Today I wandered all the way to Belgravia with Sacha. Okay its not the worlds longest walk from Notting Hill, but I was hungry and tired and could not wait to get into this foody experience created by Courvoisier, and Bompas and Parr, famous jelly afficionados and foody conceptualists. We got to this derelict old house on Belgravia Square, full of excitement. The experience promised to be a tour through the ages of eating and drinking…
So we checked in via a grand foyeur and were lead to a basement where a crazy doctor assesed what type of humour we were. Turns out I am choleric and prescribed a phlegmatic treatment, (cocktail) to balance me out. It was a delicious apricot, cognac and absinthe martini and got me into a terrific mood. Sacha was deemed melancholic in an instant and given a delicious balancing fig, mead and of course cognac, concoction.
We clambered to the rooftop where we guzzled a clever flat champagne cocktail with grapes full of fizz. It was sensational and accompanied by dainty balls of fois gras, topped with gold leaf. I was well on my way to being drunker than I’ve been in ages. No it doesn’t take much.
We clattered back down some old crooked stairs, via a jumping room modeled on the inside of a stomach, all drunk and wobbly, to enter a Victorian dining room. It was too dark to snap, but we had a sinful roast leg of duck on a sweet jus. And yes, yet another Courvoisier cocktail. Barely able to walk, it was time to head to our final salon of renaissance desserts where we entered a world of pastel pink froth and kitsch with a wild rotating centre piece of mad confection.
And it was here that the afternoon of drinking and eating ended for us, over a delicious and wobbly jelly accompanied by candied orange rind, a creamy daub of sauce and a simple raspberry, not to mention a neat cognac. A tremendous afternoon, even if more about the booze than the food. Back out in the light of day, we skipped through the park on what now felt like a very short walk back to Notting Hill. Hurrah.
