Dinner with extra din
LONSDALE in Notting Hill won this year's Time Out Bar of the Year Award. Dick Bradsell (who else?) was hired to oversee the mixing and serving of drinks and for the first time ever I knowingly set eyes on this legendary figure - whose imprimatur is required for any fashionable watering hole - standing behind a bar.
But the reason I was at Lonsdale was not especially to try the Honey Bee-tini (Ketel Citroen vodka shaken with Krupnik honey spirit, citrus juices and honey water) but because chef William Cooper has joined the outfit.
Cooper's family motto must be Hide Your Light Under A Bushel. From being Pierre Koffmann's sous-chef at La Tante Claire he went to cook at Kaspia in Bruton Place, where caviar (uncooked) is the USP of the eating, and now he is scattering his pearls before a loud crowd whose idea of nourishment, when it does occur to them, is a serving of chips. Fortunately thin fries at £3 is the final item on the list of small and not so small tempting savoury dishes that comprise the dinner menu (lunchtime opening is scheduled for late September).
Four of us drank wine and tried about half the 21 items on the menu. The cooking was superb and it seemed a shame to have to eat at a small, bare table in noisy, smoky, pounding surroundings, but sweet staff did their best to make our aberrant behaviour a pleasure.
Dishes I can highly recommend include griddled haricots verts and artichokes with lemon and Parmesan, where the cooking process has added alluring smokiness; a fabulous silky risotto of lobster and broad beans with morels; tender, pink new-season lamb with asparagus and tapenade jus; a sausage roll fashioned from sweetbreads, ham hock and wild mushrooms; luxurious ballotine of foie gras with cherries; merguez sausage with firstrate aubergine purée and a well-assembled plate of Pata Negra charcuterie scattered with Marcona salted almonds and served with organic quince paste.
We also tried sashimi and "three tastes of Devon crab" which worked best separated out as a first course.
As well as ice creams and sorbets, desserts are chocolate-and-almond fondant with Poire Williams cream and pistachio ice cream, and burnt passion fruit and orange cream with caramelised orange and raspberries. Irresistible as they sound, the cacophony drove us out before trying them. William Cooper must have his reasons. I'll wait until September to enjoy his cooking at lunchtime in, presumably, calmer surroundings.
Lonsdale
Lonsdale House, 44-48 Lonsdale Road, W11 2DE
