Sunday's loaf was much improved. If I could charge £20 a loaf, I might be on the path to paying for a return visit...
