OF all the things which good cooks chase after in their cooking, trying to achieve the sublime is the most difficult task of all. Part of the problem, of course, rests with how we define what is sublime, so let me be so bold as to suggest that something is sublime when it succeeds in seducing your affections, rather than just monopolising your attentions.
This definition occurred to me following a dinner in The Tea Rooms, the gorgeous restaurant room of the Clarence Hotel, which is given over to Michael Martin's cooking. When the rooms opened first, I found that there were many elements of Mr Martin's cooking which simply were not gelling. While there were things which struck one as impressive - an excellent roast fillet of lamb with spiced couscous; terrific desserts - the effect, in total, was underwhelming.
It was underwhelming for a simple reason: everyone was trying too hard; everyone wanted to tell you things rather than let the things speak for themselves. They wanted to monopolise you, rather than seduce you.
They have overcome that glitch now and the room and the food can do all the talking that is needed. It is an entrancing space, the muted light almost ghostly and calming, the arching white lillies arranged in the centre of the banquettes utterly apposite. It is a great date restaurant, easily the finest in the city, and the service has now found the right measure of familiarity and distance.
So, let me be doubly bold and suggest a few things which work to increase the seductiveness of dinner in The Tea Rooms.
First off, order yourself a gin Martini straight up. They make them properly here and serve them achingly cool in plain cocktail glasses, with green olives lying down the side.
Towards the end, then, make sure to order a glass or two of Chateau Coutet, a fine Barsac, which is sweet as sin and blissful with the fine desserts, especially their excellent pyramid of vodka and bitter lemon parfait, which looks like it was designed by I.M. Pei and filched from the Louvre.
In between, you will find that things take care of themselves. Michael Martin's cooking is simple, all told, and time is now spent making sure every detail is just right.
A starter of smoked chicken, spring onion and potato pie, for example, comes with pickled lentils, and the beauty of the dish lies in the fact that each note is balanced - the perfect pastry, the cute appearance (it's like a little pill-box), the integration of the ingredients and, then, just the right note of sourness in the lentils to offset the starchy flavours of the pie.
This was good, and my own starter of carpaccio of tuna with a walnut and flat parsley oil was just as effortlessly correct, a wheel of almost-see-through fish slices fanned around the plate, the oils an intricate match for the rich fish. Both dishes showed flavours which worked together.
The simplicity of Mr Martin's cooking comes to the fore with a dish of roast chicken, with new potatoes and leeks and a morel and tarragon cream. The chicken was masterly, the skin crisp and succulent.
Deep-fried aubergine with couscous and a chilli ratatouille was an elaborate tower of wafer thin slices of the vegetables with the couscous interleaved between, surrounded by an excellent spiced ratatouille with the vegetables still crunchy and crisp. This was fun but, a part from the ratatouille, it didn't have the pleasureful taste impact of something like the chicken and I think Michael Martin shows his skills best when he works with strong flavours, as one would likely find in his grilled rump of beef with a balsamic jus, or confit of duck with onion potato and a bacon cream, or roast leg of lamb with a stew of onion lentils and a turnip mash. He is a gutsy cook, truth be told.
We drank a good Medoc, Chateau St Yzans 1990, from a list which is interesting and decently priced, but which needs notes and which should be arranged with more logic than by price.
The Chateau Coutet, then, is the wine to match the excellent desserts, its many notes of citrus catching the strips of zest which sit under the pyramid of vodka and responding well to the lushness of a warm plum tart.
All told, it was a sublime dinner. It galls me, then, given the folk who own this joint, to have to say that the music they play in The Tea Rooms acts like a gatecrasher at this particular party. You might get away with its eclectic mix of grungy r `n' b and nifty pop standards in a pub but it has no business playing in this room, in my opinion.
Prices for such accomplished food and service are fair - starters between £5 and £8, main courses between £8 and £15, desserts around a fiver - the coffee is good and it all adds up to someplace special.