There are good restaurants and there are great restaurants, and then there are a very small handful of restaurants that are just downright special: today, The Ledbury proved to be very special indeed. Respect for the ingredients, clean brilliantly precise flavours but all there for a purpose and all working together. And of course all ingredients brilliantly cooked. Front of house too delivered excellent service but in a relaxed and friendly way rather than with stiff formality that two stars often risk. And finally, it's great value for money: given what you'll spend here versus say our terrible disappointment at Scott's earlier in the week, the overall package is perhaps the best in London.
Only our meals at Hibiscus and Le Champignon Sauvage (Cheltenham) compare, and that hierarchy includes three star luminaries like Gordon Ramsay and Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester. If only we lived a little closer to W11, we might permanently take up residence here.
Following a lovely bite size gingernut biscuit with foie gras parfait, diced liver and chives, we have an amuse bouche of cured salmon on citrus creme fraiche, with 'water cress caviar' and brown bread crumbs. Cleaning and clearing the palate for the meal ahead, like all the food we would eat today, it feels fresh, original and a touch playful, with colour for the eye, and texture and taste for the mouth.
The first menu course is a Ceviche of scallops with seaweed and herb oil, kohlrabi and frozen horseradish. Flying saucer like on the plate, a dark ring of seaweed and oil enclose the ceviche of scallops and a command centre dome of frozen horseradish. The frozen horseradish simultaneously cools and warms but it is the beautifully marinated scallops that are the stars of the dish, delicacy preserved with full flavour harnessed for you to savour.
This is followed by flame grilled mackerel with cucumber, Celtic mustard and Shiso. This was perhaps the best mackerel we've ever had. We'd enjoyed a good mackerel dish at Le Manoir (click here to see) but here, the skin was crisper, the flesh richer in clean flavours and the accompanying artichoke puree, mustard and Shiso dressing further enhancing the fish. There's also a cucumber jelly parcel with a mackerel tartare and pickled cucumber. We're again delighted.
Progressing to deeper flavours, we have a Buffalo milk curd (the early stage of cheese) topped with a grilled onion consomme served with mushrooms in Madeira, with a side plate (rather wood and pine plate) of Saint-Nectaire and truffle toast with truffle mayonnaise. Everything here is brilliant, the truffle toast drenched in deep truffle flavours yet without losing balance and the onion consomme likewise. It's that ability to bring out the essential ingredient flavours and then harmonise the whole dish that is characteristic throughout the meal and makes it all so enjoyable.
Only our meals at Hibiscus and Le Champignon Sauvage (Cheltenham) compare, and that hierarchy includes three star luminaries like Gordon Ramsay and Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester. If only we lived a little closer to W11, we might permanently take up residence here.
Following a lovely bite size gingernut biscuit with foie gras parfait, diced liver and chives, we have an amuse bouche of cured salmon on citrus creme fraiche, with 'water cress caviar' and brown bread crumbs. Cleaning and clearing the palate for the meal ahead, like all the food we would eat today, it feels fresh, original and a touch playful, with colour for the eye, and texture and taste for the mouth.
The first menu course is a Ceviche of scallops with seaweed and herb oil, kohlrabi and frozen horseradish. Flying saucer like on the plate, a dark ring of seaweed and oil enclose the ceviche of scallops and a command centre dome of frozen horseradish. The frozen horseradish simultaneously cools and warms but it is the beautifully marinated scallops that are the stars of the dish, delicacy preserved with full flavour harnessed for you to savour.
This is followed by flame grilled mackerel with cucumber, Celtic mustard and Shiso. This was perhaps the best mackerel we've ever had. We'd enjoyed a good mackerel dish at Le Manoir (click here to see) but here, the skin was crisper, the flesh richer in clean flavours and the accompanying artichoke puree, mustard and Shiso dressing further enhancing the fish. There's also a cucumber jelly parcel with a mackerel tartare and pickled cucumber. We're again delighted.
Progressing to deeper flavours, we have a Buffalo milk curd (the early stage of cheese) topped with a grilled onion consomme served with mushrooms in Madeira, with a side plate (rather wood and pine plate) of Saint-Nectaire and truffle toast with truffle mayonnaise. Everything here is brilliant, the truffle toast drenched in deep truffle flavours yet without losing balance and the onion consomme likewise. It's that ability to bring out the essential ingredient flavours and then harmonise the whole dish that is characteristic throughout the meal and makes it all so enjoyable.
cured salmon on citrus creme fraiche, with 'water cress caviar' and brown bread crumbs
Ceviche of scallops with seaweed and herb oil, kohlrabi and frozen horseradish
flame grilled mackerel with cucumber, Celtic mustard and Shiso
Saint-Nectaire and truffle toast
Buffalo milk curd topped with a grilled onion consomme, mushrooms in Madeira
Two fish dishes to share next: Cod fillet (pan roasted) with pumpkin polenta, shellfish emulsion and squid ink and yuzu puree, together with fillet of sea bass (pan roasted) with pickled radish, buckwheat, squid and shellfish consomme. Both were brilliant, the sea bass less busy but a little cleaner for that, the cod a little more complex but offering more on the plate (including deep fried mussels which kept the essential mussel taste and texture while adding the always welcome joys of deep frying). Which is best though is purely a matter of preference.
Roast cod with pumpkin polenta, shellfish emulsion and yuzu
Roast sea bass with radishes, buckwheat and squid
We then enjoy a slow cooked jowl of pork with chicory (reduction and dust) and white carrot puree which arrives at the table initially in its pre-portioned state, having been cooked with liquorice and spices. When served, the crackling comes in its own pot, there's a Pedro Ximenez jelly on the plate and a thin sheen of fat glistening on the surface of the pork. The flavours are divine relegating pork belly to the shade with the jowl offering the juiciest, tenderest pork expression that we can remember having, possibly ever.
slow cooked jowl of pork with chicory and white carrot puree
A little table theatre follows with with a smoked filled glass cloche brought to the table and lifted to reveal leg of pigeon (without claws, unlike Texture) and a separate plate each with the roast breast and tart of grilled Cevennes onion. Smoked over dill, meat from the confit leg falls of the bone with only the gentlest of teasing while the breast offers up the deep earthy flavours that you feel a game bird should. It's a kitchen 'secret' that The Ledbury (unusually) hang and age the pigeons before cooking which seems by evidence to concentrate the flavour (we hang other meats so why not pigeon?). The proof though is in the eating and it puts into the shade the recent pigeon dish at La Chapelle for example as well as so many others.
roast breast of pigeon and tart of grilled Cevennes onion
pigeon wing
And so finally to dessert. A refreshing pre-dessert of olive oil pana cotta with poached pear and a pear granita is followed by our ordered desserts plus one to try. There's the brown sugar tart with Muscat grapes and stem ginger ice cream, a caramelised blood orange souffle with orange leaf ice cream and finally, a creme caramel.
Each dessert was a beautiful example of its kind, balancing out sweet notes with other aspects. Indeed, the absolute star here is the brown sugar tart which sounds potentially very sweet indeed with the ominous 'sugar' word in the title but is so light, delicate and balanced that it rivals the best of desserts we've enjoyed over the past year including the Cep Tart at Hibiscus and the Custard Tart by Marcus Wareing (the one on Great British Menu). So light, so balanced, so utterly surprising, we relished it; indeed, we relished them all. Petits fours in an old fashioned tin box finish the meal
Each dessert was a beautiful example of its kind, balancing out sweet notes with other aspects. Indeed, the absolute star here is the brown sugar tart which sounds potentially very sweet indeed with the ominous 'sugar' word in the title but is so light, delicate and balanced that it rivals the best of desserts we've enjoyed over the past year including the Cep Tart at Hibiscus and the Custard Tart by Marcus Wareing (the one on Great British Menu). So light, so balanced, so utterly surprising, we relished it; indeed, we relished them all. Petits fours in an old fashioned tin box finish the meal
olive oil pana cotta with poached pear and a pear granita
brown sugar tart with Muscat grapes and stem ginger ice cream
caramelised blood orange souffle with orange leaf ice cream
creme caramel
petits fours
Hundreds and probably thousands have praised The Ledbury before us (we're late again we know) and we had some anxiety that its reputation and accolades too much precede it, potentially resulting in a disappointment; we need not have feared.
It was also interesting to note that Brett Graham was not in the kitchen today. While it would have been nice if he were, it really didn't matter because his team did a brilliant job in his absence, so you'd never know. Brett deserves praise for bringing on a team that can deliver that output in his absence but his team deserve even more praise for actually doing it today. Front of house equally deserve applause for a friendly, flawless service. Brett should feel very proud on the whole operation and every member of his staff.
Even at other brilliant two star venues like sister restaurant The Square, there are weaker dishes in the tasting line up, but here there were none, they got each and every dish right. Whether it's presentation, seasoning, depth of individual flavours, the combination of flavours, originality or really anything else you care to name, The Ledbury consistently, and without exception, delivered. Grading, rating and league tables are difficult, more often than not meaningless and something we try to avoid, but our meal at The Ledbury today might just be the best meal we've had in London... ever.
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Related posts:
Hibiscus
Le Champignon Sauvage
Le Manoir
Pied a Terre
The Square
Restaurant Gordon Ramsay
It was also interesting to note that Brett Graham was not in the kitchen today. While it would have been nice if he were, it really didn't matter because his team did a brilliant job in his absence, so you'd never know. Brett deserves praise for bringing on a team that can deliver that output in his absence but his team deserve even more praise for actually doing it today. Front of house equally deserve applause for a friendly, flawless service. Brett should feel very proud on the whole operation and every member of his staff.
Even at other brilliant two star venues like sister restaurant The Square, there are weaker dishes in the tasting line up, but here there were none, they got each and every dish right. Whether it's presentation, seasoning, depth of individual flavours, the combination of flavours, originality or really anything else you care to name, The Ledbury consistently, and without exception, delivered. Grading, rating and league tables are difficult, more often than not meaningless and something we try to avoid, but our meal at The Ledbury today might just be the best meal we've had in London... ever.
Return to homepage
Related posts:
Hibiscus
Le Champignon Sauvage
Le Manoir
Pied a Terre
The Square
Restaurant Gordon Ramsay
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