I have a huge obsession with beautiful hotels, they may just be buildings but many hotels carry important memories for me.
My favourite hotel in London is The Dorchester. It reminds me of afternoon tea with my friends, Sunday lunch with my family and romantic dinners with Mr Silver. It seemed only natural that we would have our dream wedding at my favourite luxury London hotel.
It may not be a castle in the countryside but it’s my city Princess Palace.
Back in April we headed to The Dorchester to decide on the menu for the big day! The gang were myself, Mr S, Mr and Mrs S senior and my mum, Susan Silverspoon. My dad didn’t wanted to come, he’s not a foodie and would rather have lunch at KFC. So with my dad happily with the colonel it was left to the five us to have an epic day of eating and drinking!
Wedding tastings at The Dorchester take place inside the actual kitchen.
For me, being inside the kitchen is like being at the very heart of the hotel. I love seeing where all the magic happens!!Inside the kitchen is the chef’s table located in the Krug Room.
A beautiful room with plush red leather chairs and a gorgeous glass table. The room is behind a crystal glass wall to give you a feeling of privacy whilst still being in the exciting atmosphere of the kitchen.
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll know I’ve been in the Krug Room before.
Eeek…I’m wearing the same dress as I did on my first visit…must be my Dorchester dress 😉
Obviously it was very important to try everything that we would be serving on the wedding day. Starting with the most important thing of all…
Champagne! And it was one of my favourites…Laurent Perrier.
We were also planning to serve a cocktail at the wedding.
Obviously it was absolutely vital to try these…
A Dorchester Bellini with mango and champagne. It was good, but it did remind me a little of Orangina…
Mr Silver and I are both Jewish and we are having a traditional Jewish wedding. Jewish people have many dietary rules and regulations and food that is acceptable for Jewish people’s consumption is called ‘Kosher.’ There are many foods that appear in people’s day to day diet which are deemed non-kosher and not acceptable under Jewish law. For example pork and shellfish are non-kosher and therefore completely unacceptable; other meats are allowed but must be killed in accordance with Jewish law in order to be acceptable. Okay…RE lesson over!
Regular readers of my blog will know these aren’t rules that I stick to, neither Mr S or I are very religious, but we still couldn’t serve non-kosher food to our guests. Unfortunately having a kosher caterer would have added a huge cost to our wedding, so we opted for ‘kosher-style’ or inoffensive food.
Inoffensive food allows for no meat so our menu would be made up of vegetarian options and fish (but not shellfish). It also meant the chef had to be very creative as he was limited by the ingredients.
Starting with the canapes!
They obviously knew SilverSpoon was coming!
Each little spoon contained an absolutely delicious morsel of food. On the left was pumpkin ravioli with an amaretto sauce. It was perfect pillow soft pasta with an silky smooth cream sauce.
On the right was the fish tikka. A lovely spicy piece of fish served with a coriander and mint chutney.
Baby new potatoes with sour cream and keta caviar were the only thing I really didn’t like. It was like eating a block of uncooked potato. I didn’t find them visually appealing either.
Vegetable dim sum with chilli dip…well I just love dim sum so you can’t go wrong!
Aubergine fritters and tempura artichoke were both gorgeous, hot and crispy with a light batter.
Tuna spring roll and vegetable spring roll. Everyone loves a spring roll!
The thing I always find at Jewish wedding is that there is copious amount of salmon due to the many food restrictions. But the chefs at the Dorch made salmon exciting again with salmon tartare in Vietnamese rice wrappers, gravalax on a crispy bagel and a smoked salmon cornetto.
Finally for the canapes, a silver spoon of Thai fish cakes. Opinion was divided on this one…the parents said no, but me and Mr S liked it.
While we were enjoying the canapes we guzzled various different wine options so that we could choose what to serve with the meal.
Next the starters were bought out.
Duo of ahi seared tuna and salmon on soba noodles. This is exactly the kind of dish I’d order in a restaurant, the tuna was perfectly rare and the accompanying ponzu sauce added a perfect kick.
The tomato tart was delicious with fine and crispy pastry.
Sesame crusted seabass was my favourite of the starters. It may not be as pretty as a picture but I loved the salty and spicy wasabi soy sauce that accompanied the dish.
For main course we sampled:
An incredible mushroom ravioli with leeks. The Dorchester really know how to do an excellent ravioli.
Black cod on pak choi and ginger with baby corn. We all loved the Japanese dish, though the mums weren’t keen on the plain rice and we agreed it may be better with noodles.
Seared fillet of sea bass with honey-marinated vegetables and saffron and tomato emulsion. The dish didn’t blow us away but was certainly tasty.
Ahh… the obligatory salmon! Served with tagliatelle of vegetable and Vermouth sauce. The salmon was actually beautifully cooked and not as mundane as I thought it would be.
Are you bored of fish yet?
Not to worry desserts are here!
Fresh strawberries in balsamic dressing was a lovely light palate cleansing dessert and I very much enjoyed the Chantilly cream and Bourbon vanilla ice cream. However, Mr Silver and I felt that this was a little safe and not an exciting way to end the meal.
Mango tart tartin was a gorgeous warm and comforting dessert. Mr Silver Senior and I couldn’t stop trying more!
Finally, vanilla flaming brulee, mini chocolate fondant and raspberry sorbet. Mr Silver and I loved the dramatic impact of the dessert and the mini chocolate fondant had that perfect gooey centre, as perfect as the Marks & Spencer advert… what a dream trio of puds!!
Finally, my mum’s favourite part of the meal! Coffee and chocolates.
And a totally decadent espresso martini…
The perfect end to a perfect meal!!
You’ll have to wait until my wedding post to see what we chose but I really hope you enjoyed reading about our tasting. What would be your perfect wedding menu?
I’ve received my wedding photos back and scheduled a post about the wedding for early August, watch this space!!
