MEE
The Four Seasons at the Inn on the Park
TO OFFER up my visit to the Four Seasons as an apology to Bruno Loubet may seem to be something along the lines of pulling a fast one, considering the amount of self-gratification involved, but in truth I owe him one. Ever since a brainstorm in my column a couple of months back, which had him still in the kitchens of the defunct Petit Blanc (now Gee's), I have been feeling bad about him, and myself. I can't think what precipitated my temporary amnesia. But by the time I, with much hair-pulling and teeth-gnashing, realised what I'd done, it was too late to do anything about it. So, my apologies to him and to those who graciously pointed out my error. It was in duly chastened mood, then, that I set out for the Four Seasons — and was ever lack of virtue so rewarded? The environment in which Bruno Loubet finds himself here may be less sympathetic than it was in either the Quat' Saisons or the Petit Blanc (appended to the menu is a note requesting patrons to 'leave portable telephones with the Restaurant Manager') but he has lost none of his talent to delight. Even those with little stomach for plate- glass exteriors and wood-panelled, marble- floored, chandelier-heavy interiors will find solace in M. Loubet's plush outpost on the first floor of the brutally luxurious Inn on the Park. For the food and the lavish wine list will take your mind off the decor..
Bruno Loubet's early training at the Quat' Saisons has survived the translation to the Four Seasons. He has his maitre's sense of composition and an earthy eatabil- ity that is quite his own. Smoked salmon is served hot and with moussily mashed potatoes, turnip 'ravioli' are stuffed with wild mushrooms, and an old favourite of his, oxtail, comes with cabbage and glossy mahogany-red wine sauce. Nouvelle cuisine is all too often used as a damning term to conjure up the mimsiness of the now not-so-new school's imitators rather than the lightness of touch of its original proponents. Loubet has this touch, but forget all that picture-book prettiness, those clean lines and symmetrically assem- bled masterpieces. For the tradition of cuisine du terroir, the hearty richness of French regional cookery, infuses all his creations. The plate in front of you will look beautiful, certainly, but with none of that precariously fashionable minimalism. The terrine de legumes a la provencale et mozzarella comes in a bulgingly splendid slab of aubergine, peppers, courgette and mozzarella, the dill-sprigged, glass-green oil that surrounds it splotched messily with balsamic vinegar. The poached skate with spring greens in a sea-urchin butter sauce generously clutters up the plate, the ribbed flesh arching in a Sydney opera house wing over the lightly poached cabbage, the sauce sweet and rosy, with the fugitively smoked redolence of roe.
I abandoned choice and gave myself over happily to the four-course menu surprise (£38): first a slab of terrine, rough knuckle and smooth pâté de foie, came in a creamy marble square bound with a pale strip of fat, imitating a golden croate, with a parsley-flecked purée of nutty chick peas; next, sea-bream on a purée of aubergines with a grainy sauce of reduced soy- deepened langoustine stock, and topped with a spiral of noodles; then three nois- ettes of velvety lamb a deep soft pink, circled with sweetbreads, and with a hollowed-out end of courgette filled to overspilling with peas and broad beans of such intense greenness and freshness you felt that they'd been picked as you were still eating the orientally fragrant fish beforehand. To end there was a compote of strawberries spiked with green pepper- corns, in its centre a pinot noir sorbet, and to the side a plate of orange-scented madeleines and a glass of Muscat de Frontignan. My maternal grandfather al- ways ate his strawberries with pepper, which as a child I used to regard as an eccentricity. But how right he was to do so. The luscious softness of the fruit is perfect- ly offset (as the Edwardians knew before him) by the sharp pungency of the pepper- corns.
Had I not been driving I'd have wal- lowed more voluptuously in the wine list. As it was, we made do extraordinarily pleasurably with a half-bottle of huskily astringent Macon Lugny (£11). Coffee came with petit fours and service was exemplary throughout. Dinner for two will easily nudge three figures, so you can see where the portable phones come in.
The Four Seasons: Inn on the Park, Hamil- ton Place, Park Lane, WI. Tel 499 0888.
Nigella Lawson
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