Restaurant review: Pétrus, London

This delightful restaurant in the heart of Knightsbridge in London is a place I would like to visit more frequently, but as my husband and I tend to often decide on the day we’d like to go out for a meal, it’s not possible because Pétrus is most of the time fully booked. We have visited several times however (we can occasionally also be more organized), and it is one of my favourite places. The place exudes sophistication, and even in a full restaurant you feel like you have privacy. You are well looked after, and for ladies; your handbag will get it’s own stool too. Pétrus is very worthy of it’s one Michelin star with their consistently good cooking, however it’s not the best restaurant I’ve recently been. The staff were very friendly and attentive, and The Head Chef spared us a generous amount of  time in the kitchen, which was very nice.

The Head Chef Larry Jayasekara has an impressive background, having worked at several three Michelin star restaurants. Having started his career at Pétrus back in 2004, he re-joined in 2015. He was also awarded with National Chef of the Year in 2016, amongst other accolades he’s achieved.

I hadn’t decided at first whether I was going to review our dining experience or not, and decided to do it after our Amuse Bouche, so I don’t have a picture of them. They were however nice and tasty.

The Tasting Menu itself started with lime, sour cream, olive oil and sherry. This was like a palate cleanser, very fresh and light.

The scallop dish with cauliflower, capers and raisins that came next was very tasty, and the scallop was cooked well, however we thought perhaps just on the borderline whether it was cooked enough. We also thought it would’ve been useful to have a small spoon to eat the cauliflower foam. The capers and raisins were somehow incorporated to the dish in a way that you didn’t notice them (there were no physical bits of these), so the flavours, saltiness of capers and sweetness of raisins, had been managed really well.

The next dish of chicken, foie gras and black truffle was a clever,  playful dish of a mini chicken pie. My husband loved it. I thought I couldn’t really taste the black truffle much. The dish was eaten by hand, which wasn’t a problem to us, however I could imagine some people might not like it.

The butter test was passed without problems. If you’ve not read any of my previous reviews, there are not many things I hate more than hard butter that’s really difficult to spread, in a nice restaurant. The butter should be nice a fluffy, and most of all, soft. The butter sets the tone from then forward to the whole meal. The bread had an interesting sour taste to it – and I don’t mean a sourdough. My husband said it reminded him of Guinness. He is a Guinness lover, and also loved the bread. I don’t drink Guinness, and thought the bread was nice, but didn’t love it as much.

Next dish of crab agnolotti (stuffed pasta, like ravioli) with sweetcorn puree and red wine jus was very tasty. For me the pasta might have been just a tad too al dente, however for my husband, it was perfect. The red wine jus had perfect balance, and didn’t overpower the other flavours.

I’ve tried sweetbread a couple of times in the past, and I was yet to come across a nice one. I don’t think it’s necessarily that I don’t like the sweetbread itself, but it just haven’t been cooked in a way that would’ve sold it to me. So I was really looking forward to trying it in a place like this. The flavour combinations on the menu for this dish looked interesting: curried sweetbread, almond, black tea. The sweetbread gets poached in milk first, then pan fried and served with almond gazpacho. The dish itself was hiding behind a lettuce leaf. My husband loved the dish. I also liked the sweetbread, I only found something on the plate a little bit too salty (my husband didn’t). The texture of the sweetbread was firmer than of those I’ve had in the past, which made me conclude my biggest issue in the past has been the texture. The black tea wasn’t really coming through on the dish.

The next dish of Skrei cod with Oscietra caviar and yuzu (Japanese / Korean citrus fruit) was lovely, the fish was perfectly cooked.

Pigeon is one of my favourite fine dining foods, so I was pleased to see the Anjou pigeon with avocado, pistachio and Madeira jus coming up on the menu next. The whole dish was wonderful. The turnip, onion and avocado were lovely and very tasty accompaniments to the perfectly cooked, rich dark, pink coloured pigeon, and the pistachio crumb worked well.

This dessert, jelly and ice cream, is a kind of a ‘blast from the past’ kind of dessert. I believe it was a very British, and popular, dessert back in the 80’s. I have seen the revival for the dish recently, as it  seems to have appeared on the menu in a few places. Of course, this comeback version has seen a refined makeover. The ginger bread ice cream tasted amazing, really lovely. In fact, my husband said it was the best ice cream he’s ever had. We didn’t really notice the jelly element, and in fact thought first this was an additional palate cleanser dish. There was caramelised pineapple and basil, and the ice cream. Because of the style of the plate, you had to use your finger to assist getting things on the spoon.

I thought the execution of the coconut parfait was very clever. It looked like you were being served a half a coconut, however the white inside was the coconut parfait, and the brown outer shell was dark chocolate, with additional small chocolate pieces on the outside of the shell, making it look like a real, hairy coconut. It was served with rice pudding and a coconut and lime sorbet. My husband came up with a very good description: the dish was like a really nice Bounty.

Rating: ★★★★☆