The view from the Plateau

There’s a restaurant up at Canary Wharf called The Plateau. It houses a bar/grill and a more formal restauarant and has a couple of terraces and, it tells us, splendid views of Canary Wharf – you could almost imagine you were in Manhatten (see picture from the Plateau’s website, below).

From mid-January to the end of February The Plateau will be offering a special menu featuring locally made honey. It has formed a special partnership with the Mudchute, the city farm on the Isle of Dogs, and as a result the Plateau will donate £1 per diner who buys the “Honey Menu Gourmand” dinner.

The six course menu offers dishes such as:
•delicately spiced butternut velouté, where the honey is lightly drizzled and tossed with truffle crème fraiche to add depth and flavour;
•an aromatic soy and honey glazed Loch Duart Salmon with fennel, Dorset crab and fennel pollen;
•“The Hive”, a sumptuous dessert to round off the meal – a light honey parfait, ginger sponge, dark chocolate and malt mousse.
Each guest will also receive a mini honey jar from the farm to take home.

The honey-based menu has been created by the Plateau’s Head Chef, Daniel McGarey

The down side is that the Special Menu costs £55 – which is just a couple of quid below a week’s worth of income support. This is probably more than most of our readers have to spend on food in a week, let alone blow on a single meal, even if it does have six courses. If you order the specially paired wines, the evening actually costs £75! If you stray off the special menu, beware: water’s £3 a bottle, chips £4.50 a serving…

Still, the initiative does allow those well enough off to spend £55 or £75 on a single meal to donate £1 to the Mudchute – which offers enormous pleasure to local people. On the other hand, it’s hard not to feel somewhat stunned, given that virtually every diner would have to spend in the region of £1.50 to get home from the Plateau – presuming they lived one Tube or DLR ride away.

In the meantime, mystery surrounds the choice of name for the special menu. The word used for “posh nosh” or a “posh nosher” is usually “Gourmet”. Although “Gourmand” is beginning to be used to convey the same meaning, it does still retain its original meaning – which is to eat well but with greed.

The Plateau appears to be sponsored by the Evening Standard – a newspaper which spent a great deal of time over the last four years criticising Tower Hamlets’ voters’ choice of mayor. There’s irony for you.

•If you would like to book a table at the Plateau, go to:
http://www.plateau-restaurant.co.uk/
NB: the website does not appear to give information on helal food or access.

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