Grace and Flavour: Viajante

Dinner at Viajante. Well, I say dinner. This is molecular gastronomy. A jocund time was had, as always is in these places, but to my mind no dinner was eaten. Instead, an assortment of miniature obscure foodstuffs – the six-course tasting menu is more like 11 tiny offerings – flung from the chef’s imagination, transported in precarious piles by earnest staff. No menu is given. It’s all a great big fun surprise. Unless you take anyone who gets angry when hungry (or ‘hangry’, as I call it), who may get a bit stabby around course seven.

‘Potato with yeast and olive,’ trumpeted the waiter. Two thumbnail-sized baby potatoes with a flaky top. ‘Thank you,’ we chirped, shoving them in our gobs like chicks on Springwatch’s kingfisher cam. Next, ‘amaranth with sorrel’ (a small handful of what might be finely milled Trill, set in something sticky), followed by an enormous plate with one tiny girolle in the centre, in a puddle of ‘illuminated cuzo’ (resembles honey). The mushroom sat on my plate eyeing me provocatively. ‘We’ve been here so many times, Grace,’ it said, taunting, ‘but still you can’t behave like an adult.’ ‘Shut up, mushroom,’ I said. ‘I was textbook-standard mature to those people last week who informed me they ate live ants at Noma.’

‘Thai Explosion II’ appeared, a tasty, albeit tepid, centre of a fish cake served in a brown paper bag, then a small amount of white asparagus, then a tiny plate of crab meat with duck egg yolk. Viajante won’t serve under-11s, which I imagined was an ambience thing, but now I realise a child’s ‘issues surrounding honesty’ would be tricky.

The ambience in Viajante is ‘confused high-end corporate dining parties’, Essex ‘money’ who’ll have a kebab on the way home, and foodies with livid partners. The Dehesa lamb with goat’s curd and black quinoa was completely delicious, I’d have loved to eat 17 times more of it, but by then we were on to pudding. ‘Pickled and raw cucumber with reduced milk sorbet,’ said the waiter. None of these things live in the same house as pudding but we humoured him. ‘Textures of milk,’ he said, returning with a plate with a small pile of pure white oozings, ice scrapings and crunchy bits, all milk at different temperatures. We left wearing puzzled expressions. I enjoyed breakfast the next morning greatly.

Viajante, Patriot Square, E2 (020 7871 0461)