The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - The Telegraph Magazine
Table talk
Michael Deacon at Cora Pearl in Covent Garden
THE REAL CORA PEARL was a 19thcentury courtesan. Funny word, courtesan. If your clients are horrid rough working-class men, you’re called a whore, a hooker, a prostitute: such hard, ugly-sounding words. If your clients are aristocrats, however, you’re bestowed with a name that sounds graceful, refined, even rather glamorous. Courtesan. That doesn’t sound like a slur. It sounds like a title. An honour. You could have it printed on a business card, in the most exquisite flowing hand. ‘By royal appointment. Purveyor of discreet companionship to His Majesty since 1822.’
Anyway: Cora Pearl. Although she was English she spent most of her adult life in France, where her devotees included the Prince of Orange and Charles Duc de Morny, the half-brother of Napoleon III. She wallowed in the attention of the rich and powerful, and had a flair for self-publicity that would make a Kardashian blush. During a banquet she hosted at her château in northern France, she coyly informed her guests that the next course would be something very special – and then slipped out. Shortly afterwards, four waiters entered the room carrying a huge silver platter – on which was lying none other than Cora herself, completely nude, with her modesty, such as it was, preserved by a few carefully deployed sprigs of parsley. (This of course was long before the passing of EU legislation on food hygiene, which strictly prohibits the preparation and
consumption of naked 19th-century sex workers. Yet another ancient liberty we’ll regain once we leave.)
This summer, a new restaurant in central London has been opened in Cora’s honour. It’s owned by the people who run Kitty Fisher’s – another London restaurant named after a famous courtesan. Cora’s real name, incidentally, was Emma Crouch, which wouldn’t have given her quite the same frisson of illicit allure. Or been quite such a chic-sounding name for a Covent Garden restaurant.
The restaurant itself is smallish and busy but elegant, with the odd little touch in tribute to its inspiration. The drinks menu is illustrated with a nude drawing of her. There’s a red light glowing outside, and in each of the lavatories. The music in the background is suitably sultry and slinky, with the occasional slither on the saxophone. I checked the menu for any mention of parsley. There was none, which was a relief. You wouldn’t know where it had been.
I started with the brown shrimp Ranhöfer: dreamily creamy and ticklishly seasoned. My friend had the Bloody Mary mackerel: a single fish, chopped into a row of five segments, and spiked with a Tabasco tang. If you’re choosing between the two, though, take the shrimp.
Next I had the ‘Quail Caesar!’, ordered solely on account of the pun. It was gem lettuce, Parmesan, plus four neat little helpings of quail. In other words: a caesar salad, with some quail in it. Let me guess: they came up with the name before the recipe. Worked, though.
The dish I really want to get on to, though, is a mere side. The chips. I’m not the first reviewer to goggle at Cora Pearl’s chips and I can guarantee I won’t be the last, because they really are stupendous. My friend took one bite and said immediately, in all seriousness, that it was the best chip she’d ever tasted. Each one was about the size of a brick, sizzling with salt, and oozingly juicy. Then again, was the juice coming from the chips? Or was it just the slobber drooling down my chin? At any rate, they were outstanding. In fact I’m not sure why they only come in a little bowl as a side. You should be able to order them as a main. A whole plate of them. A whole basin. A whole bathtub. Obviously the best chips are the ones you eat out of paper in the passenger seat by the sea during a downpour, the whole car stinking with vinegar and batter. You can’t beat those. But Cora Pearl’s are very possibly the best you can eat in a restaurant.
Compared with that spectacular side, my actual main felt a bit anticlimactic, but it was still perfectly fine: cod with devilled crab. Look out for the latter. The spice creeps up on you. At first you don’t realise it’s there, and then suddenly WHAM, it socks you right in the chops. A gustatory mugging.
Pudding was the yogurt mousse with blackcurrants. Remember when you were a small child, and you could happily sit there with a spoon, scoffing your way through a mountainous dollop of jam? That’s what this reminded us of. Basically a fancy version of that. With some nice bright wobbly mousse underneath. And what appeared to be some flakes of plaster from the ceiling on top.
It’s good, Cora Pearl. Without question, though, the best thing about it is the chips. As you’d expect in a trendy part of London, the menu isn’t cheap – but the chips are only £5. So if you fancy a good night out on a budget, just order three or four bowls of those each. Sure, there’s probably a mild risk of cardiac arrest or irreparable kidney damage, but at least you’ll have gone out on a high.
Live on the edge. It’s what Cora would have wanted.
I had the ‘Quail Caesar!’ Let me guess: they came up with the name before the recipe