16 November 2009
Ocean Restaurant at The Atlantic Hotel, Jersey
In my last post about my surprise trip to Jersey, I left a bit of a cliffhanger, which was mainly to give me more time to write this post. But I can now reveal that my final surprise of the weekend was an evening meal at one of Jersey’s Michelin-starred restaurants!
After a drink and some bar snacks in our hotel bar, Suzy booked a taxi to take us to Ocean Restaurant at The Atlantic Hotel. On arrival, I could tell why she didn’t book a room at this hotel for the weekend; wooden floors, stone walls, chandeliers, expensive art-work... the place was like a palace!
Since we were a little early, we had another drink and some more bar snacks, being careful not to ruin our appetite, and then perused the menus. Given our previous experience and Christian’s more recent comments about the price of the wine at The Old Vicarage, which is the only other Michelin-starred restaurant we’ve visited, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the wine at Ocean Restaurant started at around £18 per bottle.
Despite being tempted by their tasting menu, we both decided to choose from the à la carte menu. And here’s what we ordered:
Abuse-bouche
Sole Goujon with Lemon Foam
Starter
Suzy: Ham – Pressing of ham knuckle, maple baked foie gras, roasted langoustines, artichoke purée
Tony: Scallops – Pan roast hand dived Jersey scallops, honey baked pork belly, creamed cabbage
Main Course
Suzy: Beef – Tasting of Jersey beef miniatures, dauphinoise purée, onion rings, beef marmite
Tony: Venison – Roast loin of Scottish venison, autumn vegetable dauphinoise, d’Agen prune jus
Pre-dessert
“Something like lemon meringue pie served in a shot glass but without the pastry”
[Sorry, once again this wasn’t on the printed menu we brought away, so that’s my lame description!]
Dessert
Suzy: Chocolate – Hot chocolate soufflé, white chocolate ice cream
Tony: Coffee – Coffee panna cotta, espresso jelly, white chocolate quenelle, whisky foam
We would have loved to have tried the cheese board too, especially after seeing the huge selection of cheeses get rolled out on a trolley for the table next to us, but we honestly couldn’t have squeezed in another mouthful!
I generally don’t like coffee-flavoured desserts, but the coffee panna cotta tasted great. In fact, everything we had was cooked to perfection. The flavour combinations were all spot on, the presentation was outstanding, the service from the staff was of the highest standards, and the atmosphere was perfect too.
Sounds pretty good, eh? That’s because it was! Seriously, it’s easy to forget what amazingly good food tastes like. When we were on our honeymoon, we did have some really good food, but it’s clear why Ocean Restaurant has a Michelin star – as well as three Rosettes in the AA Restaurant Guide 2009 – and all those other places we’ve visited don’t.
Ocean Restaurant definitely gets our recommendation!
Labels: food, personal, restaurants, travel
