London: Savoy Truffles

Creme tangerine and Montélimar
 A ginger sling with a pineapple heart
 A coffee dessert--yes you know it's good news
 But you'll have to have them all pulled out

 After the Savoy truffle. 

 Cool cherry cream, nice apple tart
 I feel your taste all the time we're apart
 Coconut fudge--really blows down those blues
 But you'll have to have them all pulled out

 After the Savoy truffle.
                               --George Harrison, The White Album

Savoy truffles really do exist as we found out while killing time before the Saturday vigil Mass.  On the two previous evenings we had dined on Indian cuisine, so on this particular evening we chose French.  On Urbanspoon I found a nearby restaurant called Salieri.  While checking out its menu, I looked across the street.  Tucked away down a secluded drive was the Savoy.  Feeling adventuresome and wearing our best jeans, we entered the hotel just to see what it was like inside.

It was posh, as one would expect.  Halfway down the main corridor was the candy shop and tea store (on the left hand side of the picture below that I downloaded from their website).

 

 

And then I found the truffles, including truffles on a stick...  The truffle with the tiny blue balls is an apricot-lavender truffle...

and the fruit gels.  I "luv" fruit gels.

 

We bought four truffles for the train trip to Durham the next day: an apricot with lavender,  two raspberry and a rum.  We also tried the gels in green apple, current, pear and mandarin orange.  The salesperson packed them in a little black box with a shiny apple green label. 

 

Beyond the candy shop was the tea room.  For about 30 GBP you can get high tea. 

 

Here is the ceiling above the tea room's gazebo.

 

 

We liked the place so much that we asked the hostess if there might be a restaurant where we could dine for dinner dressed as we were in jeans.  She was so gracious, telling me I looked "lovely" (her words), and informed us that there were two restaurants where we could eat (dressed as ugly Americans--my words).  We chose Kaspar's Seafood Bar & Grill because of its Art Deco décor.  They had no open tables but the hostess said that we could eat at the bar on pull-out trays.  We went to Mass and then returned for dinner.

After Mass I stopped in the ladies' room to freshen up before heading to the dining room.  In the private stalls are backup rolls of toilet paper.  I snapped a picture of this because I have never seen custom black wrappers printed with the hotel's name on it (and besides, I was in a completely private stall where I could get away snapping a photo without detection).  Is this not a hoot!

 

Here is a view downloaded from the Savoy's website of Kaspar's.

 

And this was my view of the bar.  Bill wanted me to snap a picture of the chandelier because he thought the style resembled that of a glass artist we know, Diane Terlin.

 

 

What made our seating arrangement interesting is that we could watch the sous chef prepare plates of cured fish.

 

We inquired about this fish because we had never seen such a rosy red and white flesh.  This is cured halibut that was first marinated in beetroot juice.  She prepared this little plate for us just so we could try it.  My entrée was zander, a mild Scandinavian fish that resembles pike and perch.  It was my dessert, however, that was out of this world.  It was an elderflower cream on the bottom of the bowl (it tasted like a creamy panna cotta) with a scoop of strawberry sorbet in the center and finally topped with a strawberry-champagne sauce.  It was yummy, and so pretty, too.

 

Also in the picture above you can see tray that pulls out from the bar.  I love the nickel fluting.  And if this wasn't enough, the waiter then brought each of us a lemongrass truffle on a stick.

 

Now that's the way to end a fine dinner--with Savoy truffles!