17th April 2008
Creative modern global excellence
The question you'll be asked as you prepare to leave Bacchus is not "How was your food?" but "How was your experience?" You don't come to this converted former pub at the unfashionable end of Hoxton to satiate your hunger with good nosh - Fred Cooke's Eel & Pie shop nearby will do that. You come to Bacchus to experience an El Bulli-trained culinary genius taking your sensory perceptions to places they don't normally go, with truly amazing combinations of aroma, flavour, colour, texture and temperature. It's an inevitable yet ironic consequence of the friendly and unsnobbish "fine dining with trainers" ethos of the place that some visitors simply don't get what it's about. But leading restaurant critics, chefs and countless foodies have already confirmed what I knew within minutes of my first visit – that Nuno Mendes is one of the best and most creative chefs working in Britain today. There's only so long I can go without experiencing pleasures like parmesan bread cooked à la minute, nitrous rose water and mackerel cooked at such a low temperature that it melts like butter on the tongue, so I was really looking forward to paying a visit during a brief holiday break back in my home city.
Reviewers seem a bit obsessed with sous-vide cooking, but the truth is that the team at Bacchus use a panoply of equipment and techniques to arrive at their product. And if there's anything new to be tried, Nuno will be the first to experiment. Hence the tasting menu is constantly evolving, to the point where it's not unknown for a dish to change during the course of a service. On my visit last week, the White Chocolate Mousse had definitely taken on some components that were not on the menu. Amongst the evening's highlights for me were “Oyster and Onions Old but New”, a traditional partnering revolutionised by use of the largest spoon in the culinary alchemist's spherification toolkit to create an exploding flavour bomb. The Red Mullet And Liquorice Toast was a brave attempt to pair the perfectly cooked fish with courgette, crab, blood orange and saffron. And the Loin of Venison with Creamy Scallops, Morels and a Study of Peas was a sheer delight to the point where any thoughts of the prime ingredient being out of season were completely brushed aside.
For a very reasonable supplement, matching wines – from Sake to Sauternes - are expertly selected to compliment each course. In the West End it's not difficult to run 2/3 or more of your bill as drink charges – at Bacchus the paired wines are 35% of the total. Just let the front of house team look after you – service at Bacchus is far better than I've experienced in several Michelin-starred restaurants. And, if like me you forget to inform them that someone at your table is a coeliac until the bread arrives, just watch how well they find a creative alternative and do far more than just ‘cope’ with component substitutions in each of the following menu dishes, without the slightest fuss.
If you are looking for an experience that will challenge and delight your palate in a totally relaxed but totally professional environment and leave you feeling – at least for one night – as if the Iraq war, global warming and the credit crunch never happened, then Bacchus in Hoxton is the place for you.
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