De Mondion is all style but very little gastronomic substance!

I don't want to give a review such as this. In fact, I was very excited to sit down and enjoy my first ever Michelin-starred cuisine. But it all turned out very flat - and just a bit boring.

The staff throughout were really great.

I'm personally not a fan of hyper-attentiveness and the borderline surgical process of a Michelin restaurant, so I found it a bit tedious and overbearing. It's almost as if an army of somewhat nervous and awkward nurses surround you prior to surgery.

The sommelier was fantastic. Faultless, in fact. A really great asset who introduced some amazing wines with the food that we selected; the highlight of the night for me, in fact.

But it was the food I came for - and that's where the problems, for me at least, start.

In my personal view, much of the food is all style, but very little substance.

Sure, you can technically make something look great, and even present it nicely and use all the fancy lingo to sell it. But ultimately, it's the taste that matters. And the taste isn't there! At least not at the level you expect for the prices that you pay.

It's flavourful, for sure - but lots of flavour doesn't mean tasty! Sometimes strong flavours clash.

The amuse-bouche was nothing special. Sure, it was presented well and you can tell that technique was involved, but is there anything memorable about the actual taste? No, of course not. The bread and oil, too, just tastes very average, too. It's not enough to present food well and pass it off as next-level. For many people, this won't pass.

The foie gras dish was pure sweetness. Sweet on sweet on sweet. The texture of the foie gras with the gel with the brioche wasn't pleasant at all. In fact, it was distinctly unpleasant.

The pigeon was cooked beautifully and, yet again, it was wrecked by a multitude of unnecessarily sweet sauces that overwhelmed the delicate flavour of the bird. The sabayon was like tasting disinfectant. Way too strong, unpleasant, and totally unnecessary. Don't get me wrong, I like sweet sauces and I know they work well with some birds. But this was sickly sweet and came across as packing unneeded flavour sensations at the expense of what people want: namely, tasty food.

Is anyone likely to remember this? No, they won't. Would they actively desire this food? Definitely not.

People want tasty food that packs a Wow factor, not flavour for the sake of it. This is especially true at these rates and for a restaurant that was awarded a Michelin star.

I appreciate the offer of a different main course after I was dissatisfied with the one I originally chose. This was welcome and appreciated, but I realised by this point that I had had enough.

This is a Michelin-starred restaurant that's trying too hard.

What a shame!