Corrigan's, Mayfair - a wet Wednesday night in January
I have to confess that I lurked outside the door of Corrigan's for several minutes feeling like a fourth-former waiting outside the head's office for a bollocking. Perhaps it was the carpet on the steps leading up to the restaurant (does someone actually hoover it?), or maybe it was just that the place looked generally too posh and intimidating for a nondescript female of slender means (but not personage).
I took courage from the fact that the night was young (just after 6.30 pm to be precise) and the place deserted, and that in the midst of a credit crunch, surely a few bob would be welcome even from the likes of Wurzel Gummidge. So I sidled in as unobtrusively as possible and requested "a table for one". (I always attempt to utter these words in a tone of ringing confidence, but they invariably seem to emerge in a craven whisper that suggests I am terribly sorry to put them out, and do feel free to sit me down next to the gents' toilet, and prop the door open with the bog brush whilst they are at it.)
The impossibly glamorous blonde girl with the pen and the Bob Cratchit ledger studied the latter gravely and then told me that as long as I was out by nine I could be accommodated. I sneaked a look round the cavernous interior, as yet entirely deserted, and assured her that by 9 p.m. I would be tucked up in bed watching the telly. She tried not to laugh and handed me over to another sublimely soigné individual, who seated me at a perfectly nice table nowhere near a toilet, but next to a lamp with ostrich legs and feathers but no head. I wondered if ostrich featured on the menu.
Numerous waiters wandered round looking supremely efficient and starched to the eyeballs. You only had to glance at the entire staff to know, with certainly, that there was not a single of flake of dandruff between the lot of them. A lovely young French lad made an appearance, all smiles, and I felt I would have been quite happy to adopt him or failing that, coat him in thyme and breadcrumbs and serve him pink.
Just as I began to think I had been transported to Stepford, a few reassuring little cracks appeared. Human beings did work here after all! I had ordered fish soup, and it arrived followed by a plate of undistinguished amuse bouches. When my bouche was already giddy with enjoyment. And when I had almost finished, bread, with some creamy, luscious unsalted butter. Heavenly bread, which was said to be soda bread by one of the Stepford brigade, but was totally unlike the putty-coloured doorstop dished up by my Aunt Julia in County Mayo. This was dark brown and speckled, moist, moreish and possibly more addictive than the stuff people pay good money to shove up their noses. But it should have come earlier. Much earlier.
The fish soup itself was quite simply the best I have ever had, better than the many bowlsful I have polished off in St Malo, Cancale, and various parts of the Brittany coast. It came in a plain white bowl, a rusty-coloured pool of fishy intensity with a depth of crustacean flavours, a crabby, shellfishy concoction to make one give thanks for living on an island. Every spoonful sang in the mouth. With it there was a bowl of garlic mayonnaise and a couple of perfectly golden, crisp slices of toasted French bread (three would have been better). I tried to make it last, I resisted the urge to lift the whole bowl up to mouth level and slurp it down, and I even managed to swallow the shrieks of delight that threatened to emerge after each spoonful. But I failed to curb the idiot grin that spread across my face, a grin that I was completely unaware of until the couple at the next table started to look at me nervously and mutter. In fact, if the Stepfords had carried in George Clooney reclining on a silver salver and clad only in a strategically-placed crouton, I am afraid I would have reached for the crouton and slathered on the last spoonful of mayonnaise.
At this point the man himself (Corrigan, not Clooney) emerged from the kitchen and sat down with a group of people at the table across the room, a picture of bonhomie. Here was the creator of this paragon of soups, a soup I would gladly eat every day of my life and never tire of. I briefly contemplated making an offer of marriage, discounted it immediately and then weighed up the possibility of kidnapping. With a smaller, lighter chef it might have been an option but this man clearly enjoyed his food - as who would not?
The smiling French lad appeared and enquired if everything was all right. I told him that should I ever be on Death Row, this would be my last order the night before the needle. He looked mystified, as well he might, not being aware that plans had almost been afoot to incarcerate his boss and force him to produce fish soup for all eternity to satisfy the appetites of a crazed Polyanna.
With reluctance I turned to my game suet pudding. Not because it was a disappointment but because the fish soup was now but a memory. The pudding was actually a thing of beauty in its own right, but compared with the soup it was like following Jane Austen with Bridget Jones. It was light, and the thin but plump little mound of suet pastry - full of tender morsels of game - sat in a bowl of rich brown gravy. Very nice. The buttered kale was fine. But the urge to sandbag the chef and drag him back to a hidden lair equipped with a fully-fitted kitchen (and an endless supply of conical sieves) was fading. And a good job too. If I had been able to afford the partridge, it might have been next stop Holloway.
I passed on the desserts, fearing not just the calorie content but the possibility of a life of crime.
I drank a glass of Chablis with the soup and one of Minervois with the game pudding.
The bill came to fifty quid, which seemed quite a lot (but then I am a Yorkshirewoman).
Verdict: value for money - 8/10 service - 7/10 (marked down for the bizarre mix-up over the amuse bouches and the bread) quality of food - 9/10 overall (15/10 for the soup or up there with the angels)
Le Boudin Blanc, Shepherd Market - the following night
Busy, buzzing and much less formal than Corrigan's, this place was full to bursting by 7 pm on the Thursday night I ate there. They managed to squeeze me in and I ordered, guess what, fish soup, more to simply reassure myself that the sublime concoction of the previous night really had been that good.
This time the bread arrived smartly, and the soup followed without much of a delay. With it was some not very gutsy rouille, some rather bland gruyere and some croutons, and it was all perfectly OK. The soup was fine, exactly the same standard as I last had in Granville in a restaurant overlooking the harbour. But it did not make me want to jump on the table and do a song and dance routine.
The confit of duck with a chorizo cassoulet was also pretty good, the skin crispy, the duck meltingly tender. There was possibly a little too much of the cassoulet and the beans could have done with an extra half an hour of cooking, but overall it was a toothsome plateful. With a side order of spinach, and a couple of glasses of wine, I ended up with a bill of forty quid, which is probably good value for Mayfair. And the place itself was jolly, with bags of atmosphere and a buzz.
Verdict: value for money - 8/10 service - 9/10 quality of food - 8/10
