Rex & Mariano

I remember when this place was a Vodka Revolution bar stuck down a grotty side street in Soho whose raison d'être was little more than for the drunken amorous encounters of late night revellers or an apparent double purpose as an emergency loo. Nothing good has ever happened in a Revolution bar. I recall it to be a dark, gloomy cavern offering dubiously flavoured vodkas by the stick. You would frankly have had to have paid me an awful lot of money to be found there. Scratch that, I just wouldn't. So, one rainy Saturday night I find my phone directing me down a dark alley with a little trepidation.

Times change and so does Soho thankfully.

Dip & Flip

Another day, another burger joint. Yawn. As soon as I saw the crazy moustachioed hipster man on BBC's The Restaurant Man last year introducing Southampton to the delights of drippy burgers in squishy brioche buns in a room of exposed brick walls it finally felt as though the burger's moment in the sun must be done. 

So it was with some surprise and a little burger fatigue that Dip & Flip popped up in Clapham Junction a while back now and, whilst conforming to some of the burger stereotypes- those brick walls and the no reservations policy being just two- the food is rather good. 

Wokit, Borough Market

I made a decision a while ago that I was going to be less negative on this website. Despite people clearly preferring reading an article when I get the semantic daggers out (the website stats are testament to this), the places I am writing about are the result of someone's hard work, hopes and dreams and who I am I to trample all over that? It was all going so well until I had the misfortune to need a quick supper in Borough one Saturday late afternoon.

Everyone knows that Borough Market is home to some of the best food that London has to offer right? Especially tourists who flock there in huge numbers expecting everything to match up to scenes from Bridget Jones' Diary or the Trip Advisor reviews - I particularly loved a recent one penned by Ted in California who proclaimed it "without a doubt the best market in Great Britain" - granted it's good but I do question how many others Ted might have visited to make such a sweeping statement.

34

There are some people who exude money. I don't mean it literally of course, no one has pound coins popping out from behind their ears magician style it was more that the other diners seemed very expensive. The whole experience felt very expensive. I'm sure that you know what I mean? Even before I arrived I felt slightly inadequate just trying to find the restaurant. Address: 34, Grosvenor Square. Except there isn't a 34 Grosvenor Square on Grosvenor Square.  We drove around at least twice looking at numbers and found nothing. It started to seem like an insider joke - if you can't find the secret door you can't come in. The cab driver suggested that maybe it was actually IN the neighbouring US Embassy but even I knew that was a silly idea, imagine the security clearance needed just to get supper. Finally in desperation- and now five minutes late for the reservation- I called the restaurant; the entrance is actually around 100m down South Audley Street - as I would have known if I'd checked their website to be fair. 

This may all say more about my navigational skills and powers of observation than the place itself but it wasn't the most auspicious start to the outing. Neither was fighting my way up the steps through a cloud of smoke past leggy, sleek, thoroughbred racehorses in skyscraper red soled Louboutins suppressing their appetites with cigarettes  as I trotted up like a Shetland pony.  

Brasserie Lipp

Waking up on a Sunday to a gloriously sunny (and unseasonably warm) Paris morning and it would be churlish to do anything other than go for a long stroll through the streets of the Left Bank. Meandering up to the Musée Rodin to do a bit of 'thinking' followed by a roam along Rue du Bac gazing into the windows of all those wonderful patisseries

Several hours and a labyrinth of St Germain streets later and we had built up quite an appetite which brought us to the door of Paris institution Brasserie Lipp.

Publicis Drugstore; Paris

As the song says; "I love Paris in the springtime, I love Paris in the fall, I love Paris in the winter when it drizzles, I love Paris in the summer; when it sizzles....." So when don't I love Paris? I don't love Paris when it is Fashion Week and bars and galleries are blocked up with androgynous, black clad giraffes, eyes cold with a combination of hunger, cocaine and sheer ambivalence. I also don't love Paris when I catch a stinking cold from a man behind me on the Eurostar who spent the journey over snorting like a pig. 

So there I am slumped in bed on Saturday morning when I had planned on being up with the oiseaux meandering my way round a marché aux puces in Montreuil. Still, even in the depths of a cold there can be glimmers of gastronomic pleasure to be found. I had the most fantastic supper in bed the night before due entirely to the cold and I bought it all from a corner shop. No, really, the best corner shop I've ever encountered: Publicis Drugstore.

At first glance the back entrance to Publicis Drugstore looks like most late night corner shops; plastified sandwiches, microwave meals, rows of Coke and Evian and a small baked goods area. Its only when you look more closely that you see the croissants are all by Alain Ducasse, the patisserie from Philippe Conticini's Patisserie des Reves range or from Dalloyau. Petrossian has a small counter of caviar and smoked salmon. Around the corner is a Pierre Herme macaron counter. Dinner for me was a truffle risotto from Maison de la Truffe. At 16 euros probably the most expensive microwave meal ever but by God was it worth it. Rich and creamy with a powerful truffle aroma filling the store as it cooked. It feels utterly wrong to be praising a microwave meal but it was truly very, very right indeed. A dessert of a tarte tatin from Patisserie des Reves and two vanilla macarons completed the meal. 

Continue further into its depths and there is a bookshop with some great food and art coffee table type books as well as international magazines. A beauty area stocked with top brands is next to wines and cigars as well as counters of the sort of expensive fripperies and pretty things that everyone wants but nobody needs. Its like a mini late night shopping heaven and if I hadn't been such a red eyed sniffing mess there's a significant chance that my bank balance would have been further damaged.

If you're not looking to hide in your sick bed like me there are plenty of restaurant options on site. In the basement is a 2 michelin starred branch of Joel Robuchon as well as a see and be seen brasserie on the ground floor looking out onto the Champs Elysee. A steakhouse rounds off the restaurants.

In goods news for my cold it also has a 24 hour pharmacy. Possibly one of the most useful shops in the whole of Paris. We even went back a few days later post cold on the way back to the Eurostar and stocked up on all our favourite brand foodie souvenirs in one place, perfect.

So if you're ever looking for an out of hours macaron fix, the ingredients for breakfast in bed or some late night drink you know where to go. Oh and whilst you're enjoying your treats, visit their website, there's an awesome playlist on it.

Publicis Drugstore

133 Avenue des Champs Élysées, 75008 Paris, France

Taillevent, Paris

A few nights ago I saw heaven. Heaven is located in 6th arrondissement of Paris.

Taillevent is a bastion of classic French cuisine having been named after the nickname of 14th century chef Guillaume Tirel who created one of the first ever cookery books at the behest of his patron, King Charles V. You surely can't get any more French than that? It first opened its doors in a flush of post war Parisian pride in 1946. Three venues later and an ascendancy from a first star in 1948 through to a third in 1973 gave it a fixed place in the Paris gastronomic firmament.

Current chef, Alain Soliveres, has been in place since 2002. Taillevent's stellar domination took a dent in 2007 when their third star was removed by Michelin. It hasn't come back since - it being notoriously difficult to recover a star once its gone - but the meal I was served was an equal to any three star meal I have had anywhere around the world. 

The start wasn't quite so heavenly admittedly. I arrived early (my bad) and was consequently the first person in the silent restaurant. Three dark-suited waiters peered curiously at me - I think a woman dining on her own might still be an oddity-  and much whispering ensued before a wine list was produced. I buried my head deep inside the list (easy to do, its massive) to hide, cheeks burning. After working through Burgundy and Loire by way of Bordeaux and Champagne I paused and looked up. Three waiters had amoebically morphed into eight, stood in a row, staring at me. My head went back down and I blurted out an order of a glass of house champagne to keep the hovering waiter at bay.

Taillevent have in excess of 50 own labelled wines all sourced from big names in the French wine world. Their house champagne is by Deutz whilst Bordeaux names include the Chateaux of Rauzan-Segla, Phelan Segur and Haut Bailly. Things became more relaxed once accompanied by the gentle fizz of a glass of Deutz- nothing unusual- crisp with a little yeast and a general crowd pleaser as you would expect from a house champagne. 

Few things in life can appear more deceptively simple but be more delicious than a good gougere. Perfect round pillows of cheesy air that deflate on your tongue into a soft savoury goo. These were made from comte and I ate more than my fair share (I think they felt bad after the initial cold staring incident and gave me a massive plate).

An amuse bouche of a langoustine encased in filo pastry in a sweet and sour sauce might possibly be likened in theory to a riff on a Waitrose Christmas canapé classic but was on a whole different level and disappeared in a flash. A crab terrine was amongst the prettiest dishes I've ever been served although the person charged with slicing the radishes, fanning them then squeezing those tiny blobs of green herb pesto around each plate must have the patience of a saint. Pulling it apart felt like an act of sacrilege but the flavour was worth it. Intense crab bound in a soft creamy sauce, cut through and contrasted by the lightly pickled radish and pesto. Why add too many ingredients when the base is as perfect as this?

Paris wouldn't be Paris without frog's legs.This version was served with a spelt risotto and brown butter. I'm not sure that I've ever found a great deal of flavour in the frog's leg itself - its one of those meats that falls into the cliché of "tastes like chicken" - but rich butter and translucent wafers of fried garlic gave it enough flavour that the frog might be lacking to a non-comprehending 'rosbif'.

A rather large slab of pan fried foie gras with reinette apples and muscat grapes came next. Of course I ate the whole lot but in all honesty both my rapidly furring arteries and I could probably have done with half as much. A weak complaint though as it was properly caramelised to a crisp on the outside but with a warm, wobbly and gelatinous interior. No graininess or slight bitter favour as you occasionally get from less superior foie gras. Skinned sweet little explosions of grape and soft apples were ideal (although I'm feeling for the chap peeling the grapes- here's hoping it wasn't the same one who had to finely slice and layer all those radishes in the crab dish). The sauce was a masterpiece. Deeply savoury to balance out those sweet apples and grapes and reduced down to a small sticky puddle.

Ordering wine on your own can be a bit of a minefield in my experience as you are either limited to whatever is on offer by the glass or you have to order by the whole bottle and either be plastered or limited to one wine throughout the meal. For the most part (and yes I know there are exceptions) restaurants in the UK are not great at offering a good selection of half bottles. This is something that French restaurants excel at. A half bottle of 2000 Sociando Mallet set me back about 60 euros which, whilst pricey, is comparable to half the price of a full bottle. The 2000 is drinking perfectly right now, slowly gaining some more secondary flavours of cigar and smoke to complement an intense black fruit on both nose and palate. 

A pigeon pithivier seems to be something of a traditional dish at Taillevent and was cooked very rare with a mixture of winter mushrooms encased in a pretty puff pastry parcel. Sauces are all sensational at Taillevent and this one was no exception. Rich and cooked down to its very essence of red wine and game juices- clearly the work of several hours. From my perspective though, completely superfluous salad leaves! 

Any self-respecting French restaurant excels at cheese and Taillevent is no exception. You will never find a perfect triangular chunk of underripe brie served here alongside celery and a grape. Oozing cheese as far as the eye can see...

A truffled Brillat Savarin invoked the equivalent of a food orgasm with very developed St Felicien and Epoisses taking me into multiple O territory. Having stratospherically exceeded my recommended intake of both cholesterol and salt on one plate it seemed like the sensible thing to do to proceed straight to dessert. When you're in heaven no one's counting right?

Dessert wouldn't be complete without a decent wine to go with it and the claret was long gone with the cheese. A glass of Huet Moelleux Clos de Bourg 2003 can never be a bad thing. Its honey and sweet apricot fruit matched brilliantly with a pineapple and lemongrass sorbet and coconut cream parfait confection but less well with a dark and cloying Nyangbo chocolate mousse. It was filled with a vanilla ganache similar to the one found in Laduree vanilla macarons that I have never managed to replicate. I can only think that it involves an obscene amount of butter.

Petits fours included an utterly beautiful, light as a feather orange blossom marshmallow, the smallest vanilla macaron I have ever seen and a chocolate truffle. Enough, I'm done. Except I'm not as a bottle of house cognac and a glass appears on the table and is left for me to help myself. 

It's entirely likely that the cognac bottle is strategically in place just in time to properly anaethetise you prior to receiving the bill. There is no other way of putting it, its very expensive. A 330 euros kind of expensive in fact (although granted I had good wine). This is a long, long way from being a cheap meal by anyone's standards. By Parisian standards though it is positively good value for a 2 star tasting menu with wine. If someone told you than evening in your particular version of heaven would cost 330 euros who could say no? There is a cheaper way of doing things though; lunch is available for 108 Euros for 4 courses including drinks which sounds eminently more reasonable.

To round my personal heaven off in style I went for a quick gander at the wine cellar deep beneath the kitchens. 'Cellar' in the singular is a misnomer for they have five onsite cellars as well as various others around Paris. The five in the building are divided between Burgundy red, Bordeaux red, white, spirits and sparkling and locked behing steel doors by giant keys. The floors of all them are covered in gravel and pebbles to help moderate humidity and to absorb movement (the building is close to a Metro line). It was like being a child in a sweet shop. Incredible bottle after bottle was pulled out; 1894 Lafite, 1919 Haut Brion, 1909 Yquem, they just kept coming shown off by a head sommelier with such obvious pride in his babies. They threatened to lock me in there then looked slightly alarmed when I agreed. If there is ever a threat of zombie invasion or nuclear destruction I know where I will be hot footing it to. 

When I'm visiting a restaurant like Taillevent I tend to opt for a tasting menu just to make sure that I get to try as many different dishes as possible, this does mean that I miss out on the beauty of the a la carte dishes. The table next to me went a la carte and the presentation was incredible - gold leaf a go-go and ornate decorations of pastry, vegetable or chocolate depending on the dish. Traditional dishes such as crepes suzette are cooked and served with a flourish of purple flame at the table side. A la carte is a stratospherically expensive way to dine though so this may remain a spectator sport for me. 

Highlights I just can't pick one, it was all incredible from start to finish.

Would I go again? Were I a resident of Paris with unlimited means and complete disregard for my waistline I dare say I would become a regular. In fact I would probably have my own banquette. As it is I can only hope that one day I might go back.

Summary Classic French food cooked superlatively well. Yes, its starchy and extremely old school but its hard to beat for a sense of occasion. An experience that almost felt religious with Taillevent as the temple.

9.5/10
Taillevent
15 Rue Lamennais, 75008 Paris, France
+33 1 44 95 15 01