Hedone

Hedone has been on the receiving end of some seriously cranky reviews. In the dark, dripping caves of TripAdvisor, reviewers are gnashing their teeth that they can’t get an 8pm table at 24 hours’ notice, that lunch for four at this Michelin-starred restaurant clocks in over £200, that a cancellation deposit is required, or that some dishes with especially expensive ingredients are charged at a supplement.

It may be the expectations of the location. At this western end of Chiswick High Road, just before Chiswick gives up the ghost and turns into Hounslow, a good restaurant is rare and a fine dining place absolutely unheard of. If you were weighing up Hedone against Sam’s Brasserie or High Road House, you’d be in for a shock.

Yes it is pricey: menu options range from £47 for three courses to £95 for the longer tasting menu. You won’t see a bottle of wine for less than £40. But there is no complaint in terms of value for money. The kitchen errs towards expensive ingredients in almost every course, and for £95 we got ten brilliant dishes plus bread, amuses and petits fours. The wines are excellent, the markups against retail less than 3x as far as I could see, and they sell 375ml carafes on almost all of them. If there’s a complaint to be had, it’s that they won’t let you have a cheap bottle of wine with your meal.

In our tasting menu (billed as a surprise but really just a ‘best of’ the day’s offerings) almost all courses were very good and a few were outstanding. I will particularly remember the queen scallop with nori and jerusalem artichoke for a long time to come, along with a stunning piece of turbot with bouillabaisse sauce and a white aioli. Liquid-filled ravioli, short rib of beef and another scallop course (at our request) were also very very strong on flavour, and a pre-dessert of rosewater meringue with beetroot cream was a triumph. The biggest complaint I could muster is that I wanted more crème patissiere in the millefeuille.

While there’s a fair amount of modernist technique on display, such as emulsions and foams (there were two Gourmet Whips on the go constantly), and a few off-beat ingredients make an appearance, Hedone has its feet firmly in classical French cuisine: most courses centre around a superb piece of meat or fish, simply cooked, and the wow factor comes from the garnish.

We sat at the kitchen counter; half the kitchen is open to the restaurant. The benefit of this, for nerds such as myself, is that you get a bit of explanation from the chef about the dishes (for example, how on earth you make a white aioli). Mikael Jonsson is evidently a serious fella (there was the occasional stern instruction on how to eat a dish) but he’s not without a sense of humour either (he winds up other chefs about how he makes his liquid-filled ravioli; I considered this to be uproariously entertaining).

Service was good but the sommelier was rather absent: the restaurant was full and he was over-run. He’s done a great job on a mostly European wine list though. Décor and lighting are fine without being remarkable. The main restaurant floor looked towards the crowded side but there was lots and lots of buzz so I wouldn’t have been worried about being overheard by my neighbours.

This is a serious joint: we were in for 3.5 hours and I had to shut my eyes while I punched in my PIN. But if you live west of Earl’s Court, you’ve absolutely no excuse for not having eaten here.

Food does not disappoint

We have been to Hedone about a year ago and were impressed by it then, so we decided to give it another go. There are two options of where to eat – by the pass or at tables. This time we chose the pass, which gave us a different eating experience – we were able to see the relatively silent but incredibly efficient kitchen, and watch our food being prepared before our eyes.

The atmosphere was relatively pleasant. We were only one of a few diners at the beginning but by 9pm, the restaurant was full. In terms of service, we were greeted with smiles and crunchy bread. We had brought our own wine with us, having inquired previously as to whether there was a corkage service (indeed there was.) However at the end of the meal, as soon as I put my pin number had been accepted by the card machine, we were told by our waitress (rather rudely) that they would have preferred we called them and notified them directly that we were going to bring our own wine. I'm not entirely sure what the exact issue was here, as she just left without any explanation afterwards. All they did was essentially pour our wine into a decanter. We could have brought our own decanter if it was too much of a hassle for them.

The food itself was impressive. We opted for the tasting menu which mainly consisted of fish dishes. The subtle flavours and textures was what did it for me, and how when we were presented with our dishes, we were recommended the best way to eat it in order to get the most flavour from it. However the single meat dish that we had consisted of a pigeon including its claw. I'm normally not squeamish at these sort of things, but I definitely did not imagine the pigeon would be presented as such, on a background of beetroot puree, which looked something akin to a horror film. But that was just my opinion. My boyfriend devoured the whole thing.

Overall, the food was good, but the telling off that we got at the end from the waitress did definitely leave a sour taste in the mouth. I don't intend to sound arrogant or insinuate that we could do anything we like as customers, but paying as much as we did only to be embarrassed at the end is not something I would have expected from a Michelin star.

A superb blend of style and substance with a great vibe. Suits me and my partner who prefers Hedone from Roganic which I loved. I really ‘get’ what this man is doing. Already booked for January 18th, unless I can squeeze a reservation in sooner! Never have I had four consecutive courses all so stunning. Beats the likes of Waterside Inn by a Mile and more serious than the Fat Duck. No gimmicks here – Hedone just ‘rocks’.

We went for a late lunch on Saturday and had the tasting menu. The room was buzzing with steady conversation and conversely the open kitchen occupants just got on with their cooking – working together on dishes to ensure that customers got their food at the optimum level under the watchful eye of Chef.

The two amuse bouches were stunning and the following dishes were magical; we enjoyed everything but favourites were Flame grilled red mullet, potato skin emulsion, beef juice; Cuttlefish Tagliatelli with its ragu and an absolutely stunning Hare “a la Royale”. The attention to detail in the kitchen was phenomenal and the service was excellent. Although it is most definitely not local for us, we will be going back for another exciting experience created by an obviously passionate chef – Mikael Jonnson.

Hedone having had an excellent review by A A Gill in the Sunday Times seemed the perfect choice when visting my daughter in Chiswick earlier this year.
It was a Wednesday night and the restaurant was moderately busy but lacked atmosphere and the tables where rather close together. We were unaware that the evening meal was a set menu with a minumum charge of £50 per person with an extra charge of £7.00/person for beef! There was little else on the main course menu to tempt us
so we where already at £57.00 each. Wine started at £32.00 and we plumped for the cheapest Chablis at £62.00 which was well over the top – the waiter bought the wine to the table to show us the bottle then took it away to the open kitchen area where I watched him open it and proceed to taste it after which it was bought to our table and madam was asked if she would like to taste it – my comment was “If its good enough for you then its good enough for us” Is this normal practice as I have only experienced this once before and that was done at the table?
The food although ingeniously good considering the products used, was not in abundance, the lemon pudding was miniscule and not at all what I was expecting based on the waitresses description – I was wondering how I would manage to eat it all.

My daughter and I did have a pleasant evening but we will not be returning as I feel £202.44 including 12.5% service charge,was rather excessive for what we had. After leaving the restaurant we went down the road to the pub for a glass of champagne to recover from the shock of the bill, and had coffee back at the flat. A A Gill also recommended Dock Kitchen in Ladbroke Grove which for quality and value and surrounding knocks spots of Hedone.

PS I agree with a reviewer on TripAdvisor the bread was delicious – it probably stopped us from leaving hungry!

The quality of the ingredients are indeed superb. Cooking is outstanding, precise, perfectly seasoned and innovative. A true flavour sensation experience with wine and service to match.

I have to say I tend to agree with Naomi and not the newspaper critics who have been singing the praises of this restaurant. Having read the professionals' reviews, I was so excited about going to this restaurant and I had high expectations but I'm afraid that I have come away thoroughly disappointed with both the restaurant and the critics. There were some glimmers of genius; the savoury take on a jammie dodger, the egg starter with flavour combinations I have not come across before and the blueberry tart with melt in your mouth buttery pastry. However, other dishes, to my mind, either simply did not work or were over or under seasoned. Taking a bite of turbot and coming up against a mouthful of crunchy sea salt was not pleasant and, personally, having a grouse claw complete with fur and claws on the plate for decoration is wrong and at the very least unnecessary. Oh, and a few pointers for service: if you really do want customer feedback, when you ask for it and a customer gives it to you in a very polite and inoffensive manner, please do not come back to confront them (whilst the sous-chef loiters and glares at the customer in the background) with the other half of the grouse to demonstrate to them that their personal opinion and preferences are wrong; please never clear away one guest's plate whilst another guest is still eating; please do not clear away a customer's glass when it still has wine in it; and please fix your loos so that they flush.

These are all perhaps basic errors you would expect, and have some patience with, of an amateur starting out in the restaurant business but certainly not errors I would expect from a chef and a restaurant which are meant to be top of their game and which the critics are in love with.

This is a pretentious obscenely overpriced restaurant and its offering is the worst combination of minimal ingredients cooked without real purpose. No warning is given when booking that this is a set menu restaurant (a very restricted set menu ) – the minimum price being £50 per head. Only slim people can eat here because the tables are so close together it would be very uncomfortable for anyone larger to get into their seats, wiggling in between tables. Customers are offered their 4 course meal from 2 fixed starters, a choice from 2 main courses and finally a dessert from 3 desserts (1 of which ran out) . The audacity when we explained that 1 guest could not eat dessert was that they could choose from 3 further starters which are listed but these are more ecpensive and therefore a supplement would be added. A complimentary appetiser was served – insufficently cooked fish – 1 bite – sent back and never replaced. My first compulsory starter was mackerel – or rather a sliver of mackerel. My main couse was 2 noisettes of lamb (1 noisette and 1 grissle) and a quarter onion. I could have added insult to injury by choosing the 5 or 6 course option (£10 per course extra) and opened up 3 exta starters (slivers!) to choose from. We might have thought we were at a health farm for losing weight. The wine – nothing under £35 and even then only 2 under £40 and when we asked advice we were told “well it's up to you”!!! My friends replacement dessert having run out of te raspberry tart on the menu – 1 fig cut into slithers!!
Neither our friends nor us have come across such a rip off in many many years – this is the emperor's new clothes big time – the only good thing to say about this restaurant was the bread (thank goodness cos there wasn't much else to eat!)
Oh and this lovely pleasure was only a mere £268.82 for 4 for the least expensive menu ( and that icludes having had the supplement given complimentary) – 1 bottle of wine and 1 bottle of water…what a bargain…not!