LDNReview
Chez Roux won’t get any hearts racing, but it will lull you into a safe, lightly sedated head space that’s perfect for contemplating whether salmon rillettes will make a comeback. In The Langham hotel’s historic Palm Court, there are white tablecloths and dainty amuse-bouches delivered by the synchronised hands of identical Austrian twins who have been with Michel Roux Jr. since his Le Gavroche days. The crowd here tends to have a real penchant for saying the head chef’s name between courses and thumbing the wine list like it’s something they’ve read a thousand times before.
The six-course British-meets-French tasting menu drags on to Christopher Nolan lengths and features highs and lows: a melt-upon-touch Buccleuch beef fillet, followed by a deeply dreary plate of cheese, celery, and dry oatcakes. Despite the head chef being synonymous with fancy food, it’s the dishes that have shaken off their fine dining attire that really hit the spot—a comforting colcannon mash and the jam-adjacent redcurrant coulis that tops the huge, scrape-the-bowl-clean rice pudding.
