Hedone: Ingredients to perfection

	301-303 Chiswick High Road, London W4 4HH
	0044 20 8747 0377
	www.hedonerestaurant.com

Closed Sunday & Monday

Chef: Mikael Jonsson

Restaurant Hedone is the Michelin starred restaurant situated in Chiswick, just outside London. Chef and owner Mikael Jonsson was a trained chef who became lawyer afterwards. His passion for food and being an ingredient expert first lead him becoming a food blogger before rediscovering his gastronome side with opening restaurant Hedone. The Gastroville blog was well known, and he has advised several top restaurants in Europe on ingredient sourcing.

I had been reading a lot before about Mikael’s knowledge and extremely high-qualified culinary skills. Reports from ‘Andy Hayler’ and ‘Where to eat and sleep’ convinced me to travel few miles outside London and discover Hedone restaurant. Hedone, the word itself originates from Greek Mythology and means ‘pleasure’. Culinary pleasure and excitement was exactly what we where looking for!

As a single diner I felt really lucky with a seat in front of the open kitchen. The kitchen is nicely integrated into the small dining room and the restaurant design is simple but very cozy with exposed brick walls and wooden floor. Downstairs you can find the wine cellar and a private dining room.

The menu, which has no à la carte option, changes at least on a weekly basis but is often adjusted daily according to what ingredients are best that day. You can enjoy the daily lunch for £45 or choose one of the tasting menus. In the evening there is the tasting menu for £75 or a carte blanche experience for £95. In many ways, the Swedish-born chef, is not an average chef. He is putting a lot of effort into finding unique ingredients. Key is to use them in a way so that it results in dishes with unique expressions of the used product.

We started our carte blanche tasting menu with a glass of Drappier brut nature and could not resist ordering the extra Périgord truffle in one of the dishes, £25.

Red pepper crisp with duck terrine and spicy touch

Cone of vitello tonnato

Buckwheat toast with Jerusalem artichoke and caviar

Fish & Chips: a crispy roll filled with well flavoured fish

Crab with dill & pollen mousse

Umami flan with pickled cucumber, frozen stilton cheese 

Truffle omelette with fresh truffle, watercress puree and a truffle sauce

Scallop from the isle of Mull slow cooked in the shell and grilled, leafs and herbs (bitter touch), Japanese secret dressing with seaweed

Asparagus from Pertuis, pistachio, avocado and wild garlic

Brill fish, cumin & pollen sauce, romanesco & cauliflower

Ravioli filled with liquid Parmesan cheese, foam of mild horseradish, in sweet onion consommé, guanciale

Pan-fried Duck foie gras, topped with shopped smoked eel and rhubarb, a touch of elderflower and lemon in the dots.

Hare à la Royal, blood sauce, carrots, cinnamon, basil

Citrus variation: Lemon & yoghurt foam, clementine sorbet, merengue, blood orange

Passion fruit, warm chocolate mousse, powdered raspberry and Madagascar vanilla ice cream

Mignardises with white tea praline and cannelés de bordeaux

We combined this amazing tasting menu first with an excellent Meursault 2009 from Chateau de Puligny-Montrachet and an extremely well balanced Rully 1er Cru Champs Cloux 2008 from Vincent Dureuil Janthial. Mikael himself introduced many of the dishes and gave a good insight into how each part of the dish was prepared.

This was a very interesting dinner and most of the meal was outstanding good. The touch of stilton cheese in the umami flan with pickled cucumber was epic. The pan-fried duck foie gras was so delicious with the combination of smoked eel and rhubarb. With perfect textures and very intense matching flavours this was one of the highlights of the dinner. Also the pastry chef is one to watch while the colourful play of warm chocolate mousse with passion fruit and raspberry powder had an amazing play of different temperatures and ranks up as a candidate for best dessert of the year. CY soon,

Be-Gusto

Be-Gusto score:                           17,5/20

Be-Gusto prijs kwaliteit score: 17/20

Hedone

301-303 Chiswick High Road, London W4 4HH

Tel: +44 20 8747 0377

www.hedonerestaurant.com

Closed Sunday & Monday