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L'Ortolan: fine French dining outside the M25

13/9/2012

6 Comments

 
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L’ortolan is, as I’m sure readers of a food blog will know, a small bird that is both a delicacy and an illegal meal in France. The bird is drowned in Armagnac plucked, oven cooked then eaten whole, bones and all, under a napkin. This 'under a napkin' lark is said to be either i) to fully capture the aromas, or ii) to hide your crime of eating a tinnyn songbird from the eyes of God (though personally I think if God is worth his name, he can probably see through napkins; just saying). It is said that Francois Mitterrand’s last meal was two of the birds, after which he didn’t eat again for 10 days before passing. L’ortolan is not on the menu at L’ortolan as far as I could see, though perhaps there’s a secret password that when uttered with a nod and a wink in the right direction...

The restaurant today is under the direction of Executive Chef Alan Murchison who will likely be familiar to Great British Menu fans having reached the finals this year where he demonstrated a meticulous attention to detail leading me to expect a precise and focussed menu today. The show also highlighted his commitment toward fitness (you’re on your own there Alan) but it all adds up to a chef with a passion to deliver the very best.

We’ve been wanting to go for some time, and today heading west along the M4, it seemed an ideal stop off for lunch (though a lunch for one today however). Looking to Urbanspoon, there are no blog posts for L’ortolan currently posted; this is not then a blogger destination.

Turning off the M4, L’ortolan is immediately signposted for which I’m grateful despite having SatNav. There’s few things more frustrating than driving around unable to find your destination, knowing you’re close but still arriving late. 

I didn’t really know what to expect of the place, it’s not in London so it’s probably not in an office block but it’s sort of Reading so it could be towny. As turns out, it’s quite a beautiful location, made more so by a rare dose of late summer sun and a blue sky. The venue is apparently an old vicarage (l’ortolan eating vicars giving it its name perhaps?) but it has been a restaurant for some some years now. It’s peaceful and calming, and only if you listen carefully can you here the M4 traffic. It makes for a good first impression.

My pre lunch orange juice is taken in the greenhouse style conservatory where some nibbles are also served and where you can peruse the menu. There’s plenty of choices with the lunch menu, a la carte and two tasting menus. I also like the fact that there’s a summer tasting menu of 5 courses for £39, something to suit everybody’s pocket (Novikov take note).

The dining room is what you’d expect for Michelin starred French restaurant but the room mood is relatively relaxed with the sound of table chatter suppressing the piped smooth jazz that otherwise fills the momentary synchronised conversational pause.

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The aroma of warm bread is always a good way to start and a choice of four home baked breads are presented: sunblushed tomato, focaccia, sour dough and granary baguette. I sample each, it’s good stuff, the salty herby hit from the focaccia my favourite. An amuse of tomato essence and goats cheese in a tea cup is light and fresh, a nice way to start.
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bread
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tomato essence
My starter is titled ‘Langoustine’ with the menu's written style being a featured ingredient followed by a description, here: tartar of langoustine, cucumber jelly, lime dressed crab, prawn crackers, ginger emulsion. I liked this dish as far as it went but sadly it failed to go far enough for what I wanted. The langoustine tartar comprised only two thin disks of langoustine, canapé size, which together could only have summed up to a small fraction of the langoustine’s body mass. I’m not entirely cheated overall however, there’s a reasonable amount of crab here, and indeed, crab would have been a better name for the dish because it both tops the langoustine and lives more generously under the ‘simulated sea’ of cucumber jelly but it’s not entirely the dish I expected. 
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Langoustine
The main course ‘lemon sole’ is indeed what it says, coming here with coco beans, radish, samphire, cockles and champagne & verbena sauce. This is good stuff: precise cooking, good quality lemon sole, melt in the mouth perfection on the fish. It’s the kind of dish you expect from a good Michelin starred French restaurant which is absolutely fine and I doubt there’s much like it anywhere in the near vicinity without turning tail and crossing back inside the M25.
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Sole
A pre dessert is a coconut espuma with mango which delights as the mango unexpectedly bursts like an egg. The waiter says it is NOT a spherification, though I didn’t entirely understand what exactly he said it was instead, something about the freezer. It’s nicely delightful however and with coconut and mango, tropically fresh.
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My dessert is ‘Lemon’, that is lemon curd, crispy meringues, raspberry sorbet, pickled raspberry, making it again a dish with an on-plate power play, being lemon versus raspberry with raspberry coming out on top. There's a further mix of childhood sweets remembered and a more modern deconstruction element, and to be fair, every element was enjoyable. But if the langoustine should have been more languostiney, so the lemon dish should have been a little more lemony. Either that or change the menu from headlining so prominently a single ingredient.

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Lemon
With admittedly rather little to go on before hand, this restaurant was nevertheless broadly what I had expected. Staff worked hard to deliver the appropriate customer experience and the meal was excellent in its delivery, only falling down on when it came to the menu description in not always delivering exactly what I had expected – it could just be me. Elsewhere, there was an odd quirk of having Audi Reading brochures in the toilet, allowing you to combine eating out with buying a new car, but I loved the fish tank that separated the walkway from the kitchen making a feature from a difficult space.

Undoubtedly a talented kitchen, prices to suit most pockets and staff that try hard, L'ortolan's good reputation and Michelin star is well deserved and as the only starred restaurant in Reading, is an understandably popular choice with locals when they want to be spoiled just that little but more than normal.  

L'Ortolan on Urbanspoon
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6 Comments
Ian
13/9/2012 07:06:42 pm

A very fair review. L'Ortolan was my local Michelin restaurant when I lived in the area and it never let me down. It was consistently good. Over the years I enjoyed tasting menus, a special Mother's Day menu, and the surprise menu. What really made each visit was the wine matching and knowledge of their excellent sommelier, Stephen Nisbet.

All that said, given the choice I'd go the extra few miles and head towards The Royal Oak at Paley Street, particularly at this time of year for their superb grouse. That place served dishes I'll never forget, whereas whilst l'Ortolan has left the lasting feeling of always giving a good meal, I can't name you more than one or two dishes a couple of years on.

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Gg link
14/9/2012 06:59:58 am

I've passed the signposts to this restaurant many many times and haven't yet eaten there. After this review I've made up my mind to book once and for all!

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Nick
14/9/2012 12:23:43 pm

Was the egg dessert cold? Maybe they used the anti griddle from polyscience

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Alan spedding ( cumbriafoodie ) link
17/9/2012 03:12:03 am

Some good cooking history here , Nico , Burton race and now Mr Murchison.Your visit for lunch looked really nice, modern and well put together.
Would like to see an up to date take on the L`ortolan experience and if Chef Murchison could re-create a politically correct modern version.....got me thinking now.

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Qin Xie link
18/9/2012 02:45:48 am

The sign posting was a bit of a recent phenomenon actually, it used to just be tucked away

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ProtoWhalePig
4/3/2013 02:39:19 pm

Well, my mouth is watering, especially for the lemon -- even if it wasn't as lemony as it could have been. And I'm really a cheesivore, not a desserter.

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