The menu, which changes most months, helps. Christ, how could it not? Snacks of saucisson and cornichons, snails smeared with garlic and parsley paste. Oysters. A stunning “tarte Tatin”, with Roscoff onions sweated into honey-coloured things, their rich, syrupy flavour given a counterpoint in blue cheese mascarpone. There were lengths of crunchy white asparagus lazing on sauce gribiche, here kept thick, the flavour bright with capers and mustard. We dived into it all wolfishly, until seiche à la Provençale (cuttlefish in a tomato and olive sauce, with Padrón peppers) slowed things to what you might call a star-struck halt. Astonishingly good. The olive cut a note of astringency, the tomato soothed. Though by now wearily used to Padróns relentlessly turning up ruinously blackened, here they surprised, breathing just a little smoke into the dish. What else? You do not need me to explain that chicken bathed in the nuttiest of morel sauces is a beautiful thing, or that a T-bone of pork with lashings of mustard and perhaps London’s best French fries was a hit.
