As part of their collaborative series, Signature @ The Roof and Perrier-Jouët hosted an intimate champagne pairing dinner for invited gourmands to preview how the floral and fruity flavours of the cuvees bring out the best in the the award winning restaurant’s latest menu. For the evening, the usually trendy and premium gastro-lounge, was transformed into a botanical wonderland reflecting the natural inspirations of the champagne maker.
Since 1811, the House of Perrier-Jouët has created wines with a unique signature, floral, stylish and diamond-cut. They only produce 3 million bottles of champagnes a year, therefore they are very selective of whom they partner with. Marketing Director of Pernod Ricard, Emmanuel Dokhelar elaborated that “Signature has just the right atmosphere, style, and food which complements the feminine touch of Rose Adelaïde Jouët, founder and original winemaker of Perrier-Jouët. Even tonight’s menu has been specially engineered to convey the iconic fruity and floral flavours of the champagne straight to your palette.”
Each dish served has been carefully selected to bring out the flavoursome palette and aromatic notes of the Perrier-Jouët Grand Brut and the Perrier-Jouët Blason Rosé. “Perrier-Jouët is all about creating vintages and cuvees which have distinctive characters of their own. For example, the Grand Brut is delicate, elegant and balanced, with great florality, while the Blason Rosé is an intense and balanced champagne that features a more fruity fragrance.” said Lionel Lau, Perrier-Jouët Sommelier at the event.
The three course menu features starters like oyster shooters, garlic prawns, otak-otak dumplings, mushroom salad and Signature’s favourite mushroom soup. For the heavy weights, the main course includes flying tandoori chicken pasta, lamb rack, chicken rice ball and barramundi. Finally, for the sweet selection, these include chocolate brownies, red velvet, and lychee cheese tart. The incredible freshness of Perrier-Jouët Grand Brut will pair perfectly with fish and seafood dishes while its marvelous florality will enhance the perfumes of the main courses. The sweet delicacies served for dessert will find an alter-ego in the intense fruitiness of Blason Rosé.
The introductory champagne – The Perrier-Jouët Grand Brut has a pale and sparkling yellow robe, which is suggestive of vivacity and carries notes of cherry plum, lemon and bergamot orange which emerge first on the palette, then make way for the flowerful flavours of fruit trees, such as lime and honeysuckle. These are followed by notes of butter, madeleine cakes and vanilla sugar. Lingering notes of grapefruit, white peaches, green pears, apple trees and green hazelnuts round off the taste.
Whereas the dessert champagne – The Perrier-Jouët Blason Rosé, features a wonderfully juicy blend of blackcurrant buds, pear, apricots and cherry plum that emerge first, only to give way to the fragrances of blackcurrant and blood oranges, followed by notes of crème de cassis, raspberry, honeysuckle and roses, culminating in lime, blackberries, and Morello cherries.
The Grand Brut is not your typical bubbly champagne and it tasted more like wine to me. It’s extremely palatable and a fantastic complement to the starters and main course. The starters were all delicious especially the mushroom soup and garlic prawn. As for the main course, my favourite was the chicken rice ball as it is crunchy on the outside and the rice inside is so fragrant. The tandoori chicken though could have done with a bit more flavour and seasoning as it was rather bland for me. The dessert platter was all good, in particular the lychee cheese tart.
In terms of serving size, I felt it could have been more as I was really hungry before the dinner and this entire three course did little to satisfy my hunger pangs. I had to go somewhere else to fill up the relatively empty space or should I say cavernous cavity in my stomach as I was starving. Degustation menus are simply not for me unless I have had a full size main meal beforehand. Other than that, this was a good experience as we all got to learn about champagne and of course, we had as much champagne as we could take. Time spent waiting for each course to arrive was way too long for a degustation menu. Starters were served after 7pm and by the time dessert was served, it was after 930pm. Some of the media left before dessert was served and I also felt like leaving but I really wanted to taste the dessert, it was worth the wait but I wouldn’t want to go through a 2.5 hour degustation dinner again in a hurry.
The new degustation menu paired with either Perrier-Jouët Grand Brut or Perrier-Jouët Blason Rosé is available at Signature The Roof at RM118++ and RM350++. For reservations, please call 03-7726 1588 (Mon – Fri; 10am – 6pm or Sat & Sun; 4pm – 10pm).
