Alain Ducasse – The Byword Of Elegance

We all appreciate and admire the French cuisine and our London would be very poor without a great restaurants of this type in our otherwise rich on market of different cuisines. I could start telling you all about Alain Ducasse by praising its exquisite cuisine or recommending it for various occasions or even by talking sweet about their service. But first of all, I just have these three most important words to say about the French restaurant at the Dorchester: attention to details.

Alain Duccase at the Dorchester

That seems to be the main theme regarding any feature of the venue. From the first step you take at Alan Ducasse you shall indisputably be struck by the delicate and caring manner of service – every staff member finds an appropriate way to excuse themselves from whatever they are currently doing and welcome you into this land of luxury. Next, you are kindly taken to your immaculately set (in plenty of spare time before your arrival) table and you can start enjoying the interior which probably is what the word ‘elegancy’ was created for. The walls, furniture and table sets overflow in coffee and cream colours and every decoration or utensil before you is magically positioned in it just right place and in tune with every other and with the whole atmosphere that you’ve recently sunk into.

Now is the time to mention one of Alain Ducasse’s paramount features. If you wish to visit the restaurant for an occasion that requires privacy, you are not obliged to reserve the whole 82 seats capacity venue. There are three premises that were made for private events.

Table Lumière is the smallest of these, yet it is the centrepiece of the restaurant. The table is rounded by a luminescent oval curtain made up of 4 500 fibre optics all the way from the ceiling down to the floor, obscuring the special guests while allowing them to remain in the ambient atmosphere of the restaurant. Its capacity is 2-6 guests. The interior is coloured in relatively dark tones and what is peculiar about it are the thousands of green silk buttons placed on every wall. Resembling the sight of an oasis it proves to be spacious while remaining cosy and intimate.

Salon Privè is a slightly bigger and more secluded premises. It can seat 6 to 12 guests
The largest of the three salons is Salon Park Lane. Its capacity is 14-30 guests and with its naturally light style, impressive ceilings and vast French windows, the salon is the place to have a dashing and unforgettable evening.

Any of the three salons is expectedly perfect for a private dinner with family members, a celebration of an anniversary, a formal lunch or even a gathering of friends who haven’t seen each other for some time.

Now let’s move along to the reason you opened this article at the first place – food. Alain Ducasse’s is Jocelyn Herland, who has moved from a French venue straight to London and continued creating marvellous dishes. There are several menus that he has comprised for the restaurant:
À la Carte & Tasting – the best seasonal produce, excellently combined to give you the opportunity of tasting Herland’s genius. You can have 3 courses for the price of £95, 4 for £115 or the whole 7 meal menu for £135.

The Lunch Hour Menu is a more affordable combination of courses, two glasses of wine, a bottle of water and coffee.

One of the restaurant’s most praised menus is The Seasonal Menu which is a feast of the season’s freshest gifts turned into a work of art in a dish. For vegetarians this menu is altered into the Menu Jardin with still so finest recipes but no meat. The first one will cost you about £180 and the second – £110.

And not the miss the remarkable supplement to the contemporary French cuisine – a 1000-bin wine list coming with an attentively picked team of sommeliers who offer professional and at the same time accessible service. You get the chance to try out a typical French taste or a modern flavour of the New World or Europe at the price of £12-£60 a glass and less than £100 or more than $4000 per bottle.

Take a look at the wine list here – Wine List

Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester

The prices are not what you spend on a casual Thursday for dinner or lunch, but after all that is why a visit to the Alain Ducasse is called ‘a treat’ not ‘a snack’. The praises for this venue are undeniable. Visitors who have decided to take a tour in London, local couples who chose to celebrate a remainder of their love or business entrepreneurs yearning to impress a colleague all share the opinion that Alain Ducasse is 100% worth it.

That is most definitely what Alain Ducasse himself has always wanted to hear. The venue in London is one of 27 restaurants (in 8 different countries) owned by the same chef and when it first opened in 2007 it was welcomed with a few contradictory views. However, only three years later it received its 3 Michelin stars and has ever since kept up with its reputation due to the owner’s philosophy: : overcome outside objectives as well as my own limitations in order to move forward.
So if you are considering the idea of paying this icon of luxury a visit, I cannot think of a good reason not to.