The Dysart

I have written previously about the background of the Dysart, its head chef Kenneth Culhane and the excellent wine list here. The dining room has a relaxed atmosphere, with widely spaced tables and no intrusive music to drown out your conservation. The tasting menu today was priced at £155.

It began with a canape of little shortbread biscuits topped with grapefruit jam (16/20). A new canape was a tartlet of teardrop peas with N25 kaluga caviar. Teardrop peas (guisante lágrimaaka aka “green caviar”) are a luxury ingredient, originating from Galicia and grown in particular near the port of Getaria on the coast of Spain in the Basque country. Picking of the peas is manual, carried out at dawn. Each 1kg of raw pea pods yields only around 50g or so of the tiny peas. The peas themselves need no cooking. Their season is usually at the end of winter but these have arrived earlier than usual this year. The pastry used Charentes-Poitou PDO butter to make a pâte brisée for a finer, crumblier texture. A little Celtic mustard flavours the tart, which is made from toasted nori seaweed, toasted cumin and mustard. This was excellent, the pastry light and the peas lovely and sweet, the salinity of the caviar contrasting nicely with the delicate peas. The dish had a further subtle input from the English yuzu citrus and the touch of Celtic mustard (17/20).

Sourdough focaccia was made here and had lovely light texture, but with a crust that had more firmness than a traditional focaccia. The “chaud froid” dish is a nod to a similar dish at Arpege in Paris, now appearing here as a canape in a shot glass. The egg yolk, cream, maple syrup and Pedro Ximenes layers combine in the mouth for a contrast of temperatures and flavours (16/20). Charred bream with radish, ginger and in a spicy champagne sauce is the signature dish of the restaurant. The dish has been slightly tweaked recently with the use of Ancho chillis (a mild Mexican chilli pepper) in the oil, giving a fruity and earthy flavour. The flavour of the fish goes really well with the gentle spices of the sauce and the aromatic ginger (strong 17/20).

Ox tail risotto was made used 7-year Acquarello rice, an aged carnaroli rice from northern Italy. This was enriched with bone marrow and given a piquancy by pickled chilli grown in the Dysart’s garden. This is a well-established favourite dish here, the rice cooked superbly and the richness of the ox tail and bone marrow just lifted by the gentle bite of the pickled chilli (17/20). Cornish turbot fillet was from a very large 9kg specimen, very delicately cooked. The fish came with cockles, fennel, dulse seaweed and black truffle. This isn’t my favourite turbot accompaniment as I am not sure how exciting cockles can ever be, but the fish itself was lovely. The chef grew on by the sea so the natural sea flavours reflect his upbringing (17/20). The larger turbot also yield bones that have more flavour in the stock than smaller specimens, so this is another reason to favour large turbot over the cheaper small ones of around 2kg. The sauce also uses the cleaned heads of the fish as the base stock for a velouté sauce, which is finished with cockle juices, cream, butter and a vegetable nage added to the sauce just before it is served. The nage was made from fresh spices, fennel, coriander, pink peppercorns and fresh vegetables, fresh herbs, white wine and lemon juice to finish. Celery is cooked in the vegetable nage for freshness, and the dish was garnished with Périgord truffle which are at peak season at this time of year.

The main course was quail in a puff pastry casing, a nod to the stuffed quail dish in the foodie film “Babette’s Feast”, that dish being the highlight of the banquet in the movie. That dish was itself based on a recipe by Guillaume Tirel, who was the cook to the Court of France in the late 14th century. The original recipe contained foie gras, truffle and fresh figs with the puff pastry. For the pastry, Charentes-Poitou PDO butter was used, which is imported from the Charente, Charente-Maritime, Deux-Sèvres, Vienne and Vendée departments in France. The Dysart version of the dish stuffs the puff pastry with a traditional 18th Century recipe for Oxford sausage from Mrs Beeton's Book (half pork mince, half veal mince, orange zest, lemon zest, nutmeg, star anise, Malabar white pepper and cloves of blanched garlic, the sausage cooked very slowly). A mornay sauce is poured on top of the Oxford sausage. This sauce itself involves a lot of work. A bechamel is made by making a roux that is then cooled. Milk is added to the roux and then brought to a boil. Cubes of veal are cooked in butter without colour, along with shallot, thyme, bay leaf and pepper. The stock is added and placed in the sauce, simmered gently then passed through a chinois, finished with grated nutmeg and Parmesan, Gruyère and egg yolks, all whisked. Bear in mind that all this effort goes into just the mornay sauce, a single element of this dish. The quails themselves are a variety from Vendée in France, hung and aged for ten days to dry the skins and increase their flavour. The birds are roasted whole to keep the flavour, and served with a quail egg and Japanese pickled black trompette mushrooms and corn shoots. The original recipe uses figs in but this version uses a fig leaf to infuse the sauce, which is made with a traditional veal jus finished with a gastrique of caramelised muscovado sugar, balasmic, sherry vinegar, Kampot peppercorns and fig leaves to infuse. The quail was superbly cooked and the puff pastry was an excellent vehicle for the rich quail, the touch of acidity of the figs in the sauce bringing balance. A glorious dish (18/20).

Pre-dessert was an orange dentelle tuile filled with a roasted pine nut crumble, topped with English yuzu curd, a low sugar jam made with citrus fruits, fresh blood oranges from Italy and a mandarin sorbet infused with mace and a little rosemary. The dish is completed with a passion fruit gastrique sauce. This was a very effective pre-dessert, refreshing and with the sharpness of the citrus nicely contrasted by the crumble (17/20). The final dessert was the Dysart take on tiramisu, a modern interpretation. This tiramisu used Pompona vanilla beans. These are grown at 800m altitude where the Andes meet the Amazon, and are believed to be “the” original vanilla bean. They were infused for three days in the mix before churning with the coffee, from Difference Coffee. Plenty of coffee flavour came through and the textures were lovely. This dish is visually arresting but more importantly, it tastes great (17/20).

Coffee was Brazil Yellow Bourbon from Difference Coffee. Petit fours were cranberry & nut nougat, a kind of Bounty chocolate with coconut and chocolate coating, a frangipane tart with a passion fruit curd and chouquettes with nutmeg and a white chocolate mousse inside. Service was led by the charming owner Barny Taylor, though it was a touch stretched at this full lunch service today. The bill came to £190 per person. The Dysart continues to deliver at a high level, utilising top class ingredients cooked by a talented chef. You might think £155 is a lot, but just look at all the top ingredients used here, from high grade caviar through to teardrop peas and large turbot, across a lengthy tasting menu. By comparison, The Hand and Flowers (just to take one example) charge £175 for three courses in a menu with dishes such as duck liver parfait, pork tenderloin and crème brulee; no luxury ingredients come to any harm in that menu. I know where I would rather be eating. The Dysart offers one of the best dining experiences in London, helped by the relaxed setting and good wine list.

Further reviews: 01st Aug 2024 | 20th Jun 2024 | 08th Dec 2023 | 27th Oct 2023 | 17th May 2023 | 17th Feb 2023 | 18th Feb 2022 | 12th Jun 2021 | 24th Jul 2020 | 04th Jul 2020 | 13th Mar 2020 | 15th Nov 2019 | 14th Nov 2018 | 15th Dec 2017 | 15th Sep 2015 | 04th Mar 2014 | 03rd Jan 2014