Restaurant Scrapbook - Benares

As a treat for turning another year older, my other half took me to Atul Kochar's Michelin-starred Benares on Berkeley Square, somewhere I've been dying to try for ages (especially since Atul was a special guest teacher in our last week at Leiths). Benares offers Indian cuisine of the finest order, with recipes taking their inspiration from all over the sub continent.

HINT: For readers' reference, my restaurant scrapbooks are loooong. They basically consist of every note written, every mouthful recalled, every feature noted, from my meal - they are not intended as a formal review, but if you read through you should come away with a clear idea of whether the restaurant is one you would like, and you'll certainly be in no doubt what I thought!

The restaurant is as luxurious and chic as one would expect from somewhere occupying a piece of prime Mayfair real estate, and the servers are typically polite and particularly well informed, both about their customers and about the food they are serving. Arriving at 7.30pm, we were shown impeccable service for the first half of our meal, however it slowed to an almost tiresome level by the end as the restaurant filled up - having to chase waiters for my coffee is not something I would expect to have to do here, but it happened. This was the only failure of the whole evening however, as the meal itself was the most flawless I have ever had the pleasure of enjoying.

We had the 'grazing' menu (aka tasting menu), with accompanying wines to match - at Benares the grazing meal comes as four courses of three dishes each, plus amuse bouche and coffee/petit fours, and one wine arrives for each trio 'course'. At £99 each for the meal and wines it was exceptional value for money, although the delicious-sounding cocktail menu is less so, with average prices of around £15-20 each!

Prior to our amuse bouche, we were treated to that mainstay of any British Indian restaurant - poppadoms and chutneys. I'm not normally a fan of poppadoms, seeing them solely as a tasteless vehicle for massive amounts of lime pickle, but these mini versions were a complete delight - light, ultra crunchy, utterly grease free and with some actual wheaty flavour. The chutneys were all homemade and fabulous - gooseberry was the surprise savoury-sweet-sharp winner, but the others (carrot, tomato and mango-cumin) were all superb as well. The tomato was bursting with fresh cherry tom flavour, but with a distinct musky spice taste - how I imagine the word 'bosky' tastes.

Our amuse bouche was a tiny ball of minced lamb with a tiny injection of mint chutney on top, and resting on yoghurt raita and a rich reduced tamarind sauce. The texture was dry, almost falafal-like, but the chutneys and raita balanced it with moisture perfectly, and the spices all blended just so. It was served with a glass of Atul's 'signature' wine, a white from Domaine du Grande Mayne which was described to us as an ideal palate cleaner and it was exactly that, a lightly oaked single variety Sauvignon.

Our first trio 'course' was Salad of prawns pickled with Indian five spice; Terrine of confit duck leg; Curry leaf and tarragon infused lobster rillet, all served with fennel seed naan glazed with honey and saffron. The prawn had a great chilli heat and was squeakily fresh; the highly spiced duck collapsed into shards of meltingly tender meat heavy with cardamom and five spice. Topped with a refreshing quenelle of apple and aniseed puree, it would have won best dish so far, were it not for the last of the trio.

The lobster rillet was tender shellfish wrapped up in a creamy, herby sauce that perfectly complimented the lobster without masking it. Without a doubt it was the best seafood I have ever had - and B agreed. Etiquette went out the window as we tore off hunks of the delicious naan and wiped the plate clean of every last morsel. As if the dishes themselves weren't fabulous enough, the plate was dusted with a mystery powder of deep intensity, and a hint of almost porky savouriness - an interrogation of the waiter revealed it to be black salt and toasted cumin - and we mopped up every last crumb.

An Indian meal would not feel quite right without a gloriously soothing hot towel, and at Benares they deliver these as a little party piece - two white pellets on a tiny plate were brought to our table, smelling deeply of lavender and violet. A jug of steaming water is poured onto the pellets, and they erupt upwards like razorclams extruding from their shells - completely unnecessary but all the more amusing and diverting for that.

The second course was slightly different for the two of us - we both had Tandoor roasted quail in red chilli and yoghurt marinade; and Spiced minced lamb skewer (a seekh kebab). B's third dish was Mustard flavoured monkfish tail with tamarind glaze, and mine a classic tandoori chicken, done with saffron rather than red chilli, so it had a completely different flavour profile to the tandoori quail. Salt-phobics beware, both the seekh and the quail were extremely salty, but the accompanying bitter mint chutney cut through it well, and the accompanying "La Rocca" Soave refreshed the mouth between bites so it wasn't overwhelming. The quail was lightly crusted in chilli infused breadcrumbs and was powerfully hot (although still nothing like a high street vindaloo, for example). This nearly fatless bird managed an amazing feat by being crisp on the outside and stunningly tender and juicy within, it was a mini feast of bone-gnawing and finger-licking. B's monkfish had a real 'by the bone' meaty flavour, and once again the use of a rich reduced tamarind sauce worked a treat. The trio came with a little pile of rocket, sunblush tomatoes, olives and tiny nuggets of goats cheese, dressed in a little sharp vinaigrette which again acted as a balance to the salt of the meats.

Our last savoury course was English corn fed chicken supreme with a ginger sauce and Roasted rump of lamb on rosemary chickpeas. B's third dish was goujons of john dory in a crisp gram flour batter, which looked so good I almost regretted opting for a mystery alternative, until my plate was put before me, containing the largest king prawn I have ever seen, coated in a spicy onion sauce. It was so huge it looked more like a lobster tail than a prawn! The chicken was completely different to the tandoori chicken in the previous course, being much juicier (the heat of a tandoor will dry out even the best quality chicken breast) and having a distinct 'chicken' flavour as well as a layer of delicate spice.

This trio came the closest to disappointing though, as the lamb was so rare it was a struggle to cut with the regular table knife provided; there was a strip of raw tendon in mine - the pitfall of serving lamb rump so rare; and the pilaff the chicken was served on was made up of rice that was a bit overcooked or overstirred - the rice grains had broken up too much. With flavours as good as they were however, these mere textural issues failed to spoil the meal, the lamb was gorgeously crusted, and went amazingly with the rosemary chickpeas, and the the rice was flavoured with a delicious sauce of fresh tomatoes. B's John Dory was a real triumph of anglo-indian fusion food - it was essentially fish and chips, but done with a colonial twist - the gram flour in the batter gave a glorious flavour, as well as a superb crispness, and the goujons came on a bed of aromatic peas - both intact and mushed. All it needed was a few potato wedges and you would have had a fish supper.

As both B and I are on post-cookery course diets (everyone on the Leiths Diploma puts on weight, as do their partners if they bring home as much food as I did!), we were starting to struggle with fullness, so it was a relief that the first dish in the trio of desserts with a light sorbet - classic mango, a sweet chilling mouthful to carve space for the next two dishes. If I had still been hungry it might have been a disappointment - it was, after all, just mango sorbet - but in it's place it was well placed. The second dish was an allspice-infused dark chocolate brownie, which was dense and fudgy, heavy with cocoa solids and a complex mixture of spices including just the right amount of cloves (too much and those babies will just make you numb!). The brownie was a superb bitter counterpoint to the sweetened mango. The final dessert was so good it suddenly threatened the first course lobster for the title of best dish of the evening. It was described as a Lavender scented steamed yoghurt 'cake', but it was more like a dense mousse, topped with a bubble of lemon foam, and was by far the most dreamy and divine dessert I've ever had.

Coffee came with a little plate of petit fours - a sweet blackcurrant jelly, an icing-sugar coated biscuit of pistachio and cardamom, a tiny brazil-nut caramel, and a superb baby profiterole with a mango-infused cream centre. During my studies, we did a couple of days on petit fours, so I know that when offered free as part of a menu, in the restaurant trade they are seen as inexpensive ways of adding value to what even the chefs will acknowledge are overpriced menus. As I had already observed, the menu here was already extremely good value for money, so it was not a real surprise to me that these p.fours were not exactly the best - they didn't need to be, but they were perfectly fine nonetheless, and I was pleasantly surprised by the combination of exotic fruit with choux pastry and cream.

So, overall, run - don't walk - to Benares, if you have the slightest taste for Indian cuisine. The a la carte menu is probably not as good value as the outstanding grazing, but it is choc full of delicious meals. They have a superb sounding bar menu too - to go with their delicious cocktail menu.