I don’t know who should be lauded more: the team behind The Reflexions modern French restaurant’s consistent culinary virtuosity and recent rise to new heights? Or its customers, who evidently recognise exceptional cuisine when they taste it and take the trouble to appraise others of their delight on that friend to some, foe to others arbiter of the good, bad and ugly in various dimensions of hospitality, TripAdvisor?
Let’s just settle for adding another string of superlatives to the clarion calls of savvy diners in gleeful thrall to such audaciously appetizing pleasures of the table while citing Chef Roxanne Lange and her tight-knit band’s treats for New Year’s as further evidence.
The thing is, every item is absolutely delicious. It’s as deceptively simple as that. Each dish is an intricate, interdependent ecology of flora and fauna arranged as appealingly to the eye as a pristine forest floor complete with fragile little flowers. They’re ensembles of irresistible eye-candy the beauty of which is yet exceeded in orders of magnitude by the effect they have on the sensory cells of the mouth and nose. The flavours and textures are of both familiar and unfamiliar provenance. But even when you think you’ve had something similar before, Roxanne’s touch makes it breathtakingly original and markedly more refined. Stripped down focus on the prime, sometimes rare produce, fresh and flavoursome though it consistently is, this is not. These are full orchestras, impeccably rehearsed, rising and falling with allegros and adagios, crescendos and climaxes of harmonies of the heavens. Each sports an instantly recognisable signature and discharges itself like a perfect little symphony. Obviously, one can’t get enough of it all and while, with 8 or 10 courses, each dish doesn’t cover the entire plate, the portion feels like a complete performance and together they comprise a satisfying feast that yet flirts with gluttony.
Similarly the setting could hardly be more charismatic. With its high-flying collage of ‘joie-de-vivre’ prints, subterranean-blue stretch-cocktail bar, culinary laboratory-style theatre kitchen, and snowy spots softly illuminating the visual artistry of each dish, and come evening, Parisian pianist Jean-Francois’s lilting melodies, one instantly feels engaged and up for it.
The 8- and 10-course New Year’s Eve Set Dinner Menus served on Sunday evening, 31 December 2017, start with amuse bouches x 3.
The first is a tiny ice cream cone topped with a dollop of goat cheese mousse, walnut balsamic, wasabi twist. A creamy, crunch with a kick: what a way to wake the taste buds!
Amuse bouche #2 pitches fresh tuna tartar with jellified chicken stock, sweet citrus-spiked with yuzu, and avocado mousse with sesame mayonnaise and crispy seaweed.
#3 transports you to a forest glade: the lid of a log section slides open to reveal smoked beef tartare on a crispy wafer lying amid faux moss and soulfully inert black stones.
The 1st appetizer confirms that we are in an epicurean paradise: roasted Hamachi fish complemented with Tzar caviar, bacon mousse, green tea, apple and lime jells, and crispy chicken skin, sprinkled with tiny nasturtium leaves and green tea powder.
This is followed by freshly-shucked majestic oyster rolled inside thin-sliced beetroot, graced with a balsamic garnish, and beetroot puree, onto which you spoon contrastingly chilled, lime zest infused yoghurt granite.
The next dish, served with the 10-course option, comprises sweet Italian Gambero rosso red prawn scorched and raw seasoned with calamansi citrus grown in the restaurant’s window box. This is joined by smooth terrine slices whipped up from poached lobster head meat and prawn and calamansi vinaigrette. Plus purposely singed leek for smoky contrast, sweet & sour onion, yellow curry mayonnaise made with coconut oil for healthiness, and the crunch of transparently thin cookies.
With the 10-course menu this is served together with the next course in the 8-course menu: Spanish Jambon Iberico air-dried ham moistened with fresh heirloom tomato mousse and gazpacho sherbet, spiked with sour onion, tabasco and yuzu, served on nut bread — a delicious explosion of layered flavours and textures that Roxanne’s mother used to make for her birthday.
Next is a Hokkaido Scallop seared with black winter truffle with truffle shavings, over cauliflower puree, with crunchy roasted almond, raisin, thin sliced cauliflower and truffle powder.
Then Dover sole, potato foam, grape, lemon gel, white cabbage and sugar snap, served with caper beurre blanc. Then, with the 10 course option, prime French duck liver scorched and caramelized with apple sorbet, balsamic, lime gel, almond and brioche.
The main course is a picture of winter heartiness: pan-fried doe medallion with red cabbage, chestnut gnocchi epoisse, black pepper and, added at the last moment in a swirl of smoke, nitrogen-frozen blueberries.
Which brings one to another The Reflexions’ highlight: its Les Frères Marchand cheeses, served from a tableside trolley, including items made with goat’s milk and with cow’s milk, enhanced with raisins, candied walnuts, popcorn, figs, apricots, sultanas, candied cherries, honey, apricot jell and crisp breads.
Gluewine and orange peel granité arrives to prepare the palate for the main dessert, an ornamental wintry snow scene of cranberry mousse, white chocolate camaron, milk sorbet, honey sorbet, star anise seed, meringue, offering different temperatures, fruit, dairy, sweet and nut flavours and textures, invitingly served on a signature Reflexions mirror.
All in all, the kind of totally satisfying dining experience that makes one feel psyched to be alive.
THE REFLEXIONS Floor 3. The Athenee Hotel A Luxury Collection Hotel. 61 Wireless Road. Tel. 02 650 8800. Email: fb.theathenee@luxurycollection.com or visit website: www.theatheneehotel.com and www.theluxurycollection.com/theatheneehotel.
