Criterion Brasserie Marco Pierre White
YES, THAT'S right, this restaurant, once the Criterion Brasserie and flashy show- piece of the late Bob Payton, is really called the Criterion Brasserie Marco Pierre White. The place remains as beautiful as ever — actually, I think it's more beautiful — and I don't think it's to discredit the memory of the dead to say that the food is considerably better. And yet, and yet. The difficulty with Marco Pierre White's doing the food — or rather, and pointedly, being in charge of it — is that in an operation of this scale there is no way that it can really be his food.
Let me put it another way. I don't believe there is a chef in the country that can match his genius: there are certainly many genuinely talented chefs around — and maybe more reliable ones — whom I don't wish to slight by the comparison, but his tal- ent is sublime, which is to say one doesn't remark how good his food is after eating it, one is simply transported by it. I am abso- lutely not interested in all the fuss about whether he stomps around with meat- cleavers in his hand ready to swing out at irri- tating customers or intrusive journalists, or other myths. His celebrity is by the by, it is his cooking that is to the point. And it needs conditions other than these to flourish in.
`You're buying this book because you want to cook well? Because you want to cook Michelin stars? Forget it. Save your money. Go and buy a saucepan.' So Marco Pierre White, with honest arrogance, began his first book. He is obsessed with food and passionate about it, and knows that what he's creating can't be achieved by studying the recipes and weighing everything out methodically. He is the one who makes the food how it is. And, by extension, the same Is true of the kitchen at the Criterion Brasserie: however many talented, industri- ous chefs there are carrying out his ideas, without his presence (I don't say he has to have his finger in every roux) the food is not Marco Pierre White's food. With other chefs, or other types of cooking, this might not be so much the case. Certainly, a sim- pler, more modern or Italianate menu would have lent itself more to successful cloning, and would perhaps have been nearer what's required. Having said that, I realise that I've made the food sound less good than it is. It is a pity for Marco that in being compared to himself he is being compared to the highest stan- dards. And naturally he wouldn't for one instant want anyone to think that what is on the Criterion menu can be on a par with the food he cooks at the Hyde Park Hotel. That's not what he's trying to do.
For all that, some things, on the couple of times I've been, didn't seem to work. Partly that's because the kitchen is not quite running properly yet. The oyster beignet, which I ordered because I know Marco Pierre White has a particularly fabu- lous way with oysters, wasn't actually a beignet, but an oyster encased in bread- crumbs. I gather — or have gathered since — that's because the gas pressure is not quite right yet in the kitchen and it's easier to crisp up breadcrumbs with a less intense flame than it is batter. But it was a disap- pointment; and it didn't seem to belong to the gravadlax that lay like a carpet under- neath it, which in its turn had nothing to say to the citrus butter lapping its edges. Other dishes were more successful: mus- sel soup with saffron was exceptional, intense and delicate at the same time. Spaghetti with langoustines and rocket is very sensibly imported here from the Can- teen. The langoustines were sweet and fat and soft, and the pinkily buff sauce creamy and aromatic; the pasta, although it had swollen wonderfully with the pale coral juices of the seafood, was just a bit too al dente. A black risotto was shinily, malevo- lently black, Iike patent leather, as glorious- ly pungent as the intensity of colour sug- gested. Perhaps, though, it could have done with a minute or two less standing around. A plate of liver with bacon and mashed potatoes was perfectly balanced, the sweet moussiness of the liver offset by the heat- crusted saltiness of the bacon. But I think my favourite was the smoked haddock on top of a patty of bubble and squeak, dolloped with sauce béarnaise; this was inspired, rather like reinventing eggs Benedict, comforting but boisterously resonant, too.
A tarte tatin came for two people, with pineapple speckled with black pepper. I was interested in the prospect (my mater- nal grandfather ate his strawberries with black pepper) and quite ravished by the actuality. I'm not sure it was a tarte tatin, but I am sure it was very good to eat.
With a glass of champagne before, and a modest amount of Fleurie and some water during, dinner for two will cost around £80, including service. I can't pre- tend I wouldn't rather have one dinner at the Hyde Park Hotel rather than two here: but the point about Marco Pierre White's cooking there is that it isn't possi- ble to reproduce. It's another deal here, and not a bad one.
Criterion Brasserie, Piccadilly Circus, Lon- don Wl; tel: 0171 930 0488.
Nigella Lawson
Previous page
