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Pretty damn delicious and quite fabulous all round. That was the headline on our review of Tom Aikens's eponymous restaurant in the week that it opened in May and nothing much has changed since then, except a slight inching upwards of the prices. The restaurant itself is monochrome and chic, with a keen eye for quality: tables dressed with raw Irish linen and the finest crockery
and glassware.
Against this low-key backdrop, Aikens creates captivating modern dishes of classical construct that
always delight - wild salmon cured with beetroot and orange, served
with beetroot leaves, caviar and dill; confit rabbit with carrot and Sauternes jelly and a tarragon salad; roast turbot with celeriac fondant; pigeon steamed with thyme served with a chestnut veloute, cannelloni and soft lettuce; variations on a deeply flavoured, crystal-clear duck consomme that I dream about in cold weather; and an amazing dish of snails wrapped in a kind of lettuce ravioli.
Without doubt, Tom Aikens is the most brilliant chef working and cooking in London today. He and his restaurant are simply the best. Technically exacting - although the food on the plate is never as fussy as it sounds - it takes a kitchen brigade of 12 to service this 60-seat restaurant, which is only open from Monday to Friday, in the French manner.
Apparently, Aikens is also thinking of opening a brasserie in the capital, which is good news indeed. In the meantime, this is the spot for dazzling food and excellent wine service in what is Britain's definitive, modern gastronomic experience.
Nearly 30 miles west of Tom Aikens, another celebrated chef has been quietly perfecting his particular variation of cuisine bourgeoise for many years. Michel Roux's Waterside Inn, on the banks of the Thames near Windsor, has long been a benchmark of culinary excellence, often overlooked in the scramble for the new, the innovative, the fresh, the exciting, the scalloped potato with grilled lark's tongues and a lemon potash jus.
The food at the Waterside Inn is uniformly excellent and, although the service is correct and...