Covent Garden’s Clos Maggiore

Certain foods seem to attract a cache beyond their actual gustatory impact. Luxury foods such as quails’ eggs and caviar are all very pleasant but who actually eats them other than for the curiosity value? Truffles (the fungus) are a similar foodstuff that have an aura of unattainability. They are foraged by pigs, they can cost around £3,000 per kilo and yet what do you have them with?

A definitive answer of what to do with truffles has come by the way of Clos Maggiore, the Covent Garden restaurant frequently voted one of the most romantic in London. Their new tasting menu features six courses with all of them featuring in some way this highly prized fungus. My initial thought of ‘But how is that going to work with the dessert?’ was still lingering in my head as the first course was set down.

The starter of button mushroom and black truffle soup was rich and complex with the truffle providing a gilded edge to the mushroom. My companion was equally effusive about its creaminess and was so enthused by the soup that she temporarily forgot that she normally despises all things mushroom.

Following on from the soup were seared wild scallops with black truffle and crushed ratte potato. Here the umami flavour of the black truffle came through, combining well with the ratte potato to produce a very pleasant complement to the scallops.

Another fish course followed this and was one of the highlights of the meal. A pan-roasted wild sea bass was matched with a salted cod and truffle brandade as well as a white bean casserole. There are times with food that you cannot work out why a combination of ingredients goes about producing the final flavour. Usually in my own cooking, it’s trying to understand why even when using fresh ingredients, something tastes unremittingly awful. However, in this case, the puzzle was trying to ascertain how everything worked so well together.

The meat course consisted of oven-roasted lamb fillet with truffle and cheddar gnocchi, roasted Jerusalem artichoke, all in a truffle sauce. The meat was sumptuously prepared with the richness of the sauce contrasting well with the light touch of the gnocchi.

After a cheese course featuring the Brillat Savarin cheese with its white truffle, it was onto the vexing question of how do you feature truffle in a dessert. The answer is apparently quite simple, just match it with almond and bake it in a tart. The result was very rewarding and the addition of truffle ice cream was an excellent compliment.

Clos Maggiore’s new tasting menu has been described as recession busting. Given that it is only £59 for six exquisite courses, it might not only bust the recession but could go some way to kickstarting Britain’s economy all by itself. But be quick as it is only available until the 27th of this month.

Clos Maggiore
33 King Street
Covent Garden
WC2E 8JD

Tel: 020 7379 9696