Peter Barnes
IN a certain kind of film, gourmet dinners are the prelude to seduction. In the first scene, a man and woman in evening-dress discover a mutual attraction across a restaurant table sparkling with silver, cut glass and expensive china. Then the white linen tablecloth dissolves into the silk sheets of the bedroom, and the same cou- ple are revealed in greater proximity, fewer clothes and more strenuous exercise than is conventional at the dinner table.
In my own experience great dinners sel- dom lead immediately to great romance. The prelude to an affair is always a time of uncertainty, stress and potential misunder- standing. And in a formal restaurant these hazards are increased, not abated.
First, there are the anticipatory worries. How much should I dress up? Should I pick her up first or meet her at the restaurant? Will I be humiliated by the maitre d'? Next, there is the minefield of the meal itself. You want to seem insouciantly rich while steering her towards the set menu; and you are anxious about handling a wine list which offers only the unknown or the unaf- fordable. Meanwhile, she will have worries of her own. She does not really want to split the bill for an extravagantly expensive din- ner, but letting you pay may, she fears, give You the wrong kind of encouragement. Then suppose, against the odds, that she lets you take her home. Will your amorous Prowess -® which, let's face it, is less depend- able than you tell your friends — really be unproved by that second bottle of Château ichon-Longueville? And will she really be impressed by a lover who is noisily digesting the six-course menu gastronomique?
It is not just that the restaurant risks ruining your romance; your amorous ambi- tions risk spoiling the dinner. Say you order the supreme de poulet farci aux truffes et rnorilles. Will it not be harder for you to appreciate, in the face of your date's décol- letage, the subtleties of the breast of stuffed chicken? For the conscientious gourmet, there are only two solutions. If You are happily married, make love before You make it to the restaurant. If you arc, ,41111aPPily, unattached, eat with someone Tor whom you feel no physical attraction. So it was that I found myself dining at Roussillon with Christopher Lockwood, the diplomatic editor of the Daily Telegraph. I should declare an interest. Some thir- tYsomething bachelors hope that their
pulling power will be increased by writing restaurant reviews. James Palmer, an old friend of mine, went one better and bought a restaurant. Rousillon, his baby, has just earned its first Michelin star.
Lockwood is an intimate of ambassadors and a connoisseur of their dining-rooms. He liked the atmosphere of Roussillon. A cosy room, half separated by a step, held perhaps a dozen tables full of diners obviously enjoying their food. The dining-room was softly lit, largely by candles, and the large windows gave on to a quiet Pimlico Street. Lockwood is mercurial in mood, but that evening was on a high. He ordered cham- pagne and the six-course 'winter menu', before expounding his infallible plan for world domination and a fortune on the stock market. Then the sommelier was summoned. The wine list was of manageable size, with a generous handful of wines from each of the main areas, but little under £20 a bottle. It was important to drink good wine with good food, opined Lockwood, as he encouraged me to push the boat out — it was, after all, someone else's boat. The sommelier guided us towards a Château Grand Puy Lacoste '85, costing barely three figures. Instead of a white, Lockwood modestly ordered himself another glass of champagne.
Then came the food. Our starter of roast- ed langoustines was competent but unexcit- ing. But this was followed by a cep risotto so mushroomy, so creamily crunchy and so complex in its accompanying reduction of chicken stock that even Lockwood was reduced to silence. Next we were served a perfectly springy steamed halibut with a hint of saffron and a wonderfully moist braised lettuce. Then, for both of us the highlight of the meal, came slices of filet mignon from Aberdeen Angus beef. The outside of the beef had clearly been seared over a very high heat before being transferred to a much lower heat to allow more gentle cooking of the inside. The effect was to produce a range of tastes and textures across a single slice of beef, from the complex caramel of the out- side to the warm earpaccio of the centre.
Lockwood, an amateur of Kobe beef, declared it the best beef he had ever tasted. We allowed the waiter to cut us a selection of cheeses from the dozen or so choices, mainly chevres, in his basket. Then we finished with a duck-egg soufflé, served in its shell, with ginger-bread fingers and maple syrup.
We were not overly full — the courses had been well spaced and sensibly small - but we were both feeling replete, mellow and expansive. Lockwood had sketched a solution to a couple of diplomatic crises and provided fresh insights into literature and history. Why didn't I take him on every restaurant review, he suggested, and record
his conversation for Spectator readers? The
wine, too, had opened up magnificently: `Good wine in restaurants never has time to breathe,' lamented Lockwood, as he emp- tied the last of the bottle into his glass. He consoled himself with a vintage Calvados.
The weak point of the evening was the service. We had had to wait too long for our initial drinks, and were also kept wait- ing for our bill. There seemed slightly too few staff for a restaurant of such quality: this will shock you, but we even saw the sommelier serving cheese.
To some people it will seem a criminal extravagance to spend over £200 entertain- ing someone you would prefer not to sleep with; to others it will seem a small price to pay to enjoy a delicious and memorable din- ner with an old friend. It depends on you. If you are a lover of great food, you should try Roussillon; if you are just a great lover who wants food, there is always Pizza Express.
Roussillon, 16 St Barnabas Street, London SWI; tel: 020 7730 5550.
Peter Barnes writes for the Economist
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