Three luxurious courses I don’t have to cook and the latest episode of Severance is so much nicer than going out
Love or hate Valentine’s Day, the fact remains that going out to eat on February 14 is generally a letdown.
Even as someone who plans holidays around restaurants as if they were tourist landmarks, I’m happy to stay in on V-Day. Expensive set menus don’t appeal and there’s something about couples dining en masse that feels a bit embarrassing, like an unspoken group date.
I was pleasantly surprised to learn meal boxes come in the form of a three-course Valentine’s Day dinner. Steak or lobster but ready to go in the comfort of home? Sign me up.
Côte, the French-British chain with over 70 branches across the UK, is one of the restaurants offering Valentine’s Day meal boxes. In this iteration, Côte at Home offers “luxury food delivered to your door”.
For starters, choose between baked camembert or seared scallops. For the main, it’s two sides plus your choice of duck confit, Lobster Thermidor, or Chateaubriand. Dessert is either cherry lattice tarts or crème caramel. Prices for a box for two range from £39.95 to £99.95.
Côte at Home Valentine’s Day review
First impressions
I have to give it to Côte for managing to pack this much food in the cheery pink box that appears on my doorstep. This £99.95 meal box contains camembert with bread and cornichons, Lobster Thermidor, fries, broccoli with aioli, and crème caramel with extra Madeleines – plus an optional £10 lobster cracker.
A well-thought out booklet shows exactly what each course will look like and how to make it – or rather, how to heat it up.
First course: baked Camembert
Rich, oozing and creamy, baked camembert is always good – except on Valentine’s Day perhaps? Pungent Camembert breath doesn’t scream romance to me, but who am I to say when I’m showing up to this date in joggers?
Without a small baking dish to hand, I plop the disc of Camembert on a baking tray, score it, and drizzle with the accompanying honey as instructed. The loaf of bread follows five minutes later.
Unrestrained, the cheese deflates into a molten mess I’m happy to mop up with bread and chase with cornichon. It tastes as baked Camembert does (warm and delicious), but the bread is surprisingly anemic and squishy. Your average loaf of fresh supermarket bread would be nicer than this.
Main course: lobster thermidor
I was a bit sceptical of how well lobster would reheat as a seafood lover. Nevertheless, two lobsters for a quiet night in was exciting and wildly decadent – a fitting Valentine’s Day treat.
Traditionally, Lobster Thermidor is made with cooked lobster meat mixed with a rich and creamy wine-based sauce. The resulting mixture is stuffed back into the lobster shell and browned.
In meal box form, you simply spoon Thermidor sauce over pre-cooked lobster and bake. The meal comes with two tubs of sauce, though one is the perfect amount. The fries and broccoli go in the oven later, with all three elements designed to finish at the same time.
The timing wasn’t so perfect in practice. The lobster needed time under the grill to attain the same bronzed finish as the manual’s. Pre-cooked and flabby, we couldn’t resuscitate the broccoli or chips under the grill. A shame as we could have easily just pan-fried the tenderstem broccoli as everything else heated up in the oven.
The lobster was lovely and meaty, if a little chewier than ones I’ve had before, and the savoury, creamy thermidor sauce a fitting pairing.
We then team up to get out as much claw meat as possible with the lobster cracker – a fun but messy endeavour I’m glad not to be doing in public. For this, we go off script and melt salted butter in the microwave and dip the lobster we’ve foraged into it.
Dessert: crème caramel
Rounding off this French dinner is classic crème caramel. Creamy but light, it feels a natural conclusion to this indulgent meal.
The crème caramels arrive in lovely ceramic pots I plan to keep as bud vases. We upend them and give it a good shake, but no joy. It’s simple enough to slide a butter knife between the pot and caramel to loosen but not slice the delicate dessert.
Out comes the creme caramel cascading with caramel sauce. We ooh and ahh as the dessert comes together with additional caramel (this version is microwaved) finished with warmed Madeleines.
Strangely, I like it more than my sweet-toothed husband who is generally not endeared to cold food. In fact, the trifecta of bitter caramel, cold creamy custard and tender and oh-so-buttery warm Madeleine cookie is the highlight of the meal.
Final thoughts
This deluxe Côte meal box retails for £99.95. Although mine was a press sample, £50 per person is a price I’d pay based on sheer quantity of food alone, not to mention two whole lobsters.
No doubt the same food served fresh at a restaurant would be better, but it’s a luxurious meal full of things we’d otherwise never have at home. And what brings a couple closer than trying and failing to crack open lobster shells?
For more information or to book, go to Côte at Home’s website.
