THEY call it Gastroporn. French kissing with the restaurant of your dreams. Simon Rogans refit of The Midlands flagship dining space has driven hardcore critics to swoon unnervingly and completist bloggers to declare gobsmacked passion in an unprecedented few words (while still Dropboxing every morsel).
In a week when temperatures soared and Tesco banned crop tops from their stores because midriffs were dripping on the ready meals was I really ready for dinner of any kind, let alone an £85 a head 10 course blind date with such perfection? Should I bring a bunch of flowers?
I hesitate to psychoanalyse the salivating Michelins and Boon blog that climaxed in Forever is a long time but The French has already been around for 110 years. She is beautiful; she is gorgeous I love her.
More interesting is The Timess Giles Coren, wiping The Smoke from his eyes and coming up to the Rainy City to rain certain praise: I'd walk to Manchester barefoot in the rain for one more mouthful of the chopped raw ribeye of ox in coal oil.
Hes not wrong there, though I might insist on galoshes. Course four of the 10-Course Tasting Menu doesnt sound immediately inviting. Ox in coal oil, pumpkin seed, kohlrabi and sunflower shoots is as stark as scrub me back in t tin bath, lass (Local colour for Coren, dish is pictured above).
But when you bite into the raw beef coated in smoky charcoal oil, popping pearls of kohlrabi, a veg I have always shunned, or crunching on roasted pumpkin seeds, it is revelatory as is much of the meal.
I was just back from tasting my first Michelin 3 star meal in a long time, at Regis and Jacques Marcon in the Auvergne, which espouses a similar devotion (steer clear of amatory declarations Ed) to foraged food and shy herbs as well as an almost fetishistic worship of the Mushroom in all its forms (but thats another story).
I never expected to equal or better it in The French, whose sorry decline from former glories was always summed up for me by ancient retainers pushing cheese or bread trollies around what looked a frayed ante-room of Versailles.
But then times have changed, the ante has been upped. Simon Rogan, two Michelin stars to his name at LEnclume in Cartmel, only lives up to expectations by defying them. Some have chafed at the new carpet that simulates wood flooring Im happy with it and the giant mirror balls. I love the whole set-up, service less formal than at Cartmel, food just as good. Wine list expensive, but choose wisely and youll get by. The bread sensational.
Since I first reviewed LEnclume in its infancy a decade ago, Rogans cuisine has suffered a sea change or should that be sea herb change. Always accomplished, it was once quite po-faced and molecular. Now it is more playful. One amuse bouche featured two mussels in shell on a bed of black pebbles with gaunt shards of dried veg rearing up like it was a stage set for Waiting For Godot. The shells were in fact tiny prowed tart bases made using squid ink to cutely house the orange mussel flesh.
But beneath such playfulness is a deep commitment to the British Table. No olive oil is used, only rapeseed; if truffles make an appearance they are from Wiltshire, not the Perigord; otherwise locally sourced means really local in a cuisine very much in service to the soil, whether from the fells and fields or the polytunnels of his farm. Its mirrored in the way the dishes are served. The test tubes have gone, uniquely fired earthenware squats folksily on the napery.
And the dishes inside those dishes? Taste, texture, balance, consummate technique are all delivered by Rogans anointed one, Adam Reid in a series of artfully homely dishes. Its a hard trick to pull off. Take Late Spring Offerings, Vegetables, Herbs and Flowers, Lovage Salt, a successor to Early Spring Offerings etc... a few weeks ago. Its a whole seasonal potager on a plate, the best salad composition Ive ever tasted.
Well, at least the best since the Beetroot, Goats Cheese, Salted Hazelnuts and Apple Marigold that kicked off our cavalcade of dishes.
If boiled sole, onions, truffle and leeks had perhaps stickily let the side down at No.3 (these things are only relative), the later fish course, Hake Fillet with Buckwheat, Radishes, Sea Beet and some Smoked Roe Butter was champion stuff, as was Asparagus with Crevettes, Watercress And Duck Skin. Both dishes made you take your time to discover what the different components contributed to the whole the mark of a proper top-end kitchen. No mere display of luxury ingredients, ultimately cloying.
My two favourite dishes until last then. Razor Clams, Egg Yolk, Celeriac and Sea Herbs, as game of culinary hide and seek, and what seems to be the crunchy signature pud, Pear, Meadowsweet and Rye, Buttermilk and Linseeds. It sounds Scandinavian, but the tastes are of then best British cuisine of the moment.
We are so lucky to have this restaurant in Manchester, but its such a sore temptation. I want to go back again as soon as possible, but I cant afford. I cant really afford but... I think Im in love. Oh, no, lets not go down that route.
The Midland Hotel, Peter Street, Manchester, M60 2DS Tel: 0161 236 3333 www.the-french.co.uk
