» Andrew Kay’s Food & Drink
Andrew Kay lunches in style at Benares Atul Kochhar’s Michelin starred Mayfair restaurant
It’s been a full week since I stepped over the threshold of Benares in Berkeley Square at the very heart of Mayfair. It’s my old stomping ground and I know the area well. You can easily sum it up with the word ‘posh‘. And for many that word gives off a warning, posh can mean elitist, unfriendly snobbish and above all expensive.
Sometimes that is appropriate but I very soon discover that at Benares it is far from the truth. There is no denying that this is a very sophisticated, very grown-up, very smart restaurant indeed. But unfriendly – certainly not, the welcome is huge and generous. And expensive? No, not for cooking of this calibre and in these surroundings.
I am here to interview the chef, who in the last two years has become a household name after his many appearances on TV. We chat, but he is eager to get back to his kitchen and I do wonder how many of his fellow TV chefs do that, actually still cook. Luckily he leaves me with his delightful assistant Davinia to share lunch.
I have craved tasting this man’s food since I first watched him making the other competing chefs on the Great British Menu look like rabbits caught in the headlights. There is a calm focus to him that at times makes him seem cold and slightly aloof. In the flesh he is nothing of the kind, he is warm, open and friendly, and he likes a joke. I sort of want him to stay and eat with us, but at the same time I want to know he is in the kitchen too.
I note the fact that Davinia is as excited as I am about choosing lunch, obviously the staff don’t get to dine from the a la carte menu every day of the week. While we read the menu the waiter delivers tiny papads and four exquisite chutneys. I almost drain the pot of gooseberry and the tomato and ginger is severely dented. And what a menu, how do you choose? I could have done it with a pin, there was simply nothing that I would not have liked to try. I asked Davinia for advice but she was in the same position. In the end she had the Tandoori Ratan and I had the Karara Kekda, soft shell crab and squid salad. Now don’t be mislead by the tandoori tag, yes he uses a tandoor and yes the major influence on his food comes from the complex spicing of his native India, but this is no curry house. There is no curry as such on the menu. This is modern British cuisine and I wish there were more of it. Her dish comprised of lamb, a huge nugget of chicken and a massive prawn. It’s no mean dish, as big as many a main course in other ‘starred’ restaurants.
“I could eat that saffron bread every day for the rest of my life and doubt I would become bored”
My crab is sublime, crisp outside, the spiced coating fine and delicate but with real definition of flavour, and the cooking is precise, the flesh inside remains soft and sweet. The squid is equally great, tiny rings in the crispest coating are tender as chicken fillet, extraordinarily good and again generous. A plum sauce on the side is perfectly balanced.
Davinia moves on to Tawa Jingha, giant prawns dusted with curry leaf and served with a deep red tomato and onion sauce. It looks wonderful and I gaze in envy until my Gosht Ki Pasliyan arrives. Kentish lamb cutlets, almost two inches thick have been infused with fennel before cooking in the tandoor. The meat is amazingly tender and sweet, the spicing once again defined but not masking the rich animal flavours and there are three of them. I cannot believe my luck. The chops are served with a salad of rocket, which is studded with goats cheese, olives and semi-dried tomatoes. A simple mint sauce to one side is great and I dip into it, but not with every morsel. It’s a princely dish and utterly satisfying on all levels. We also ordered the bread basket and we make light work of a flat bread stuffed with cauliflower and one flavoured with saffron. In fact I could eat that saffron bread every day for the rest of my life and I doubt I would become bored of it.
Satisfied already, and more than content, I agree to study the dessert menu. It is of course fatal, once seen I have to try, and fortunately so does Davinia so I don’t feel quite so greedy. We both choose a warm carrot and pistachio wrap with lemon grass ice cream. Wow! I know, not a lot of detail there, but again I say it, wow.
With lunch we had a glass of excellent rosé each and after sipped mint tea which came with tiny petit fours, once of which I would kill for the recipe for, sweet, crisp, then suddenly dissolving and leaving the mouth tasting of excellent curd cheese, quite brilliant.
There are no prices on the website but do not be afraid, my dishes came to £42.40, half the price of a good West End theatre ticket and a fraction compared to the quarter of a million pounds being asked for a Rolls Royce next door. That makes Atul’s artistry seem like a bargain. I could also have eaten for much less had I had the £25 lunch menu. This is cooking of the highest order using ingredients sourced to the same level, and Atul is the nightingale that now sings in Berkeley Square.
Benares, 12a Berkeley Square House, Berkeley Square, London W1J 6BS
Call 0207 7629 8886 www.benaresrestaurant.co.uk
