L'Epicure at Hotel Bristol, Paris

There is nowhere in the world that you will find 'cheap' three Michelin star dining. Value potentially but not cheap. From London to Tokyo to New York to Paris you know up front that you are letting yourself in for a hefty bill. Nowhere more so, in my experience, than France. There seems to be an acceptance with a Gallic shrug that when a Michelin star is awarded you can add another 25% to the bill each time. So once you reach three stars we're talking stratospheric pricing. That's why my posh Parisian outings are limited to once in a blue moon. Having been to Ledoyen a few years ago and adored it I wanted to try somewhere different but equally glamorous so opted for L'Epicure. Unlike top restaurants in London or New York you don't generally need to be on the phone months in advance at the very moment a booking line opens, in all cases I have managed to book tables at usually only a couple of days notice.

The usual home of L'Epicure within the Hotel Bristol is currently under renovation so the restaurant has temporarily moved from its habitual light and airy room to an altogether more glamorous, gilded oval salle on the ground floor of l'Hotel Bristol on the Rue St Honore.

As you come to expect with this type of haute cuisine, staff of one sort or another outweigh diners by around two to one.  During the meal we averaged four sommeliers between around 8 tables, 2 maitre d's and at least 10 waiters and waitresses.

Although you can get a seasonal daily three course menu for a "more reasonable" 130 Euros, I was acting on the basis that it was highly likely that I was only going to do this once so took the plunge and went for the very elaborate and detailed tasting menu.

Some confusion reigned however and elements were lost in translation. The french for sea urchin is 'oursin'. French for bear is 'ourson'. You know what's coming don't you? Yes, I asked the maitre d' if it was really the case that they were serving roast bear. Well anything's possible after horsegate isn't it? Apparently this is quite an unusual linguistic error that caused significant mirth amongst the waiting staff but then again sea urchin is not exactly normal every day fare is it?!

Before the 8 courses of tasting menu began however, came canapes. The thing that look like a green nipple on a spoon is a spherified blob of cucumber and yuzu juice (sweet but still acidic although the acid was tempered by the cooling cucumber), the white pot is a scallop cream with sweet citrus flavourings and the lollipop stick was a lobster piece rolled in curried breadcrumbs and saffron. 

The lollipop was definitely the highlight and had a little kick to it that contrasted well with the cucumber.  Served at the same time was a bacon, tomato and olive muffin which was well flavoured and executed but perhaps superfluous given the canapés and breadbasket but very, I'm not complaining if they want to give me more food!

It became clear throughout the meal that chef Eric Frechon has very much dipped his toe into the molecular gastronomy waters.  There were occasional doses of spherification, hell there was even a nitro frozen sorbet! For me it was the perfect balance between classic cuisine and forward thinking food. This contrast is also reflected in the decor, presentation and dress code. Whilst the room and the dress code (men must wear jackets at lunch as well as dinner) are both very traditional, the presentation of the food is for the most part extremely innovative and modern.

Bread. I've said it before and will say it again, I think you can tell a lot about a place from the quality of their bread and also whether it is made in house. As you would expect, at L'Epicure it is. Around 8 different breads were on offer in the main basket although other speciality breads accompanied particular courses. I opted for small thin baguette loaves with a really intense dark, smoky bacon flavour and chunks of lardon served with a choice of butters. My choice was the home made salted butter. Served alongside the bread tray were little bacon, tomato and olive muffins, unapologetic in their greasiness but bursting with flavour.

An amuse bouche was served of smoked salmon encapsulated in a herb jelly topped by sorrel mousse and salmon roe. The sorrel mousse had a much more powerful flavour than I had been expecting but as an amuse bouche was a balanced and tasty morsel although I think it would have been too much as a full sized starter portion.

CHATAIGNES DE MER
langues et écume d’oursins, fine brouillade d’œuf de poule 

The sea urchin came next. Despite having spent a few weeks in Japan I've never tried one before and was a little unsure in all honesty. Even now I'm not 100% decided either way as to whether I liked it or not, its a bit marmite in that I think it seems like something that you probably ought to love or hate. 

I've started to notice that a lot of high end restaurants around Europe are introducing more traditionally Japanese ingredients into their menus. At L'Epicure they were quite up front about it and confirmed it was due to the number of Japanese customers that they attract (during my visit two of the eight tables were Japanese and one of the waitresses also Japanese). Gauthier in London is the same, in fact they even now offer their website in Japanese.

The sea urchin itself was served two ways within a porcelain urchin shell. The shell was lined with a very creamy scrambled egg onto which pieces of sea urchin were placed. The individual pieces had a very soft, bubbly texture and a sweet meaty flavour not dissimilar to the sweetness found in scallops and lobster. This mixture was then topped off with what was described on the menu as a foam but was much denser and oleaginous than something you would think of as a foam. It had a very different flavour to the pieces of urchin in the eggs and was slightly more towards bitter. Not distasteful but definitely an acquired taste. The dish, although small, was very rich. 

On a separate plate was served a thin toast and a pat of butter wrapped like a toffee. The butter itself was probably one of the most curious elements of the entire dish made up of three different seaweeds and algae.

The following course was a duck foie poached in a smoked tea broth accompanied by crisp baby lettuce and warmed oysters. It arrived at the table gift wrapped in a giant cellophane parcel. Many of the dishes at L'Epicure involve a great deal of theatre. I had wished that someone would order the a la carte blue lobster or the crepe suzette for some true table-side cooking however what I did see was certainly enough to pique the interest of all the diners. If you order the Bresse chicken for two it came served in a giant white balloon with a knot of the top which frankly looked like an oversize haggis. This balloon was carried proudly through the dining room displayed on a giant silver salver with feet in the shape of chicken's feet before being cut open and sliced at the table.

FOIE GRAS DE CANARD  
cuit en papillote, huîtres et choux de Bruxelles, 
bouillon infusé au thé fumé. 

So back to the foie gras. The consomme style broth was so clear that it disguised a really incredible depth of flavour and smokiness. The foie was beautifully poached with only a slight wobble remaining in the centre. The biggest surprise of the dish was the brussel sprout leave from two perspectives. Firstly they didn't taste anything like the Christmas Day sprouts that I know and hate and secondly and how very well they retained the flavour of the smoke. The only let down in the dish was the warm oysters but then again that is solely because I hate oysters...

MERLAN DE LIGNE DE SAINT-GILLES CROIX-DE-VIE
en croûte de pain de mie, imprimé aux amandes, 
tétragone mi-cuite relevée au curry 

Next up on the agenda was a fish course of  whiting "en croute". The fish was billed as having been caught in St Gilles Croix de Vie. This throwaway fact brought back happy childhood memories for me of summer holidays in the Vendée. Many of the first French meals that I ever ate were in St Gilles and I have one particularly vivid memory of spending what felt like hooooouuuuurs waiting for my Dad to finish a plateau de fruit de mer well after I'd finished my steak haché and chips. But I'll give St Gilles one thing, they do do good fish. This particular one was moist and firm with a sweet flavour acting as an excellent base to the more pronounced flavours accompanying it. Although it had claimed to be en croute this manifested itself in the form of a topping of what may have been the thinnest slice of pain de mie that I had ever seen. Goodness only knows how they cut it so thin, it really must involve lasers or something. Anyway, this slice was so thin that you could actually read through it (believe me I tried and you could read the menu) and embedded with toasted almonds. The spring greens were quite salty and had a little peppery chilli kick to them but the best part of the dish was the curried oil.

COCHON FERMIER- cuisiné de la tête aux pieds,
écrasée de pomme ratte au beurre salé et truffe noire 

The main event was supposed to be a tete de veau according to the menu however, bearing in mind my porcine proclivities, I swapped this out for one of the chef's other signature dishes, the "Head to Toe" (or trotter) pig dish. Consisting of a roast chunk of pork belly, a sausage, skin, and trotter meat all served with a super sticky truffled butter sauce and a stick of crackling. I'm such a lover of truffles that ordinarily I can hunt the slightest trace of them out like a Piedmontese pig however despite clear evidence of brown chunks in the sauce, I have to admit to the sauce being devoid of truffle flavour for my palate. The sausage was tasty and mixed with nuts which added bite and variety to another wise meat heavy dish. The meat had a beautiful flavour however I would have liked the top of the pork belly cube and the piece of skin to have been crunchier .

The cheese trolley was as comprehensive as you would expect it to be although a bit goat heavy for my liking. 

Keeping my more gluttonous cheese instincts in check, I opted for the Fourme d'Ambert, some Livarot and a gooey blob of  St Felicien. I've always noticed that the Livarot has a distinctive band of  five rushes wound around the outside of the cheese to hold it together during maturation but hadn't realised that this unusual feature also provides the reason for its name. The "Livarot" means General and is so named as the band of rushes is though to resemble the five stripes on a General's epaulettes. There is little that I can say about the Fourme d'Ambert other than that it was an excellent example of what will always be one of my favourite cheeses. The St Felicien was incredibly runny to the point of having liquified in some places, its delicate paleness concealing the comparatively powerful flavour that it packs.

A very pretty, three element amuse bouche heralded the conclusion of the savoury sector of the meal. A ball of zesty orange sorbet sat perched atop a  rich, sticky blackcurrant compote; its depth of flavour and viscosity contrasting the light orange zing. A stick of a delicate violet meringue dipped in violet sugar crystals topped the sorbet. A perfectly balanced palate cleanser before the small matter of dessert to address.

Throughout lunch one of the tables near me had been occupied by a group of six French people who clearly had no idea what wine they were being served. Much swilling and sniffing, swishing and inspecting was taking place without a single bottle in sight. Wine was being served from what looked like a giant glass flask. Things took an even stranger turn when their next wine was served in pitch black Riedel glasses (I covet these things very much and they are resolutely on my 'one day' list) and I wanted to find out was going on. The head sommelier explained that the group were vignerons from Champagne who had set a budget and requested that the sommelier surprise them. This he did by starting with a 1995 Domaine Leflaive in the glass flask. The wine in the Riedel glasses was actually a light red chilled down to try and confuse the vignerons into believing it might be white. This cunning deception would have been all very well if one of them hadn't got a little over enthusiastic in his glass swishing and sloshed some very definitely red liquid onto the tablecloth. The final wine served to the group was a Jura vin de paille or 'straw wine'. The production method for this wine is not dissimilar to that used for vin santo in Italy in that the aim is to reduce the liquid in the grape as much as possible in order to ensure maximum sweetness remaining. Rather than being left on the vine the grapes are picked and left in the sun or in a warm hangar on a pile of straw (hence the 'vin paille'). At this point the sommelier decided I should join in the tasting game and have a go too. This particular example was a deep amber gold in colour with significant legs. A nose with intense bitter marmalade notes. A decent level of acidity helps to balance out the sweetness but acidity is not overharsh being tempered in your mouth by the warm alcohol glow. 

CITRON DE MENTON
givré au limoncello, aux saveurs de poire et citron confit 

The first dessert was a lemon thingy (yes that's a technical term). Lemon is one of those dessert ingredients that never grabs me and when there are a wide selection of other options on a dessert menu I would probably never choose. That said when its served to me I do seem to enjoy it.    If Heston has his meatfruit then Eric has his lemon- albeit that this one does actually taste of lemon.  An incredibly fine pale green lime flavoured sugar leaf topped the lemon. The 'lemon' itself is very light indeed and made up of nitro iced lemon sorbet that is almost powdery and explodes in your mouth coated in a sticky yellow lemon curd syrup. The centre of the lemon was a roast pear puree. Chunks of meringue around the plate add texture and crunch and a sweet contrast to the tart lemon.  Really utterly delicious and light as a feather.

CHOCOLAT PUR CARAÏBES- crémeux émulsion 
au caramel épicé, glace aux grains de café torréfiés. 

The second dessert came in the form of an iced coffee chocolate sorbet encased in a chocolate outer layered with ultra sticky caramel onto a gently spiced biscuit. A chocolate disc balanced on top of lengthy sputnik like spikes added to the avant garde appearance. The whole confection was then placed on a painted swirl of chocolate with a jug of hot chocolate poured onto it. In essence an ultra chocolatey, coffee, caramel plate of sticky goodness.

The petit fours were out of this world. It was like someone had wheeled over an explosion of the inside of Willy Wonka's imagination on a trolley. Orangettes, milk chocolates, dark truffles and other sweet bites sat in giant glass canisters whilst  huge, long, caramelised, buttery biscuit sticks towered over the trolley. A perspex case contained six flavours of macaron from raspberry to caramel and vanilla to chocolate. The highlight, however, was a long length of mint marshmallow coiled into a jar and lengths cut off with long handled silver scissors. Tempting as it was to ask for a take away to eat on the plane home, I resisted and opted the macaron, orangette and marshmallow.

At the end of the meal two silver spoons wobbled their way to the table containing glistening amber orbs sprinkled with gold leaf. Little flavour on the outside but bursting the jelly casing resulted in a mouthful of sweet, honeyed, earl grey flavoured liquid. I am dying to try some spherification at home and definitely have aspirations towards replicating these after dinner tea globes.

I have one gripe about the meal which prevents it from reaching perfection. I did um and ah for some time over which wine to choose and took advice from one of the sommeliers. I finally settled on a half bottle of Chassagne Montrachet.  It wasn't too old but was robust enough to stand up to the various different courses of the meal. The wine came wrapped in a napkin, I tried it, yummy white burgundy. No fruit here, it was all about the almonds and cream with distinct gentle oak notes. 

I was having a chat with the head sommelier towards the latter end of my meal and asked him if he though I'd made the right choice with my Chassagne. The response came: 'but you ordered the Meursault'. I didn't, this I am sure of.  I had considered a Meursault but at 50 euros more for a half bottle had disregarded it as overly extravagant. The problem was that I had debated it aloud albeit briefly so I had no way of proving what I had finally settled on and it didn't seem worth trying to argue it out in a mixture of French and English and spoil the meal.  I therefore cannot tell you anything whatsoever about where my half bottle of white came from other than the fact that it was white Meursault and cost rather a lot of money, more than I had intended paying in fact. I will never know whether it was an honest mistake caused by my prevaricating or a nifty switch to the more expensive option and I guess it doesn't matter as I did love the wine that I drank however it did add a slightly sour note to an otherwise beautiful experience.

In essence a fantastic meal that challenged my palate a little beyond its usual safety blankets but one or two niggles that kept it a step away from being perfection. A lot of emphasis is placed on visual perfection but the flavours behind the pretty plates more than match up. I also appreciated the twist on classical French haute cuisine brought in by use of the more scientific processes.

Epicure
112 rue du Faubourg Saint Honoré
75008 Paris
+33 (0)1 53 43 43 40

Waterside Inn, Bray

I don't know why it has taken me quite so long to venture out to Bray. What is effectively a village known predominantly for the quality of its food and drink should have been something of a mecca.  Perhaps it was a fear of leaving the boundaries of the M25. I'm not proud of this but if I'm going to leave London I tend to do so properly by either embarking on several hours of long train journey that necessitates sandwiches and a mini bottle of M&S wine or it involves planes and Terminal 5. There is a whole swathe of the country lying within 50 miles of London that I have no idea about. Someone asked me where Winchester was the other day; no idea?! I also thought Kent was to the south of London; it appears not. This needs remedying. So enough of my geographic ineptitude and on to the Waterside Inn.

An hour on the train and a short cab hop from the station and we were deposited by the river on what has been the only sunny Saturday so far this year. We were led straight through to our table and deposited with a nice view of the river but in the corner next to the fire escape (have they heard something about me?). Its not going to come as a surprise to anyone to say that this place is very, very French. Its almost as though someone has cloned a small army of clean cut, long-white-apron wearing, terribly polite Frenchmen and deposited them in the middle of rural Berkshire. You get dizzy at the number of times you respond hello on the short journey to your table.

Gripe alert. I'm going to start off the meal on a moan but promise it gets better from hereon in. Within only  a couple of minues of arriving at Waterside we are sat down with canapes and a wine list and a glass of Michel Roux's eponymous champagne (Very dry. Yeasty, biscuity flavour; not mind blowing but nice). Great, no problems there. Within the next five minutes someone attempts to take our wine order three times and remove the canapes (as yet untouched as due to the size of the wine bible I can't choose wine and reach the canapes at the same time). It is then suggested that I move my canapes to a side plate and hey presto! before I've ordered the wine or finished the canapes the first course is in front of me. To be honest I felt jammed in a corner surrounded by numerous waiters and distinctly pressured. This is meant to be a relaxing experience!

Once I finally got round to them, the canapes were pretty fab though, the best one being a steak tartare on a crisp topped with a soft boiled quail's egg. Other tasty little morsels included a welsh rarebit with pear chutney (good flavour and lovely idea but was served cold and in my book molten cheese is at its best when hot) and a smoked eel tempura. The anchovy cheese straws were well executed but really powerfully fishy. If you like anchovies you will love them. 

So from whine to wine..........




All gone!

I could have very, very easily spent the GDP of a mid sized country on wine at Waterside. It's one of those places where not only do they have an Yquem, they have multiple years spanning almost half a century. Lafites, Haut Brions, Pétrus' and Vintage Krug all nestle side by side. The wine list was the victim of someone having danced around the page with a pencil crossing through many of the better value or more interesting wines. The sommelier mentioned part way through the meal that Michel Roux senior was downstairs tasting new wines so I suspect that we arrived at the tail end of the old list.

I had opened a bottle of 1996 Sociando Mallet on Christmas Day to accompany my beef wellington so already knew that it worked well with a strong beef or game dish. 2000 being a pretty good year generally in Bordeaux, it seemed like a shout.  At around £120 a bottle it was, of course, significantly marked up as you would expect in a three star restaurant but still comparatively good value compared to many of the other wines on the list.

 A 2000 Ch Climens 1er cru Barsac acted as an effective straddle, working both with the foie gras and also with dessert. I've had the Climens a couple of times recently and its rapidly becoming a reliable go to on restaurant wine lists.
 

 The first course was a "Crémeux de parmesan à la truffe et cornes de gatte, accompagné d’une allumette feuilletée aux amandes" - in essence parmesan cream with truffle shavings. I'm not sure how it is possible to make a heavy whipped cream taste more parmesaney that parmesan itself but they have somehow achieved it. Rich, salty, savoury and delicate all in the same mouthful. Dare I use the word "umami" without sounding like an idiot? If I did, it would be here.

Next came an escalopes de foie gras chaudes à la cardamome, racines glacées, sauce au verjus et raisins de Smyrne. The foie was pan fried to the point of having a crispy caramelised crust without being overcooked in the centre. The verjus was very intense in flavour with a sticky, rich oily texture. This was definitely my favourite course of the meal and the verjus nothing short of divine although we both struggled to catch any hint of the promised cardamom which was a shame as it would have made the dish more unusual.

Tronçonnettes de homard poêlées minute au porto blanc was the fish course. I'm not going to rave about how perfectly cooked the lobster was as so it should be in a 3 star restaurant. And yes all the usual adjectives apply, sweet, tender etc etc, all present and correct. What made this an outstanding lobster dish however was the presentation and the sauce. Very fine slivers of ginger were panfried with the carrot julienne and the port reduction giving a very delicate Asian style flavour. I love how this dish is all about the lobster and not just in terms of what was a very decent quantity. Virtually no unneccessary garnish - how tempting would it be to most chefs to fill that empty third of a plate with a handful of watercress or similar?

A glass of white Pessac-Léognan Chévalier 1996 was rather a disappointment unfortunately (although H loved it). Nothing wrong with it as such, just not to my taste. Very mineral and chalky in taste with a splash of petrol on the nose and lacking in fruit to balance it out, perhaps due to the age.  I think if white wines are over 5 years I should probably stick to a nice buttery Burgundy chardonnay for my personal taste. Seeing that I wasn't a bit fan the sommelier brought me a mystery wine to try. I managed to not entirely embarass myself by identifying it as chardonnay but guessed Chablis instead of St Véran. Apparently the St Véran is one that was open for Michel Snr to try as they are hoping to add it to the new season list. They definitely should, it would be a great summer drinker.

What became very clear is that Waterside is very much a labour of love for the Roux family. Michel Snr was in the restaurant to try and approve the new season wines, the sommelier told me that Michel's taste buds are so sharp that he will literally work along a line of glasses saying "oui", "non" or sometimes just a raised eyebrow.....

Caneton challandais rôti, feuilles de chou farcies en surprise et jus aux prunes de Damas légèrement épicé. As you can see from the picture you got a lot of meat. The cabbage was stuffed with minced duck meat and whilst tasty was not my favourite. The roast onions however were a burst of sweetness that balanced the dish perfectly.

H ordered the Duo de gibier de saison, subric de potiron et champignons sauvages enrobés d’épinards, sauce poivrade. The gibiers in question were partridge and venison. On the basis that H is not a fan of pepper I'm guessing that the peppered sauce was not very strong as he didn't comment.

Being greedy, we added a cheese course having been seduced by the huge trolley that we passed on the way in.  So greedy in fact that the maitre d' stopped by to check that we were really sure we could manage an extra course. Stupid question....

Our cheese plate choices included a bleu d'auvergne, Comté another blue and the more unusual side was a paprika coated ewe's milk cheese (nice but would have been bland without the paprika).  I loved the way that the stilton was hidden on the lower level of the tray as the token British cheese in a kind of "it is not French so we will hide it away" move. I have to admit that I was surprised to have the trolley wheeled away immediately after selecting my 5 slivers of cheese before H got to choose any. Apparently 5 little slivers does constitute 2 separate portions however as we were charged the full whack of nearly £20 per portion on the bill. This does annoy me slightly since the quality of cheese is the same between a 3* or a 1* restaurant, they generally come from the same suppliers and the restaurant has to do nothing to the cheese in order to serve it other than not let it go dry or mouldy. Even with a huge mark up we were nowhere near beyond a total of a fivers worth of cheese retail. 

Around 3pm Alain Roux came and did a circuit of the restaurant leaving the last of the desserts to the well trained hands of his kitchen chefs. He showed more than a passing interest in what diners had especially liked or disliked and a definite focus on what wines we were drinking. Apparently I achieved something comparatively rare these days by managing to get both Michel Snr and Alain to sign my menu.

The tasting menu listed dessert was a Larme de chocolat lacté au caramel, cœur de mangue et fruits de la passion, sorbet mangue, unfortunately my stupid food allergies to fruit struck again (no lovely mango or passion fruit for me) so the waiter kindly offered an alternate option of a pistachio creme brulee. In my experience many things that claim to be pistachio tend to taste pretty much like the unflavoured version but are just a slightly scary, lurid green. No photo at this point as I got the settings wrong on my phone in my booze fuelled mission and managed to take a picture in black and white. Believe me, not even the tastiest creme brûlée in the world looks good in black and white. The larme (so named due to a tear shaped chocolate craquant casing holding a milk chocolate caramel mousse) did look lovely and much prettier than my brûlée but hey ho.

The second dessert on the menu was a soufflé chaud à l’orange et airelles. Light as air just as you would expect and with a much more pronounced flavour than you might think for a soufflé. Cranberries were also in the base of the ramekin as well as purely decoratively on the top. Really just perfect. 

The petit fours included a giant palmier (why not make two smaller ones?!),  by this point in all honesty I was so chock full of wine that you could have given me a honey roast spider and I'd

probably have raved about it so I would ignore pretty much anything that I say from hereon in. There may well have been some sort of macaron, a passion fruit tartlet, a nice dark chocolate truffle thing  and probably a perfectly executed nugget of nougat but I was beyond noting or describing it.

We (probably sensibly) retired to one of the outside smoking huts with armagnac (less sensible). Strange contraptions, they look like hexagonal wooden huts from the outside but inside are like some kind of Marie-Antoinette style fantasy tardis. The inside ceiling is lined in pleated pink silk and the walls are hung with elaborate light sconces as well as chintzy watercolour paintings. Heavily cushioned banquettes line the inside walls of the hut with fringed cushions for added squish. Curtains cover the windows resulting in your own private mini Versailles. I dread to think what kind of shenanigans those wall sconces have seen behind closed doors.....

Yes it really was that late by the time we finished lunch...

In a Roux vs Roux  family cook off for me Waterside Inn beats Le Gavroche hands down despite the schlep to get there.

I am now very poor indeed but was it worth it? Definitely! Would I go back? Yes, but I think it would have to be a special occasion. I'd love to  revisit on a sunny summer's day when you can hire a boat and cruise the river with your aperitif, just bliss.

Waterside Inn

Ferry Road  Bray, West Berkshire SL6 2AT
01628 620691

Klein Constantia: Vin de Constance

When people use the term "new world", it can deceptively make you think of a recent comer to the table, somewhere with comparatively youthful experience of viticulture.  Certainly that was the misconception in my mind before visiting South Africa. Bear in mind that Klein Constantia was first planted in the late 1600s. Vin de Constance was revered throughout the 18th and 19th centuries by many of Europe's top leaders and politicians being reputedly the favourite wine, ironically, of both Napolean and Nelson, the former allegedly requesting it on his deathbed. Even Jane Austen gave it a name check in Sense and Sensibility and Dickens in one of his unfinished novels. Not many vineyards can make that sort of claim to fame. 

In the late 1800s an attack of phylloxera left the vineyard in ruins and little production took place until 1980 when the vineyard was purchased by Dougie Jooste and by 1986 the new Vin de Constance was being bottled.

Although its popularity quickly peaked again, its literary associations are perhaps now slightly less salubrious, recently namechecked in the infamous "Fifty Shades of Grey" (so I'm told...... )

I first visited the vineyard in 2010 not having really heard of Vin de Constance other than on the occasional restaurant wine list. My knowledge of South African wine in general was pretty shoddy and limited to the dreaded Kumala or similar in the supermarket. Located in the wealthy neighbourhood of Constantia a half hour drive outside of Cape Town, the vineyard is home to 82 hectares of vines as well as a tasting room for visitors and close by to Groot Constantia and Constantia Uitsig (both also worth a visit whilst you're in the area). Its a beautiful and peaceful place to visit will rolling vineyards as far as the eye can see and when we arrived a gentle mist was being burnt off the valley by the morning sun.

The range of wines available includes a premium range of white and red (predominantly sauvignon blanc and cabernet sauvignon) as well as the standard estate wines and even a sparkling MCC totalling 10 offerings in all. 

Those that I tasted were all pleasant, although my slightly hazy recollection is perhaps due to the fact they were living in the shadow of the great Vin de Constance. In fact two other KC wines in addition to VdeC were awarded a maximum 5 star rating by SA Wine guru John Platter the year I visited; the Perdeblokke Sauvignon Blanc and the Estate Cabernet Sauvignon so are most likely excellent as in my experience Platter knows his grapes.

The sheer number of vineyards visited over three weeks in South Africa meant that many of the wines and tasting rooms tried and visited blurred into one. Whilst the majority of wines were of good quality, only a handful of wines stood out as things I needed in my life. Meerlust Rubicon being one, Toren Fusion V another and then Vin de Constance. As I stood in the tasting room with a series of glasses balanced on an upturned oak barrel hearing about the muscat de Frontignan grapes that go into it, how the wine is made leaving the already shrivelled grapes to macerate a few more days after picking from the vine and the make up of the terroir, I took my first sip of what remains one of my favourite sweet wines. Rich, intensely golden amber colour, honey and apricot on the nose, marmalade with a little caramel on the palate, slight oiliness slicking your teeth but enough acidity to keep it balanced. Its just crying out for a slice of apple pie!

So that was then. Over the following two years I had bought the occasional bottle as a treat or for a special occasion but hadn't laid any down. Towards the end of November 2012 Robert Parker's team retasted the 2007 and upped its score to 97 points - the highest score ever awarded to a South African wine. Love him or hate him, just the name Parker tends to send demand for wines rocketing and this time was no exception. 

Although until the middle of last year most vintages were retailing at the circa £25 mark, the revised Parker score focused attention on the vineyard and the 2007 and it is now not only hard to come by but when you can get it its closer to the £35 a bottle mark. With excellent prospects for cellaring- I've been told by more than one person that 40 years + would be perfectly reasonable- I've added a case to my cellar.

I have heard that the vineyard is planning the imminent release of a new drink "the Spirit of Constance" which may be venturing into the territory of a grappa style spirit. Whilst the new ownership and the more recent merger with Anwilka in Stellenbosch clearly spell exciting times ahead for the vineyard, I hope that it doesn't lose its focus on the beautiful wine that is Vin de Constance.

From my perspective Baudelaire was closest to the mark with his analogy of Vin de Constance when, in "Les Fleurs du Mal" he said .“Je préfère au Constance, à l'opium, au nuits,L'élixir de ta bouche où l'amour se pavane; Quand vers toi mes désirs partent en caravane,Tes yeux sont la citerne où boivent mes ennuis.”

Brasserie Zédel

Brasserie Zédel is a very welcome newcomer to the Piccadilly Circus area. Brought to London by the Corbin/King team behind the much pricier but quite lovely Wolseley and Delaunay, I knew to expect good quality grub set in European Belle Epoque style surroundings.

Walking in past the 'authentic'  "Ouvert" sign (but not so authentic that the opening days are in French- us Londoners and tourists alike cannot be trusted to know that lundi means Monday) I was greeted by what seemed to be a pretty small café with suitably art nouveau posters on the walls and newspapers hung on reading sticks. Nice, but not what I expected.

Catching the lift downstairs past the old fashioned cloakroom and heavily mosaic decorated floor I was really rather shocked when I walked through the curtains into the main restaurant to be greeted by hustle and bustle and a wall of noise. It is huge, HUGE I tell you. The general first impression is rather an assault on the senses. In a good way though. Waiters fly by, trays held aloft, sporting black waistcoats and long white aprons. You have the option of taking a pre or post prandial drink at the highly mirrored and polished brass bar or taking a banquette and digging straight into the menu. 

Taking all this in, the cynic in me did wonder whether this was just a highly skilled pastiche on what the creators would like us to think that a nostalgic French bistro should be like. It felt almost a bit too polished to rival the big old Parisian bistros- waiters with pencil behind the ear ready to write your bill on the paper tablecloth- but not chic enough to be another Wolseley. But it turned out that I was being just too cynical - bad habit of mine.  Sat next to us were an ex-pat French couple who told us that they come to Brasserie Zédel every weekend because it is the only restaurant in London they have found that really reminds them of home in Paris. They originate from the Grands Boulevards/ 2eme area of Paris where Chartier has been renowned for the last couple of centuries.  

Chartier has been getting a bad rap recently on t'internet and Twitter mainly due to how touristy it has become in recent years and the generally caustic & insouciant nature of the waiting staff but it will always hold fond memories for me. Aged 18 and on a school trip to Paris consisting of 15 girls (pity the one poor male teacher) in the middle of the Algerian freedom fighters bombing campaign of the mid 1990's, and Chartier was the first proper French bistro I had eaten at. In those days it was possible to get a 3 course bavette steak dinner with a small pichet of wine for less than a tenner and although prices have increased a little over the years (eeh gads, I'm getting old...) it is still at the cheaper end of the spectrum at around 11 Euros for a steak.

Granted, Zédel is of the slightly more chic restaurant model and the service much less surly than that of the vieux serveurs of Chartier, however the principle is the same: good value traditional french cooking in a bustling, turn of the century, canteen style atmosphere.

Brasserie Zédel was clearly a very nostalgic journey for me above and beyond the Chartier link as I ordered a red Pineau des Charentes as my aperitif. Many childhood holidays were spent on the Cote Atlantique and throughout the Vendée where Pineau des Charentes is both plentiful and delicious, served chilled before a barbecue following a day playing in the surf.  Usually a combination of Cab Sauv, Cab Franc and Merlot, it is fortified using eau de vie and aged for over a year. That said it is comparatively light and fruity but with port-like sweetness, at £3.50 a glass it is worth a try.

The menu is familiar territory, you know what you are getting with a cassoulet, ham hock terrine or a bourgignon so no one is reinventing the wheel here, it does what it says on the tin. For that reason alone I can foresee that Zedel will become a very welcome shopping or pre-theatre pitstop. I ordered a boeuf bourgignon which at £9.50 was not a massive portion but still very good value.  Meat was suitably slow cooked and fall-aparty (yes that is a word). Silky, slick  baby onions gave a burst of caramelised sweetness as they melted into the mouth. The mash is also excellent. Smooth with no lumps in sight and fluffy as a cloud. Mashed potato is always a strong indicator for me as to the quality of a restaurant. If you put “crushed potatoes” on your menu then I am going to assume that your chef was just too lazy to peel or rice the potatoes. No such lackadaisical preparation here!

The onglet grille with confit d’echalotte is a bargain at £12.00. I have to admit to not having ordered it purely out of suspicion as to how good a twelve quid steak could be but regretted the decision when I saw H’s pre sliced beautiful red meat (and the chips weren’t bad either).

The wine list is interesting in that it is, of course, unashamedly French but also quite limited in its content. I’m a massive Gigondas fan, considering it a still underrated Rhone neighbour to the more ubiquitous Chateauneuf-du-Pape but at £46 a bottle for a wine just listed as “Gigondas” with no producer information that seems a little steep. I’ve had decent Gigondas in Michelin star establishments for less. Don’t get me wrong, if it’s a terribly good example of a Gigondas warranting the price tag then tell me about it to justify the price and I will gladly order it. This lack of chateau/ producer labelling extends to all the wines other than their “Reserve du Patron” section. I don’t this so much for a £24 Picpoul de Pinet or Corbieres but once you pass the £30/35 a bottle mark and I’d like to know a little more about what my hard earned cash is being spent on. This pricing and listing strategy does mean that some of the “Reserve” wines do come out looking comparatively bargainous, £78 for a 2007 Langoa-Barton – ok its not the best year going- but at least you have a good idea of what you’re getting.

I didn’t mean to have dessert but then my Gallic neighbours ordered the profiteroles……. Perfect little choux puffs and a jug of warm chocolate sauce poured over the top, glistening and dripping onto the plate below. It was all I could not to reach across and wipe a chocolate smear from their plate but that sort of thing tends you get you kicked out of restaurants so I restrained and ordered my own. As you can see from the rather yellowy picture on the right, I didn’t manage to restrain from dragging my finger across my own plate.

The only real disappointment of the meal was the crème brulee. Large in portion size but far too sweet and cloying with a slightly perfumed aroma to it. It also had a rather gloopy consistency rather than a firm cream/custard texture. If I was being uncharitable I might guess that it had come from a packet mix but I’m sure they wouldn’t do that to us, would they? At £4.50 a dessert when the London average seems to be around £8, I guess there may be an element of “you get what you pay for” but I wouldn’t be ordering it again.

I also just adore the idea of the adjoining evening cabaret venue, suggestively named the "Crazy Coqs", the gorgeous art nouveau decor is just crying out for Marlene Dietrich or Edith Piaf to pop up and break into song.
In summary, its not going to blow your mind or your taste buds but its utterly reliable and excellent classic French brasserie sustenance. To top it all off they take reservations, an anomaly amongst the West End openers of 2012.

On a cold winter's day or night a warm, bustling subterranean cavern serving lovely little dishes of comfort food is utterly inviting, that said, I'm not sure I see myself visiting on a balmy summer's evening. Nonetheless I expect that as those shiny, new decorations age Zédel will settle down to become a London institution for many years to come.

Brasserie Zedel
20 Sherwood St, London W1F 7ED
020 7734 4888