283. Winter Begins - Atelier, The Wilderness

 

  A second visit to Robert Wood’s sublime Atelier. My dining companion with whom I would be moving on to The Wilderness, was mesmerised by the place, “Where did you find out about this?” he sighed wondrously. I tried to look sybillesque (in a male sought of way) as only a great and wise wizard and fount of all knowledge might be entitled to look, “Oh, you know ….” I tailed off. “E mails, the internet, somewhere like that.

  Wood presented his new winter menu printed on a lovely Christmas card-style idealised picture of the  good looking building which is home to Atelier. I was pleased that there are now also nibbles to accompany the drinks. My companion chose Slask, apparently one of 30 Finnish words for snow, slask being the term applied to rather slush-like snow, and he received I suppose what might be a very upmarket, pleasingly alcoholic and hyper-sophisticated and adult version of the slush puppy. I chose a cocktail which actually looked like a drink - Gifts From Persia, “saffron, sweet lemon, gold, franckin ensemble and myrrh” - and I was delighted with my choice. I think we worked our way through a couple more each of the items and then headed for Warstone Road looking forward to finding out what delights Alex Claridge’s restaurant had in store for us.

  I noticed that Alex Claridge himself was not there for more than about an hour and Head Chef Marius Gedminas was on holiday so one of the sous chefs was in charge of the kitchen that evening. The first course was Big ‘Mac’ Flatbread which was another manifestation of the restaurant’s beef tartar. The bread was served cold and apparently should have been warmed - it certainly seemed to need to be - and was taken back to the kitchen for the bread to be warmed. It certainly improved the dish. 

   Then lamb’s sweetbreads were served with nice crispy coatings but they did seem slightly overcooked. Next came trout and then ‘seaweed salad’ which has to be an acquired taste and unfortunately neither of us had acquired it. I do not think it enhanced the menu which was proving to be remarkably challenging. 

  Mutton served with carrot was nicely cooked but quite heavily seasoned with what tasted like white pepper and the accompanying keema cruffin contained very little keema and really the cruffin (a croissant-muffin hybrid) didn’t work for either of us and might have been better substituted by a little pie or pithivier.

  We paid an extra £25 each for some finely cooked wagyu and the meal closed with a fine little cacao tart with vanilla ice cream. I assume the presence of a tartlet in the final course was the reason for presenting a different form of pastry in which to place the keema in the lamb course. The Wilderness rightly challenges its diners with food it serves but perhaps this particular meal presented one or two more challenges than I felt up to dealing with.