Hibiscus - Bosi is one of the two London chefs to watch this year, according to Michelin
Hibiscus in a nutshell
Food: Original and exciting with a typically French penchant for sucré-salé (sweet and savoury) combinations. Verges on the molecular without being scary.
Wine: An extensive - and expensive - list. The sommelier came up with some great pairings.
Style/Decor: Elegant, muted but with a warm, friendly atmosphere
Service: Charming. Attentive but not in an over-the-top hovery, pushy way
Who to go with: Your boss or your in-laws. A safe bet when you want to impress
Who not to go with: Anyone under 30 unless they’re a card carrying foodie. Hip, it isn’t.
Verdict: Well deserves his ‘rising two’ star. Bound to get the second next year.
Cost: ££££
This week I finally got to Hibiscus, one of London’s hottest restaurants at the moment, certainly among the foodie fraternity. It was already booked solid for weeks ahead. Now owner/chef Claude Bosi’s award of a ‘rising second Michelin star’ looks like making it next to impossible to get in.
So what’s the fuss about? Bosi may not be on telly but he’s much admired by his fellow chefs - and by Michelin who awarded him two stars for his previous restaurant at Ludlow. It says a lot about the man that virtually his entire brigade, including waiting staff followed him from Ludlow to London. (They apparently all share a large house in Hammersmith.)
The restaurant, just off Regent Street, is smart but not sophisticated, still operating in the way I suspect it must have done out of town though I never managed to get there. It’s not full of Russians or supermodels but fellow chefs and customers who look as if they’ve come up from Ludlow for the day (apparently many former regulars do). The service is refreshingly friendly and, in the case of the wine service, breathlessly enthusiastic. Bosi, a bearish Gerard Depardieu of a figure, comes round and greets his customers at the end of the meal, a practice that has all but disappeared in London.
The menu is sensibly short but full of dishes that immediately grab one’s attention. So much had been written about the roast pork belly with its accompanying sausage roll that I couldn’t fail to order it despite the £10 supplement and was glad I did. It’s a two part dish, a perfectly cooked rectangle of belly pork (left, below) with sweet, slightly chewy flesh and a gorgeous crisp coating of crackling. It was served, startlingly, with eel which had something of the same taste and texture and, more boldly still, with cubes of caramelised pineapple, a retro combination of which it was good to be reminded.
Next came the ultimate sausage roll (right, above): minced, tastily seasoned pork with a fabulous crisp pastry casing. I wish they would provide doggy bags so customers could order a whole batch to take home and eat for lunch the following day.
The sommelier, Simon, offered two wines with this gem of a dish - a 2004 Riesling, Grand Cru Wiebelsburg, Domaine Lucas Rieffel from Alsace and a voluptuously velvety 2006 ‘Ma Maison’ Pinot Noir from Leung Estate in Martinborough, which was one of the best Kiwi pinots I’ve tasted
I also managed to sneak a taste of the well-structured Douro red, a Quinta de Vale Dona Maria 2005, he paired with the perfectly roasted venison in smoked chocolate sauce my friend had ordered.
For a starter I had a carpaccio of pollock (which seems to have replaced seabass as the must-serve fish among chefs at the moment) dressed with black radish, almond oil and a black truffle vinaigrette - a dish that demonstrated Bosi is happy working in a variety of registers. It went surprisingly well with a 2006 Mâcon-Verzé from Domaine Leflaive. I was less keen on my companions scallops with sweetcorn soup - a new dish - but then I’m not mad about sweetcorn.
Puddings were also strikingly original. Mine was a lurid orange clementine ‘jammie dodger’ (an English biscuit shaped like a ring, filled with jam) in a pool of what looked like bright pink strawberry sauce but was apparently saffron and clementine syrup. There was also a scoop of milk chocolate alongside. Kids would have loved it. I preferred the kaffir lime parfait with sweet olive oil and mango dressing my friend had ordered, a really brilliant match with a 2006 ‘Goldackerl’ Beerenauslese Welschriesling from the exuberant Austrian producer Willi Opitz, that the sommelier had poured for us both. (Many sommeliers challenged to do this kind of exercise provide humdrum, middle of the road wines that do little for the food but Simon was spot on throughout.)
There were one or two extra mini-courses but not an excessive number which was rather welcome. Sometimes there are just too many small plates these days. None of them was as good as the main dishes though I did like the curious soft boiled egg yolk topped with what I seem to remember was described as savoy cabbage jus and coconut foam - a great deal nicer than it sounds so long as you’re into cabbage. The only dud note was a petit four of what tasted like bacon-flavoured fudge but was apparently smoked. And the menu covers which bizarrely smell of rancid fat. Apparently they’re due to be replaced.
It can only be a matter of time before Bosi reclaims his second star. In the meantime I suspect it’s slightly easier to get in at lunch than in the evening. But get your booking in now.
