I am a great fan of the cooking of Marcus Wareing but despite this have not managed to get to the Berkeley until last night. The dining room itself is a rather subdued affair somewhat tucked away in fact but pleasantly relaxed. The service was super attentive without being overbearing my only reservation is that it becomes frustrating having a dish explained to you in an accent that is so strong as to make the explanation unintelligible.

We opted for the gourmand tasting menu with the fine wine selection which comes out at a whopping £330 per head and I have to say was disappointing for a number of reasons. Whilst all of the cooking was clearly done to a terribly high technical standard many of the dishes just did not work particularly in conjunction with the wines paired by the sommelier. Some examples of this were a cherry ale served with a starter that contained cherries and cheese that just did not work at all. A fantastic fois gras dish was paired with an awful walnut wine , I had no idea such a thing existed and do hope not to make its acquaintance again! An absolutely fantastic piece of beef was paired with raspberries and I have no idea how any chef could think this was a triumph of any sort. Desert was a smoked ice cream that was weird and not at all pleasant and a liquorice cake that was so strong I could still taste it hours later. All in all I felt that it was chef trying way too hard to be different and unusual and whilst everything was clearly superbly constructed it just did not work

The most disappointing aspect was the fine wine selection which contained cherry beer and walnut wine neither of which were fine at all and a rather ordinary Riesling. This was really overpriced and with the exception of a good Lynch barges utterly forgettable. In fact if I could mark this element for value it would only have got 1.