Sketch (The Lecture Room & Library) *** | London (UK)

Food is good, sometimes excellent, but never outstanding.
Letting down the excellent standards of the service at London’s quirkiest venue!

Sketch is based in a grand three-story Georgian townhouse in Mayfair, London (UK) and is one of the quirkiest venues in the city. Currently covered in pink wrapping like box, which could be concealing building work or maybe it’s just meant to be art. Sketch London is just full of art. It’s infused in the walls, the floors and even the bathrooms. When entering the building into the Harry Potter like the hopscotch courtyard, you know this is going to be different.

Sketch was opened in 2003 by co-owners Mourad Mazouz and renowned French chef Pierre Gagnaire, who owns more than 20 restaurants around the globe. His flagship restaurant Piere Gagnaire in Paris has held three Michelin stars since 1998.

Sketch actually houses 5 different venues. On the ground floor the more casual and all pink restaurant The Gallery, patisserie by day and bar by night The Parlour, The Glade restaurant, which is more designed for breakfast and lunch and The East Bar, a cocktail bar based underneath the individual loo pods. But we went upstairs to the fine dining restaurant The Lecture Room & Library.

Head Chef at The Lecture Room & Library since 2013 is Johannes Nuding. Johannes worked with Pierre Gagnaire for quite some time now. Before Sketch Johannes was Head Chef at Pierre restaurant in Moscow (now closed) and before that he worked at restaurant Pierre Gagnaire *** in Paris.

The Lecture Room & Library was awarded with a Michelin star in 2005 and the second followed in 2013. The third star came last October, when the 2020 Michelin Guide for UK&I was presented.

The Lecture Room & Library at Sketch is open for dinner on Tuesday to Saturday and for lunch on Friday and Saturday. Besides à la carte, they offered a 7-course Tasting Menu (at £120), which also comes in a vegetarian version (at £90).
Menu prices have changed last week. The 7-course Tasting Menu is now £145 (Vegetarian £125). So apparently the third star justifies an almost 21% (and 33% for the vegetarian) uplift of the prices!?

We went for Sunday lunch two weeks ago and had the Tasting Menu.

An array of mouth pleasers is served as the first course. On the left: Tofu with black sesame and Parmesan & nut cookies. In the middle: Smoked duck and Peanut rice with fried anchovy. And on the right: Martini jelly in a marshmallow foam and Buckwheat cracker with tuna and caviar. Nice variety of tastes and textures. The tuna and caviar was the best one. The Martini jelly was a lovely limy palette cleanser at the end.

A baguette to share. The end bits were too well-done and rock hard. There was also a choice of buckwheat bread and butter bread rolls. Three kinds of butter: salted, a very nice citrusy and an over-sweet caramelised one.

The second course came in three different servings. Beautifully tender Galician octopus, with broccoli puree, gentle sweet Cremona mustard fruit and pomegranate seeds, popping freshness and giving texture. Then a raw hand-dived Scottish scallop (seared for Joanne), with a tangy clementine reduction with lime and avocado. Working really well together. And finally sea urchin with Laphroaig whisky. This didn’t really work. The dark flavour of the Sea urchin was totally overpowered by the even darker sea urchin & whisky sauce. Way too dark for most people and not doing justice to the sea urchin.

Ostra Regal No. 4 oyster, beautifully poached in a spicy lamb bouillon, served with razor clams, pulled lamb and crosnes (Chinese artichoke). A deep, but delicate, lamb broth was poured over at the table. Pickled fennel on the side with some almonds was the perfect garnish. Very tasty.

Home-made potato gnocchi with distinct flavours of beetroot, basil and saffron. Bathing in a rich Parmesan cream, with Lautrec garlic and covered with foie gras shavings. Very indulgent and very delicious!

The next course consisted of two parts. On the plate, line-caught Cornish pollock, roasted on the skin, sitting in a delicious fondue of Roscoff onions with green curry and topped with creamy anchovy beurre blanc. Didn’t get any green curry, but a very flavoursome dish!

With the pollock, came Jerusalem artichoke ice-cream, with brown shrimps. The ice-cream was very nice on it’s own. But the shrimps didn’t do much for me with the ice-cream. And it didn’t work with the pollock either. Don’t understand why they served it together. Unfortunately, Joanne also had the shrimps, although she doesn’t eat cold fish or shellfish. Bit of a slip-up of the kitchen, which they corrected afterwards by serving Joanne the glass again without the shrimps.

Fillet of Welsh roe deer, marinated with cumin and juniper. Excellent, but on the small side. Great combination with sauerkraut “Johannes” and Grand Veneur sauce. On the right a seasonal game bird terrine with pineapple, quince, ginger and a smooth celeriac puree.
We noticed some difference in plating. This plate (Joanne’s) had a spoonful of onions on the fillet, while my plate just had a sliver of onion on it. Mine also had hardly any jus with the terrine and no herbs on top. We saw similar inconsistencies on second course.

The tasting menu let’s you choose between dessert or cheese. But the Maitre d’ suggested we go for both and offered a dessert to share as complementary. Which was very nice.
The serving of the cheese course is quite a happening. Three little tables are place next to the table. And 5 plateaus of British and French cheeses, which were sitting on a side-table in the dining room under some beautiful glass cloches. are presented. Each plateau containing cheeses from the same family, like soft, semi-soft, hard, brie-like and blue.

Generous portions of cheese were presented with orange marmalade, quince jelly and fruity nut bread. And on the little rectangular dish: apple and hazelnut sticks, celery dipped in paprika, buckwheat honey and apple chutney. Excellent cheese course.

A combination of six small desserts. Delica pumpkin with kumquat ice-cream, Chestnut cream with green bell pepper, Disc of milk chocolate with golden raisins, Mulled red wine with grapes and peach, Burrata with honey glaze and marshmallow, Chocolate mousse with Calvados, caramel and hazelnut praline. All perfectly fine desserts, but none of them stood out

Too full to have coffee, but couldn’t resist to try the petits fours. White chocolate with nut brittle, a particularly nice fudge with cumin and a cherry Battenberg cake.

Service was excellent and of the highest standard. The waiting staff manages to find the right balance between formal yet unceremonious and genuinely casual and unpretentious. Very pleasant and well matched with the flamboyant and showy surroundings.
The food however, didn’t reach these high standards and let the service down. Food is good, sometimes excellent, but never outstanding. We did see some issues and some things just didn’t work, like the sea urchin dish. To me, none of the dishes reached the three Michelin star level or even had that wow-factor that you’re looking for in an extraordinary restaurant.
Like Claude Bosi’s take on mash potatoes or the duck foie gras at Inter Scaldes ***. Those dishes really left an impression. The whole dining experience was faultless at those restaurants by the way. We can’t say that about The Lecture Room & Library at Sketch and I’m very surprised that Michelin choose Sketch as the new three starred restaurant in London, above Claude Bosi at Bibendum ** for instance.

We do love the Christmas tree though. Dominating the dining room and a true Sketch version.