Cornus

This was my second visit to Cornus, the sister of Medlar. In my previous review I discussed the background to the restaurant and its head chef. This time we went for an extended tasting menu at £195, but there also a three-course lunch at £55 as well as an a la carte selection. On the latter, starters were mostly £20-£30, and main courses £35-£54. The regular tasting menu was £155. I wrote previously about the wine list. Mineral water was £4.75.

A sequence of canapes started with a large gougere stuffed with Gruyere fondue. The choux pastry was very good and the filling had plenty of flavour. A warm potato galette with bluefin tuna was topped with N25 caviar. This was a lovely canape. A tartlet of cauliflower mushroom, burnt chive emulsion and onion ketchup and aged Gruyere was also excellent, the pastry delicate and the ketchup nicely enlivening the mushroom. Squid ink crackers were topped with blobs of taramasalata, giving a pleasant texture contrast (canapes 17/20). Two breads were offered, an excellent honey and squash focaccia made in the kitchen and a sourdough from Flourish bakery in Watford.

The first formal course was crab, and this was as lovely as at my last meal here. The crab had been half roasted and half steamed, paired with wasabi mayonnaise, spring onion, pear, Haas avocado purée. apple jelly and apple puree. The crab was of high quality, the avocado being ripe and the subtle bite of wasabi nicely controlled. The slight acidity of apple was a lovely balance to the richness of the avocado (easily 18/20).

Another dish I had tried before was the classic langoustine tail roasted with caramelised Parmesan gnocchi, pea puree, truffle puree and potato and spinach emulsion with girolle mushrooms and autumn truffle. There was also a purée of squid ink and field mushrooms. This was as well executed as last time, the natural sweetness of the large langoustine complemented by the earthy notes of the truffle (comfortably 17/20).

Truffle featured in the next dish, hand-rolled spaghetti cooked in Parmesan stock with shavings of white truffle from Umbria. This was a relatively simple but glorious dish, the pasta having flawless texture and enriched by the Parmesan, the heady scent of white truffle lifting the pasta to a higher level (easily 18/20).

Red mullet was caught in gill nets and served with a bouillabaisse sauce and a blob of salsa verde. Red mullet is a fish that can be either disappointing and muddy in flavour, or beautifully delicate in the right hands. This was the latter, with the rich sauce nicely balanced by the salsa verde (18/20). 

Pigeon from Brittany was cooked pink and served with Confit pigeon leg and a sphere of cabbage containing pigeon offal alongside a chestnut puree. This was another lovely dish, the pigeon having very good flavour and being cooked very precisely, the chestnut puree nicely balanced by the cabbage (17/20).

We had a little cheese course next, with Gouda aged for four years and Comte for three years, along with a lovely Vacherin. All these cheeses were in excellent good condition, the Vacherin gloriously runny. Pre-dessert was an Earl Grey Chantilly with mandarin sorbet and fresh bergamot. Although the sorbet was very good I didn’t the bergamot was a good idea. Earl Grey itself is flavoured with bergamot oil, and the bergamot flavour ended up being dominant. I would much rather have just had the excellent mandarin sorbet on its own. This for me was a really good case of where the “less is more” cliché actually would have held true, with the complete dish suffering from the desire of the pastry chef to over complicate (14/20 but the sorbet was lovely).

A slice of lemon tart was excellent (16/20) and a chocolate dessert with hazelnut ice cream was quite pretty and had suitably rich in flavour (16/20). A choice of Brazil Yellow Bourbon or Jamaican Blue Mountain from Difference Coffee was on offer. The coffee came with nougat of apricot and nuts, a Valrhona dark chocolate called Mekonga from Vietnam and clotted cream fudge as well as Gran Marnier chocolate and caramel. 

Service was excellent throughout the meal, the team now including the excellent Patra Panas, who used to run the service at La Trompette. The bill came to £356 per person including corkage and some addition glasses of wine. If you opted for the 3-course menu and shared a modest bottle of wine then you could eat for much less, around £95 or so all in. Cornus is shaping up to be the best restaurant opening in London in 2024.

Further reviews: 16th Aug 2024