La Dame de Pic at Four Seasons Hotel London Tower Bridge

Anne-Sophie Pic remains among the most revered, decorated female chefs in the world, certainly in terms of Michelin stars. It makes sense then that two Michelin-starred La Dame de Pic feels very much like an archetypal Michelin Guide restaurant. Housed behind the grand stone facade of the Four Seasons Hotel at Tower Bridge, La Dame de Pic is a room of hushed reverence. Towering ceilings and mirror-clad pillars give the room an airy, spacious vibe, but it doesn’t completely save the feeling that the room itself feels in need of a refurb.

Staff, though, are well-drilled, knowledgeable and affable, which softens the solemnity of the space. It goes without saying that prices are steep (the entry level tasting menu starts at £145 for dinner) but, thanks to Pic’s pure creativity, most of the dishes are wildly inventive, harnessing unusual collections of flavours with impressive results. She is known for constantly revamping the ingredients, methods and techniques used in her cooking in order to provide her guests with a powerful and unexpected gastronomic experience.

Highlights include her signature Les Berlingots - the filling changes seasonally and in summer we’re treated to the rasping acidity of green tomato, which dances across the richness of Blackmount goat’s cheese in the pasta. There’s a gentle background aroma of mace and tonka, which intrigues.

At its best, Anne-Sophie Pic’s food is just as thought-provoking as it is delicious, but some dishes feel a bit too complex for their own good, struggling to balance an extremely complex equation of flavours. This could be the difference between Pic’s palate and our own, of course. An opening salvo of Scottish crab promises soothing crustacean - a classic starter - but the crab feels elbowed out by sake lees, fresh almond, sweet melon and aniseedy hyssop.

The final note is another Pic signature - the white Tahitian vanilla millefeuille - and though we’re sure it’s more complex than it looks, it's a sign that perhaps La Dame de Pic is at its best when it reigns things in a touch. Wines are expertly paired throughout the night, so this is clearly an excellent restaurant run by an expert team, and minor quibbles are all that separates La Dame de Pic from the very top echelon of London restaurants.

Anne-Sophie Pic, the world’s most decorated French female chef brings her unique take on French cuisine to the Four Seasons Hotel London at Tower Bridge.

In the absence of any formal culinary training, Pic has established herself in the fine dining world through a host of Michelin-starred eponymous restaurants across Europe (starting with her family’s restaurant Maison Pic in Valence, France). Here, in an airy, high-ceilinged room in the former Port of London Authority building, she continues her trademark approach to unusual flavours and techniques in her first London outpost. A chef who is led by intuition and sensitivity, Pic presents menus that reimagine ingredients, utilise unconventional techniques, and reveal gastronomic combinations her guests might not otherwise have considered.

Particularly imaginative flavour combinations on the menu include ikejime (a Japanese technique for euthanising fish) pollock with blackcurrant sage beurre blanc and absinthe pepper, and lamb marinated with fig leaves and sakura sauce. There’s also a touching tribute to her late chef father Jacques Pic, in the form of wild sea bass and caviar ‘the way my father loved it’, reimagined by Anne-Sophie with sake and rose. 

Another unmissable testament to Pic’s culinary approach is her signature Les Berlingots, a pasta dish named after a childhood favourite French sweet, with a filling that varies based on the season, showcasing the versatility of this type of pasta and exposing guests to a range of flavour profiles. Each of the tasting menus at La Dame de Pic comes with options for wine pairings based on ‘emotion’ or ‘initiation’, in keeping with the restaurant’s overall intuitive approach to gastronomy, and the wine list fittingly (though not exclusively) focuses on bottles from the Rhone valley, not far from where Pic grew up in her family’s restaurant.