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'This meal is something special, but I feel sorry for Knappett, having to perform for this self-obsessed, show-off audience'
This meal is something special. Each of the 11 little courses delivers eyebrow-raising surprises or sheer, sensual gratification, frequently both. They resonate and haunt for days afterwards, pleasure-bombs the lot of them.
A few highlights: a strip of flawless mackerel, so fresh its flesh cuts like fondant – scattered around are weeny dice of salted, pressed cucumber and dots of Pacojet-ed lemon, the peel and flesh exhilaratingly sherbety-sour. There's balmy oyster cream for contrast, and one perfect, ozone-peachy oyster.
A fat, caramelised scallop – its buttery, pillowy meat contrasting with the Dayglo emerald of celeriac and lemon verbena sauce – pairs luxury with extraordinary brightness of flavour. And rosy-pink roe deer packed with sweet minerality and sheer meatiness sits on a tangle of onions, astringent from their slow bath of yoghurt whey. Texture comes from paper-thin slices of raw chestnut and salty sweetness from elderberry "capers". It's so deliriously autumnal, it makes me want to put on wellies and stomp through piles of rustling leaves.
Puddings: the milkiest, purest burrata with a blob of intense, foraged damson; and pear sponge of cloud-like lightness given a hit of liquorice by its silky ice. There are even jokes: chocolate-coated blackberry jelly and crisped base is described as a "Tunnock's Teacake", while caramelised white chocolate with a baked, honeyed black fig tastes like celestial Caramac.
Sorry, did I get carried away? It's the fault of this "secret" restaurant behind the wildly popular gourmet hotdog and champagne joint, Bubbledogs&. This is the "&" bit, Kitchen Table, a mini amphitheatre for cheffery as spectator sport, a labour of love financed by shadowy backers and hotdog queues.
You reach it, as in some kind of computer game, by enraging that lengthy, agitated queue and parting heavy leather curtains to the twinkly, filament-bulbed space beyond. You perch on cumbersome leather stools at the counter – well, the pass – while young chefs scuttle hither and thither, piping tiny dots, sizzling butter and strewing foraged chickweed. After braving this and a permanently engaged booking line, you sure as hell deserve a push up to the next level.
The owners are husband and wife James Knappett and Sandia Chang: between them they have CVs to make the spoddiest of restaurant spods tumesce on the spot: Per Se, Noma, Roganic, The Ledbury. So it's all excitement, rosiness and loveliness?
Hmm. There are people who enjoy the whole chef's table phenomenon, but I'm not one of them. It reminds me of rich Victorians peering at Bedlam inmates for sport – jammed among these people in a horseshoe of no escape is not my idea of fun. On one side of me is a man with BMW keys placed in front of him like the prelude to a spot of wife-swapping. He licks his plates, putting them up to his face and scouring them with a large tongue. Along from him is a trio of young, beautiful people who are almost entirely silent apart from the click and whirr of their cameras. To my left is a chap who orders a vast takeaway of hotdogs, "For dessert".
The air reverberates with screeches of "Mugaritz" and "Brooklyn Fare" and "best scallops are from a little asador outside Bilbao". This circle-jerk of oneupmanship makes me wish I could pull a battered black pudding out of my bag and poke it in their eyes. I feel sorry for Knappett, who introduces each course with bushy-tailed enthusiasm and real knowledge, having to perform for this self-obsessed, show-off audience of conspicuous consumers.
When he and Chang get a place with actual tables, I'll be biting off hands for a booking. His cooking and her charm are a potent combination (although I wish she'd told me, when recommending a blissful, dry Szepsy Estate Furmint Tokaj, that it was £61). But until then, divine cooking or not, I'm out. Expensive, high-end food will always attract the tosserati, but this lot really are the sous-vided, thermomixed crème de la crème.
Kitchen Table, 70 Charlotte Street, London W1, 020-7637 7770. Open Tues-Sat, dinner only (two sittings, 6pm & 8.30pm). Set menu £68, plus drinks and service.
Food 9/10
Atmosphere 5/10
Value for money 7/10
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