Day 11: Jermyn Street and The Ledbury

The Jermyn Street experience

I am not a man who is easily intimidated. I stride confidently through life and, in general, I have the view that people can take me as I am or they can not take me as I am. If they fall into the latter category then that is their problem and not mine. My teachers at school did not always share this view but, again, that was their problem. For, as Toad says in Wind in the Willows "Some men are modest and some aren't, and I'm not. After all, I have nothing to modest about".

So it has always surprised me that I have never managed to enter the premises of Turnbull & Asser, that famous emporium in Jermyn Street. Until today. From their home on Jermyn Street, they have been the choice of discerning gentlemen for handmade clothing and accessories for over a century. So says their website and I can conclude from this this that I am such a discerning gentleman for today I entered their hallowed portal for the first time.

We were having a lighter day today which means that I had a spare hour or so to catch on the blogging. Most of this was wasted with dealing with the peculiarities of Google's blogger. You can do some weird things with captions that completely stuff everything up so Day 5 has been a challenge. But it's done now.

We have now discovered that we can walk to Westminster underground station without getting lost and indeed by the end of the day we had honed our route between apartment and tube to a major degree. I am finding that my absence from London for so long (with the exception of intermittent holiday activity) has meant that my former nonchalance about taking tubes, buses and taxis has partially deserted me and and I know have to think about how to get from A to B. Of course we needed to change at Bond Street to get to Oxford Street. Bt I had to think about it.

Being at Oxford Street enables one to wander down Regent Street to find Jermyn Street which, as all you dapper dressers know, is where the men's outfitters congregate. There is no shopping that can compare with London. Dubai is trying but it does not have the same soul. London has old building and won't really planned to be the way it is today. It just happened. There is no such retail experience in Australia.

I will not bore you with the minutiae of our shopping excursion but suffice it say that I had a very satisfactory experience and I made a number of purchases, at great expense, that will benefit my look and feel on my return. Some of these purchases, two fine cotton shirts and a tie, and a rather magnificent jacket, were from Turnbull & Asser. We spent a very pleasant hour in there hoping to se Prince Charles (who is dressed by Turnbull & Asser) but it was not his day for shopping. I have not seen him since we were at University together.

You could trip the light fantastic in those shoes. They are the jam. And the socks? Words fail me.

The famous jacket front and back. It's sort of redolent of the English boating scene.

We had a rather fine cup of coffee each at a Cafe Nero and wandered through Fortnum & Mason whose Australian wine selection rather disappointed us. We then walked past Barkers and you will know (as I didn't) that Barker shoes have been an English tradition for over a hundred years. In the window was the finest pair of blue suede shoes (as in the famous song). I walked past. The G went into a jewellers and looked at  really god necklace which was expensive and was really cool but she did not feel she could justify investing in it. We came out. The blue suede shoes were as a magnet and I had to go and try them on. There is no harm in looking. There is. I am now up a pair of blue suede shoes, some rather nice socks and a belt that matches the shoes.

The Ledbury

This is the fourth visit by The G and me to the UK and our trips our evolving into fine food discovery expeditions that include “restaurants with rooms” and Michelin starred chefs.

A “restaurant with rooms” entitles the diner to totally indulge and stay the night. We have enjoyed the “restaurant with rooms” concept at the Yorke Arms in Nidderdale in the Yorkshire Dales, Jericho’s at the Waverley in Windermere in the Lake District and The Horn of Plenty in Tavistock, Devon.

The Michelin-starred journey started at the top with Heston’s Fat Duck experience in Bray. This was true theatre on a plate with the exquisite tastes still embedded in our minds. We went to Drakes and Ripley to celebrate my sister’s birthday and the Castle Terrace in Edinburgh.

Once you have started a culinary and gastronomic quest of the kind we seem to be on the question for this trip was obviously “where to this time?” As it turned out The G had the answer. I like to buy the paper copy of GQ and I usually buy it every month and I generally leave it lying around for The G to peruse. Sometime in 2015 she read a GQ and therein was information that she retained in that steel trap she calls a mind. When we decided to come to the UK this time The G said “we must book The Ledbury as the chef is an Aussie from Newcastle called Brett Graham and he holds two Michelin stars”. So that was easily decided.

We set out in a light drizzle which was not good as we had no rain gear. We (or at least I) had decided that we should take the tube to Leyton Park and then walk. We were travelling at about 6pm and the tube trip went through Victoria and Paddington so it was packed, like the proverbial sardines, with commuters. I still cannot believe that I thought that this sort of proximity to the rest of humanity was normal. We alighted (you alight from a train, you disembark from a ship: you never "get off" any form of transport). It was damp and miserable and because it was dark my somewhat limited directional capability (I cannot do maps and directions) meant that we took a cab. And it was a good job we did because it was further than I thought. When we can back we took a cab all the way and it was not very expensive. Should have done that in the first place.

We arrived hungry to be greeted by some the most friendly and efficient front-of-house imaginable. There were plenty of front-of-house staff: 11 of them for 55 diners. We were looked after by Seamus, the Sommelier, and Sam and we thoroughly enjoyed their banter and their knowledge. And their knowledge was extensive. The G has a habit of asking many questions about the dishes she eats and the way in which they have been prepared. These guys knew ingredients and cooking temperatures of the food and the pH and sugar content of the wine.

Rather than bang on any more here are pictures of what we ate with comments. I am indebted to The G for these comments; she pays great attention to all this stuff and has almost perfect recollection. She claims that when celeriac ribbons have the texture of silken tofu the pictures need no captions. That may be so but the pictures still have captions. Maybe the measure of their success is that they are fully booked for lunch (5 days a week) and dinner (7 days a week).

We were glad that we took the seven-course degustation with the matching wines, expensive though it was. The matching wines were spectacular, they were generous in quantity and each perfectly highlighted the dish it accompanied. In some cases (the Mosel, Germany 2012 Riesling Kabinett is an example) the wine was not stand-alone; it depended on the food to lift it.

Our meal ended with an invitation to the kitchen to meet Head Chef Greg Austin. Here we saw the kitchen in full operation with dishes being rushed out of the door every 15 seconds or so. But they were not so busy that they could not slip us a small treat which they called “marmalade on toast”.

This was perhaps the best meal we have ever had. When we went to the Fat Duck we were knocked out with the whole performance, which included the food. But we agreed that we would not see the point of doing (or seeing) the same performance again. We certainly would do The Ledbury again. In a heartbeat. And so should you.

The degustation unplugged

The menu.

The amuse bouche was not listed on the menu. There were seaweed crisps with a mussel cream,  rice cracker puffs with a creamy lobster filling, and crispy balls filled with brawn; warm and deeply piggy.

Powerfully flavoured tiny crunchy curled artichoke enhanced by a topping of frozen grated foie gras: magical.

Even the bread was lovely. The butter was in fact a smoked curd that was speckled with molasses.

This plate used to be succulent cuttlefish topped with garlic and cracked wheat with parsley cream.

This dish had the celeriac with the texture of silky tofu I referred to above. This they did by cooking it in a salted and herbed crust to 85 degrees C. I told you the staff were full of knowledge. This was served with egg, ham, arbors sabayon and crunchy black truffle. It is the only black truffle I have liked.

Clay-cooked cauliflower with lobster butter, basil sauce and toasted parmesan crumbs. You don't really need to say anything else.

This is an Agin Prune. This one is stuffed with partridge and turnip and was floating on an Earl Grey cream with tiny bacon specks. 

Friendly, helpful and cheery front of house staff make all the difference.

The main course was a fallow deer cutlet with a venison sausage perfectly teamed with rhubarb and radicchio. Brett Graham is a keen deer stalker so he knows his deery stuff. 

Cheese. French. Good.

Pre-dessert of kaffir lime ice cream with bergamot and tangy orange.

A banana and chocolate tartlet for the dessert proper. Beautifully constructed with chunky banana, velvety smooth chocolate with honeycomb crumbs. Not bad. Not bad at all. 

Petit fours. [L] Crunchy biscuits with soft fruit jelly and [R] the lightest of truffles.

And so, satisfactorily replete, we slept like tops.