The Omar Niode Foundation is privileged to reblog with permission the second post by NIKMEK.  Visit www.nikmek.com to read more about interesting places, sounds, sights, feelings, and most importantly about people.

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I have the pleasure of dining with my best friend in one of London’s most prestigious restaurants, La Chapelle.

It is the third restaurant to be opened by the famous award winning Chris and Jeff Galvin of the Galvin restaurants and has won numerous awards as well as gain a Michelin Star in 2011.

La Chapelle is beautiful. It is as simple as that. Everything from the moment the hostess offers to take your coat, to the moment you leave the restaurant and are offered complimentary chocolate truffles, the restaurant is simply beautiful.

Here are a list of things I liked the most about the French styled restaurant (I list because there are just too many and if I don’t do it now, I will forget),

• The fact that it was originally a free Charity Boys & Girls school in 1726, but was preserved and fully refurbished to make the restaurant
• The romantic, magical tone and ambiance
• The cheese selection which is indescribable for a cheese lover, it really left me speechless
• The food (clearly)
• The exceptional selection of international wines
• The chocolate truffles offered when leaving the restaurant (I’ve mentioned this twice now because not only are the truffles complimentary, but gosh are they good)
• The outstanding service

I’m going to have trouble trying to explain and depict to you what made me fall so much in love with this restaurant, but I will do my best.

Spital Square in Spitafields where La Chapelle is and its brother/sister restaurants are placed, used to be a Farmland. What used to be St. Botolph’s Hall, a mansion, originally was a Free Charity Boys and Girl’s school. However in 1891 it was reopened by Lord Goschen, the Chairman of the Central Foundation Schools where it became an all girls school instead. There used to be more of the building, but it was demolished in 1976. What La Chapelle is now is the only remaining original building. Fortunately a local historian, Dan Cruickshank, chained himself to the front door of the hall along with other local residents to protest against the demolition. For 17 years before its renovation, the hall was idle, until La Chapelle was officially opened in November 2009 where it was completely renovated by the Galvin family, who although changed a number of things, kept the original woodwork and granite pillars.

The staff of La Chapelle are so well educated on what they are serving, it will make you want to order everything on the menu. From the positioning of where they place your dish, to the timing of when they unveil your dish to you by opening the cover plate is practiced to a tee, and where there is good service, you know the food is going to be spectacular. They know exactly what you are eating and how to illustrate the perfect picture, enough for your mouth to water. The waiters are extremely attentive to how you as the customer would like your dish which as a patron makes you feel that much more special. Really, I am not exaggerating.

Now lets get to the food, because it truly is the best part.

Although I love food, I am not expert when it comes to French cuisine. So I let Stephanie do the ordering. As I am busy admiring the decor of well the kept restaurant, Stephanie orders the following:

• Lasagne of Dorset Crab, beurre Nantais, & pea shoots
• Breast of Quail, macerated kumquats, red currant salad, and truffle dressing
• Supremo of Landes guinea fowl, soft polenta, St. George mushrooms, and hazelnuts
• Tagine of Bresse Pigeon, cous cous, confit lemon, harissa sauce

And yes, the majority of what I just typed is very new to me, in fact I’m still not even sure if I’ve ever seen a guinea fowl.

Starting out our outstanding meal is the:

I have never had a crab lasagna. Truth is, I feel ashamed to even call it a lasagna because lasagna just sounds so ordinary, and this dish was anything but ordinary. It was like a savory, lightly cheesed, delicately buttered, crab meat pillow. The beurre nantais sauce, a variation of beurre blanc (a French white butte) is not overwhelmingly drowning in butter, but it is thin and light like milk, and it blends in with the layers of the Lasagne so immaculately. The pea shoots that curl up on top of the dish look like rhythmic gymnasts prancing along with their green ribbons making it almost too pretty to eat. It isn’t like any kind of lasagna I’ve ever tasted with burnt cheese edges, but rather a soft cushion of unexpected crustacean magic. You think I’m overemphasizing, but you go over to La Chapelle yourself and tell me that this little piece of crab heaven didn’t just literally melt in your mouth.

I am going to say “I have never” a lot in this entry, so be prepared.
I have never had quail before. To me quail would be an odd bird to consider consuming, but then again half the things we eat in Asia may be considered odd to Westerners. But if you are going to try quail for the first time, may I completely, without any doubt in my mind, recommend the Brest of Quail at La Chapelle. Cooked to utter perfection, the quail is crisp on the outside, and tender as I could never had imagined on the inside. The juices that seep out from the meat as I make the first cut leave Stephanie and I in awe and are terribly impatient to try it, so much so that I only manage to take one picture of the handsomely prepared dish. The ripe red kumquats (which I also have never had) and red currant salad add a sweet-sour citrusy zest to the meat, only enhancing the flavor of the truffle dressing.

I have NEVER had guinea fowl. When I hear guinea, I think of guinea pigs. But please, do not let my ignorance put you off this classic dish, for the way it is prepared at La Chapelle is remarkably succulent. For me a guinea fowl has the texture of what could be a cross between a chicken and a turkey. The meat is as soft as a well cooked tender chicken, and is as white and moist as the meat of a turkey. Laying on top of a bed of soft polenta, the guinea fowl blends unmistakably with the doughy cornmeal, complimenting each other like a couple’s dance. The St. George Mushrooms and the hazelnuts are a ravishing touch to the dish leaving nutty and earthy notes to what is my first pure French guinea fowl. I really wish I had asked what was in the sauce, because whatever it was, it completed the dish to make it that flawless.

Again, I have never had pigeon, and it is a pleasure to have my first pigeon at La Chapelle. I don’t know what to compare pigeon to, it is not like chicken, nor is it like turkey, nor is it like a red meat. But it is soft, almost like rabbit. In my mouth, it feels like butter that is slippery as it is on the verge of melting. There are so many different elements to this dish, and although so contrastive, the flavors and ingredients mix into each other like the colors of some sort of autumn colored rainbow. I am even having difficulty trying to depict in true enough detail the exact tastes of each factor to this dish because I am afraid it will just not suffice. What really makes it for me is the cous cous, it patiently sits underneath the pigeon waiting to be eaten as a partner to the bird. The finger liked spring roll is so crisp and crunchy adding a completely different taste to the pigeon as though its a new dish all together. The harissa sauce is poured over the pigeon and is spiced just the right amount that it does not overshadow the pigeon at all, it completely accolades it.

And for Stephanie, for dessert we order the cheese platter as it is the ideal savory dessert that she would utterly enjoy. Remembering the cheese platter that I spotted coming into the restaurant, I was more than thrilled to be eating a fine selection of cheeses for dessert. We are given a choice of 5 different cheeses accompanied with walnuts, grapes, and raisin puree. The procedure in which it is served to us is almost magnificent, to watch as the girl who serves us explains each cheese to us in full detail, my heart. If Willy Wonka had a Cheese Factory instead of a Chocolate Factory, this would be the sample platter.

If that is not enough, our waiter brings us a complimentary bowl of mignardises. The petit four combination of tiny Madeline’s, chocolate truffles, and lemon macaroons sprinkled with powdered sugar laid upon a bowl of dark chocolate crumbs is just too perfect a presentation that I hesitate to eat this on the house sweet platter.

All of this sensational flawless food, the pristine service, the dim picturesque atmosphere, its like a an appetizing trance of French cuisine. To complete the experience, when you leave as the hostess hands you back your coat, she also then hands you a box of complimentary chocolate truffles that reads ‘Galvin Restaurants’. Now thats the way to end a faultless meal.

To make reservations at La Chapelle go to their website. Or tweet about one of the Galvin restaurants @Galvin_brothers

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All images by NIKMEK.