Helene Darroze at the Connaught

My first 3 michelin experience was a great one

With a creative menu, with pure ingredients to spotless service which you would expect in an establishment as this to great wines and even a detailed kitchen tour.

The menu:

First we were poured a little bit of consomme, really good

We started with 3 little bites: a pumpkin tartlet with dashi, a cheese thing, donut with duck

Nice start

The menu: they give you 3 extra black truffle options (pasta course, sweetbread (sadly they didn’t have the sweetbread) and chocolate)

We went for the menu with 1 supplement, the signature baba for 25 pounds extra

The first course was white and brown crab meat topped with a grapefruit espuma

This was a fantastic dish to start with, such a nice flavour from the crab with the espuma to give a little contrast, just perfect

The second course was chestnut raviolis filled with jerusalem artichoke, with a chicken consommé, guanciale, chips

This was a nice dish, with some tableside theatrics where they shaved a really special citrus on the dish.

Than the signature dish, the huge scallop (biggest ive ever seen) with carrot and citrus puree, tandoori spices, koriander, brown butter sauce

Upon tasting this you get why this is a signature, such good flavours all coming together perfectly

With these first courses we paired an excellent glass of white wine.

Next a little extra dish from the kitchen, squid with peas, nothing special

After this came the turbot with confit baby potatoes, grilled leek, sauce made from oyster with pike roe

This dish was really good the turbot perfectly cooked, but could have used some more freshness, some more of the leek would have been better to balance it out.

Next was the main course: veal from corrèze, with different structures of cauliflower (puree, rose, raw), with capers and a vadouvan jus

The veal was so tasty and so tender, paired perfectly with the cauliflower, and the capers gave such a nice taste, the vadouvan sauce paired perfectly.

Then also a little tart filled with veal and oyster which was a nice one biter.

With this main course we paired a nebiolo from Piemonte, from a magnum bottle, which was terrific

Then a little pre dessert: sourdough bread ice cream with croutons and a compote

Really nice

Than the first dessert: different structures of rhubarb (sugar baked (presented tableside), sous vide, syrup, puree) paired with different structures of rice (cracker, puffed, ice cream)

All in all a great dessert showing of the best rhubarb in the world.

Then the signature babe

Came on a big plate, with blood orange sorbet and creme chantilly

The baba was cut open at the table and a cart with 3 different armagnacs was shown, i chose the oldest (40 years old)

This was an amazing dessert, my first time having a baba and it was the most amazing spongy soaked cake, paired with the blood orange and chantilly cream, just wow.

The other dessert was structures of chocolate with black sesame, miso and cardemom

Really creative and really delicious

Then came some petit fours, chocolate truffles, choux with vanilla and some compote, and a fantastic canele with armagnac

All in all this was a fantasic, spotless experience, from food to wine to service, to setting in the amazing Connaught hotel