Le Bouchon Breton

QueenB

Choose wisely... 23rd September 2009

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Now, with family in France and spending a lot of my time there, I am an avid fan of finding a decent french brasserie in London - which is harder than you may think

A friend at work suggested we try this for our team dinner as she had seen a great deal on Top table £15 for 3 courses and a glass of house wine from a set menu. So far so unbelievabley good considering the team behind this place!

All 11 of us arrive and are meeted and greeted by a swarm of staff pleased to see us.
I was even more pleased by the cheese display that already had my mouth watering!

The table was set and sliced mini baguettes with pots of butter were placed along the table and swiftly replaced when empty

The set menu changes daily, so we did not know what to expect - we ended up with a choice ot 2 dishes per course, none of which really appealed to me - tomato and cheese tart or pork/duck rilletts then choice of pork chop or bowl of spicy tomato pasta anyone?
everyone who had the menu said it was fine and cooked well but not what you come to a restaurant like this for!

some of my team strangely stuck to the set meal but I was wiser and had something from the main menu:
Panfried Seabass Filet, with Crushed Potatoes and
Spring Onions, Served with a Mustard Butter Sauce for £17
The seabass was crispy skinned and cooked so perfectly it just melted in your mouth. the potatoes were crushed with butter, garlic and spring onions that made me want to order a plate of them alone but i resisted hehe

My friend had the Boeuf Bourgignon £15
Slow Cooked Beef in a Rich Red Wine Sauce with Bacon, Mushroom and Glazed Silverskin Onions Served with Croutons and Mash Potatoes - this was delicious and envied by most of the table!

Even the house wines were enjoyable but the wine list was extensive and well selected - staff were happy to advise on this front - also with something for every budget.

It was quiet when we arrived at 7 pm but it quickly filled up and became very buzzy and vibrant, with people also just drinking at the bar

I have already booked for a saturday next month to take my boyfriend for a full meal and will be able to give a more indepth review after! I can't wait!!!

intoxicating

Zinc and Pewter 28th November 2008

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“Just trying to keep it authentic” explained the barman in a thick, Gallic accent. He had just shouted - quite theatrically - to a colleague at the other end of the 15 metre, pewter bar. “Not a problem” I replied, using the bona fide burr of an English ponce. I was actually rather enjoying waiting for my friend, Will, who had inadvertently gone to Smithfields rather than Spitalfields. Along with the imported atmosphere, I soaked up a flute of pink Champagne and halved blanched Spanish almonds with my teeth. Knowing he was sweating in a black cab, thirst building, I phoned a couple of times to relay details of the quenching tipple: temperature, texture and delicate scents of raspberry and pastry.

Most Brits associate the ‘brasserie’ concept with 'Café Rouge' and its ilk, even though our equivalent is really the gastropub. It does look like former broker Ian Stoppani and Michel Roux Junior have taken great care to replicate the brassy features of the romanticised, all-day French version, London’s second such opening in recent months (the other being ‘St. Pancras Grand’). There is a dramatic checkerpot floor, maroon carriage style Chesterfields, engraved mirrors and varnished veneers. Closer inspection revealed an absinthe fountain to louchely summon the green fairy. Occasionally, Edith Piaf joined the fray, gutturally shoe-horned between acid jazz. And whenever she appeared, a roar of support rose...

A substantial staff, neat as a new pin in black and white, seemed smilingly to enter into the Euro-Disney atmosphere. The whole place smelt of lilies and new leather.

The hearty, A3 sized menu read like a greatest hits of the genre. Will and I asked if we could order half portions of plenty of plates although somewhere we lost control: the choice was taken from our hands and things just began to appear. Exuberant, tangy, white butter pleasantly overpowered reasonable sliced baguette, but slightly stale brown. Bélon oysters were verdigris tinged: tannic, dry, zinc drenched. Restaurant manager, Frederic who must have spent at least a third of our six-hour lunch answering our questions and recommending Parisian bistros, admitted craving the creamy fatness of Breton oysters when they are spawning. The sensual and contagious allure of sexy oysters!

We excavated a dozen Burgundian snails with gynecological looking tools. They were quite big: moistly bound in garlic butter, earthy and pert. Frogs legs were cleanly fried with an accurate Tartare Sauce. A Bibendum like stack of onion tyres were topped with brittle fried parsley. A bottle of nervy, razor-sharp, chalky Chablis 1er Cru ’04 (Raveneau) brought with us, cut through with style.

Grilled fillet of moist gurnard (an underrated ‘bottom feeder’) was greaseless, served with a tender squid tendril, juicy razor clam and a firm base of ratatouille. Love it or hate it, ‘La Marmite Bretonne’ – mixed fish in a lobster bouillon – came sweltering in a little pot. It required a little extra seasoning, which we applied, but was genuinely well executed with cobalt coloured mussels, fleshy langoustines and a meaty lobster claw (which we fought over).

A pure tasting, iconic Gevrey-Chambertin, Lavaux-St-Jacques ’99 (Dom. Louis Jadot) was aquiline with a delicate, yielding perfume of raspberry, soft sorrel and dark spices. It was agile enough to go fishing with the Marmite whilst retaining its own veracity. To follow, the textures of the tagliatelle nest of pink-centred pan-fried veal kidneys in tarragon sauce were complimentary, although there was too much pasta for my taste.

Roasted corn-fed chicken breast with a apple sweet Breton cider sauce, glazed apple and wilted gem lettuce was very good. The bird had a succulent texture approaching specimens from Bresse.

A bottle of densely perfumed Margaux from the millennium, Château Giscours, was ripe: almost vaporously alcoholic, with a little toffee, heather and concentrated blackcurrant cordial notes. Rousing and refreshing.

The so-titled ‘farandole’ (or dance) of fromages was pristine: a work of love and one of the most-well appointed carts I have seen in London. The highlight was the triple cream brie swollen with black winter truffles and named in honour of 18th century gastro-God, ‘Brillat-Savarin’. A little sweet, ‘bread in a box’ acted as spatula.

Two halves of Château Filhot Sauternes ’03 (drawn from the restaurant’s list) provided an energetic, opulent, fleshy and creamy palate cleanser: quince laden and sprucing. Incidentally, this estate was once considered on par with the world’s most famous stickie, Château d’Yquem.

Having a shocking fondness for sugar, I finished with a plate of profiteroles doused in glossy chocolate, topped with a little mint. Will describes himself as a ‘pastry man’ – which has nothing to do with his sexuality - and would have preferred a stronger ratio of springy choux to vanilla pod infused ice cream. I thought they were wildly hedonistic, however, as was our decadent lunch (which had segued into supper). By the time we left reservations signs were sprouting on surrounding tables, ready for the evening service.

Word on the street suggests that the city finds Le Bouchon Breton boldly priced. It goes without saying that their estimations would have been poles apart a few months ago. But the truth is that with the prix fixe, you could come out of the experience spending mercifully little.

Service was generously attentive; cooking was ultimately correct and inevitably never cutting edge. The room was neat rather than chic, although incongruous. Gaping windows stared relentlessly onto the stark, modernised market, where dystopic chains like ‘Las Iguanas’ and ‘Giraffe’ hold court.

There are well-publicised links with ‘Le Gavroche’. Apart from Roux, ex Gavroche sommelier Francois Bertrand has caringly compiled a 700 bin strong homage to brighter days. The top ‘artefacts’ are displayed within a temperature controlled glass wall. Ex Gavroche chef Nicolas Laridan, who I am told described us as that day’s ‘big eaters’ is at the helm. Despite its makers, this is however very much its own creature. And I cannot help but speculate how a 200+ cover site with standards will avoid becoming an unwieldy monster in a bear market.

‘To be successful in my native France, where people speak the same language and understand me, is nothing…’
[Edith Piaf]

chrisp

Unamused-bouche 11th November 2008

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The Bouchon Bordelais has been a fixture on Battersea Rise for as long as I've been living in the area, and I walk past its front doors almost every weekend on the way to the shops and stalls on Northcote Road. I went once, a few years ago, for lunch. It wasn't bad - they served nice skinny chips and I quite enjoyed my steak (this being before the time I really knew what good steak was) - but a friend's mullet was nasty (the fish, not his hairdo) and for the price I paid I decided it wasn't worth the outlay so I've never been back.

But a week or so ago I noticed a new menu posted outside the Bordelais. Kind of a cross between a French bistro and Corbin and King (the brains behind the Wolseley, the Ivy and others), it now has a larger selection of more varied dishes, from a simple bowl of soup to a 500g steak frites, much of it quite affordable and all of it, I have to say, very tempting. Turns out the Bouchon brand had been revamped by none other than M. Roux of Le Gavroche fame, and even has a sister restaurant newly opened in Spitalfields Market in the East End. And it was this new branch, named Le Bouchon Breton, that I visited for lunch Friday last week.

If first impressions were all that counted, Le Bouchon Breton wouldn't be at all bad. The room is airy and pleasant, having done the best they can with what is essentially a goldfish bowl on the first floor of a brand new office development. It's perhaps best described as a Parisien bistro reimagined by Norman Foster, but I liked the fresh seafood counter out the front and the atmosphere was buzzy without being oppressively loud. It's populated by an impressive number of smart "French" (more of that later) waiters with a ready smile and competent manner, and after being seated and presented with those exciting menus, I was on a high. I should have left there and then.

The first sign of trouble was that after our initial meet and greet it took us a good fifteen minutes to flag down a waiter to order, and when we asked for a bottle of house white he insisted we waited for the sommelier. We only wanted house white, and the intervention of the sommelier would hardly have convinced us otherwise, but procedures are procedures and pointless pretentious flummery is pointless pretentious flummery I suppose. After another five or ten minutes and the sommelier had steadfastly refused to appear, we managed to grab another waiter who took our order for wine without complaint.

There was yet more time for the hapless service to flounder during the food order. "Madame, s'il vous plait?" one began to a member of our party who happened to be French. Instantly she rattled off her order in her mother tongue, only to be interrupted mid-flow by the blushing waiter who quietly explained that he was, in fact, Russian and couldn't speak French. A sweet, and rather humorous incident you might think, but it just reinforced the impression that in the effort for that elusive notion of authenticity the management may have inadvertently just created a French theme restaurant. "Go up to people and introduce yourself in French", you can imagine the management saying. "They'll be too stupid to understand or reply, but they'll forgive all kinds of horrors with the food if they think this is how the French do it". Kind of a Gallic TGI Fridays, but with more expensive wine.

The food, when it eventually arrived, was only OK. My French Onion Soup had a great big crouton dissolving soggily inside it and had clearly been standing under a heat lamp for a while. It also had no toasted cheesy crust on the top, although the actual broth was satisfyingly beefy. It was no better than the £2.50 example you can get from the Eat sandwich chains on Mondays though. And my main course of lamb cutlets in rosemary jus would have been a whole lot nicer had they used decent meat - Hawksmoor, just around the corner on Commercial Street, serves the tastiest cuts of lamb in London for exactly the same price. Here they were fatty and tasteless and drowned by the strong sauce. Opinions around the table from my fellow diners were similarly mixed; a steak baguette was dry and uninteresting, the lobster bisque was overly creamy and didn't contain enough lobster. The overall impression was of a restaurant trying to increase its margins by cooking smaller amounts of inferior ingredients, and you have to have real skill in the kitchen to pull this off successfully. Le Bouchon Breton may have culinary genius M. Roux on its management team, but it's only with him in the kitchen that it would stand a chance turning out food worth paying for.

Perhaps it's silly to criticize a French restaurant in London for not being authentic, but the tragedy is that I can see what they are trying to do. Affordable bistro style food covering all bases, recognisably French and served in an informal setting - it sounds like most people's idea of a perfect dining spot. The fact that Le Bouchon Breton falls so short just shows how difficult it is to get that balance right. This may not be the last I see of the Bouchons - the £12.50 lunch menu is still generously priced and of course there's the revamped Battersea Branch that might yet win me back - but the experience on Friday lunchtime was summed up quite neatly by a fellow diner as she peered miserably into her insipid lobster bisque - "We should have just gone to the Fox again".

Niamheen at 12/11/08

Oh dear! That's a shame :-(

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