Blanchette

Blanchette is a Parisian-style bistro with trompe l'oeil murals, serving French sharing plates with a modern twist.

Blanchette London

http://www.blanchettelondon.co.uk

Blanchette, London W1, restaurant review - Telegraph

Salmon tartare (£7) with dill, cucumber, crème fraîche and that gorgeous, translucent salmon roe, as vulgar as a Christmas bauble, was one of my favourite dishes – subtle and delicate but with clean, distinct flavours.

D was much more a fan of the gurnard (£6.50), which was grilled and simple, and arrived on top of a braised baby gem lettuce, a burnt butter sauce and segments of lemon, which made my eyes water, half in admiration, half in the knowledge that, in a minute, it would be over, and I’d be back to eating food that wasn’t covered in burnt butter and lemons.

A chargrilled pork belly with black pudding, poached quinces and parsnip purée (£6.50) was probably five per cent too rich for most normal people, but I loved it.

The black pudding was so earthy and rough-and-tumble against the sweetness of the quince, the two combining in an inviting, crumbly-slippery contrasting mouthfeel; the pork belly added gravitas with its more grown-up chew, but the whole thing remained resolutely fun and indulgent.

If there were four things we could have done without, they were: Alta Népita, a Corsican ewe’s-milk cheese (£4.50; I wasn’t wild about it – it had a sort of ashtray tang); Bleu des Causses (£4.50; like roquefort but much gentler, an understated charmer); and the puds.

Grace Dent reviews Blanchette | London Evening Standard

Malik is a designer and is responsible, I guess, for the bare-brick walls, the not enormously comfortable seats, the plaster head of Serge Gainsbourg on the wall, the Gérard Depardieu cookbooks and Vanessa Paradis albums on the shelves, and the multitude of knick-knacks.

It’s like sitting in a hipster jumble sale, but then I am slightly knick-knack phobic after growing up in a house where my mother made sure no surface went without a gorgeous Victorian lady figurine, a weeping ceramic Pierrot clown, a lavender pomander, a yucca plant or a lovely horse-brass ashtray, so the urge to tidy up Blanchette was strong.

— aside from the kitchen staff who can send out the dishes in any order they want, a bit like the delicious but slightly redundant portion of frites with béarnaise sauce, which showed up at the end of dinner with the pudding menus.

A carafe of Beaujolais Villages Domaine de la Plaigne may set you back £19.50, but a dish of crispy frog legs with bois boudran sauce was a snip at £5, a plate of jambon sec de montagne, £4, and a baked Saint-Marcellin, £4.50.

9 D’Arblay Street, W1 (020 7439 8100; blanchettesoho.co.uk) Grace's bill at Blanchette 1 cheese beignets £3.50 1 terrine £4.50 1 gurnard £7.50 1 chicken £6.75 1 frites £3.75 1 frog legs £5 1 jambon £4 1 Saint-Marcellin £4.50 1 carafe Beaujolais  £19.50 TOTAL £59 Browse Grace Dent's latest restaurant reviews Browse Grace Dent's latest restaurant reviews 1/10 El Pastór 2/10 Radio Alice 3/10 Lingholm Kitchen 4/10 Luca 5/10 Anzu 6/10 Temper Paul Winch-Furness 7/10 Smokestak Daniel Hambury/Stella Pictures 8/10 Noble Rot 9/10 Laughing Heart Evening Standard / eyevine 10/10 Park Chinois

Blanchette, London W1, restaurant review - Telegraph

Salmon tartare (£7) with dill, cucumber, crème fraîche and that gorgeous, translucent salmon roe, as vulgar as a Christmas bauble, was one of my favourite dishes – subtle and delicate but with clean, distinct flavours.

D was much more a fan of the gurnard (£6.50), which was grilled and simple, and arrived on top of a braised baby gem lettuce, a burnt butter sauce and segments of lemon, which made my eyes water, half in admiration, half in the knowledge that, in a minute, it would be over, and I’d be back to eating food that wasn’t covered in burnt butter and lemons.

A chargrilled pork belly with black pudding, poached quinces and parsnip purée (£6.50) was probably five per cent too rich for most normal people, but I loved it.

The black pudding was so earthy and rough-and-tumble against the sweetness of the quince, the two combining in an inviting, crumbly-slippery contrasting mouthfeel; the pork belly added gravitas with its more grown-up chew, but the whole thing remained resolutely fun and indulgent.

If there were four things we could have done without, they were: Alta Népita, a Corsican ewe’s-milk cheese (£4.50; I wasn’t wild about it – it had a sort of ashtray tang); Bleu des Causses (£4.50; like roquefort but much gentler, an understated charmer); and the puds.

Blanchette: restaurant review | Jay Rayner | Life and style | The ...

Then there was the food: I was told I would be presented with a list of 16 dishes from which I was to assemble a tasting menu.

The menu is split between selections of cheese with brilliant names like Tomme d'Abondance, various charcuterie – coppa, truffled saucisson, snacks and small plates.

Crisp deep-fried frogs' legs, to be stripped in one go from the bone with your teeth, come with a sprightly bois boudran sauce of white-wine vinegar, chopped tomatoes, Worcestershire sauce, fresh green herbs and Tabasco, which probably hasn't been seen outside the dining room of Le Gavroche since the 1970s.

Friends of Ham also has a serious drinks list guaranteed to thrill even the most intense of beer geeks (friendsofham.com) ■ The chocolatier Paul A Young has become the first in Europe to produce a "whole bean" chocolate bar, using a mixture of beans from Madagascar.

Available in 73% and 64% cocoa solids (paulayoung.co.uk) ■ Earlier this year I wrote disobligingly about Sizzle and Grill, a grim Cardiff restaurant which promotes a Man vs Food competitive-eating menu.