Name: Caractère
Price range: £50 - £79
Rating: 9

SquareMeal Review of Caractère

Silver Award

You don’t need an A level in French to work out that ‘caractère’ is the French word for ‘character’, though ‘famille’ might have been just as good a name for this first solo project from husband and wife Emily Roux and Diego Ferrari. Roux is the daughter of Michel Jnr and met Ferrari when he was head chef of her father’s restaurant, Le Gavroche. At Caractère, Roux is front of house, Ferrari in the kitchen.

The couple’s ambition was to open somewhere ‘casual and contemporary’. It is determinedly contemporary (the menu is divided into six character traits) but unless you spend all your time in Michelin-starred restaurants, not most people’s idea of casual, though it is certainly striking.

Velvety, dusky pink chairs are set at marble-topped tables in a brick-walled room, with herringbone on the floor, dramatic lighting on the ceiling and picture windows running down two sides. The tableware is notably thoughtful: elegant, slimline cutlery, a butter knife that stands up on its base and a miniature ceramic bread board for excellent butter are all covetable items to add to a Pinterest board for a foodie’s Christmas stocking.

We didn’t find the character theme added anything to negotiating the menu beyond dividing it into meat, fish and vegetable sections, but cooking as good as this doesn’t need any gimmicks. Cacio e pepe has strips of celeriac in place of strands of pasta acting as a subtly flavoured foil to a full-throttle Pecorino sauce, a few drops of intensely concentrated balsamic vinegar, added at the table, cutting through the richness (there is much finishing of dishes at the table).

The same balance of savoury and sharp worked equally well in a beautiful slice of roast wild duck breast sharing a plate with fondant chervil root and blackberries, though you don’t need to order such big flavours: roast diver scallops with salsify purée, mustard and beurre blanc and grilled monkfish with parsley root, grapefruit and aniseed sauce were both appreciated for a gentle lunch. To finish, we preferred a magnificent warm chocolate cake with pecan praline and salted caramel sauce to a rather virtuous-tasting ‘millefeuille’ made out of sliced fig.

An exclusively French and Italian wine list reflects Roux and Ferrari’s family heritage, and while a focus on big names and big prices from Piedmont and Tuscany, Burgundy and Bordeaux reflects local wallets, there are enough interesting wines under £40 to make for rewarding drinking for anyone not on a banker’s salary.

With The Ledbury almost next door, the recently closed Marianne down the road and Core by Clare Smyth a short walk away, Notting HiIl has a well-established appetite for sophisticated modern cooking served in a high-end setting. Judging by their assured opening weeks, Roux and Ferrari have passed their test of Caractere with flying colours.

Good to know

Average Price

££££ - £50 - £79

Cuisines

Modern European

Ambience

Glamorous, Quiet conversation

Perfect for

Special occasions

Food Hygiene Rating

Location

209 Westbourne Park Road, London, W11 1EA

Website

Opening Times

Mon-Sat 12N-2pm 6.15-9.45pm

Reviews

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5 Reviews

Food/Drink

Service

Atmosphere

Value

Westbournia

12 July 2022

Food & Drink 5

Service 5

Atmosphere 5

Value 5

We went to Caractère (for the first time) for a birthday dinner, early on a Tuesday evening, on a friend's recommendation.
The restaurant was fairly quiet, as you'd expect on a weekday, but apparently it is much livelier at weekends.
The staff were courteous, attentive, very professional but happy to chat.
The food was outstanding - beautifully arranged, perfectly prepared and imaginative without being fussy. Everything had real depth of flavour and an interesting mix of textures. The outstanding dishes were veal sweetbreads with a crispy jamon serrano crust and Parmesan foam; roast beef with a roasted onion stuffed with beef cheek and beignet with onion and lardons; and the best pudding I've eaten in years, a molten dark chocolate tart with mascarpone and salted caramel icecream. We were brought delicious amuse-bouches, petit fours and excellent bread. The sommelier's wine recommendations went perfectly with the dishes we chose.
Now that the Ledbury has put up its prices, Caractère will be our preferred destination for special occasions.

Anon

26 July 2021

Food & Drink 5

Service 5

Atmosphere 5

Value 5

Stephen Dolman

My wife and I celebrated our coral

wedding anniversary (35 years )

The only fault! It has spoilt us for anywhere else

Wonderful

Lloyd S

28 October 2019

Food & Drink 5

Service 5

Atmosphere 4

Value 5

Fantastic Tasting Menu Lunch

This was our first visit to Caractere and I can assure you now that it won't be our last. Set in the very popular area of Notting Hill on the corner of the Ledbury Road & Westbourne Park Road is where you'll find the restaurant. The site used to be a an old pub but owners Emily & Diego have turned it into a fabulous dining room. We arrived on Saturday and you could see straight away why they tell you to arrive at the time of your reservation as yes there is no bar area. We received a nice friendly welcome before the waitress took our coats and escorted us to our table. Once seated it then gave us a chance to take a good look around. The tables are around the outside walls with a mixture of chairs and long comfortable seats with a few tables in the middle leaving plenty of space to for the staff to move around. You do feel when you look at the tables & lighting that you are in a French restaurant but the walls & ceiling decoration gives it an Italian twist. While enjoying an aperitif we were then given the menu to look at. This is set out in six categories Curious , Subtle , Delicate , Robust , Strong & Greedy. Each section contains three courses apart from the Strong which is the Cheese course. You can choose any three courses if you'd like to have A la Carte or you can create your own personalised Tasting Menu by choosing one dish from each section. This sounded like a great idea to us so that's exactly what we did. After enjoying some delightful snacks & bread which they will bring to you as many times as you like we move on to the first section.

CURIOUS

We started with two glorious dishes. The first being a Roast Wild Prawns , Reginette Pasta , Seaweed Condiment & a Bisque and the second a Roast Diver Scallop with Jerusalem Artichoke , Amaranth and a Smoked Veloute. The flavours in both dishes were so amazing we couldn't wait for what was to follow.

SUBTLE

Now onto the Pasta section and the amazing flavours didn't stop here either as two more fantastic dishes arrived. The first was a Acquerello Risotto with Girolles , Hazelnuts & Red Wine Reduction. The second dish was the signature dish a Celeriac Cacio e Pepe with extra aged Balsamic vinegar and it was stunning

DELICATE

This is the Fish section and once again two more delightful plates of food arrived and were absolutely delicious. We chose the Roast John Dory , Grilled Leeks , Squid , Foraged Leaves & a Buerre Blanc and the Steamed Cornish Cod , Roast Cauliflower , Caper & Parsley Condiment.

ROBUST

This is the Main course section and there'll be no surprise again when I say that these dishes were definitely the highlights of the menu. The first was a slow cooked Pork Cheek Ravioli with Crispy Kale , Trompette Mushrooms & Wholegrain Mustard Jus. The second was a saddle of Herdwick Lamb , Artichokes , Black Olives & a Jus

STRONG

This is the Cheese Course where there is only one option a Gorgonzola Dolce with a Baby Leaf Salad & Homemade Seed Crackers. We decided to have one each and so glad we did as neither of us wanted to share

GREEDY

It was now time to finish with Dessert and they were an absolute delight. The Passion Fruit Choux , Craquelin & Chantilly was heaven and the Molten Chocolate Cake with Praline , Salted Caramel & Mascarpone Ice Cream was a chocolate lovers dream. This was matched with a fantastic Giovanni Allegrini Valpolicella Classico 2013 sweet wine.

We finished with an Espresso to round of a truly memorable Tasting Menu lunch which I also personally thought was great value for money. The food was fantastic and this was matched by excellent service and great wine recommendations from our wonderful waitress Antonella who is was a real pleasure to talk to throughout our meal. I would highly recommend a visit as this is a fantastic credit to the London restaurant scene. I for one am already looking forward to returning very soon in the new year

Christopher J

27 July 2019

Absolutely smashing. Best service in London.

David H

03 December 2018

Food & Drink 3.5

Service 4

Atmosphere 3.5

Value 3

A pleasant lunch , though I think the press reviews gild the lily

I've seen a few reviews of this recent opening, and they have been good enough to persuade us to change our plans around and get here as soon as we could. So how good is it? Well my answer is quite good, not brilliant. Nowhere close to either The Ledbury (though its a while since we were there) or Core that are both close by. Good enough to have some expectations of a good lunch or dinner. Not good enough for the meal of a lifetime or a major celebration. Its about on a par with middling one-star restaurants such as Kitchen W8, for example. I've leaped right into a "Michelin" dialogue since the background of the owners is likely to lean that way. We looked at the menu and decided that the set lunch didn't offer a huge range of choice, had no two-course option and wasn't that much better value than the card. I started with a cacio e pepe where the pasta had been replaced by strips of celeriac. Again I'd been seduced by extremely positive comments in the press. Now here the cacio e pepe sauce was nicely flavoured, and beautifully emulsified- and that's the hard bit with a dish thats on few menus because the sauce is quite hard to get right. But the celeriac is not as interesting as a nicely cooked pasta. And its much harder to cut, so that eventually I resorted to cutting the whole dish up with a knife & fork , child-fashion. So whilst pleasant and well-cooked, this dish added nothing and took away quite a bit from the pasta equivalent, and I was left wondering why there was a need to invent this dish at all. My main was some small venison ravioli accompanied by amongst other things pumpkin and chestnuts in a juniper jus. It worked pretty well , everything in it played its part, and my only comment is that for a main course it might have been a little larger. My wife chose ox-cheeks and didn't say much beyond the fact that the meat was firmer than usual, though not chewy. She passed a forkful to me and I felt that it needed another hour in the oven to lose more of the gelatinous texture that this dish can display. She was much less equivocal about her apple dessert though, which she really enjoyed. In summary, none of these courses were poor- it was just that only one of the four was very good. Otherwise we enjoyed our bottle of Saumur Champigny and there was some decent values to be found on this list even if there was little or nothing under £30. Bread and amuses bouches were decent rather than spectacular, and service was pleasant and timely throughout. The restaurant itself was comfortable and presented nicely, though it is of course new so to be expected. It isn't a restaurant where you'd walk in and think "wow". By the time we left, it was quite busy. So I think Caractere is decent without being outstanding in pretty much all respects , and I wouldn't rate it as highly as I've seen in the press or even as strongly as Square Meal's own reviewer. Yet again, I wonder whether eating out Saturday lunchtime gets us the best food the restaurant can offer. Finally I'd suggest that prices here are not low and for most people a 3 course a la carte will cost £50 and £60 and for the food we ate that's not better than average value. Go back? Well if a place really hits home for us we're already planning our next visit before we left. Didn't happen this time.

Caractère

SquareMeal Review of Caractère

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