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If ever a place embodied the phrase 'don't judge a book by its cover' then it is this dreary block at the western (i.e. unfashionable) end of Chiswick High Road, which houses the fourth best restaurant in Britain and 60th best in the World.
Although initially trained as a chef in his native Sweden, Mikael Jonsson became a solicitor and part-time food blogger before opening Hedone in Chiswick in 2011 on the site of a former Lebanese grill and nightclub. Jonsson had never worked in a professional kitchen yet within 14 months his restaurant became the second in Chiswick to be awarded a Michelin star when it was named in the 2013 guide.
The restaurant was redesigned and reopened in October last year. It now seats just 18 at tables, with room for a further 4-6 at bar stools overlooking the kitchen. Two of these stools have names on the back in honour of the restaurant's best customers - a man from Amsterdam who has eaten at Hedone more than 300 times and his cheapskate rival from Frankfurt who has managed a mere 150 visits. So shame on you if you live in Chiswick and can't be bothered to venture further west than Sainsbury's.
A more reasonable objection to visiting might be the price - food of this quality does not come cheap. There is a menu but you only have one decision to make - whether to have the 7-course tasting menu (£85) or the 10-course carte blanche option (£125).
And if - like us - you worry that it all sounds a bit like one of those nouvelle cuisine places where you have to stop for a kebab on the way home because you're so hungry, then don't. Downstairs is a bakery which sells 1,500 loaves a week to some of London's best known restaurants. There is limitless bread and it's worth the trip on its own.
It was Mrs WEST4URANTS' birthday and we went with two local friends. We chose the tasting menu, and accompanied it with the £89 wine pairing. Mr Jonsson serves the wine himself, and explains a little of the provenance and style of each one. Pretty much all the wines we had were French, but none the less interesting for that. Not your typical muscadet or beaujolais here, Mr Jonsson puts the same care into picking the wines as he does the food.
Regular readers of this blog will know that if you want long and detailed descriptions of the food then you're better off reading a proper restaurant critic like AA Gill. And if I'm honest, even if I had been taking notes, I could barely understand any of the descriptions and by the eighth glass of wine (we had a cheese course too) they'd have been pretty illegible.
And anyway, it can get a bit boring reading long lists of what other people have eaten. So here's a long (but sketchy) list of what we ate: two little amuse-bouches, one a sliver of foie gras on a pepper crisp, the other a filled tiny cone of dried salmon; 'fish and chips', a piece of monkfish in a potato crisp with all the juice and starch extracted; a parmesan cream with chia seeds; a variety of tomatoes with almond ice cream; crab with hazelnut mayonnaise; lobster; squab pigeon with cherries; cheese; figs; a chocolate dessert; petits fours. And lots of bread.
Chiswick is lucky in both the quantity and quality of its restaurants. But even in such exalted company Hedone stands out a mile. Foodies around the world will be envious that we have such exceptional cooking within walking distance. Go.
Food (for 2): £184.50
Drink: £223.90
Total: £460.32
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