][1]Many people will have gone out for their big Valentine’s dinner over the weekend but today is still D-Day for the nation’s restaurant trade.
If you still haven’t made any arrangements to pluck the heart strings of your nearest and dearest then you will probably need to bring out the big guns in order to make up for your tardiness.
If you want to pull out all the stops then think about flying down to the Regent Grand Hotel in Bordeaux. Their one star restaurant, called Le Pressoir d’Argent, is equipped with a silver lobster press, one of only four or five in the world.
Weighing in at around 40 kilos and a cost of 30,000 euros, their scarcity may not be a surprise.
The idea is that you take your lobster, remove its tail and claws and then press the rest to extract any juices. These are then cooked and added to the dish. It’s a technique which the French have traditionally reserved for preparing duck.
La Tour D’Argent in Paris is famous for its pressed duck dish. There’s a report on it here but, be warned, it’s rather gory.
If Bordeaux seems a little overboard for a Valentine’s dinner then you can check 5pm and see if any of our member restaurants in Glasgow and Edinburgh still have any tables available.
Bonne chance!