My two days in London

What I loved:

• Tea time in Soho hotel and Soho hotel itself

• “Jasmine tea-smoked organic pork chops” from Hakkasan. The perfect combination of smokiness and caramelization.

What i didn’t like:

• Apple martini with apple and vodka jelly in the Joel Robuchon bar above his L’Atelier. The vodka jelly was terrible – I think it had more vodka than the martini! 

• As I was only for two nights in London, the famous Hakkasan, who has the honourable 19th place in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list was the place I was eagerly waiting to visit. As Chuck said, “lists of all sorts are a guilty pleasure of his” -so are mine. So even if I don’t trust the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list too much, I am always happy to eat out in one of the places from the list. The thing about Hakkasan is that I wouldn’t put it even among the places that I had the pleasure to eat at. Ok, there is a touch of creativity in the dishes and I loved the tea-smoked pork chops, but the other dishes were quite bland tasting. I’ve eaten in much better and less pretentious Chinese… You see, you are not allowed to take pictures of the food and probably this “rule”  it is part of the “exclusive” image of the place… I would put Hakkasan on the same level as Nobu for Chinese food- you forget what you ate the minute you leave the restaurant.

P.S. Three Michelin stars L’Arnsbourg is coming next!