Club Gascon – 1 Michelin Star

September 2016

Chef: Pascal Aussignac

Oh what a lovely place! The restaurant is quite unassuming from the outside. Inside you are transported to France and the sort of cosy restaurant you might hope to find on a trip across the Channel.

We started with cocktails and I can recommend their French 75. We were dining in the evening and had the five course taster, paired with wines. Impressed by the choice of wines, I later researched one or two and they were inexpensive but they were excellently paired which is surely the sign of a good sommelier . The sommelier certainly seemed to know her wines although her strong French accent meant we had to confer afterwards to establish what she had told us. Still that isn’t a criticism – this is a French restaurant after all and I can never remember anything a sommelier tells me anyway so this just added to the, already abundant, charm.

Now to the food…what a delight.

The fact that two of Mr M’s favourite courses were the amuse bouche of tomato tartare (he is a reluctant consumer of vegetables of any sort) and the dessert (he really just eats meat given the choice) indicates the quality of the chef. Other highlights were a delicate rose veal tartare and a course of red mullet. The food here is really excellent, and better than I had hoped. I can’t stress enough just how lovely our meal was.

Anything negative? Well I thought the loos were a bit grim. I know, I know… one isn’t dining in there but still it is the sort of thing I do notice. However the restaurant is undergoing a revamp in early-2017 and is due to open again at the end of February I imagine that criticism will no longer apply. Once it does re-open I can see this place getting a second Michelin star.

In summary this is a wonderful place, one of my favourites, and  inexpensive for the quality of the food and wine which are superb. I look forward to visiting again following the re-launch.

Rating 10/10.