Story: La dee da Lunching

24th March 2009
So Claridges is somewhere I've always wanted to visit. Seizing this rare opportunity of a day off work I called upon my friend Lionel* who had recently been sacked from his mid level job, to join me on an afternoon of living like a big cheese in London town.

Despite the sacking, Lionel was in particularly high spirits as we made our way to Claridges, me in my funky media type clothes and him in his blazer, carrying his manbag (which he claimed contained documents he needed to prepare for some friends, but I suspect it was part of ‘a look’).

Inside we wandered through the beautiful art deco surroundings trying to find Gordon Ramsay at Claridges. We walked through the jewellery box tea room to find it hidden behind. I handed over my coat to the lady who greeted us with Lionel refusing to hand over his to the 'gypsy at the desk'- bit harsh I thought but that got me questioning my own trusting nature. Should I have handed over my coat so easily? Well, I had emptied the pockets of my oyster card and keys, damn I left my chewing gum in there. I hope she doesnt run off with my H&M classic...I'll want some gum after lunch, unless they give us chocolate mints or humbugs with the bill.

Ushered to our table through a peach, Chanel inspired cloud. We were delightfully engaged by the waiting staff with small talk and polite smiles or as Lionel put it, 'getting hassled quite a bit' said with that tactless lisp that got him sacked in the first place.

The minute we got to the table, Lionel put his manbag down, the existence of the contents, I was yet to be convinced of, and left for the toilet. In the mean time I declined ordering drinks, politely waiting for him to return. 15 mins later and parched, Lionel returns from the toilet- must have been really far away...?

After looking through the 6 available menus we settled on a 3 course set lunch.

Lets Eat
So we began our dining experience with a little cup of creamy soup. Hard to describe apart from nice, buttery with a little dollop of wholegrain mustard (Sainsburys own I think), some tiny cabbage matchsticks and one crouton which was surprising packed with flavour. A really delicious start. The accompanying selection of bread was really good too, onion loaf, sour dough and pumpkin breads.

Starters
I had a mosaic of boiled beef, carrots and foie gras, date chutney, toasted sourdough. It was nice, the foie gras was smooth and delicious, the beef was unbelievably tender but the chutney was the best bit, strong in flavour but the bread was more burnt than toasted- disappointing.

Lionel had the Citrus-cured gurnard, beetroot, cucumber and fennel, lime crème fraîche . Pretty but not phenomenal as anticipated.

Mains
We both had the pan-fried sea trout with a smoked shellfish cassoulet. The sauce was full of flavour with little bits of razor clam and various shellfish. Yum.

What is he doing?
After ordering dessert Lionel made his excuses and visited the gents again. The maitre d came over to lay a neighbouring table and kindly told me “Don’t worry, he’ll come back and if he doesn’t I don’t know what’s wrong with him” I said thanks and told him if he didn’t, I’d eat his dessert. After all, both sounded really good- the toughest choice of the day.
What was Lionel doing in the toilet….too much rich food takings its toll, surely not this early on in the meal?

Dessert
Rhubarb parfait, lemon ice cream, lavender shortbread for me. The parfait was again really strongly flavoured and the lemon ice cream intense and refreshing. The shortbread was an added bonus although a little hard to remove thoughts of grandmas talc.

Lionel had valrhona chocolate mousse, blood orange sorbet, toasted banana bread. Once again the grill seems to have been on overdrive as the banana bread came out more singed than toasted.

This is not the end
As we prepared to ask for the bill the waiter brought over a dish with two almond and jam cakes and a dark chocolate truffle filled with a liquid passion fruit centre. After biting into the truffle, Lionel shouted at me and made me eat the thing whole. Spoil sport.

We were then invited to tour the kitchen which was quite interesting but hot as hell.

Overall it was great fun, food was good but I don’t think it was the amazing food experience I'd been anticipating although the unexpected extras really made it. 8/10

*real names have not been used in order to protect their identities