The well publicised brilliance of Dabbous has created an almost epidemic fervour to eat there and as is now widely known, it's booking something like a year in advance for dinner. A new review at this juncture therefore is caught uncomfortably between the absolute (is this good food for £54?), and the relative (does it live up to expectations of a restaurant with a year long waiting list?). Moreover, the reviewer is also required to navigate the twin perils of slavishly compliant agreement on that brilliance at one end of the spectrum versus contrarianism for the sake of it at the other. 

Given how privileged you feel just to be walking through the door, it's hard not to be influenced by what you already know. The tasting menu also seems a must and at £54 it does seem a bargain. For a restaurant that has been open just seven months or so, it seems odd to be talking about 'classic' or 'signature' dishes already but what starts the meal is surely it: peas with mint. The intense flavour of the pea mousse is splendidly complimented by the textures of the actual peas and shoots and then having distracted you from the left, bam, the mint granita floors you from the right. It is a case of classic combinations cleverly reworked giving the meal an early wow factor.

I have significant issues about the next dish however: tomato in its own juices. Serving tomatoes, a tomato or part of a tomato as a dish, essentially on its own, is now a popular thing to do in restaurants but its popularity is rarely matched by the quality of the dish itself. It too often leaves you thinking little more than, okay, I've just eaten a tomato (and paid £7 for the privilege). The pea dish succeeds because on some level it reveals to you a previously undiscovered essence of pea, with part of the delight coming from your own surprise that a humble pea, after all the times you've eaten it, still has any revelation left. If there's no revelation, there's only a good pea, or here, a good tomato, and while I might be happy to wait a year for revelation, waiting a year for a good tomato would leave me both perplexed and a little sad. This dish to me felt like a good tomato.

Coddled eggs is next and it is perhaps the other dish in the line up that is already a Dabbous classic. This is a very good dish indeed, and the eggs with the mushroom and smoked butter is always going to be a winning combination and when executed so well, as it is here, it's a joy to eat. But coddled eggs are obviously not unique or original to Dabbous leaving the dish feeling a little too familiar such that it must stake its claim to greatness on execution more than invention, though as already noted, it could be argued that it is indeed perfectly done. 

Dabbous staff kindly let us substitute one of the halibut dishes for the mackerel allowing us to see even more of the menu. We both agreed that the mackerel was the winner here as the full flavours of the mackerel burst through. One thing that is beyond doubt at Dabbous is the precision of the cooking, which is clear in every dish and is in abundance here with the fish.  

On the mains too we got to try one of each of the pork and the veal; we were torn as to which is best. The Barbecued Iberico pork initially struck me as the better of the two dishes with more immediate presence. After several bites however, the star of the plate turned out to be the acorn praline which was a fabulous crunchy addition to the dish and became the part of the dish, rather than the pork, that you most looked forward to with each mouthful. The pork I found to be too salted and while it is a small main, at the end of the dish, I wasn't desiring a bigger portion size. The veal took longer to reveal its complexities so grew as a dish in time and held our attention for longer.

Having already has a 'tomato in its own juices' as a starter, 'a peach in its own juices' as a dessert is either a brilliant piece of consistency/symmetry, or a menu malfunction. What's more, when it came as described, a peach segment in peach juice, even if they had done some fancy sous vide stuff to it, it was impossible to hold back quips about the man from Del Monte. I love peaches and I liked this dessert but is it a classic or great dessert, beyond aspirations of other chefs struggling to get a full restaurant and wondering Dabbous's secret? We were not so sure.

Finally, it's a custard cream pie which is a lovely little parcel of custard cream, though with a few days having passed since I ate this, I struggle to remember much more about it.

On the website, Dabbous talks of its cooking ethos in that 'food should impress through its sheer simplicity and restraint'. One feels the simplicity and restraint coming through on every plate though it fails to always impress. Sometimes it just feeling simple, as was the case with both the tomato and peach, and that's two of seven courses. And there's the rub, this would be a slither of an issue if you could book a table at Dabbous for next Tuesday, but you can't, you have to wait a year when surely expectations are going to have got the better of you, as they had already got the better of me.  

Other key ideas on the website are: light, modern, clean flavours, seasonal ingredients and product driven. It sounds familiar to another recently opened restaurant and I impishly wonder if Mikael Jonsson now wishes that he had opened Hedone in Fitzrovia rather than Chiswick. Having eaten at both restaurants this summer, I must confess that it is Hedone that I would be more excited about returning to.

Dabbous is indeed a brilliant first restaurant by a still very young chef and there's no doubting the arrival of a new star in the London restaurant firmament. However, the words of Charles Mackay is his 1852 classic The Madness of Crowds come to mind when he says, 'we find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit' and it is now harder to get a table at Dabbous than at any other restaurant in the country, including those of Brett Graham, Simon Rogan and the Rouxs. 

In conclusion, I really enjoyed my meal at Dabbous but it is not, being honest, the best meal I have had in the UK this year. Furthermore, I have a feeling that had the booking been held a year for this, with expectation commensurately soaring, I would have still enjoyed the food but almost certainly would have been disappointed overall.


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