474. Omelette Arnold Bennett At The Oyster Club.

 

  For some time, lust had been growing in me. I had recalled a spectacular Omelette Arnold Bennett on which I had gluttonised while staying at The Lygon Arms in Broadway around 2021and then I had come across a review of the Oyster Club by Adam Stokes by Grace Dent in which she mentioned said omelette and that triggered a mental lightbulb whereby I recalled seeing the dish on the restaurant’s menu but never having taken up the opportunity to order the dish.

  The moment had come to slake my lust. I prepared to reserve a table at the Oyster Club for the purpose of ordering an omelette Arnold Bennett but before doing so, checked the online menu and to my horror found that the OAB was no longer on it. Distress ensued. There was nothing to do but to email the restaurant and enquire if this was an omission and OAB was in fact still being offered at the restaurant. It was not. But Chris Fikeis, the General Manager, kindly suggested that the kitchen would be pleased to cook an OAB on special order for me and I rushed to take up his offer. And so, the very next day, there I was, full of anticipation and the sensation of lust about to be dissipated, walking through the restaurant’s door at the top of Temple Street, being kindly greeted by Chris who mentioned that he had tried an OAB that very morning and he was glad to sing the praises of that very fine dish.

  Comfortably seated in the downstairs seating area, I was soon gulping down a pleasing margarita variant whilst waiting for my first course of three rather magnificent king prawns which butterflied, luscious, meaty and nicely accompanied by a delicate alioli. I had already begun to purr. The prawns had a pleasing mild flavour very much to my taste and provided a very fine opening act for what was to come.

  And there, then, with perhaps a little less ceremony than it deserved, came forth the gorgeous-looking omelette Arnold Bennett, self consciously lording itself over the table and anything else than was on it. It sat in its pan, hot and handsome, and gave up its secrets when it was called upon to do so. And that call was not long in coming.

  I think it was as good as I could have hoped for. My expectations were fully satisfied. It was as luxurious as one would wish it to be and absolutely packed with poached smoked fish exalted by hits of cheese of which - it seemed to me - there were at least two types including a blue cheese and plenty of cream. I can not say how it compared with that prepared now and in the past at The Savoy where Chef Jean Baptiste Virlogeux invented it in 1929 to satisfy the hunger of the Stoke On Trent-born writer Arnold Bennett, given that I’ve never eaten there which is clearly an oversight I must one day rectify.

   Poor Arnold enjoyed only two years of indulging himself in this magnificent dish before he shuffled off this mortal coil, falling foul of French sanitation while in the south of that country and trusting to its tap water thereby inflicting upon himself a fatal case of typhoid. Bennett however did immortalise Virlogeux (sadly I cannot find a photograph of the chef) by basing on him the character Robo who appears in Bennett’s last and longest novel Imperial Palace (1930). The dish needed only to be accompanied by a glass of appropriate wine and the lovely Sauvignon Blanc served at the Oyster Club was the drink to do the job very nicely indeed.

  The richness and luxuriousness of the dish takes no prisoners and one hardly needs to eat any dessert after it unless it be as light as a feather. Fortunately the Oyster Club provided just that bringing a little acidity to counter the richness of the previous course in the form of seasonal poached rhubarb with a tasty rhubarb ice cream and a perfectly textured little vanilla panna cotta which might have benefitted from having a slightly more intense flavour to it.

  Replete, and with many thanks to the staff who had made it possible for me to salve my OAB lust, I made my way down Temple Street heading for New Street and when I arrived home there was nothing that could be done but to snooze and to allow the processes of digestion to do their job.

Rating:- 🌞🌞  

17 April 2025.

Arnold Bennett 

Bennett’s ‘Imperial Palace’ based on life at The Savoy & featuring the Chef, Robo, based on Jean Baptiste Virlogeux who invented the Omelette Arnold Bennett.

First edition of Imperial Palace.