301. The Wilderness’s Fabulous New Spring Menu.

 

    A recent lunch at The Wilderness underlined just why the inspectors and editors of The Good Food Guide placed the restaurant in their ‘top ten’ list of British restaurants last autumn. It simply is very exciting - the atmosphere, the personality and, most importantly, the food. I lunched there the day the new spring menu was being launched and it proved to be such a remarkable oeuvre that it convinced me that The Wilderness had cemented itself right there at the peak of present British cuisine without having to endure four or five hours of the vague torture of a twenty plus course meal.

  Now eternally fixed at the top of the menu, Claridge’s or perhaps Gedminas’, latest version of their now almost notorious Big Mac arrived as one of two amuses gueles in a tin which raised the expectation that the contents was made up of caviar rather than the sublime wagyu tartare “with luxury condiments’ which it actually was. The other amuse bouche was an absolutely delicious ‘smoked eel eclair’ - a frighteningly powerful example of just how much this restaurant has fully understood what makes for a clever, witty, exciting, spectacularly tasty food experience.

  Then, a remarkable visual exercise in shades of green - a Swiss roll of pasta and strips of courgette sitting like an island surrounded by a viridescent moat flavoured as a Thai green curry and populated by nicely cooked mussels. Then, a now ‘usual suspect’ - the Wilderness carrot dish, we have now arrived at Carrot 2023 - a savoury bread and butter pudding with a perfect texture to complement the carrot.

  Fish course. Lightly poached cod, moist and softly textured, with an Iberico cheese and truffle custard. This looked spectacular but I felt that the flavour of the truffle was really too strong to get the benefit of the flavour of the cod which woukd have been lovely in itself.

  The main course brought the word sublime back to mind. This was the absolutely most perfectly cooked Fallow deer with a fine redcurrant sauce and chicory leaves sitting on hen-of-the-woods mushrooms - in many ways more simple in appearance than some of the more flamboyant dishes that made up the menu but entirely perfectly conceived and executed. How can a restaurant which renders on to its diners such a dish as this not have a Michelin star? Perhaps it will soon. 

  The pastry chef then proved that he should be beatified. The ‘rhubarb and custard Viennetta’ came to the table all pink and decorated and gorgeous and looking like either Carême or Soyer or both were working in the kitchen of The Wilderness. This was wickedness from the Wilderness. A brilliant dessert. It should stay on the menu for ever. I smiled throughout my consumption of it and then a long time afterwards. This is to The Wilderness what 10-10-10 Egg Surprise is to Purnell’s. 

  Finally, four immaculate, clever petits four - a cow’s head fudge, an egg that tasted of bacon, The Wilderness’s familiar Hot Lips and a very memorable, explosively citric yuzu jelly.

  I really felt that while already gazing down on most restaurants, The Wilderness had even then reached new heights.

Rating:- 🌞🌞🌞