After dining at Pied A Terre a few years ago and experiencing some of the most divine tasting food ever to grace my pallet, I've been wanting to visit their sister restaurant, L'Autre Pied, for some time. With Valentine's Day lurking and a half price offer on Groupon for the tasting menu, it seemed like as good a time as any to sample the winter menu.
It's a chilly Thursday evening, and I've met my other half at a nearby pub for a swift pre-dinner drink, as we had to book in advance and the earliest sitting was 9pm. Luckily I usually eat late, so it's not an issue, but I'm ready for some food. We're seated next to an illuminated pillar and shown the menu, and we decide to opt for the matched wines whilst our waiter fills our water glasses. I'll apologise now for the terrible picture quality - the aforementioned illuminated pillar cast an eerie green glow over everything, which wasn't an issue at the time, but has somewhat hampered any hope of decent photography.
The first course is a celeriac mousse with lemon and puffed wild rice. The mousse is deliciously light and creamy, and the crispness of the rice topping is unusual but works well as a contrast in texture. The lemon flavour is quite pronounced, and overshadows the flavour of the celeriac slightly. It's a very tasty dish to start the meal though, and leaves me eager for the next course.
I'm so eager to dive into the next course that I forget to take a green-tinged picture, so you'll have to imagine the appearance of this salad of heirloom carrots, radicchio, creme fraiche and black quinoa. Unfortunately, my excitement for the second course is a little short lived, as this course just doesn't do it for me. Raddiccio is very bitter, and the other flavours in the dish just don't seem to work with the overpowering taste of the leafy vegetable. It tastes slightly pickled too, however the dressing seems to highlight the bitter flavour, rather than complementing or counteracting it. The creme fraiche provides a light mellowing element to the vegetables, but there isn't enough of it to restore any balance to the plate. I can't really tell where the black quinoa is, so it doesn't seem to add anything to the dish either with flavour or texture. This course isn't inedible by any means (I finish it all!), but it also isn't a dish I would choose again. I think perhaps the potential exists to make these ingredients work together, but the way it is executed really isn't to my taste. Our paired wines begin with this course, and the first is a Portuguese vinho verde - the 2015 Alvarinho-Trajadura Minho Leira Seca, which is quite dry with a distinct mineral element. It's hard to say how well it matches the dish as the food isn't working for me, however it is at least a fresh and crisp way to begin the wine matching experience.
Our next wine is a 2012 Gavi Di Gavi, which is immediately fruitier and softer than the previous white. It has a sweet peach undertone which works well with the more characteristically acidic notes of the Italian Cortese grape variety. This wine also accompanies our next dish perfectly. The fish course is a cod fillet, with Fowey mussels, charred leek, lemon and rye. The cod is cooked to perfection, it's creamy and falls apart with the lightest touch of a fork. The mussels add a more pronounced fish essence to the broth, and complement the flavours of the cod and leek beautifully. The lemon in the sauce is not overpowering, and the textures work well together to create and exciting and delicious plate of food.
Following the fish is a main of roast Gressingham duck, with peppered swede, baby turnips, apple and mustard leaf. I read on a TripAdvisor review that the current Head Chef Graham Long has designed the menu with a nod to comfort food, and this dish definitely fits that remit to a tee. The hearty winter vegetables marry perfectly with the richness of the roast duck, and the subtle sharpness of the apple. There are a lot of strong flavours going on, but they work together to create a bold and flavoursome dish. The matched wine, a 2014 Valdeorras Mencia - Bodega Maria Teresa Nunez, is surprisingly light and floral to go with the big flavours of the food, but it works well, with subtle tannins and dark fruit flavours offsetting the rich and complex elements of the dish. It's not my favourite wine ever, and I probably would have chosen something a little spicier and more robust with this plate of food, but I'm no wine expert and it's good to try new things. We're offered bread throughout the savoury courses, which I continue to accept with pleasure. There's a brioche style mini bun, a rustic mini baguette and a fruit filled sliced loaf, all of which are fresh and tasty, and a welcome tool for soaking up the sauces of the fish and meat courses.
Next up is the cheese platter - always one of my favourites, and due to our inability to make decisions, we're lucky enough to be given a port and a red wine to go with this course. I can't remember the exact cheeses we were given, but there are 2 from France and 2 from Switzerland. There is a hard cheese that may or may be a Comte, a very ripe soft cheese, a soft and creamy blue and a sharp medium hard cheese with a very bitter rind. The blue is my favourite, the hard and sharp cheeses are delicious, and the soft cheese is enjoyable in small quantities, but just on the verge of being a little too powerful in flavour for my palette. We agreed that the port goes better with the Swiss cheeses, and the red is better matched to the French selection. The port isa little less sweet than I'm used to, and whilst pleasant, it is eclipsed for me by the red, a 2014 mixed grape wine from the Clos De Paulilles estate in the Collioure region of Southern France. I'm not usually a fan of Southern French reds, as I tend to find the tannins far too heavy in contrast to the depth of flavour. This wine is spectacular though, with a balanced roundness and beautifully subtle tannins which only serves to add to the aromatic, full bodied flavours. It is definitely one of the highlights of the meal for me.
A light pre-dessert of a chocolate mousse allows us to finish our port / wine at a leisurely pace, and I'm even happier to discover that the delectable Collioure also goes nicely with the sweet and bitter chocolate / caramel elements of this light treat in between courses.
The final course is a rhubarb cheesecake with mandarin sorbet. The colour on the jelly rhubarb topping is particularly vibrant, which looks quite odd in my green hued pictures. Brightness aside, the dessert is wonderfully light and fresh in flavour, with the right amount of sweetness to counter the sourness of the rhubarb. The citrus element of the mandarin sorbet adds a gentle layer of contrast to create an interesting and very pleasant end to the meal. Our wine with this course is a 2012 Chateau Villefranche Sauternes. I'm generally a fan of a white Bordeaux and this golden French offering is no exception. The typical sweetness of this region's wine pairs well with the creamy cheesecake, with the slight acidity matching well with the tarter fruit flavours.
We finish the meal with a coffee and some little truffles, a nice addition to the end of the evening. The service was good, we weren't rushed but didn't feel forgotten either. Our greeting upon arrival was very friendly and welcoming, and at no point were we made to feel any less valued as customers for using a Groupon voucher. It's certainly a compact restaurant, we were seated very close to a little service area and there was rarely a moment when there wasn't a small huddle of floor staff dishing up or clearing plates from the tables around us. It didn't bother me particularly, but I can imagine this being a little off-putting for someone who wasn't as easily able to switch off from their surroundings. There are other tables in the restaurant that look a little more sheltered, as it were, so I'm sure that one of these could be requested for those who are more space aware. The sommelier was friendly and helpful, and seemed genuinely interested to discover whether we preferred the red or the port with the cheese course. Overall, I was really pleased with the evening. It doesn't feel as exclusive as the sister restaurant Pied A Terre, and that's because it's not. But that's ok, in my opinion L'Autre Pied is the perfect little sister - it's more relaxed than its fine dining counterpart, but the food is still well thought out and exceptionally prepared. If you want the culinary experience but can't quite stretch to the budget of the 2 Michelin starred Pied, I would definitely recommend L'Autre Pied for an altogether very pleasant experience.
