Launceston Place

If there are two words we currently hate – together that is, we quite like them individually – it has to be ‘credit crunch’. Keep going onlauceston about it and you talk yourself into a recession and yep, that’s what we appear to be doing.

The rule of thumb is, of course, that eating out is one of the first pleasures to suffer when recessions bite and, quite frankly, that’s a load of… well, you know the expression, so we don’t need to print it in a family newsletter. We’ll argue the concept of value til we’re blue in the face and, where possible, we’ll back it up with some food-related facts.  Take, for example, Launceston Place. This old neighbourhood favourite satisfied generations of South Ken’s well-heeled and, while we don’t mind a throw back to the ‘golden days’, the old décor – think Edwardian Pullman with a stickier, redder carpet – was looking rather grim.

So now, this stalwart has new owners, has had several licks of paint – greys and aubergines and other similar classy shades – and had a young man named Tristan Welch installed to head up the kitchen. Don’t know the name? You should (and, one suspects, you will). Until December 2007, Tristan was head chef at Petrus. That should: a) get you salivating; and b) make you wonder why we’re talking about Launceston Place in terms of value. Relax. We’re getting to it.

And so the food. After some home made crisps and a stunning amuse (tomato consomme, cucumber foam), I started with spider crab risotto. This arrived covered with a novel and natural plate cover: the spider crab shell. This was removed with a flourish to reveal a beautiful dusky pink, gently yielding risotto of great depth, the occasional bite of garlic tempered with a rich crab hint. On the other side of the table, pork rilette and pickled onions received similar murmurs of pleasure.

The buoyant mood continued with salt-baked chicken and a slow cooked shoulder of lamb. The lamb – soft to the point of melting – was intensely flavoured. The chicken – an entire poussin – came presented on a small chopping board. With buttery flesh and crisp skin, this was textbook stuff.

A little pre-dessert – artfully presented in egg shells – came next, swiftly followed by fresh raspberries, shortbread, with chocolate sorbet. The raspberries were soft, sweet and bursting with ripeness, the shortbread was just the right texture – hard enough to provide bite (and that counterbalance of salty sweetened) and soft enough to be cut with a spoon.

In short, it was one of the classiest, most enjoyable afternoons I’ve spent for some time. So why are we discussing it here? Because the above meal – including the amuses, the theatrical flourishes, the poised setting and the three courses (not to mention some excellent petit fours) – costs… £18 per head. No. Really.

If anyone can suggest a better place to currently spend £18 at lunchtime, I want to know about it. Launceston Place is a restaurant that’s going places, while the £18 lunch redefines the word ‘value’. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the capital’s new benchmark for fine, incredibly priced dining.

Food: 4/5
Venue: 4/5
Value: 3.5/5

Check out my site at lovefoodlovedrink.com

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Despite living and working in the easterly bits of central London, I visited two restaurants in Kensington over the last seven days: Kitchen W8 and Launceston Place. I thought the former was pleasant and worth visiting when already in the area, but in contrast, the latter is a worthy cross-town destination. If there’s justice in the world, Launceston Place should be awarded Michelin star in the next year. In addition to talent in the kitchen, it’s got great style and spirit. [An aside for fellow food nerds: be sure to read this fascinating interview with a Michelin Guide inspector .]

hot-cold leek soup amuse at Launceston Place

A few preliminaries. My friends and I made our Saturday booking about two months ago, not because the restaurant was that unattainable, but because we had such conflicting schedules. Then, I read on Gourmet Chick that Launceston Place’s sous chef, Steve Groves, had just won a TV cooking competition, and more importantly, Gourmet Chick had had a fabulous time despite a bizarre service hiccup at the start. All of this meant that by the time we were seated in one “wing” of the restaurant’s butterfly-shaped dining room, I had pretty high expectations.

Presumably because it was late (i.e, past 9 pm), we weren’t offered the tasting menu (£55), but with a party of four, we were still able to construct our own tasting menu by each ordering different dishes from the three-course (£45) menu. Once we added in all the amuses (like the wonderful hot-cold leek soup in graduated shades of green – just like a leek), we felt like we’d eaten the tasting menu anyway.

 

roasted scallops with aromatic herbs

Starters were a strong point of the evening. Jon’s roasted scallops were huge, juicy and sweet. Perfect. (However, being competitive, I’m mildly miffed that Gourmet Chick was served three of these, whereas Jon received two. Was the kitchen running low on scallops that night?)

 

potted foie gras, quince puree and dandelion greens

My starter of potted foie gras consisted of a generous portion of the most velvety foie gras pate, ever. The quince puree added a touch of sweet lightness, and I didn’t even mind the dark slate serving slab (it’s so 1990s, no?).

 

celery sorbet-julienned apple amuse with walnut cream and walnuts

A celery-sorbet palate cleanser performed its function, but the celery was flavorless (as you’d expect from a veg that’s 99% water), and the walnut cream could’ve been sweeter so that it was more than just an icy refresher.

 

Tamworth suckling pig, radishes and honey emulsion

As a main, I chose the suckling pig, whose bit of crackling-topped belly was superb, but amazingly, even better than the slice of belly were the tender loin medallions encased in unctuous, flavor-soaking pig fat. There were accompanying bits and bobs for color and crunch, but the piggy stole the show for me.

 

wild hare, nutmeg cream potatoes and spiced pears

Jon’s wild hare was cooked to a melt-in-your-mouth state. Despite the generous portion size, Jon practically licked his plate clean. However, while I appreciated the gamey meat’s tenderness, it was almost too mushy for me. I felt like I ought to be spreading the meat on toast.

 

spinach and homemade ricotta ravioli with sage butter and artichokes

Our friend J chose the vegetarian option of a spinach and ricotta ravioli. While it looked gorgeous, and while J loved her dish, from the bite I had, I thought the kitchen could’ve used a lighter hand with the herbs. My mouthful tasted overwhelmingly of parsley and dill. And I’d expected mountains of ricotta in these things, which was not the case.

lemon sorbet and raspberry coulis with a pepper tuile

There was a pre-dessert demonstrating more playfulness with temperatures and textures. I loved the way the peppery tuile shattered and added crunchy sweetness to the smooth, creamy cold-sorbet-warm-coulis combo. When even the amuses are a creative treat, you can’t help feeling that someone in the kitchen is paying attention to all the details.

 

dark chocolate, iced milk and crumble

Desserts were generally tasty but pedestrian, and I agree with Gourmet Chick’s assessment that they weren’t as special as the other courses. The “dark chocolate” dessert, for example, was exactly as advertised on the tin: rich, creamy chocolate – like a thick mousse.

toffee apple parfait

Visually, my apple parfait was appealing: a golden apple with echoes of childhood candy-like toffee apples. But the apple was enormous, and inside, it was just a creamy, heavy apple-walnut parfait, which got old really fast. Instead of finishing my giant ball of (effectively) ice cream, I ended up “helping” Jon devour his delicious selection of cheese.

Overall, the decor, food and service were excellent at Launceston Place. If I had to nitpick (of course I do), I’d complain that (1) we had to ask three times for our tap water glasses to be refilled; and (2) while the food is tremendous value at these prices, the “extras” add up incredibly fast. A glass of champagne here (£14 for non-vintage yeasty Roederer); a madeira there (£11 a glass); a couple bottles of wine; a cheese course supplement (£6-£10) . . . when our bill arrived, we were stunned for a moment. What happened to that £45 pp price tag? But of course, all the charges made sense and we quickly moved past our surprise and paid up. After all, the important thing is that all of us had enjoyed our food and our evening, and we can’t wait to go back.

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I'm not a fan of many of the food shows on TV. This is largely because not many of them are really about food - Come Dine With Me, although wildly popular, is really just a reality TV concept where the eating is secondary to gimmicks, The Hairy Bakers is a show made purely because someone at the BBC likes the title, and Ready Steady Cook has Antony Worrall Thompson in it. But I have been hooked to the recent series of Great British Menu, a show where top chefs from all over the UK cook dishes loosely based on the theme of "A Taste of Home", competing for a chance to serve at a banquet laid on for returning servicemen and women from Afghanistan. There are plenty of things wrong with the show - the endless repeats and recaps, the pointless hyping of non-existent tensions in the kitchen, and of course Jennie "Bloody" Bond, but the food is stunning.

Competing on behalf of the South East was Tristan Welch, who although impressing the judges with two of his dishes (An asparagus and egg starter, and a Mr. Whippy style ice cream dessert) failed to get anything on the banquet menu. But the British Army's loss is Kensington's gain, and I'm sure Tristan returned to his restaurant Launceston Place with his head held high. Sure enough, he was there to greet diners as they arrived to this spectacularly pretty part of London last night, and I'm sure his presence in the kitchen contributed to the very accomplished dinner I had.

After a glass of superb house champagne (didn't quite catch the exact bottle but it was a Roederer) in the bar, accompanied by homemade chilli crisps fashioned into a bracelet and tied together with black ribbon (very smart), we were shown to our table. As with any good restaurant, there's nothing I wouldn't have eaten across any of the a la carte or set menus, but as I was in the mood for celebrating I went off-piste and ordered from the slightly more expensive a la carte rather than the £35 Toptable menu. First to arrive however was an amuse of warm cauliflower soup topped with truffle and crème fraîche.

This was delicious. The crème fraîche floated over the warm soup so that when, as advised by the waiter, you sipped from the glass, the truffle aroma filled your nostrils as the cauliflower slipped down your throat with soothing intensity. Everything you'd want from an amuse, and although cauliflower soup as an amuse is hardly an earth-shattering revelation (see The Square, Andaman, Foliage, etc.), when it's done as well as this you can't really complain.

My starter was "Drunken quail flambé with hazelnut". The brandy-poached quail fillets were brought out to be shown to me before they returned to the kitchen for cooking. This was unnecessary and actually quite off-putting, as they were rather unattractive in this state - grey and swollen like pickled lambs tongues. When they returned, post-flambé and dressed, they looked better, but they really could have benefited from a nice crispy skin instead of the wobbly grey membrane lurking beneath the jus. They were also quite bitter, possibly from some of the brandy not being burned off. The hazelnut foams and chunks were very tasty but it didn't really add up to a satisfying whole. A bit of a misfire this one, although I can see what they are trying to do.

Better - in fact, significantly better - was my friend's ironic "Egg and cress sandwich", a near copy of the version Tristan did for GBM, which was as visually stunning as it was fresh and tasty. Lovely powerful asparagus, fresh and light mayonnaise and slow-cooked egg yolks, threaded with salty cured ham. Top stuff.

My main course consisted of rose veal, sweetbreads, nettles(!) and pickled mushrooms. Again, clearly taking more than a nod from similar dishes I've eaten at The Square, it was none the worse for it, using gorgeous silky veal and nice enough sweetbreads flavoured I think with some sort of Indian spice - perhaps garam masala? The nettles were, perhaps fortunately, barely in evidence but the plate was shot through with delicate slices of melba toast. This was an exciting and robustly flavoured plate of food and I enjoyed it a great deal.

The other main course was less successful. Tamworth suckling pig would have been more acceptable if they had simply chosen leaner cuts of meat. There was so much gloopy fat rolled inside these medallions of pork that eating them was a struggle, and with the fat removed there was very little left. The boiled radishes were lovely and scented and subtle, but really couldn't save it.

Pre-dessert, and another slightly modified Great British Menu entry. Tristan has apparently kept the same instant ice-cream machine he used on the show and is still making the lovely Rhubarb and Crumble Mr. Whippy style ice creams, although these were served in plastic cones rather than the proper waffle cones. Still, they were very nice and came with a fruit liqueur to be sucked up using the straw. Oh and a great big lump of carved driftwood - always a treat.

My dessert proper was a very light rhubarb cheesecake and a decent blob of fresh clotted cream (I think). Nice enough on its own but the highlight was an extraordinarily concentrated swoosh of strawberry jammy purée thing, scattered with toffee. My friend's dessert was even better - an impossibly light rice pudding soufflé, served with a perfect little jar of raspberry ice cream. Delicious.

The cheese course (£8 supplement) was commendably 100% British Isles (that includes Ireland apparently). I tried a small selection of new cheeses, including a lovely soft pungent variety called Milleens from South West Ireland, and a gorgeous spongy sheep's milk cheese from East Sussex. It was no surprise to learn that both of these were unpasturised, and I shall keep my eyes open for them.

So yes, there were mistakes and misfires but it is somehow these little slips that make the whole experience at Launceston Place all the more charming. A kitchen innovating and creating to such a high degree as here are bound to mess up occasionally, and how much better to be unpredictable and occasionally brilliant than reliably middle-of-the-road. Behind the rollercoaster of a ride that is having a meal at Launceston Place is a kitchen, and a head chef, cooking with intelligence and unbridled enthusiasm.

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It is true british food has a bad reputation. It’s so bad even british people think so too… but not everybody. There is a growing contingent ( or I should say, one that has always been there, but just very quiet ) who know that British food is more than curry chips and fried fish. It so happens, I’m one of those buggers.

SW Seven

South kensington is home to some landmarks such as the Royal Albert Hall, the natural history museum and is in fact, just off the side of hyde park where you can catch a glimpse of the Prince Albert statue in all its golden glory. Its suburbia and very residential. Did I mention that it’s also terribly expensive to live in this particular part of town?

So what is the point of me telling you this? Well, its history. Launceston Place has history. It’s been serving the residents for many a moon, but recently ( as recent as 8 months ago I believe ) , the old management ran out of steam and sold the place on.

Today, at the helm is Chef Tristan Welch, formerly of Petrus, of Marcus Waering fame and yes, formerly of the Ramsay empire. Excellent pedigree, so expectation naturally, is high.

Enter the Great British restaurant

I’ve walked past this place many times on my way to Wholefoods on High Street kensington and have always been rather intrigued by their sunday roast menu. Then one day, it shut down for refurbishments and when it eventually re-opened, it just looked as if Mark Ronson did a remix version. I.e. it looks cooler now.

Black woods and pristine, pressed white table cloths. The restaurant is very smart and very clean, almost too clean to the point where I felt I like I had to put on a jacket just to eat there. They have comfortable long sofas for the tables by the window. Very nice for the lady to just sink into, I suppose.

This reminds me of the time I was told that is table manners for the man to sit facing the wall (or window in this case) such that you give the lady your absolute, undivided attention. What say you ladies?

Intense, I do digress.

What’s for lunch?

Today I popped into for a spot of lunch. The weather is just all over the place these days. One day its sunny, the next is raining. If only it were sunny all year round, London would be such a beautiful town. Then again, it’d be nicknamed something like the big glare instead of the big smoke, which is a cooler name.

I do digress, yet again.

Their £18 three-course lunch menu caught my eye, have a look on their website here. I noticed that it’s pretty seasonal. On their website, starters include a duck rillette & spider crab risotto and they’ve got cornish lamb with globe artichokes for mains; on the occasion I went, the duck & the lamb were replaced with scallops & roast plaice respectively.

For £18, all the ingredients are of quite high standards. Ok so, I’m only expecting three courses, right?

Well, not quite :D, yes its good, smiley face. While I studied the menu, they brought over these rather interesting razor thin crisps with a rather lovely and smooth garlic cream cheese dip.

Cool, so what’s for lunch?

Pre-starters

Oh, hang on this doesnt look like my spider crab risotto starter. Not yet, while I wait (for my trouble) , they bring over a hearty celeraic soup with toasted almonds.

(Freebie!)

A mightily tasty one to boot as well. It is, what I can only describe as a savoury espresso. It’s quite thick and creamy, it’s a very straightforward soup and a good way to start, even though technically, I’ve not started as yet.

At this point I must point out the elaborate service as well. The sommelier is professionally warm, once he took my order, two waitresses started shuffling in the background and one of them started by placing my cutlery and then proceeded to perform a well-choreographed dance by placing the crisps, then stealthily inserting the butter and the garlic cheese before another finally brings the bread basket for a choice of soda brown or white.

Yeah it was pretty fun.

Spider crab risotto

Before I had a chance to take a picture, the rice was actually covered in a cooked spider crab shell, which looked really interesting. And then, ‘Waala’, oh that smell! The immediate fragrance of the crab fills the table and was just lovely. Garlic, olive oil and crab infused, the smell had me salivating even before I lifted my fork.

A mouthful. Rich, creamy and steamy. The sauce was definitely made with the broth from boiling the shell of the crab. The seafood juices are fully developed and very dominant, it’s given way to a buttery, creamy and just very rich palate of savouriness.

The rice, I will note, is a little different from conventional risotto. It’s not soft and creamy, rather it’s quite chewy and the individual pieces of rice don’t stick together. Small matter, because it gives it an interesting texture which I’m not really used to. It’s a good twist that works, oh I have to mention that sauce again. I think I’m getting some saffron as well, but really it’s just so rich, almost alittle too rich as I come to finishing the dish, but very good indeed. A heavy starter albeit but a very appetising one.

Beef Anglais

The mains is a beef casserole with sweet carrots, crispy bacon, radishes and a parsnip puree. The sauce is very light and just barely coats the ingredients. I started with the carrots, which are gently sweet. The radishes give the dish a crunchy and fresh edge to the bite, while that parsnip mash is just umami-rich and gives it alot of savoury goodness. The vegetables, in addition to the bacon combine to produce a perfumery fragrance to the dish. Very colourful both visually and tastefully.

Oh, the beef is so tender and just falls apart upon cutting. It’s definitely slow-cooked (for a very long time) and it’s given way to a very soft texture indeed. The taste of the beef is very mellow and it feels like the beef is there to provide a backbone to the flavour profile while the rest of the ingredients blend to give the overall taste. This dish is restrained and controlled, mellow and soft almost in total contrast to the rich and big starter. It works, I feel like I had two well-balanced courses. Nothing seems over the top, all the flavours are mild and very straightforward. The chef has a very clear idea of what he wants you to taste and I think that singular focus actually works very well. It’s just straightforward good cooking.

Applause.

Pre-dessert

Wow. They caught me by surprise once again! Another freebie-goodie? This time, for my trouble of waiting for the dessert, they are offering a baked vanilla cream custard with hazelnut nougat. Notice it’s served in a egg shell which is a nice touch, albeit a little gimmicky.

The vanilla custard was very smooth, delicate and mildly sweet. The hazelnut nougat was really a treat. It was nutty, crumbly and tasted of honey. This is almost a twist on the creme brulee. The fact that it was free, just made it taste all the more better.

Will the real dessert please stand up?

So I thought the pre-dessert was good, but this was a real stunner. Officially, its called the cornish cream tea pudding. What it really consists of is a good dollop of cream tea ice cream, the off-cream coloured one in the foreground. Behind it sits the dollop of clotted cream. If you’ve never had clotted cream, its a really thick and luxurious cream that has the texture of a really rich ice cream, like haagen daz, but at room temperature. Its not sweet, but the taste of the cream is very rich. People from devon will say clotted cream is from Devon, and Cornwallians will claim that clotted cream is really, cornish cream.

Either way, it tastes great. The red sauce is raspberry jam that is full of bubbles and very fruitilly bright. I perked up tasting this. I particularly like the cream tea ice cream. At first, it tasted like an infused vanilla ice cream, fragrant but couldn’t quite place that fragrance… and then I thought ah! its tea, hence the nice steamy aftertaste. Finally, the tea cakes allow you to mop up all the nice creamy concoctions. This was such a wonderful way to end the meal.

Thoughts as raindrops fall on my head

I also managed to order a glass of English white, the Bacchus. It was crisp and limey with a sweet peachy finish. A ode to the summer which we never had.

Well I started the meal expecting just three solidly cooked dishes which are British and understated. Instead, what I got was a semi-five course of innovatively constructed dishes, with well-balanced ingredients that hang well together and spot-on cooking which feature superbly delicate tastes. All this for £18. The rain may have dampened my spirits a little, but the food has coloured my mood. If this is what he can offer at £18, I really wonder how great the £42 three course dinner will taste like. But, that is for another day and another meal.

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It is years since I have been to Launceston Place, a cosy restaurant nestled in a quiet Kensington street. The dining room is split into several small rooms, with long picture windows, dark brown walls with Victorian prints and, a nice surprise, carpet: a nice change from the ubiquitous noisy wood floors that make conversation a struggle in busy restaurants. There is banquette seating with beige upholstery and no muzak. The new regime here is D&D restaurants (ex Conran) with a chef, Tristan Welch, who was head chef at Petrus. The waiting staff are now smartly dressed in matching brown suits, and the meet-and-greet person confidently asks us how our day has been and then says “it will now get better”.

As you arrive you are presented with a homemade potato crisp with a cream/grey taramasalata (mullet roe?), which was very pleasant enough. Bread is either sourdough or brown, from the Flour Station; it has excellent texture, but as so often with bread these days, needs a little more salt (5/10). We begin with an amuse bouche of carrot velouté with a coriander foam. The foam worked well, having a genuine coriander taste, but the soup was a little too watery and lacked carrot flavour (4/10).

Stella started with new season English asparagus, prettily presented on top of a tasty spring onion tart with asparagus sauce and foam (5/10). After the post-modern foams it was nice to see a retro touch: drunken quail, flambéed, served with individual hazelnuts each with a little blob of hazelnut puree, garnished with wild chervil. The quail breast was excellent, tender and tasty, served on a rilette of quail, the hazelnut an effective match for the richness of the quail (6/10).

Braised Shetland salmon was again attractively presented, with shallot and mushroom compote, artichoke and wild herbs; the salmon was cooked nicely but the flavours seemed rather subdued in this dish (4/10). Cornish mackerel was served as a fillet on toast, with green tomatoes and “Cambridge sauce”, an old English sauce made from quail’s eggs (in this case), anchovies, capers, mustard, olive oil, vinegar and herbs. The sauce was very effective, the mustard given a much needed bite to the dish; the mackerel was pleasant (4/10) though for sheer flavour not as good as one I had at the less ambitious St John’s Bread and Wine a while back.

We tried cheese, a sensibly short collection of English cheeses: a fresh goat cheese, a Cheddar and a ripe Stinking Bishop, a strong cheese I did not recognise and a rather less good Stilton; this was served with toast or biscuits (5/10). A pre-dessert was excellent custard with a hazelnut crumb and a little biscuit stick to dip into the custard (5/10).

The desserts mostly suffered from the tiresome Adria-esque influence which seems to afflict so many chefs these days, who can’t produce a chocolate dessert without thinking it a clever wheeze to serve this with some bay leaf ice cream and oat porridge (in case you think I am making this up, sadly I am not). There is one sane dessert, a very well made apple charlotte with excellent filling and crisp and buttery bread outside layer (6/10). Coffee in itself was excellent, though espresso was served in a miniscule cup, but whoever thought it is a good idea to serve a few chocolates and make these bay-leaf, thyme and rosemary respectively deserves cruel and unusual punishment. Ironically we were given a taste of genuinely superb chocolate and nut tuile on the way out, so why not serve this with the coffee rather than chocolates that seem to have fallen into the herb garden on the way to the table?

Service was friendly and generally capable, though with so many waiters there were some odd gaps and occasional difficulties getting attention, but these were minor quibbles. I found a lot to like at Launceston Place, the chef showing excellent technique at times, and you certainly get plenty of freebies for your £35 for three course menu. The wine list is fairly priced, with plenty of choice in the £25 - £40 range, and they even had the divine JJ Prum Riesling Auslese by the glass with desserts.

This is a place that I feel could develop into something special, especially if the chef can learn to put his chemistry-set away. I like the old British dishes that pop up on the menu here, which were presented very well and with excellent technique. Prices are fair for the level of cooking, and it is not often I say that about a London restaurant these days.

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