CORE by Clare Smyth - London
The chef’s table has a perfect view of the kitchen
Rating: 18/20
Where: London, UK
When: Lunch for 2 on 2 July 2022
Cost: Tasting menu £185-£205, Wine Pairing £135
Accolades: 3 Michelin Stars
Why: Almost uniformly excellent French/British cuisine, beautifully presented with a touch of whimsy
CORE by Clare Smyth is located in the posh Notting Hill neighborhood of London. On a street that doesn't seem to have any retail businesses, it's the only restaurant within sight. Our meal took place in an airy dining room with windows overlooking the street. There were quite a number of tables relative to the room size (I counted 14), but neighboring tables were still spaced apart sufficiently.
We went for lunch on a Saturday afternoon, and the dining room was full. In fact, this might be one of the harder reservations to get in London, with Opentable slots being taken within minutes of being released several months ahead of the dining date.
The menu choices were two tasting menus: one with the restaurant's classics, the other with current, seasonal dishes. In addition, there is a prix fixe a la carte menu. We chose one each of the tasting menus with matching wine pairings. Pescatarian changes were already reflected in the printed menus for one of us, which made choosing a bit easier.
Our lunch started with four amuse bouches. First, a nori tartlet filled with eel and a malt vinegar mousse (at least that's what I think - the staff wins an award for speed-recitation of ingredients, so it was hard to keep up). This was a light start, the nori maybe a tad too soft, and with only a hint of fishiness 17. My wife would have rated this a 19 or 20 - she was still talking about it fondly at the end of lunch.
A smoked chicken wing was served rolled up on a stick: great chicken with a wonderful roasted flavor 18. The pescatarian replacement, a middle-eastern seeming spinach tart was not quite as good 17.
Gougeres were filled with a mint/pea cream, and had a nicely crumbly texture, more solid that the puffy gougeres seen elsewhere 18.
A foie gras parfait was served on a wonderful cracker, the parfait almost liquid, making this dish seem light, which is rare for foie gras 18. The pescatarian alternative of a tomato onion tarte was nice, but a step down 17.
Sourdough bread with a 22 year old starter was served cold with whipped butter. A very dark bread with nice crunch - delicious 18.
The first courses followed. The classic tasting menu started with a scallop tartare served over a light sea vegetable consomme. The scallops were very sweet (apparently due to the season) and delicious. The sauce added a hint of acidity but let the main ingredient shine unimpeded 18. The seasonal tasting menu began with a variation on crab, served in three dishes. A jelly of crab consomme on top of crab meat was a disappointment - it tasted of very little, and the meat fell apart immediately. Much better was the crab salad with a heavy, buttery sauce topped with caviar. Great crab meat, and a delicious sauce. Finally, a (liquid) crab consomme had intense crab flavor and was very good indeed. It's hard to rate a dish where the individual components are so wildly different, but picking the median rating makes this a 19 (the jelly might have been a 15 by itself, the others 19).
Course number two for the classic menu was a potato topped with trout roe and potato chips, all resting on a beurre blanc sauce. Acidity from the amazing sauce, saltiness from the roe and the starch backbone from the potato made for a successful dish. There was maybe a tad too much potato in the dish for my taste, but otherwise no complaints 18. The seasonal menu continued with a tarte that was filled with mushrooms, in particular chanterelles, and served on top of a mushroom veloute. A lovely crunch of the tarte and a great mushroom flavor throughout made this also a winner 18. My more generous wife would have given both dishes a 19.
Cod with shrimp on top of Swiss chard, spiced with nutmeg and surrounded by a brown butter sauce was next on the classic menu. A lovely sauce, with just the right amount of acidity. This was a hearty fish dish, deceptively simple, with the only nitpick being that the fish was fairly well-done 17. The seasonal menu offered turbot with mussels and a foamy butter sauce. Also hearty, also on the verge of overcooked; a nice dish, but a step down from previous courses 17.
"Cheese and onion" was the next classic course, essentially a deconstructed French onion soup. A cooked onion was filled with a cheddar fondue and served amidst an onion consomme. The amazing consomme was bursting with onion flavor and the great combination of cheese and onion made this a terrific dish. Add to that the wonderfully flaky folded bread with onion marmalade served on the side, and this ended up being truly outstanding 19. The seasonal menu would have continued with meat courses, but we had chosen the pescatarian alternative. Here, we were served a steak of kohlrabi on top of (slightly more raw) kohlrabi ribbons, all surrounded by a sauce made from (you guessed it) kohlrabi. I found the sauce a bit too salty, but otherwise good, and the raw kohlrabi strips were better than the main cooked piece, which had very little flavor by itself. A dish that pretty much succeeded or failed depending on whether one liked kohlrabi a lot 17.
The final savory course on the classic menu was a Lake District lamb loin, served with a lamb belly confit beneath a roasted baby gem, and with sheep's milk curd. A lovely lamb with strong flavor, well salted and the gems and cream also very good. Easily the best meat dish I had this week in London 18+. The pescatarian seasonal menu continued with lobster served on top of spelt, risotto-style. Caviar and a lapsang souchong/lobster sauce rounded out the dish. A very good lobster, and a great texture from the spelt risotto - a nice conclusion to the savory part of the menu 18.
An optional cheese course followed, with four cheeses that were good to very good, three of them quite flavorful. Accouterments of raisins, honey, pickled cucumber, crackers and a warm bread made this a sophisticated addition to the menu, and at £20 actually a decent deal 17.
The classic menu's first dessert was a variation on a toffee apple called "Core apple". Essentially caramelized apple pieces surrounded by an apple mousse, this was nice, but a tad too much on the sweet side 17. Equally a bit too sweet was "The other carrot": carrot cake with carrot sorbet. It ended up tasting very much like cheese cake 16.
Cherry and meringue were the basis of the last item on the classic menu, supposedly a nod to not just one, but two classic British desserts that I'm unfortunately not familiar with. Sliced cherries, cherry sorbet and lots of meringue combined into a nice dessert. The cherries tasted bright and fresh, the crunch from the meringue added to the texture. A great dessert to end dinner with 18. I was less enamored with the seasonal menu's final dish. A play on Maltesers candy, it starred chocolate, malt and hazelnut ice cream. It was not a bad dish - far from it -, but it felt way too heavy for this late in the proceedings 17.
Final bites were a warm chocolate tarte flavored with lavender, and wine gummies. The chocolate tarte was freshly baked, and almost liquid on the inside, very good 17. The wine gummies did indeed taste of dessert wines (sauternes and banyuls, respectively), but were very, very sweet. Too much of a good thing here 15.
Foodwise, this was a lovely lunch. However, our service seemed extremely rushed. We felt that as soon as one course was cleared, we received the next wine, and the next course only moments thereafter. In the end, we finished the savory portion of the menu in under two hours. The next two hours were spent on cheese and desserts at a much more leisurely pace. At first, we were puzzled by the record-breaking speed of the food delivery, but then got our answer. The restaurant double-books some tables even for lunch, so that some tables that are sat at 12 noon will be filled by new customers at 2:15pm. How the staff considered us to be one of the candidates for flipping tables - after ordering a seven course tasting menu -, is a mystery to me. The pace after the magic 2:15pm cutoff time was much more in line with what one would expect from a restaurant at this level. Given the stress that this induces among staff and customers for reseating just two out of 14 tables, the extra revenue seems hardly worth it. I'd rather have paid a bit more and had a more leisurely lunch.
Overall: Consistently great food from British ingredients. Ostensibly simple dishes (think potatoes and trout roe) that pack a punch made this a lovely lunch. Definitely a candidate to revisit, assuming the service is less rushed the next time 18.
