Are you ready for this jelly?

Please note that since writing this blog post, In de Keuken has closed down

Two of my dining companions on Saturday night were a couple, the husband half of which had famously presented my friend with a jar of foie gras on Date Four. Now that’s the sort of gift that’ll sort the foodies from the animal-rights activists. She was impressed, and so was I.

Accompanied by suitably foodie friends, I had high hopes for In de Keuken’s Restaurant Week offering. We sat at one end of the kitchen, watching the chefs at work and admiring the larder-wall-style interior décor opposite as we sipped an aperitif of dry rosé Prosecco.

Having been asked if we had any food allergies or dislikes, we were happy to sit back and let the surprise menu, well, surprise us. Rather professionally, I thought, the sommelier managed to advise us on wine without actually giving away what we were going to be eating. So we ordered a bottle of Verdicchio while we made a start on the amuse bouche.

It came in three parts: a white, boat-shaped dish contained various cold seafood, with a slightly sweet vegetal jelly, basil oil and requisite foam. On either side of the ‘boat’ sat two pieces of slate that would’ve made rather nice coasters. One held brandade (salt cod purée), a small chunk of melon with pecorino shavings and a black smear of something that I was told had the flavour of Marsala. The other held what I can only describe as a duck sea anemone. As in, it looked like a closed sea anemone – dark brownish-red and gelatinous – but inside housed sort of duck rillettes. The flavour was semi-French, but with an Asian sweet-and-sour-ness to the jelly. I’m not making any of these things sound particularly attractive but, with the exception of the Marsala smear, they were all wonderful.

Our starter, accompanied by the slightly oaked Italian Verdicchio, was a simple langoustine risotto made special by the presence of a square of passion fruit jelly (can you see where I’m going with the title of this post now?!) which I vaguely mixed in with the risotto but which others downed in one. Our only complaint was that the langoustine tails hadn’t been evenly distributed between the bowls, so one of my companions had four while Mr Foie Gras Date had none. The silky sweet-salty coral-coloured stock, however, more than made up for the omission.

Next, we ate rare beef with truffle cream and slivers of truffle (weirdly, I love truffles despite my issues with the dreaded mushrooms), pesto, jus and polenta cut with something green and spinachy. Like spinach, or maybe chard. A lot of sauces were involved (I think there were three in total) but somehow they worked and the dish balanced. Oh, and we drank a Spanish Ribera del Duerbo that the sommelier kept telling us was ‘big and masculine’. I got quite excited.

We then had a little pre-dessert which was basically a profiterole version of a Piña Colada. I can’t describe it any better than it describes itself.

Actual dessert comprised slices of wild peach, peach sorbet (with maybe a hint of fennel seed?), half-cooked chocolate biscuit dough, vanilla mascarpone and amaretto jelly. Mrs Foie Gras Date loves her desserts and claimed that this one had too much going on. I sort of agreed with her, but then again I really liked everything that was going on. In fact, I wanted to eat it all over again, which is rare for me and desserts.

Because the food itself was only costing us €25 a head, we splashed out on some digestifs to finish. The boys drank grappa, which must be a house speciality since the sommelier talked us through at least half a dozen different bottles. I can’t see the attraction, personally, but grappa fans would’ve been impressed. The girls drank Frangelico. It was my first time. The next day, we went out and bought a bottle. Scrumptious.

The bill came to over €60 each, which goes to show how much we drank. Outside of Restaurant Week, I assume we would’ve drunk less (or at least less expensively) and paid around the same. Either way, it was thoroughly worth it. While the chefs at In de Keuken managed to sneak a jelly into every course except the main, I think we could handle it. Utterly foodilicious.