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Bécasse

It’s a peripatetic bird, this Bécasse. Since last edition it has changed not just its nest but its plumage. The new digs, atop a Westfield shopping centre, are as eccentric and secluded as a bower, the room shrunk down just as the kitchen’s ambitions have grown. Gone are the echoes of the bistro it once was, replaced by the heirloom carrots and chickweed of the new naturism. “Forgotten vegetables” is like Noma-meets-Nobu, the very Scandinavian-inspired oddments of kohlrabi, purple potato and celeriac enlivened by yabby tails and fatty smoked pork jowl, arranged over a Japanese-looking thick, hot piece of glazed stone and garnished with a swatch of smoking cedar. Hapuku poached with wasabi leaf, cuttlefish and cucumber is just plain brilliant. Wine pairings balance classical hits with hip, worldly surprises – like the new Bécasse in microcosm, and we like it.