Five Centres

I'm lucky enough to be able to eat out at London's top eateries, mainly through work when I'm not paying for it - or at least claiming it back through expenses - but really nothing comes close to today's experience.
Four of us schmoozing some clients from ad agencies on the chef's table at Petrus at the Berkley Hotel in Knightsbridge. Now, I've been there before and gallingly I actually had to pay for it out of my own pocket (thanks Alison Graham), but I've not been on the chef's table. It was fantastic. Just like being in Hell's Kitchen, but without the shouting, tears or tantrums, which actually was a disappointment. The way the table is postitioned slightly on a level so you can look down on the kitchen meant it was ripe to be pure theatre, but all the chefs were far too professional to let that happen.
It was nine courses, not to mention numerous amuse bouches and the obscene amount of sweetmeats served with coffee (platters of homemade marshmallows, fruit and nut fudge, toffees, chocolate coated honeycomb, macaroons in the Biarritz style {I thought}, etc, which I think counted as a course) every one of them no more than about four bites per portion, each with a different wine to accompany it. So though it didn't seem like it would be, it was so filling I've had to come home and lie down.
Shall I talk you through it while I still can? I must point out that it was the tasting menu, so you got a bit of everything more or less.
On arrival before we'd even joined our table, there were canapes of chicken liver pate so delicate to even look at them would shatter them. Also homemade houmous with tapenade roulade slices and crisp bread.
Okay, so round one was not a course (crispy parmesan risotto balls), neither was round two (mushroom soup topped with sour cream), first course proper was a ballotine (still don't really know what that is) of foie gras with duck breast filled with quince puree. Follow that with the most delicious mackerel with walnut foam (I had no idea you could make a walnut foam), then another faux course of tempura prawns.
Full yet? So the next course was a seasonal marscapone risotto with fresh shaved white truffles flown in from Italy this morning. Most delicious. Then we forced down veal (I know it's cruel, but doesn't cruel food taste so much better?), with shallots and a sauce I cannot recall.
So then came the cheese course, 15 different types, all sublime. Then a pre-pudding of banana ice cream and tarte tatin with clotted cream, followed by all the puddings they do in miniature: Earl Grey mousse, mango things, chocolate parfait (hot), rasberry slices, etc, etc.
Then the big sweetmeat thing.
Yes I am still alive. Just. I've a feeling I'll be eating nothing tonight. But I had to get this down on paper so I don't forget it. Otherwise it'll be forever forgotten in the mists of time.