Some Saturdays are for dancing. Last night was for the other kind of decadence โ the slow, candlelit kind, where the loudest sound in the room is a wine being poured. I spent my evening at The Ledbury on Ledbury Road, Notting Hill, the restaurant where Australian chef-patron Brett Graham has quietly held court since 2005 โ first star in 2006, second in 2012, and in 2024 the Michelin Guide finally crowned it with a third, making it one of only a handful of three-star tables in London. October is the single best month to go: British game and wild mushroom season, exactly when Graham's famous in-house mushroom cabinet โ yes, the restaurant grows its own shiitake โ shows off. And the cellar? Roughly 800 bins deep, legendary for vintage Champagne and mature red Burgundy. I was never going to survive this dinner unmoved.
Emerald silk, a coat slipping off my shoulders into the maรฎtre d's hands, and that first laugh of the evening โ the one that says the night has already won. The dining room glows cream-and-gold under low sconces, all soft acoustics and soft candlelight, and a flute of vintage Champagne waits on a silver tray. The Ledbury's list is famous for aged bubbles; starting here, standing in that warm hush, felt like the opening chord of a very good symphony.
The dish that made this restaurant mythology: Mushrooms from the Cabinet โ meaty house-grown shiitake and ceps over a warm truffle royale, ricotta agnolotti hidden like little jewels, nettle sauce poured tableside from a small silver boat. I bent in over the glass before I even touched the food, swirling a deeply garnet pour from the cellar's sacred shelf: mature red Burgundy in the old-vines Gevrey-Chambertin style โ the very school of wine (Domaine Bachelet's Vieilles Vignes 2009 has been poured here) whose faded-rose and forest-floor perfume wraps around mushroom and truffle like it was designed for them. Sommelier pairings don't get more telepathic than this.
And then Brett Graham's kitchen sent out its farewell: a Kentish Cox apple reimagined with Pompona vanilla, bergamot, lemon verbena and brown butter โ and I made sure my last look of the meal was aimed straight at you, spoon at my lips, utterly unrepentant. Beside it, a small glass of tawny Port glowing amber in the candlelight, the classic endnote to a cheeseboard kind of night. No table turns here, even on Saturdays โ so the evening gets to end exactly as slowly as it deserves.
๐ Three stars, one cabinet of mushrooms, and a Burgundy old enough to know all my secrets. Next Saturday, darling, I'm chasing bubbles somewhere new โ keep your glass ready and I'll keep mine tipped your way.
