The English outpost of Parisian bistro Le Chateaubriand, Le Chabanais, has just opened in Mayfair. The French original made it to number 21 at the World’s 50 Best Restaurant awards last month and Le Chateaubriand’s head chef Paul Boudier is now heading up the kitchen here, so we’ve been chomping at the bit to get through the door. Last night we did just that – but did the European menu deliver that certain je ne sais quoi a Londoner demands? Read on to find out…
This similarly monikered sibling to Le Chateaubriand in Paris arrives a month late after a soft-launch in May was aborted due to mechanical difficulties involving the kitchen’s extraction. Le Chateaubriand is one of the leading lights of the bistronomy movement and was founded on the principle of high-end cooking served in simple surrounds in the workaday 11th arrondissement. Its London outpost, however, has landed on the most expensive square of the Monopoly board.
Manager Kevin Lansdown has shuffled down Mount Street from Scott’s while in place of Chateaubriand’s blackboards and tiles are marble and brass; it feels a little like the breakfast room of a very posh hotel. Chateaubriand’s former head chef Paul Boudier is in the kitchen, with regular visits planned from original visionary, self-taught Basque chef Inaki Aizpitarte.
Bar a couple of duds – bland St Jean de Luz tuna and bitter chocolate mousse rendered almost inedible by a sprinkling of sea-salt crystals – we enjoyed what we ate: chicken livers held in ravioli parcels of almost dim-sum lightness, sitting in a head-turningly intense fennel broth; perfectly cooked Dover sole served with the barest of brown butters to allow the subtle flavour of the fish to shine; and a gleeful take on Paris-Brest (though a side order of buttery mashed potato was so rich it had already practically qualified as pudding).
This is accomplished modern cooking to be sure, but it’s served in an environment in which all the rough edges have been smoothed off: the sort of polished Mayfair gem that the international super-rich will admire, but may leave many ordinary Londoners distinctly unexcited.
This article was published 9 July 2015