Michel Roux is awesome (and I'm very annoyed at the BBC for not being prepared to be a little more accommodating and thus losing him from Masterchef!)
Whilst investigating the possibility of booking a table at Le Gavroche I stumbled upon an advertisement for a 5 course meal with matching wines (supplied by Tapanappa Wines) at Roux at Parliament Square with the guarantee that Michel would be present. This sounded ideal: It was only a couple of months away (and for logistical reasons I'm not keen on booking things much more in advance than that which is always going to make booking somewhere like Le Gavroche difficult) and given Michel's busy schedule/other commitments although I get the impression he's very good at meeting guests at Le Gavroche there's clearly no guarantee that he'll be there. I'd also been keen to try Roux at Parliament Square since I found out its head chef is Steve Groves (a former Masterchef winner) and after they cooked an amazing-looking menu there on Masterchef The Professionals.
We had a leisurely (but very trip) train journey down from Birmingham via about 50 stations, but still had a reasonable amount of time to waste and decided to burn off a few calories in preparation by having a stroll along the Thames. This was a great idea until I somehow managed to lose my footing and twist my ankle!
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| Walk along the Thames |
There was no way I was going to miss the evening in preference for testing out the local A&E so I decided to hobble to the restaurant and start drinking asap to help with the pain. Luckily this proved easier than I was expecting as the champagne that was served with the canapés was continuously topped up (all served in the very impressive bar).
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| Champagne and canapés |
Michel Roux made an appearance and gave a brief outline of the food that we would be eating and then we moved to the dining room. Initially even I was a little bit too self-aware to take photos of the food, so you'll just have to trust me that the crab, scallop and prawn tart and quail/jerusalem artichoke dishes and accompanying wines were lovely. Next up was duck, parsnip, shallot and preserved cherries, by this point I had clearly drunk enough wine (similarly to the champagne wine was being refilled pretty much continuously) that I didn't mind looking like an idiot and taking photos. The duck was perfect and I even liked the parsnips (not usually a favourite).
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| Roast Goosnargh duck, parsnip, shallot, preserved cherries |
The next course was lamb, brassicas and potatoes, again it was very nice, but by this point I had realised that I had possibly overindulged in the free-flowing wine and don't think I even managed a whole glass of the accompanying Shiraz.
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| Herdwick lamb, brassicas, violet potatoes |
Over the course of the evening Michel did visit each table and have a little chat, I can only hope that our alcohol-affected state we didn't embarrass ourselves too much. I have to admit by the time I came to dessert I was getting a bit full, and although the dessert had some nice flavours it was a little heavy. I really hadn't paced myself very well and only managed a sip of the dessert wine that was meant to be amazing (not a Tapanappa wine, but apparently a favourite of Napoleon!)
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| Mille feuille of Yorkshire rhubarb, whipped vanilla custard |
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| Petit fours |
There was just about time for a quick coffee to try and help sober up but I was so full I could only manage one of the petit fours! Then we had to make a pretty sharp exit in order to try and make the last train back to Birmingham. Amazingly considering my dodgy ankle and our slightly more than tipsy states we somehow managed to get on the train with about two minutes to spare. Even more amazingly I didn't have a particularly bad hangover the next morning, but I did have memories of an amazing evening and a slightly bruised ankle!
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