Club Gascon restaurant review: reinterpreting a classic

When Club Gascon opened its doors in 1998, Smithfield was a very different place. More akin to current day Hackney, at the time the location felt an audacious choice for a haute cuisine restaurant that, just four years later, won a Michelin star – an accolade it has maintained ever since.

Since then, the neighbourhood around Club Gascon has become noticeably smarter and now the restaurant seems perfectly comfortable in its location, a stone’s throw from the City, the Barbican and fast-rising Farringdon.

Following a major refurbishment late last year, the restaurant is also a much more comfortable place to visit these days. The tightly packed elbow-to-elbow experience customers used to contend with has been replaced with a much more relaxed atmosphere and a more generous space. Fewer tables, a more keenly observed interior, rich with blue and yellow pastel hues, large mirrors and perfectly ironed white linen tablecloths all combine to make a visit to Club Gascon a more tranquil affair.

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Photos by Samuel Hauenstein Swan

What has also undergone a radical change is the menu itself – always a risky manoeuvre for an acclaimed eatery with an established clientele. But head chef Pascal Aussignac has rolled the dice with an “evolved menu format”, which, picking up on the zeitgeist of contemporary culinary preferences, is more focused on vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free dishes.

Is it a risk? It most certainly is. Does it work? The Week Portfolio visited recently to find out.

The menu we opted for was the winter tasting menu – still apt for the seemingly interminable chill the UK has been experiencing – though the dishes will soon be overhauled again as Aussignac prepares for spring.

Not only seasonal, the three, five or seven-course “Chef’s signature” tasting menus actually change on a daily basis dependent on the ingredients that are available and, whimsically, on the “chef’s inspiration”. Feeling inspired ourselves, we went for the full seven-course option.

What is immediately noticeable is that much of what made Club Gascon great in the first place has not changed. The chef’s “invitation a manger” opens the meal with a collection of quintessentially Aussignac amusements for one’s bouche. As delicious as each one was, what was equally impressive was the presentation: edible flowers lay on a bed of bark shavings, marrow skewered with toothpicks sat atop an upright bone, and a squid-ink cracker came on a lump of raw coal. The plates looked quite as edible as the morsels they contained.

Next came the smoked chestnut cappuccino with delightfully ocean-fresh langoustine, crosnes (a kind of Asian artichoke) and spicy crumble – a small smack of seaside, even though the restaurant sits right next to one of the capital’s largest meat markets.

The foie gras confit with berries was almost as good – a rather more classical dish featuring two small discs of incredibly moreish livery velvetiness.

Wine pairing can be a hit and miss affair, but Club Gascon draws on one of London’s most diverse French wine lists. Over 80% of the wines on offer come from vineyards in south-west France and many are exclusive to the restaurant. Head sommelier Julien Sarrasin narrowly missed out on UK Best Sommelier of the Year last year, instead coming in as first runner-up.

All the skills that brought him that close to glory were on display throughout our meal. The Claude Riffault Sancerre added a tartness to my partner’s barbecued black cod, with its marine-tinged jus. And the Chateau Chasse-Spleen Bordeaux Medoc that arrived alongside my roasted capon gave that dish an unexpected liquorice adjunct.

To finish off, a foray into southern France’s rich cheese culture, famed for its Roqueforts and ewe’s milk cheeses, is available for only an £8 supplemental bump, but with an Oussau-Iraty with quince and wine jelly also on offer, the best of both sweet and savoury was overwhelmingly tempting. The dish did not disappoint – again presented marvellously, this time in a small spherical glass, with a long-handled spoon, the cutlery equivalent of an elegant cigarette holder.

Equally successful was my partner’s Valrhona chocolat variation – chocolate interpreted at least five ways, and washed down with a delicious vintage port, a 1998 Fonseca from Guimaraens.

You may note that this menu, replete with flesh, fish and foul, is not the vegetarian volte-face Aussignac appears to have promised. For that experience, a whole other vegetarian and gluten-free tasting menu is available, featuring glazed roots, plankton, quinoa and potato spaghetti. This reviewer, however, was slightly too set in his ways to take that on. Some things never change.

Club Gascon, 57 West Smithfield, EC1A 9DS; clubgascon.com