I promised that we would stop with the pubs (and “sandwiches; the concept thereof”, and the general Peckham area) for a bit, and I would never lie to you baby. As such, this week I am taking proceedings in the complete opposite direction, which is to say: “I went to a fifteen (fifteen) course tasting menu at Simon Rogan’s one Michelin star restaurant Aulis, in Soho, and all you’re getting is this lousy newsletter.”
Up top I will be real and say that Very Michelin-y food is not always my favourite thing to eat, as someone who really likes pasta and pub food. Of course, the gastronomy and delicacy and skill is mightily impressive, but I sometimes find this type of thing overly fussy, and even a little bit old-fashioned, designed as it is to please a long-standing and traditional institution, whose ideas about what constitutes great food often strays quite a lot from my own (chips, garlic bread, Perinaise and so on).
That said, despite these more general preconceptions, Aulis’ rep precedes it a bit, because it is a Simon Rogan restaurant. This guy has restaurants all over the place – Thailand, Malta, you name it – and is well-known for a 360 approach to his food. In the UK at least, he farms most of it himself, and his MO is to bring seasonal British produce to diners, often in fantastical and highly stylised ways. The ultimate product of this obsessive approach is the three Michelin star restaurant L’Enclume in Cartmel, Cumbria, which is served by the Rogan Group’s own farm, Our Farm. The farm provides L’Enclume with as much seasonal, homegrown stuff as possible, and supplies into Aulis too.
So considering those interesting credentials, which feel like they have a lot of heart and soul to them, despite the frilly exterior of the dishes, plus the fundamental truths that a) it is not every day that you are invited to eat a fifteen course meal; and b) I do love to feel fancy, when I was asked along to Aulis, it was a no brainer. I was made an offer I could not refuse, as they say.
Aulis is just off Dean Street, and I suppose serves as a bit of a central London replacement for – or evolution of – Roganic, Rogan’s Marylebone restaurant, which closed during the first lockdown. When I arrived for 12PM, it was raining, and as a result I sort of traipsed in shaking my umbrella about like a wet dog, but I was welcomed very warmly despite immediately presenting as a nuisance, and handed a glass of English sparkling wine (it feels very in keeping with the vibe that Champagne has been struck from the menu).
The entire Aulis tasting menu takes about three hours in total, and it’s served between the main table and a casual but plush seating area – where you’re presented with the first four snacks on the menu, all of which resembled and riffed on the look of petit fours.
There was a cute little seabream and coal oil tart, decorated with edible flowers from the farm; an artichoke pancake bite stuffed with artichoke that had been cooked in Guinness, with a goat’s cheese top; a mini croissant-style pudding baked in truffle custard (I know), lashed with cheese but given a lift by the addition of Douglas fir (“Diane”); and – obviously – best of all (and I’m quoting directly from the menu here because it speaks for itself): “Large white pork and Devonshire eel doughnut, cured pork fat and Our blend of caviar”. Fellas, it was a doughnut with pork in it, glazed in fat. There was only one word for it and that word was “bosh.”
When the snacks were done, after a palate cleanser (tomatoes two ways of course) everyone was brought to the actual chef’s table proper, which is a horseshoe-shaped bar, at which you sit and eat, while also hearing the chefs talk about the food, and watching them cook it.
A chef’s table can be loads to take in, and this one is no different. Fifteen courses is a lot, and over the course of the three hours you are kind of paintball-gunned with both dishes and information – but if you’re into food or produce or cooking or any combination of the above, it’s like being a kid at a pick and mix wall. And then there is the actual food: a seemingly endless parade of dishes, another ornate plate appearing as soon as you finish the last.
If I wrote here about every single course we would end up with an entry the length of the Bible and/or the combined total of pages of Katie Price’s eight autobiographies, so I’ll give you the hits.
I especially liked the seafood dishes. I am a fiend for scallops and the one at Aulis is brilliant. It was cooked over embers to give a blackened, almost sticky charring on the top side, and texturally, it was tender, and pulled away from itself easily. It was accompanied with squash – now coming into season – and honey, both giving a gentle enough sweetness to enhance the scallop’s flavour but also let it remain the star. Excellent supporting actresses, you know? The Christine Baranski and Marisa Tomei of the plate.
There was also a perfect slice of cod loin that could well have been a pearl in an oyster shell, so prettily iridescent under the light you felt like a brute cutting it up and eating it, served with rich buttermilk and wild thyme for a herbaceous edge to all that creaminess. And a lamb main course was great, but ultimately upstaged by something extra that came on the side: a tiny sack, into which you’re invited to dip your spoon, to retrieve a concoction of lamb belly, preserved bean and black garlic, topped off with crumbs made of lamb fat. This basically tasted like God himself had finally perfected his shepherd’s pie recipe after about 40 goes.
Compared with all of this, then, my favourite dish of the day was actually a pretty simple one (or as simple as it gets in a gaff like this anyway): the cheese course, which consisted of Tunworth ice cream – and Tunworth is known as the “British Camembert” so of course it’s richly creamy, the ideal flavour and consistency for ice cream – and little cracker shards made with spelt grains.
It seems fairly obvious that the food that shone for me the most at Aulis, then, were the bits that were designed to surprise because they felt so oddly familiar – the ones that were, essentially, the most fun. It goes without saying that at this restaurant the team are incredibly serious about what is being cooked and how, and at £185 per head for the tasting menu, you would expect as much. But they are also playful while they’re at it (at one point Kentish cobnut milk is served in a horn, if you were wondering whether there’s any of the good old fashioned ridiculousness you tend to see at these places), at times poking at the comfort food receptors in your brain and trying to rewire them a bit.
That, to me, is the especially clever part of what they’re doing (I mean, other than farming the majority of their own stock and so on). As I said earlier, I’m not someone who typically goes in for this style of eating, because it can lack the gutsy satisfaction I want when I leave a restaurant. I think Aulis, however, strikes a balance: you leave feeling incredibly impressed and very informed, obviously, but you also have a cosy feeling in your stomach, like you’ve been fed well by people who give a shit. It’s “elevated stuff” of course, but the best of the flavours here are the ones that aim squarely to please: the little bag of lamb belly alone deserves the Michelin star.
This visit was arranged by Caper Comms but obvs opinions mine.
Dining Out is written by Lauren O’Neill and illustrated by Lucy Letherland. Weekly reviews are free to read every Thursday, and you can follow us on Instagram here, but if you’d like to see more, you can subscribe for £5 a month or £50 a year, to get extra content every second Sunday.
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Savoury dohnuts and general savoury fried things are just the bomb aren't they. Reminds me of the thick cheese and bacon pancakes I used to have as a kid in Holland, yesssss qween