The Champagne Laurent-Perrier Gourmet Odyssey!

This event happens annually as part of the London Restaurant Festival and I was lucky enough to get a place on this year’s North London voyage. The idea is pretty simple: you hop on board and are transported to 4 different top notch restaurants and are served a different course at each, paired with one of LP’s champagnes. There are various voyages in different London areas, each with different combinations of restaurants. It’s not cheap at circa. £125, but you get a lot of food and, in reality, the champagne is flowing – as a special occasion, it’s worth it.

Our itinerary hosted a powerhouse quartet of North London restaurants – none of which I’d managed to visit at the time making the day even more exciting.
First up: Plum and Spilt Milk at the Great Northern Hotel in Kings Cross for a champagne reception and canapés. This has been on my brunch radar for about a year now but for whatever reason (absolutely not hangover related) the 40 minute trawl up the Northern Line on a Sunday morning hasn’t materialised yet. Defamatory speculation asides, I was super psyched to visit and for good reason. The space is beautiful with rich, bright furnishings, industrial lighting and mountains of Laurent-Perrier lying about, looking all dewy and iced – naughty. Although my brunch aspirations with this restaurant were once again foiled, the canapés were excellent, including these lovely little braised beef bonbos, and were served with oodles of lovely LP Brut. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back onto the bus and onto the main course: the Quality Chop House near Exmouth Market. If you were going to pick a restaurant based on description alone, you’d pick this for me. A meat lover’s heaven, this restaurant with adjoining butcher’s shop has been around since 1869 serving classic, customarily meaty fare to North London folk. Inside it’s super oldy woldy, with high backed wooden booths, a monochrome tiled floor and mosaic entranceway. Here they served me my favourite course of the whole day, washed down with a rich Laurent-Perrier Vintage; lamb leg, pink, and slow cooked shoulder, artichoke, braised and almost bitter chicory, with an anchovy crumb. Everything on here was extraordinary, cooked on point and tasting intensely of themselves. From punchy lamb jus, to salty anchovy crumb, every bite told me I’d be back for the full menu within a month.

Finally, the dessert stop! Up the road to Trullo we bused. Trullo is a neighbourhood Italian place in Islington. Only in Islington can I call it a ‘neighbourhood Italian’; anywhere else it would be considered entirely cutting edge, but at heart, in its food, that’s what it really is. They served us a rustic looking, elegant tasting baked pear, stuffed with hazelnuts and mascapone, served with Laurent-Perrier rose. As a combination, this is hard to beat. Citrus, light summer fruits and rose, with juicy pear and cream? Load me up.

 

 

At this stage after multiple platters of rich food and, probably at least a bottle of champagne, I was almost ready for an afternoon nap or at the very least a bracing walk and espresso, and so made my goodbyes. The rest of our group stayed on to natter and indeed, things were getting lively with one party of ladies performing party tricks! This was actually one of my favourite elements of the Gourmet Odyssey; with all the venue changes, unavoidably you ended up sitting with different people each time and got to meet a whole host of characters along the way! It’s the reason I love supper clubs (pop up restaurants in people’s private homes) and, if I’m honest, was a huge draw of the event in the first place. You’re guaranteed some good conversation.

All in all, the day added definitively to my list of anecdotally odd dining experiences and was all the more special for it. Roll on next year and I’ll be all aboard the LP Gourmet Odyssey. Choo Choo!

 

 

http://www.laurent-perrier.com/en/
http://www.londonrestaurantfestival.com/events/gourmet-odyssey/