Diamonds of the kitchen<br />

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, a Frenchman credited with inventing the genre of the gastronomic essay in the early 19th Century, called them “the diamonds of the kitchen”. And when you clutch a handful of white truffles, Naomi Campbell’s description of the diamonds she received from ex-Liberian President Charles Taylor comes to mind: "I opened the pouch and I saw a few stones in there, they were very small dirty-looking stones.” So Ms Campbell told a war crimes tribunal at The Hague. Thankfully the provenance of the white truffles at the St. James’s Hotel and Club is altogether more wholesome.

The truffles used in the hotel’s restaurant - the Michelin-starred Seven Park Place by William Drabble - are delivered by Mari de Gregorio, whose family specialise in hunting truffles in the Matese region of Italy. Mari bases herself in London from October to December – the period when white truffles are in season – and receives a delivery of the dirty little nuggets that will be used in the most luxurious of dishes every few days.

Once she receives the truffles – which have been hunted by staff along with their specially trained pigs and dogs – she wraps them up in cloth and scurries around London presenting them to the best chefs in town. Drabble has had a relationship with the De Gregorio family since his days at Aubergine and he trusts that the truffles he receives from them will be of the very highest quality.

Once the chef has his hands on the truffles, he has about 4 days to use them before they lose their heady, pungent aroma. Eager to employ them in the most imaginative way possible, Drabble has created a Truffle Menu – a six-course meal with every dish featuring truffles in some way.

“It’s often best to use truffles with simple ingredients,” he told me when I called in to sample some treats from the menu this week.

There is a seared scallop course; the delicateness of the shellfish lends itself perfectly to the strong whiff of the white truffle. Sea bass, lobster and a fillet of beef are also deemed suitable accompaniments to the white truffle. Sometimes the truffle is grated directly on to the dish – like with the scallops – but other times Drabble uses a more subtle method to incorporate truffles into the dish.

The truffles, if placed in a sealed jar with eggs, will infuse the eggs with a wonderful flavour, and they can then be used to make fresh pasta, sauces or simply scrambled to create a luxury breakfast. The truffle can still be used to grate over dishes.

One of the more unusual dishes on the menu is the dessert – white truffle ice-cream. Using truffle-infused eggs Drabble whips up a smooth ice-cream that is laced with tiny flecks of truffle. A port reduction is drizzled on top.

“I used to do it with balsamic vinegar,” Drabble said. “But one night I was eating with Baron Rothschild and he said, ‘Do you have any port because that would work perfectly with this?’ and so now I use port.”

And Baron Rothschild was absolutely right. The port reduction is a sweet, tangy foil to the ice-cream’s almost savoury flavour.

The truffle menu at Seven Park Place isn’t cheap – it costs £94 a head – but when you consider that a 30-gramme truffle costs £40 you begin to view it as good value for money.

The meal would be a perfect Christmas present, especially for your lover. There is something incredibly romantic about truffles – both in terms of their primitive beginnings and their subsequent elevation to fine dining. They are earthy, yet decadent; simple yet moreish.

And the dining room at The St. James’s Hotel is one of the handsomest in London. It is small and intimate and paintings from the hotel’s private art collection sit on the beautifully papered walls. They say that truffles are an aphrodisiac and I think anybody treated to the William Drabble menu at this elegant 5 * hotel would be inclined to agree.