Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester (3*), London, March 2024

1. Cornish turbot, Kalibos cabbage, hazelnut, watercress, sea urchin, plankton emulsion
2. Lobster in black radish nasturtium leaf, multi-seed cracker with butter and fresh radish leaf
3. Hand-dived scallop, citrus buerre blanc, Kristal caviar
4. Roasted cep, chestnut mousse, oxalis, Périgord truffle
5. Native lobster, artichoke, shiso, Périgord truffle
6. Pigeon from Anjou, crapaudine beetroot, bottarga, wasabi
7. Assortment of French cheeses
8. Figs from Provence, seaweed, tarragon, fig tree-leaf sorbet
9. Mignardises

First of all, I’ll start off by saying I’m a huge fan of Alain Ducasse! Though I’ve been to many 3* places, Le Louis XV is to this day one of the few absolutely perfect 10/10 restaurants I’ve ever been to! I’ve had incredible experiences in many of his places across many continents, and Benoit in NYC is one of my most visited places every year when I’m looking for a nice non-tasting-menu meal. This is how this meal went. The cornish turbot was okay. The flavors weren’t bad, though cabbage isn’t a great thing to be basing a sauce around, and I couldn’t figure out where they used sea urchin/uni. The fish was cooked nicely though. The lobster dish, though fantastic, was a joke. I would have loved this as an amuse-bouche, but two minuscule, though fantastic, tacos and a cracker as an actual course is ridiculous IMO. The scallop dish, which some might say is this restaurant’s signature, was also underwhelming. It tasted good, though horribly uninteresting, and exactly how you’d expect it to be. The presentation with liquid nitrogen was also wholly unnecessary for such a small (and very underwhelming) course. The cep mushrooms (along with the lobster course I had after) were probably my favorite course of the night, though it’s hard to mess up great mushrooms with chestnuts and truffles. Everything worked well, with each ingredient highlighting the others’ earthy tones, and the sauce/mousse was great. The lobster course was also done well, with a perfectly poached lobster, a nice sauce, and truffle shavings that complemented the artichoke nicely. The pigeon dish was downright bad. Pigeon and beetroot seem to be a pretty trendy flavor combo right now, and these guys definitely messed it up, and adding wasabi only made it worse. None of this dish’s flavors were even remotely at the 3* level. The cheeses were okay. They had an awfully small selection, and I’ve had much higher quality cheeses at some 1* places. The fig dessert was just horrible. If pairing figs with a very watery sauce and way too mushy sorbet, along with seaweed, heb, and tree-leaf flavors sounds somewhat, uh… disgusting, it’s because this dish absolutely was. I was also quite disheartened that this was THE ONLY DUCASSE RESTAURANT IN THE WORLD I wasn’t able to get a Baba au Rhum for dessert at. Finally, the mignardises were pretty good, though not fantastic. Then again, my standards for mignardises have become sky-high after the sweets/wagashi I’ve had after meals in Japan! At £285, this is the most expensive non-Japanese/sushi restaurant in London if I’m not mistaken, and it’s daylight robbery. To say I wouldn’t recommend this place is beyond an understatement, and given that they, Hélène Darroze, Sketch, and The Waterside Inn all have 3*, I certainly want to believe what many British friends have told me, which is that London’s Michelin guide is, at the bare minimum, slightly inflated.