{"id":4996,"date":"2021-11-02T18:04:30","date_gmt":"2021-11-02T10:04:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/?p=4996"},"modified":"2021-11-02T18:07:41","modified_gmt":"2021-11-02T10:07:41","slug":"restaurant-review-lavenue-in-shenzhen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/p\/4996.html","title":{"rendered":"Restaurant Review: L\u2019Avenue in Shenzhen"},"content":{"rendered":"

L\u2019Avenue Restaurant<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

2005 Shennan Avenue, Futian District<\/p>\n

Shenzhen, N131 (One Avenue North Zone)<\/p>\n

Tel. +86 13554988810<\/p>\n

The dishes<\/em><\/p>\n

N.3 Gaboreau oyster with shallot mignonette<\/p>\n

Shima Aji tartare with cucumber and oyster emulsion<\/p>\n

Oeuf en gel\u00e9e with veal tongue and fine herbs<\/p>\n

Grilled octopus<\/p>\n

Cr\u00eape souffl\u00e9e<\/p>\n

The wines<\/em><\/p>\n

2018 Clos de la Coul\u00e9e de Serrant AOC Coul\u00e9e de Serrant\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 94+<\/strong><\/p>\n

2018 Chateau Grillet C\u00f4tes du Rh\u00f4ne\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 95<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know what it is about the name \u201cL\u2019Avenue\u201d, but it is one that is often associated with higher-end, quality restaurants. Food lovers and those in the know will no doubt hear that name and immediately think of the Paris dining spot at 41 Rue Montaigne in the 8th<\/sup>, or of the other L\u2019Avenue Restaurant at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York, open since 2019 and featuring a Philippe Starck-designed interior. The most recent addition to the L\u2019Avenue-named stable of dining establishments peppering the world is the L\u2019Avenue Restaurant in Shenzhen, China. If first time impressions are anything to go by, it risks being one of the best of the lot.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The chef at L\u2019Avenue in Shenzhen is Arran McCredie, and from this one time I have been at the restaurant, I\u2019s say he\u2019s about as talented as they come. I will no doubt be back at L\u2019Avenue again and again to verify that my first impression was the right one, but I do believe I will not be disappointed. McCredie started out in the United Kingdom, where he was part of the opening team at the Michelin-starred Kitchen Table and also world at Lyle\u2019s, named at one point at n.33 of the World\u2019s 50Best List. Later he went to work at the Quay, a three hat establishment in Australia, and most recently as sous-chef<\/em> at Belon, a Parisian-styled bistro in Hong Kong that combined standout ingredients with flawless French cooking technique. Manned by Head Chef Daniel Calvert whom McCredie worked alongside, Belon made real waves and news, and was ranked at one time at n.4 on the Asia 50Best restaurants list, while also earning a Michelin star that same year. At L\u2019Avenue, McCredie\u2019s wish is to bring his take on refined bistro food to the dynamic Shenzhen market (bistronomy, if you will). In his own words: \u201c\u2026 Using only the best produce we can source coupled with the amazing team in place at L\u2019Avenue, we feel we can really add to the already growing brilliant dining scene of the city\u201d.\u00a0 His menu offers glimpses into great French culinary classics such as Pommes Boulang\u00e8re, Sauce Bordelaise, Salade Paysanne, whole flounder (sole) meuni\u00e8re, Chantilly cream, cr\u00eape souffl\u00e9e, and more, with the goal being to deliver dishes that retain the essence of these timeless flavours while giving each a refined and lighter touch. McCredie will change the dishes on his menu based on the ingredients that are available at the various markets he sources them from. For example, the Ikura tart that was on the menu I saw was going to be available only until the end of November, while a new pigeon dish would soon become available because the restaurant had found a very good supply of quality pigeons from Foshan. Restaurant Manager Sam Wang has a great deal of experience in the restaurant world, having trained eight years at the Mandarin Oriental (as bartender and sommelier) and as outlet manager at several restaurants. The sommelier at L\u2019Avenue is Ivan Ye, who had previously worked at the Peninsula Bejing and Rosewood Guangzhou, as both sommelier and beverage manager.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

My evening at L\u2019Avenue went splendidly: to be clear, this was without doubt my best bistro meal of 2021, and one that would give many fine restaurants a run for their money. The place has a sleek, elegant and clean d\u00e9cor, with tables close but not so close to each other that sitting there becomes uncomfortable. Yes, I get it that it\u2019s a bistro, but I want to go out at night and hear what my family member\/friend\/loved one has to say, and not to hear clearly what the people who I don\u2019t know at all at the next table are talking about. And besides, in this day and age of Covid, well\u2026 not having someone I don\u2019t know breathing right next to me is always a plus. The service is very fine indeed and professional. The food, well, that\u2019s simply stellar, and the wines very well chosen and priced. A good sign of the attention to detail that McCredie brings to the menu is in the selection of Gaboriau oysters that we started our dinner off with. Christophe Gaboriau is based in one of the most important and oldest oyster production areas of France, Marennes Oleron. He has oyster fields near the island of Oleron, the island of R\u00e9 and in the Gironde estuary. These oysters are not the fleshiest or the biggest you\u2019ll ever come across but they are imbued with the subtleties of the local regional flavours and have a very refined not just salt-dominated, taste. The shima-aji<\/em> tartare was also top-notch. A common point of confusion for foodies and especially those who love sushi, is the many different mackerels that are available on menus all over the world, but that are in fact not at all the same fish, despite them all somewhat loosely carrying the name of \u201cmackerel\u201d. To put it another way, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc do not give the same wine, and it\u2019s the same with the mackerel family. Mackerel is an oft-maligned fish for its oiliness and fishiness but that is ideal for tartare and sushi preparations; in fact, it is one fish with the longest history in traditional\u00a0edomae<\/em>-style sushi. There are essentially four types of mackerel used to make sushi; mackerel (saba<\/em>); Spanish mackerel (sawara<\/em>; but called kanzawara<\/em> when it is the winter-fished variety); horse mackerel (aji<\/em>), which actually belongs to a different family of fish (mackerel belongs to the Scombridae<\/em> family while horse mackerel belongs to the Carangidae<\/em> family); and mackerel pike (sanma<\/em>) or Pacific saury, which also belongs to a completely different family of fish. But there are also many species of fish in each one of those bigger groups: so for example, there are at least three different fish lumped in the horse mackerel group: the horse mackerel proper, what the Japanese will call aji<\/em>, the brown-striped mackerel scad, and the striped jack mackerel (which is called shima-aji<\/em>). And so Shima-aji<\/em> is the Japanese \u201cstriped jack\u201d, where shima<\/em> means \u201cstriped\u201d and aji<\/em> is the horse mackerel, also known as \u2018jack\u201d. But aji <\/em>and shima-aji<\/em> make for two very different taste sensations (not to mention sushi). While both are just fine, shima-aji<\/em> provides a much m refined flavour sensation than does aji<\/em>: in fact, shima-aji<\/em> tastes like a cross between the excellent and leaner yellowtail (kanpachi<\/em>) and the fatter and oilier mackerel (saba<\/em>). When shima-aji<\/em> is very fresh, like it has to be in order to make a tartare, its flesh is very firm and has noteworthy hints of sweetness, and it\u2019s just a delight to eat. L\u2019Avenue\u2019s rendition with a cucumber and oyster emulsion had me worried the delicate taste of the fish would be overwhelmed but this was not the case at al. The oeuf en gel\u00e9e<\/em> was literally a work of art, and without doubt the the best or at no worse one of the three best I have ever tasted, and I include in that long list of dishes many versions eaten at multi-starred French restaurants. Not just beautiful to look at, but the tongue-infused gelatin was simply memorable, one of the most flavorful renditions of this classic I have ever tasted. Really well done. But it was the whole meal that went well on this night.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Much the same thing of course can be said about the wines at dinner, two of the more accomplished potables I have had the good fortune of enjoying all year long. The 2018 Clos de la Coul\u00e9e de Serrant AOC Coul\u00e9e de Serrant <\/strong>was in fine form and strikes me as one of the more balanced young versions of this famed wine made by the man mostly responsible for bringing attention to biodynamic farming in the wine world. Big rich and layered, but not flat or over the top, and without any signs of incipient oxidation, I\u2019d say this is a very successful and highly promising Coul\u00e9e de Serrant, one that has a long bright future ahead. Even better drinking presently is provided by the 2018 Chateau Grillet C\u00f4tes du Rh\u00f4ne<\/strong>. This wine, simply named C\u00f4tes du Rh\u00f4ne like the Appellation it belongs to (so technically this is not a Chateau-Grillet Appellation wine) was first made with the 2011 vintage, as the technical team at Chateau Grillet looked to be even more selective about the Viognier used to make the estate\u2019s top wine, Chateau Grillet. All I can say is that this may well be one of the top ten second wines I have ever tasted, a simply amazing mouthful of rich but lively, sultry but refined, extremely varietally accurate Viogneir aroma and flavour sensation. The wine is magically balanced and is downright addictive\u201d. I can\u2019t say enough good things about it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Come to think of it, those are exactly the same words I\u2019d use to describe l\u2019Avenue.<\/p>\n

(The Alsace part 3 article due out today has been moved to tomorrow because of the late arrival of some tasting samples)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In today’s article, Ian reviews the brand new L’Avenue Restaurant in Shenzhen, where he dined during its soft opening recently. This promises to be one of the best new restaurant openings of the year.
\nby Ian D’Agata<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":5004,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-restaurant-and-wine","pmpro-has-access"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4996"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5005,"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4996\/revisions\/5005"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terroirsense.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}