Our last meal in London, the happiest ending I can imagine. A simply-decorated dining room, fantastic service, food that I'll be telling stories about for ages. Eating at Clove Club feels like you're starting something special, like you just stepped into your best friend's living room or sat down with your close-knit supper club.
They keep it clean and simple here. One prepaid tasting menu, starting with a Bobby Bean Tartlette. The shell is a fragile crisp, but it houses an effortless green bean that makes waves with fragrant fennel and a bright cloud of lemon verbena mousse.
That escalated fast. From bobby beans to a sea-sweet, silky Crab Tart, served in the spiny shell.
All pairs well with a glass of Orange Wine. This one is new for me - it's crisp in flavor and clean in finish, like the well-kept offspring of pinot grigio and rose.
A bold Buttermilk Fried Chicken is buried in a bed of branches, with pine salt sprinkles to decorate. The crispy coating tastes like a breath of Christmas.
A gorgeous dish of tomato, nectarine, ham jelly is next. Chunks of sunshine roost in a complex cream that finishes like a nutty sunflower seed. It's so good I forgot to take a photo, which is too bad because this one looks like a garden and tastes like Versailles.
'Tis the season for Cep Mushrooms, they say. and Scotland had an exceptional season. They serve these one-cap-wonders shaved and raw, letting the savory flavors shine through. Allied with ripe figs, a crumbly Scottish cheese, and nutty, rooty pillows of celeriac rockets, the combination is like taking a bite of the best parts of this green earth.
We go from digging in the ground to digging in the sea for Dorset Clams. These supple specks are the tenderest, juiciest pockets of concentrated saline. A couple of them are ensconced in a lightly gelatinous shell which enhances the flavor alongside a garden-green pepper.
The Sardine Sashimi plunges deep into the sea as a solid, meaty morsel splashes against a foamy sardine sipping broth. This semi-soup is a warm fish water with a creamy, foamy finish, and a tincture of turnip adds an extra-warm aura.
Scallops swim in splendid shells, supple discs buoyant in crab broth. Each has two delicate incisions, gill-slits stuffed with nori.
The Aged Loin of Pork looks like a raw square of bacon. The aging compounds the flavor and concentrates the silky globules of fat. The texture is like crossing bacon with a ham and transforming it into steak.
Game on with a breast of red-rare Grouse. The grouse is dense and gamey like a rarer duck, and the side of mashed rutabaga is sweetened by dark bush-berries.
Dessert starts unexpectedly with Szechuan Pepper Mousse, a sweeter pudding that mellows out the chili, punctuated by chips of tangy dried plum that resemble the haw berry flakes of my childhood. There is a surprise pepper ice cream at the core to revitalize the creamed-out chilies.
The Potato Jam resembles the inside of a French fry, and a slurry of potato mousse carries its sugar well. The texture is just the slightest bit grainy or sandy, and it's surprisingly cooperative with ground coffee and caramel ice cream.
These Profiteroles are the beginning of the end. Airy and fresh-out-of-the-oven warm, they signal the final stages before the bill. The candied orange peel on top is the best part.
Dark chocolate salted caramel Truffles are a must. These are creamy and smooth, and like everything else we just ate, these are absolutely perfect.
The Jellies are unexpected and new. Based on a favorite drink of Fernet and Creme de Menthe, they scream loudly of dark licorice, but the punch in the mouth is softened by a refreshing mint. Not the dinner mint I expected, but the best one I've had by far.
Save the best for last. I unknowingly did that by ending our trip at Clove Club. So much genius brews behind those blue kitchen tiles. The ingredients are the cream of the crop, cooked, paired, and prepared in ways beyond compare. They also show their creativi-tea in more ways than one, adding a divine tea pairing for those who do not choose wine.
This is not the first time Michelin and I have disagreed. Clove Club doesn't deserve just one star - they definitely deserve the two.
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