“I felt I had been snubbed with one hand and robbed with t’other.”
Cuisine: French Haute Cuisine
Website Link: https://www.alainducasse-dorchester.com/
Award: 3 Michelin Star
Overall Rating: 5/10
Food: 5/10
Service: 5/10
Atmosphere: 6/10
Would I return: No.
From a culinary perspective, Alain Ducasse was without a doubt my first love, the one I could rely on, the one I always returned to. It cannot be overstated how much I admire what this man has given the industry, and the battalion of accomplished chefs that have trained under him. The name Ducasse evokes joyful memories of Champagne-soaked birthday meals at The Meurice, 5 hour lunches at restaurant Blue, and luxurious dinners at The Dorchester, where I made my most recent reservation for a much anticipated revisit. Sure, the restaurant is currently headed by Jean-Philippe Blondet (after all, Ducasse cannot be in all of his 30+ restaurants once), but I felt confident that my reunion with this restaurant would be as romantic and inspiring as the last.
This dining room has a peculiar layout that consists of the main dining room (where they seat you if you’re chic enough) and another smaller room at the side where they seat you behind frosted glass windows if they want you out of sight. We were (obviously) seated in the chic room, which after the refurb was mostly as I remembered it: luxurious but not intimidating, a white tablecloth space with busy wait staff power walking purposefully in and out of the concealed kitchen, where magical, Ducassian treats are artfully created.
The menu is priced at £285 for the tasting, with the most affordable wine pairing (consisting entirely of young, unimportant wines and a nonvintage Champagne) priced at £146. The wine list is arrogantly marked up even for a restaurant of this stature. The same glass of 2006 P2 that was priced at €85 in superb three Michelin Star Plenitude, was in the Ducasse wine list priced at £149.
We opted for a bottle of 2017 Barolo Falletto which was £590, something like a 300% markup. But it was my birthday after all, plus what’s a few hundred quid between friends, and this is (was) my favourite chef. Amuse bouches were disappointing and lacklustre. It was thirty minutes after we were seated that we were given anything to eat. A particular low point were the seeded crackers, messily chopped at the table and topped with a flavourless assortment of radishes and roughly chopped herbs. They were difficult to eat and utterly unsatisfying. I nibbled politely and left the majority. The bread arrived a long while after the butter.
The cep and wild mushroom broth was delicious and well balanced with acidity and sweetness cutting through the umami of the broth. It was ugly, but tasty and satisfying. Next up, a hand-dived scallop with citrus beurre blanc and caviar. The dry ice wasn’t enough to distract me from the fact that I’ve had this sort of thing many times (plus, I’ve had bigger, much bigger) but it was nevertheless well cooked and at 1 Michelin star standard. After this course things descended into chaos. The service was already slow and disjointed, and the food followed suit, with Native lobster arriving to the table in a messy and slapdash fashion. The Périgord truffle was non-existent: you could not see, smell, or taste it, but you were definitely paying for it. I assume despite it being on the menu, it was not plated. The lobster was burnt, the sauce was weak, the garnish was careless. I ate it because bad lobster is still lobster, but I wasn’t pleased. Service moved at a snails pace for our table, but seemed more fluid at a larger group which appeared to be hosting some sort of event. Whilst we dined a photographer began taking photos of those diners, there was a lot of standing around and shaking of hands. I felt this was inappropriate for the main dining room and should have been done in a private space.
The next course was even uglier than the former. Dover sole with what appeared to be watercress salvaged from the recycling bin. I’d seen this plate on the Ducasse website, and couldn’t help but notice our portion of fish was half the size advertised. I was not impressed by the lifeless sauce, the poorly cut fish, or the limp watercress. I turned to my dining partner and said (only half-jokingly) that we should pay for what we’d eaten thus far and leave. I knew what was happening and I was powerless to prevent it. I was having a bad meal, I was falling out of love with the school of Ducasse, he had finally betrayed me. I took one bite of the next plate – veal, very dry veal, and abandoned the rest of that plate. To my right, with silent nods and hushed tones, front of house debated our forgotten sauce. Someone powerwalked to the kitchen to retrieve it whilst we sat in silence waiting. Whatever the opposite of a well-oiled machine is, this was it.
The cheese was delicious as it always is at a Ducasse restaurant, but they can hardly take credit for having merely selected it. The palate cleanser was a messy quenelle of fig sorbet that looked like it had been produced by someone on their first day of catering college. I found the main dessert – quince with chestnut – to be ill conceived. The sharp citrus with the woody chestnut didn’t make sense. I ate one spoon and left the rest. The petits fours lacked refinement – another diveinto the recycling bin for the messy garnish – I nibbled each and left the rest. Not a single course on the menu was plated with finesse. To take home: some Ducasse chocolates (the same ones you can buy in shops).
Other diners are offered a walk through the kitchen and signed menus. We were offered neither. Somehow the whole thing amounted to £1300 for two. They asked me how I found the meal, I murmured “unforgettable” without making eye contact. I felt I had been snubbed with one hand and robbed with t’other: This is no longer anything like a Three Michelin Star restaurant.
The Dorchester-Ducasse partnership should have allowed for a double safety net of standards and quality control, but somehow what occurred was my most disappointing meal of the 2024, and a costly mistake. And so ends this great culinary love-affair; when I left I vowed to never come back.
Ducasse, it’s not me, it’s you.
We’re over.
S.G 🥂