Enjoy Five star Food at Roux Lunch at the Landau, Langham Hotel near Oxford Circus

Five star food, five star service and five star prices at festive time. Also a five star central location, Oxford Circus. So convenient. Great place for meeting friends, especially if you are all coming from different directions. The hotel has somebody to greet you at the entrance. Elegant art deco foyer.

Separate side entrance for the restaurant. That's good if a side entrance makes you feel exclusive, discreet. Equally suitable if you are shy and retiring and the big main marble hotel entrance and bustling hallway inhibits you.

Your coat and hat and bag or newspaper are taken and hidden in their cupboard behind a door at the back of the reception desk. You are given a solid tag, black, thick, looks like a leather credit card. Good. You can feel it in your pocket and find it. Not like those flimsy raffle tickets which disappear down the hole in your pocket to reappear in the lining of your coat years later - after somebody else has made off with your identical coat, but the wrong size.

The corridor is lined with drinks cabinets.

One person was early and presumably did not want to wait in the bar. He was in the side room. We joined him and had pre-dinner drinks in the side room which I had previously glimpsed with a grand table laid for a private dinner party. We were only five in number and had not asked for a private room, so this was a treat.

I was dehydrating after half a glass of alcohol. And not my usual voluble self. The brain needed lubricating.

I asked for tap water with lemon. They brought a jug of water with lemon. And not just a glass for me but a glass for everybody, lemon slice in each glass. Yes, that's how it should be, but some places think you are the only person who might want water.

Our group organiser - I won't call him the host because we were all paying for ourselves, asked for nuts or nibbles to go with the wine. Although I feel they should have produced both water and nuts without being asked, the coated nuts arrived almost instantly and shortly afterwards two slates supposing canapés, with a side table each side so we did not have to keep passing the canapés, nor risk one person hogging the lot.

Starter
On to the table, a round table for five. I had to reject the two items containing shellfish in case I am still allergic to them after a nasty experience some years back. That left a choice of soup; or boudin blanc. What's the boudin, I asked. I must have been told some time in my life, but so long ago that I'd forgotten.

Boudin is a sausage. Sausages are in my mental column of preserved meats which are always second choice after fresh meat with nothing added, nothing taken away. Interrogation of the server reveals that the sausage contains chicken - OK. But also pork.

Those of us who were taught at school in either biology or domestic science that pork contains tape worms have never got over this early conditioning. (I have visions of myself retreating with a fixed smile, looking for the door to escape. A good thing I don't like red wine and am not drinking any more.)

So my choice is soup. The soup plate arrives with something small and colourful in the middle. I never quite get over the disappointment of thinking my starter is too small.

A moment later the cream colour soup is poured around it like a sauce, a moat. A delightful drama. Perhaps I should have been told that the soup was to follow, or given some clue.

Beside the salad plate is a side plate of piquant cheese canapés. Excellent.

Main course
Turkey. Potatoes six stars! Supposed to be with sprouts Where are the sprouts? What happened to by five a day vegetables.  Ah, sprouts are hidden under the turkey. You need an instruction book for this lunch. It's the food equivalent of an IKEA catalogue. Scientists, men like working it out from the menu. I'm a woman. I like a waiter explaining it to me.

 OK - found the sprouts under the turkey. I'm still trying to count my five a day. I suppose a vegetable soup is one vegetable, sprouts makes two. At lunch time I do like meat and two vegetables.

How about a sigh of some salad, fresh salad? Not everybody at my table agrees. Those sitting either side of me have differing views. My companions are mixture of health freaks and lettuce-phobics.

Dessert
I've had Christmas pudding about three times already in the past fortnight so this time I forego my favourite seasonal dish for the chestnut dessert. The presentation is amazing. The little morsels of meringue stand on fat stalks and look like miniature mushrooms or bar stools for The Borrowers.

Coffee
The Wedgwood cups and milk jugs are perfect.


Price. Shock. Twelve and a half per cent is a lot.

This was our second visit and we'd been so looking forward to it. At that price I would expect something really gaspingly exciting every moment, not just flavour, but also visually, with contrasting colours.

rouxatthelandau.com
http://london.langhamhotels.co.uk/restaurants/fine_dining_restaurants.htm

Why the Roux, Why Is It Called The Landau Restaurant, and where is the Langham Hotel, London

The Roux are the Roux family of chefs and it's the chef's deft touch that makes this restaurant special. The name landau comes from the carriage which brought visitors here in the early days. The private dining room called the Postillon next door also gets its name from the horse and carriage era, the postillon being the person in charge of the horses, the coachman. You might notice the little horse motifs subtly over the door area inside the main restaurant door above eye level.

Now you can reach the Langham hotel by taxi, stopping under the arch. Or walk up from Oxford Circus station towards the landmark church. You'll pass the signs to the spa which is open to non-residents who seek membership. You can take the side entrance into the Roux at the Landau restaurant where your coat is taken and you are given a black leather fob the size of a business card with a number to retrieve your coat. 

We checked in there and told them we would be three for lunch not four which we'd booked for, and before we reached out table the place settings had already been changed. And so the service continued, smilingly but subtly polite.

The set lunch is a bargain considering the quality. Here's the petits fours which come with the coffee, included in the price of the seat lunch.

The petits fours are three flavours, jelly, chocolate, and macaroon - one of my favourites.

London Loo-Hopper Finds Where To Buy British Perfumed Hand Lotion

One of the advantage of having espresso coffee or tea and cake in a grand hotel or smart restaurant, instead of a quick nip into a cafe, is that you can indulge in the delights of the grand loo. Not just a clean, dry shelf for your handbag, but perfumed washing gel to make you smell superior, plus a hand lotion, sometimes the same scent, sometimes another perfume.

Whether it's a birthday or a business meeting, a chance to smarten up for the selfie and even if you forgot to put on perfume, you can come out smelling of roses, or lemon, or whatever they have chosen for you.

In the Langham hotel in London I discovered Penhaligon's Quercus. I wrote down the brand and the perfume, and took a photo of it as a memory aid. Just as well. It took me a while to spell Penhaligon's correctly.

I found the company's website, plus products and pages on Penhaligon's offered by others such as Selfridges, John Lewis and Amazon. That led me to some reviews.

I'd been wondering about the origin of the name. I found that in wikipedia. Penhaligon is a place name, the name of the company founder.

If you want a souvenir for yourself, a gift of something British to take home to a friend or family member, or something for your Xmas list, you could try Penhaligon's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penhaligon's

Which other perfumed lotions have I liked? The White Company.
http://www.thewhitecompany.com/
You find their shops in many shopping malls and you can buy online.

Luxury In London at The Langham Hotel - one of the Leading Hotels of The World

The Langham Hotel is one of the Leading Hotels of the World, a group of upmarket hotels, and has everything you would expect of a top hotel.
A sweep drive if you arrive by taxi. Covered entrance.

Inside is a marble entrance hall. With giant flower displays the size of trees.

An award winning bar. Artesian. Award winning head mixologists.
artesian-bar.co.uk

Hot and cold running staff. To approach you when you stop and look confused and direct you to the right restaurant or bar or the toilets.

A ladies toilet with gel and hand lotion, Quercus from Penhaligon's. If you sniff your hands and think, that's good, and want to buy that scent, Quercus or try all the perfumes of the brand, a scent collection and more are available from Selfridges or John Lewis or Amazon.  www.penhaligons.com


A top restaurant - the Roux family.

See rouxatthelandu.com

Your choice of tables: by the window, watching red London buses pass. Good if you are a tourist and want to feel you are in London. Central tables for three or four in the centre, great for those who want to grab a waiter every two minutes and see who is passing. Tables for two away from the distractions of passers by and the window, in the enclosed area of the semicircular wall as shown in the menu picture above.

When you leave there is a taxi queue and a door man to whistle for a taxi.

Stop at the desk in the hall for a brochure with a map so you can find your way back. You are steps away from an underground station (Oxford Circus).

If you don't want to leave, or are waiting around for your beloved or your friends or business people, a musical group in the tea lounge, cocktails with live Jazz playing some evenings to entertain you.
palm-court.co.uk

Or a spa bath to soothe you. chuanspa.co.uk

The map and cards are currently (2014) pink. So is the pen. I'm in the pink. Pleased as pink.

For more about the hotel and the restaurant menu information see
http://london.langhamhotels.co.uk/restaurants/fine_dining_restaurants.htm

Angela Lansbury Travel writer, author, speaker.