GOURMET LONDON -- PART 3

GORDON RAMSEY TO ALAIN DUCASSE Momo is the creation of Mourad “Momo” Mazouz, a Berber restaurateur extraordinaire who rose to fame in Paris before coming to London. Inside, Momo is scintillatingly exotic, an incense-tinged sojourn into 1,001 Arabian Nights that somehow avoids the cheese and campiness endemic to most restaurants of this ilk. Here the effect is authentic, and one becomes pleasantly entranced by the dark woodwork and Moorish-style decorative accents. Because the London weather was gently balmy that day, however, we chose to dine outside beneath sweeping canvas awnings. Our server, decked out in Arabic garb, complete with curled, pointy-toe shoes, was coolly pleasant. (We thought perhaps the shoes had something to do with his attitude.) We perused the menu, taking it all in. Executive chef Mohamed Ourad’s selections are a mélange of North African classic dishes and his own secret family recipes. Steve selected the tagine de poulet aux citrons confits et olives vertes: chicken tagine with lemon confits and green olives: a pungent stew of tender poultry and aromatic spices. The aroma and taste were heavenly. Heidi’s couscous brochette de poulet -- chicken couscous -- was magnificent. Expertly grilled, marinated boneless chicken arrived on a side plate, and was tender enough to cut with a fork. The pieces -- along with a side of lighter-than-air bulger wheat and golden raisins -- are then added to the mini-pot containing the delicious pieces of vegetables and the exquisitely flavorful stew-like sauce to create a sensual culinary symphony. Though the lunch entrees are generous in size, we had to sample the hot-out-of-the-oven quince tart, with sweet, fleshy quince slices atop a scrumptious pie-like crust, served with a dollop of quince ice cream and mint leaves.

GOURMET LONDON -- PART 2

GORDON RAMSEY TO ALAIN DUCASSE Indeed, that is where we had dined, at legendary French chef Alain Ducasse’s Spoon+, located in Ian Schrager’s ultra-hip Sanderson Hotel, an office building-cum-crash pad of cool, courtesy of the designs of the visionary Philippe Starck. Walking in to the lobby and gazing at the sleek lines, out-sized and odd-shaped furniture and funky textures, we’d had a flashback of home. As Miamians, we’d visited The Delano in South Beach, another Schrager/Starck collaboration. We expected amazing food in Miami: a seaside destination of the chic set, blessed with a mind-blowing cultural mosaic. But London? Wasn’t that a stronghold of stodgy carving stations and menus unchanged since the first Queen Elizabeth raised a scepter? Preconceived notions die hard, but once in London, ours were soon tossed into the Charnel House of Culinary Misconceptions, where they landed with a deafening thud. Our foray into the wilds of London’s innovative cuisine scene began with a taxi ride in search of a little street to nowhere. Our cabbie doubted that we’d find what we were looking for on Heddon Street, a road that dead-ends into a pedestrian mallway. But we stayed the course, and sure enough, at the street’s end, we found a Moroccan souk in the heart of Mayfair.