plateau

“No disrespect, but you don’t go to bloody Terence Conran for fine dining. You might go to him for a sofa, but you don’t go to him for an experience in food.”
- Gordon Ramsay in “Humble Pie”

E was the most amenable lunch companion. i wanted to take him out for lunch to thank him for all his hard work in assisting me on a matter which involved, amongst other painful experiences, the killing of many trees in the production of a document which ran to the excess of 600 pages. Rather than take him to the perennial favourite, the rat boat, i decided to push the boat out* and book ourselves lunch at Plateau.

led through a maze of power suited pow-wow-ers at lunch, I couldn’t’ help but lust after the furniture - saarinen marble topped tulip tables and tulip chairs, castiglioni arco floor lamps, bertoia wire chairs. I wondered to myself if I had perhaps chosen this previously conran establishment simply to gawk at the furniture.

we hadn’t come to plateau for an experience in fine dining but we certainly weren’t disappointed with our lunch. e started with smoked salmon and a brioche. it came with a curious muslin bundle which upon unwrapping revealed half a lemon. I started with duck rolls. the mains were brought out in speedy succession, steak with roasted tomatoes and a suckling pig, topped with curls of crackling with a side of lightly minted peas and crushed new potatoes. our pudding of a warm valrhona chocolate fondant with coconut sorbet was most delightful and left us with smiles.

it was a fabulous lunch. I had fun sharing the woes of facebook addiction and subjecting E to my very potted history and ode of praise to saarinen and his tulip table.


all the best E – have a fabulous six months, and hopefully I’ll have the pleasure of working with you again.

* pun intended