Pierre Koffmann’s at the Berkeley Hotel – Bad Bread Good Souffle

Last night was our dinner date, neither of us could remember the last time we went out on our own, it had been so long.  Father-in-law was having the 4 year old overnight and to make the most of it I thought I should trade in my usual jogging pants, t-shirt, hair in bunch for an evening frock.  Elizabeth had suggested this week I should try Pierre Koffmann’s at the Berkeley Hotel and the review of her lunch is here.   The last time I had Pierre Koffmann’s food was about 19 years ago or more at Le Tante Claire.  I don’t remember much about the lunch I had there except that the creme brûlée was cooked oddly, the top half was creamy as it should be but the bottom half of it was solid.   I wanted to taste Mr Koffmann’s food again.

These are badly taken photos on my phone the type I complain bloggers having…taken in dim light, good for dinner dates not so good for photo taking.

I booked a table only this Thursday and for that reason I can’t complain that my table was not in a great position in the restaurant.  The place is divided into 2 separate levels, the main part is below and the top bit where our table was is much smaller and we were placed near the corridor of people coming in and out, catching a gust of wind if anyone walked in from the pavement.  My advice is if booking a table ask for one downstairs.

When going somewhere nice I feel the experience starts with booking the table, and the girl on the phone was attentive and lovely, she made me look forward to the evening.

The bread came and it was my duty to taste it even though I don’t like to stuff self with bread.

There was a croissant looking thing, tasted of a cheesy flaky pastry, morish as cheese croissants are, but flaky pastry by the way is not bread, different skill set. The other rolls, one had poppy seeds and the other a tomato paste and were ok, heavy doughy crumb but you could at least taste a flavour.

Butter

The butter wasn’t good, it didn’t taste of anything, Bikerboy was the first one to taste it and say he didn’t like it.  OK…so he’s been spoilt lately with the great butter at home as you can see from my post here on butter.  I tasted it and he was right, no flavour and also it had the texture of butter being whipped with cream, in fact it tasted of whipped cream.

Bread Rant

Now forgive me for the rant I’m about to make.  Peter, a baker in Shropshire who I know on twitter, said this afternoon if you’re a baker you judge a restaurant by its bread and he has a point.  It’s only natural to take notice of the particular food you’re in love with.

The white bread roll which I tasted last because nothing can disguise the taste of “bread” when you have plain bread, was truly awful.  This bread roll picture above and crumb shot below was awful in every aspect, there are better rolls in supermarkets.  It was dense and then a hard chew, not a good chew as in the characteristics of sourdough-chewy, but the sort you get with high gluten flour and not so fresh bread.  As I chewed the bread trying to pick up any flavour, the flour tasted of poor quality or the flour had been kept for too long as it had this stale slightly faint whiff of “old” about it, you know what I mean?  When something is verging on the about-to-go-mouldy.

Bread In Restaurants

Restaurants buy in bread all the time, its common, either because lack of space in the kitchen not enough equipment or someone to make it, it’s for all sorts of reasons including the cost aspect of it.  Jean-Philippe had on his Universal facebook page the name of a French chef who paid as much attention to the bread being produced for his restaurant as his Michelin starred food, I now forget the name of the chef, there are examples of this everywhere.   There are restaurants who’s bread I’ve tasted that have stood out, like the potato bread at  Le Manoir aux Quat‘Saisons.

I don’t care if they buy the bread in or whether they make in-house so long as it’s worthy being on that table.

Rant over.

Fresh crab with celeriac & apple remoulade  

If a decent restaurant can’t get a fresh crab salad right they might as well not open up their doors, it’s a dish which doesn’t need much to make it good.  This was Bikerboy’s starter, imagine celeriac remoulade but only add crab to it and that’s what you had here, he loved it and I thought it was good enough, fairly rich.

My biggest problem was the green puree around it which I think was supposed to be of apple, it had little taste, it needed to have a sharp fresh appley taste like that of a cox, which would’ve cut through some of the richness of the remoulade.

 

Squid Bolognese-style

Elizabeth had said she like the squid tagliatelle she had there, and being intrigued by any dish with squid I chose it.  The squid is cut into tagliatelle ribbons and poached then served with a squid-type of sauce imitating bolognese.

My biggest complaint of this dish was the appearance of the sauce, it reminded me of ready-meal bolognese sauce where the meat part appears to be made of gritty bits.  The taste was intense and quite delicious, the squid part was chewy as squid sometimes is but was tolerable.  I did love the concept and made me think of cutting squid this way as a genius idea, and wondered if I could do it but only make it more tender.

Home-style, braised beef cheeks in red wine

This was my mains, and tasted as it should be of classic French cooking, melting meat, thick reduced sauce, exactly what you would expect of good cooking.

You can see form the photo above how the cheeks were cooked to melting perfection.

The green beans on the other hand were served like mine at family meals, slightly over-done and came looking rather sad in side bowl.

Saddle of Venison

This was Bikerboy’s main, saddle of venison with red cabbage, a spiced fruit puree, a most delicious parsnip crisp and I’m not sure what the white puree on the plate is.  This was a special of the day and it’s not in their main menu.

The meat was perfectly cooked, on the mild side of venison, the spice fruit puree had five spices added which gave it an unusual note.  Bikerboy was very happy with this and it was a generous portion, in fact both main courses were generous.

What I would like to recreate, if you’re reading this Luc Martin is the parsnip crisp, can you see it has a black edge on it?  I don’t know what it was but made it taste really good.  I imagine the parsnips were rolled in whatever then made into chips…we need to steal this idea.

Tarte Tartin

This was Bikerboy’s dessert choice since there wasn’t anything else on the menu that took his fancy.  He found it sickly sweet and couldn’t finish it, all of it a bit heavy.

Petit Fours

The madeleine were miniature and maybe because of their doll’s house size they suffered, the texture was rubbery and very dense, didn’t taste of anything much.  The macaroons were also tasteless, sugary but I could detect a hint of nut about them, and the marshmallow had a very pleasant citrus taste to it.

OK it’s a photo of a decaf expresso…but you have no idea how badly expresso is made in this country, believe it or not I come from a land of expresso coffee shops in every corner of every town.  Here most of the time they taste like ashtrays, horrid things, this one was smooth and strong without being astringent.

Last but not least the Pistachio Soufflé 

This pistachio soufflé is famous in the world of soufflés, did you know?  Have a look at Renaissance Girl’s page here of some famous chefs and their soufflés, and this here is her review of her visit to Pierre Koffamann’s in her search for soufflés.

It was delicious.  I wish I was quick enough to ask the waiter NOT to put in the soufflé the pistachio ice-cream before I had a chance to try it on its own.

The sign of a good soufflé is that the inside should still be creamy soft and still runny, and it’s hard to judge that with melting ice-cream in the middle.  But I did poke my spoon all over the bottom of it and it was runny all over regardless of the ice-cream.  I would happily eat this all the time on returning, in fact liked it so I will make it at home.

Here’s the recipe for it on Renaissance Epicurean’s blog.

The Soufflé Project

Last week a few of us have decided to experiment with soufflé methods after I tweeted coming across the bouillie method for soufflés when watching America’s Test Kitchen programme.  There’s the béchamel, the pastry cream, and the bouillie method where the flour is gelatinised to keep the mixture silky smooth according to the show, and producing the best result out of the above methods apparently.

So far Emily from Emily Drinking Tea, Nicola from North19, Jax from Renaissance Epicurean  are all in for some experimenting with these methods.

When I asked Bikerboy just now if he would go back to Pierre Koffmann’s he said without a doubt, loved his food apart from not being keen on the sweetness of the dessert, everything was well cooked and generous portions.

All the food I had was also well cooked, it’s not innovative cooking but they’re solid classic dishes which some nights is exactly what you fancy, no squirts or scum on the plate.

After Post Note:  

Buying-in Ice-cream…really necessary?

I posted this late and forgot to mention one of the things that had bugged me about the restaurant once I had booked and saw the menu online was that they buy the ice-cream in.   Is it necessary to do this for a restaurant?  I understand the Hotel doing it as it will have different bars and other casual restaurants but I was under the impression the Pierre Koffamann’s restaurant was to be taken more seriously.  Ice-cream with a good machine is easy and quick to make that even the lower of the kitchen staff brigade can be left in charge of it, and to my mind there is no excuse to buying it in for a serious restaurant unless there’s something really special about them, say special diet ones.  

What was even more puzzling was that I’ve bought Laverstock Park Farm products last year, the buffalo mozzarella, buffalo burrata, buffalo stewing beef and a roasting rib-eye piece as well as different ice-cream flavours from them and I didn’t reckon their ice-cream at all.  

Out of my nearly £80 order I thought the mozzarella was very good and the stewing beef very tender, the rib-eye piece was tough and bland and I put it down to lack of being hung properly.  Why Pierre Koffmann’s team think it’s worthy buying-in Laverstock Park ice-cream for their restaurant I do not know.