“The mother of all packed lunches.”
Having so gracefully survived the first two weeks of lockdown, I thought it fitting to celebrate the halfway point (or what I hope to be the halfway point) with some fine dining at home. “Fine Dining at Home” – something of an oxymoron, no? Without the immaculately polished silver, the attentive staff, the wafer thin Zalto glasses, and the allure of a carefully curated wine list, is it really a “fine dining experience”? Well, I felt like finding out, and after creating a shortlist of three restaurants – Hide, Galvin, and Bocca Di Lupo, I picked Hide for being the one in the list I have never visited in person. The process was satisfyingly easy. You order through the website the way you would any other takeaway. The offering is good – enough variety and dishes to satisfy the most diverse of palates, and there’s even a very extensive wine and cocktail list that is not as extortionate as I imagined it would be (the cheapest bottle of red being £30). I scroll through the menu, and see nothing that offends me. It all looks perfectly delicious – stellar flavour combinations, with dashes of creativity and intrigue.
Hide is one of those Mayfair restaurants which is populated by those who like to see and be seen. The friends I have that enjoy going there are on the Gucci loafer, Instagram-famous end of the spectrum. I have to be in the right mood to enjoy this kind of thing, so it’s always slipped down my list in favour of something I’ve found more interesting at the time. I realized one of the benefits to these at-home menus, is to completely strip the influences of positive (or indeed negative) atmosphere from the dining experience. Does tapas still taste as good when you’re not precariously perched on a barstool in a bustling restaurant? Perhaps Wiltons tastes better when you’re not surrounded by staff committed to looking down on you? This experience would be Hide without the nonsense – Hide with nowhere to hide. Unlike how I imagined the restaurant to be, this experience was oddly personal, a friendly lady in a totally normal car parks outside your house and hands you two large brown paper bags, with a smile – I sheepishly thank her for the mother of all packed lunches
We enjoyed:
Soft-shell crab tempura with Thai basil & green peppercorns. One of my worries was how some of the dishes would travel. Tempura needs to reach you soon after cooking, so not to become soggy and greasy. The first test was the soft shell crab – which somehow managed to be both crispy and light, perfectly cooked, dressed in a punchy sauce and topped with a crisp smattering of spring onion. It was a promising start, and we immediately opened the remainder of the cardboard trays the food arrives in – each lid like a little cloche that revealed some delightful and thoughtfully put together dishes.
Chicken Liver & foie gras parfait, fig & hibiscus chutney & toasted brioche. The parfait was as smooth and buttery as they come. The two brioche toasts – great wedges of them – that arrive, are somehow perfectly crisp, despite the travel and are the sweet pillowy bed the parfait deserves, the fig and hibiscus chutney adding a sticky jamminess that makes the whole thing an utter delight to eat.
Home-cured charcuterie, and Green salad with spring onion, lemon & marjoram. This at home dining thing is a learning experience and a lesson immediately learned is that the dishes that you will probably enjoy the most when ordering from a top restaurant – are restaurant dishes. A side salad, or charcuterie are things you can do for yourself. As pretty as the green salad was, and as delicious as the charcuterie was, my advice would be to prepare these things yourself. Both were perfectly tasty, but should I opt for this experience again I would replace these dishes with something more cheffy.
Duck with ras el hanout, beetroot & plum, sausage of the leg. I’ve eaten my way through an impressive amount of duck this season, but this really was something special. Cooked to pink perfection with crispy flavoursome fat – accompanied by beets, plum, and a deliciously fatty nugget of a sausage. The Yorkshire duck is the perfect match for a brave, plummy sauce. I was glad to have ordered the crispy potato cake – this satisfying crunch of potato was just what the plate needed. In presentation and in flavour this was what I’d hoped for – an excellent restaurant dish – served exactly to the standard I would have it in the restaurant, in the comfort of my own home. This was a true pleasure to eat and I highly recommend the duck – we both squabbled over who got the last of it.
Hand-cut pasta with crab, chilli & parsley. This was tasty enough but considerably less successful. You can see from the photo that this really was just pasta, white crabmeat, tomatoes and chilli. Any sauce there once was, had entirely soaked into the cardboard tray, but my feeling was even with sauce, this is something I wouldn’t have loved. Pasta for me should be unctuous and comforting. This felt reserved, and lacked both flair and seasoning. That said, it’s perfectly possible that before it performed it’s disappearing act, the sauce was well seasoned – we shall never know.
Barbecued octopus, white miso, Moscatel grapes & lovage. Another dish I had some reservations about at the point of ordering. Octopus doesn’t travel well and can quickly become rubbery, but against all odds, when the octopus arrived, it was the soft, tender coil I hoped it would be. The grapes with the octopus was inspired, adding little bites of sweetness to temper the char from the barbecue. You don’t immediately recognize white miso for being there, but it is there, and works as a gentle hum which keeps the notes of the dish in perfect balance. This was yet another dish that arrived at a very high standard – a real celebration of the octopus, bold, moreish, and well presented.
Freshly baked lavender madeleines with Tahitian vanilla cream. The meal comes with a little instruction card which advises you how to reheat any of the dishes should they arrive less warm that you would like. The card suggests the madeleines be warmed for 3-5 minutes in the oven before eating, but I confess, that after tasting the madeleines we found them to be so acutely delicious that to wait five minutes would have felt like a lifetime and we greedily ate these (6) between the two of us in one (embarrassingly quick) go. These were a delight – they give you everything you want and then some. That crisp caramelised edge, jealously guarding a soft, perfumed center. Spoon on the vanilla Chantilly crème to end your meal on a high.
For me, Hide at Home was a success. Having to create a delivery concept almost overnight, is no easy feat when you want your diner to have a consistent experience. Not every dish was a success, but those that were really sang. Served on very ordinary plates, on my very ordinary dining table, my initial suspicions were correct, At Home dining allows you to experience your meal in an honest way, without the enticing bribes of celebrity diners or fancy cutlery. Paired back to the dishes and nothing else – Hide delivered to such an extent that visiting the restaurant has crept it’s way up my every growing list. This isn’t a meal you would want everyday but we have reason to believe this “new normal” may continue for quite some time. A special date, an occasion, or just because you can, Hide at home delivers that Mayfair Magic to the comfort of your home.
Sabrina Goodlife.