Restaurants & Bars

28°-50° London Wine Workshop and Kitchen – Review

January 9, 2018 by Adrian

28°-50° Mayfair

17-19 Maddox St, W1S 2QH

The three modern European 28°-50° restaurants (Maddox Street, Marylebone Lane and Fetter Lane) are part of the same group as Texture, the Michelin starred Mayfair Icelandic restaurant helmed by Agnar Sverrisson . But at 28°-50° the emphasis is on the wine offer with over 30 wines available by the glass, carafe or bottle and also in 75ml measures allowing for wine matching without drinking too much.The Maddox Street Wine Workshop and Kitchen is the latest addition to the group and is ideally located for West End shopping or business lunches. We were eating on the ground floor in the dining room which features vintage style lamps and marble tables, but if you’re looking for something more discreet or just want a drink then the downstairs cocktail bar, complete with an open kitchen, is a great choice. In the summer there is the additional option of dining al fresco on the front outdoor terrace. I haven’t been to any of the 28°-50° group for several years now so I was really pleased to be asked to review and find out what they were up to. We kicked things off with the elegant white fruit notes of Champagne Henriot, Souverain, Brut N.V. and some excellent bread and in the first of several Nordic touches, creamy whipped Skyr butter.Sometimes you just want to kick the boat out and the 28°-50° sharing Seafood Platter at £58.50 gives you that opportunity and how! It’s really a meal in itself for two though we were having it as a starter. With 1/2 a Lobster, 300g mussels, 6 Blackwater wild oysters, 6 prawns, 300g clams, crab salad, lemon and shallot vinegar it was a feast of wonderfully fresh seafood. The oysters were deliciously meaty and the prawns were as tasty as any I’ve had. For the quality of the seafood it has to be one of the best deals in London. Our sommelier rather intelligently suggested matching two wines with the seafood. From the Loire the minerality of a Muscadet Sèvre et Maine, L’Innatendu, Jeremy Huchet and Olivier Hodebert 2016 was a great match for the oysters; and our peachy glasses of a Rias Baixas, Albariño, Lagar de Bouza. 2016 Galicia made the lobster sing.And then onto our main courses. Fiona had a meaty confit duck leg with beautifully spiced red cabbage, cranberries and duck sauce. (£19.50). It was a perfect winter’s dish and enhanced by the blackberry flavours of her glass of Southern Portugal Alentejano, Monte das Promessas. Quinta da Boavista.My dish of fresh cod (£18.50) in a nod to Roman Jewish cooking was unusually flavoured with cinnamon, topped with juicy prawns and sat on a bed of nutty barley and a rich bisque. The toasted brioche and caramel notes of the matched Roussillon Corbières, Ollieux Romanis, Cuvée Classique, Le Hameau des Ollieux, 2016 brought out the restrained richness of the dish which I loved. Side dishes of triple cooked chips (£4.50) were properly crisp on the outside whilst fluffy inside and truffled cauliﬂower cheese (£4.50) was a luscious, crunchy, truffled delight. My dessert of frozen Skyr, the Icelandic yoghurt like cheese, lingonbcrries, mint and granola was startlingly fresh and given an acid sweetness by the lingonberries. A honeyed note came from my glass of Germany Mosel Riesling Spätlese, N9, Markus Molitor 2009. Fiona’s hazelnut parfait with vanilla ice cream and chocolate crumb was a more traditional French dessert with the vanilla notes of her glass of Pacherenc du Vic Bihl, Chateau Aydie, 2014 really coming through. 28°-50°’s relationship with Texture is very apparent in the quality of the food and the Nordic slant of some of the dishes. But along with the wine offer 28°-50° creates one of the most convivial atmospheres for eating and drinking well in London. If like me you haven’t been for a few years it is worth revisiting as they have refined their game considerably.As a special offer for champagne fans London Wine Works 28°-50° is offering Piper-Heidsieck’s Rare 2002, one of the greatest prestige cuvée Champagnes from the best vintage of the last decade, for £15 for a 125ml flute and £89 for a bottle. Available across all three 28-50 sites (Maddox Street, Marylebone Lane and Fetter Lane), the Piper Rare 2002 is one of the last great Champagnes still available from this sought-after vintage.

How Will We Be Drinking Wine in 2018?

December 26, 2017 by Adrian Leave a Comment

A pint of Chablis and a packet of crisps please…

Methods of moving and storing wine have changed quite a bit since the ancient Georgians started burying the precious liquid in clay vessels known as kvevris, from about 6000 BC. The Ancient Romans and Greeks kept their wines in a sealed amphora, a long-necked two-handled clay jar. With the development of glassware, wine bottles were sealed with glass stoppers – unfortunately they tended to break the bottle when being removed and were not commonly replaced by cork until the 1820s. Wine Boxes date back to 1935 and screw caps on bottles started being used in the 1960s becoming accepted in the UK by consumers in the early 2000s.More recently Coravin technology has allowed restaurants to store and sell fine wines by the glass. The system stops the oxidization of wine by filling the space in the bottle as the wine is poured out with inert Argon gas.But the latest innovation in wine delivery is ‘wine on tap’. LoveWineOnTap.com have recently launched the first online portal dedicated to delivering quality wines in one-way kegs direct from the winery to the tap. The wine is kept at the perfect constant temperature and does not come into contact with air or light, so each wine glass is as fresh as the first and more excitingly the wine can be poured 4x faster than from a bottle. The costs of bottling, storage and restocking are lessened creating better value for restaurants, bars and punters alike. It’s also better for the environment with each 20L one-way keg removing 27 glass bottles as well as corks, foil and labels that may otherwise end up in landfill.LoveWineOnTap.com offers a range of twenty-four varietals (and growing) of red, white, sparkling and rosé wines. I recently sampled their Cabernet Sauvignon which was delicious with caramel/butterscotch notes coming through.

For additional information please visit LoveWineOnTap.com.

The Goring – Review

December 20, 2017 by Adrian

The Goring Victoria

The Goring, 15 Beeston Place, London SW1,

http://www.thegoring.com/020-7396 9000

Restaurants in any city form a delicate ecosystem. There are some that appear and then disappear quickly without a trace, cursed by poor location or an offer that doesn’t deliver. Others burst out through the bubble of social media into mainstream consciousness, blaze brightly for a short time and then fade (did I mention The Chiltern Firehouse). And then there is a small group of discreet places that service the technocrats, the remains of the aristocracy, the super-rich, the hedge fund managers and the media barons who control the lives of the rest of us.The Dining Room at The Goring is one of those places. Having just received its first Michelin star it sits in London’s last remaining family-owned luxury hotel – The Goring family have run the joint for over a hundred years so must be doing something right.The David Linley designed room is white, airy and elegant with slightly tacky Swarovski chandeliers adding nighttime sparkle. For many years the restaurant had the reputation of being the dowager princess of the London scene – much loved but slightly stuffy. It’s no surprise that it was allegedly the late Queen Mother’s favourite. But Executive Chef Shay Cooper has brought a lighter touch to the menu of British classics gaining a Michelin star in the process. There is no à la carte menu with the only option being a 3 course set menu at £64 so it was that her Ladyship and I went for.

Things opened promisingly. A smooth young chap pushing a trolley laden with champagne bottles turned up and started his sales pitch. Building to a crescendo of excitement he presented the final bottle for my perusal – Krug Grande Cuvée Brut at £46.00 a glass. Except the price wasn’t made clear and I hadn’t had time to investigate the wine list. So I chose the Lanson Noble Cuvée Brut Blanc de Blancs, 2000 at a meagre £25.00 a glass. I wasn’t paying the bill and didn’t want to go over the top and knew the Lanson to be delicious. The young chap who was not pleased that his pitch had failed, looked down his nose at me and after serving shoved the trolley with such force that the bottles clattered and ice spilt all over the floor. This shouldn’t happen in a 5 star hotel.After this misstep a beautifully balanced and plated dish of smoked eel risotto, preserved lemon, cucumber and lovage oil made things considerably better. The rice was nutty and resistant to the bite making a creamy base for the dense smokiness of the eel and the perfume of the other ingredients. In other news I had ordered a bottle of Austrian Grüner Veltliner, Lössterrassen, Weingut, Stadt Krems at £49. It retails at about 8 euros which give you some idea of the mark-up. It was insipid and I mentioned my dissatisfaction to the sommelier who commented that it was of course an entry level wine…at £49… Having recently drunk some excellent Grüner Veltliners at around the €25 price point in Berlin I had the feeling that the pricing was less than democratic. To be fair to the sommelier he comped us a couple of glasses of fizz.Roast cod, crispy oyster, cucumber, horseradish and parsley was a beautifully cooked piece of fish with the battered oyster adding some crunch and sweetness and the herbs and cucumber giving the dish a grassy vegetal quality.

I was really excited by the idea of the glazed lobster omelette, which came with excellent fluffy, crisp duck fat chips and a peripheral lobster Caesar salad. It was a little overdone which detracted from its luscious, creamy lobsterness.

Black fig trifle,with gingerbread, caramel and buttermilk was a darker, richer version of the classic – it was the Gina Miller of desserts. Smart and very tasty.The British cheese platter was beautifully kept and a testament to the quality of the cheese in this country.I’m not the market that The Goring wants. I don’t have that level of disposable income – But I’ve eaten at El Bulli, Noma, Pierre Gagnaire and other great restaurants where I’ve never been made to feel like I shouldn’t be there. It’s a shame. Good food and hospitality will never be cheap but shouldn’t be divisive.

Pied à Terre Wine Tasting Event

December 12, 2017 by Adrian Leave a Comment

Pied à Terre Fitzrovia

34 Charlotte St, Fitzrovia, London W1T 2NH

http://pied-a-terre.co.uk/020 7636 1178

Pied à Terre is a London classic, one of the city’s longest running Michelin-starred restaurants; so getting an invitation to visit their private bar for a Wine Tasting Event was too good an opportunity to miss. We were to enjoy a selection of hand-picked wines from one of the best cellars in London – apparently it holds £360,000 worth of wine! – chosen by Pied a Terre’s Sommelier Oli to be paired with a selection canapés, created by the team’s talented brigade of chefs. The bar itself is intimate, warm and elegant, perfect for a post-work get together or a get together with friends or family. I love good restaurant bars – a pre-dinner cocktail is the best way to start an evening.Oli explained that we would be sampling the Discovery wine flight (£62 per person). His explanations were very accessible and could clearly be tailored to a wide range of experience and expertise. We started with the light minerality of a 2016, Koshu, Kayagatake, Grace, Japan with its citrus and lychee notes. Koshu wines are in get demand in Japan and a rarity on Western wine lists so this was a real ‘discovery’. Next up was a 2016, Petritis, Kyperounda Winery, Troodos Mountains from Cyprus. This had more body and was fresh and aromatic with a hint of oak. Another surprise was the 2015, Trenzado, Suertes del Marques, Valle Orotava from the island of Tenerife in Spain which had an apple-flavoured acidity with a hint of vanilla. Moving onto reds the 2015, Kekfrankos, Wetzer, Hungary was full of plum and red berry flavours but the 2012, Naoussa, Markovitis from Greece with its deep red colour and ripe red fruit flavours was even richer. It would be a great match with venison! Finally we drank a pale gold 2000, Pinot D’Alsace, Domaine Zind Humbrecht, Alsace, France with pineapple notes and a lime zing to it.Drinking on an empty stomach is always a bad idea but fortunately we didn’t have to. A selection of delicious canapés arrived through the wine tasting included Grouse Croquet with Carrot Puree, Saltbaked baked beetroot with Liquorice sauce, a Japanese influenced Seaweed cracker with Cod roe mousse, Pork cromesqui with black pearl curry crust, a wonderfully earthy Mushroom beignet with truffle sauce and a plate of cheeses from the trolley.If you want to indulge your inner oenophile then Pied à Terre gives you lots of options. As well as the Discovery Wine Flight they offer a Classic Fine Wine Flight (£90.00 per person) and Private Wine Tastings in the Private Bar for up to 10 people. Five different wines are selected by the Sommelier Team to accompany canapés, cheeses and petits fours (£55.00 per person). All of the restaurant’s tasting menus have wine pairings so the possibilities are endless.

Please call Manu or Oli on 020 7636 1178 to discuss and book.

Freakscene – Review

December 2, 2017 by Adrian Leave a Comment

Freakscene Clerkenwell

91 Cowcross Street

London, EC1M 6BH

+44 7561 394 497/http://freakscene.london/

The chef behind FreakScene is a chap called Scott Hallsworth who was head chef of Nobu in Park Lane, London for six years. On returning to his native Australia Scott opened Nobu Melbourne and then came back to London and created Kurobuta, a fashionable Japanese Izakaya on Chelsea’s King’s Road. Kurobuta called itself a ‘Rock’n Roll Izakaya’ and with neon lighting, flight cases strewn artfully around the space, AC/DC on the turntable and Japanese tapas style plates it lived up to its billing. Other branches opened as the group expanded but Hallsworth is no longer on board and no-one is spilling the beans as to what happened between Hallsworth and his backers. However he has swiftly made a comeback with FreakScene, a pop-up café near Farringdon station that continues the Kurobuta narrative but in a more low key and more amusingly put together space that avoids some of the rock’n roll clichés of its predecessor.The cooking is apparently ‘inspired’ by The Pixies, Nick Cave and The Ramones though how that that translates on to the plate is beyond me and I’m doing a PhD in popular music…! I guess it’s meant to be about attitude…but I’ve been asked to review and want to see and taste what his next move is.The menu is short and sweet and is Hallsworth’s latest take on Nikkei cuisine, that South American/Japanese fusion that is he majors in.The manager amused us with stories of his Jamaican grandmother and seduced us (not hard) into trying a delicious Sake cocktail (£9.50) – sake, pink grapefruit, sugar syrup with its light citrus notes not overwhelming the delicate sake flavour.Chili crab and avocado wonton bombs (£6.50) were first out. Spicy mouthfuls of crab, with a good mix of the more flavourful brown meat, and soft avocado sat in the crunchy wonton wrappers. Crunch, heat and flavour – a combination that set the theme for the evening.We sank a glass of floral Konishi Silver sake to accompany the ‘bombs’ which was an elegant match.Miso grilled black cod taco came with sushi rice, scorched red chili and tomato salsa (£10). The cod was sweet and melting and it was interesting to have the taco with the rice in a nod to Okinawan cuisine which melded Tex-Mex with Japanese food in the mid-1950s. The celery and pepper notes of Autumn Leaves premium sake sat well with the fish.A signature Kurobuta dish of Loch Duart salmon sashimi pizza with truffle ponzu, Jalapeño and wasabi tobiko (£11) was probably the most exciting plate for me. The smoked salmon was good quality with the hint of truffle flavour, saltiness of the tobiko (fish roe) and hot peppers with the crunch of the pizza (taco) base all colliding to provide an amazing mouth sensation. It shouldn’t work but it does!Nasi Dengaku is the classic dish of Miso grilled aubergine with caramelised walnuts (£8). I remember it as a favourite off the Kurobuta menu and the aubergine still had that sweet and luscious taste and texture with a hint of walnut crunch that I loved when I first tried it. We matched it with a Monkey Goes To Heaven cocktail, a smoky mix of ginger, sugar syrup and apple with Monkey Shoulder blended scotch. Seared beef salad with pomegranate, onion-peanut Ponzu and garlic crisps (£11.50) had a perfect char on beef which was beautifully tender with flavour bursting from the garlic, pomegranate and peanut.FreakScene advertises itself as selling ‘curious Asian plates’. The food is a smash and grab raid on Asian cuisines with flavours colliding and exploding in a way that shouldn’t work but does in an exceptional and idiosyncratic way. The pop-up is a low budget operation with the cooking taking place on two portable burners; but if you crave Hallsworth’s brand of fusion food you really should check out FreakScene while it is still there.

Parma Ham Christmas Cookery Demonstration

November 24, 2017 by Adrian Leave a Comment

Good Housekeeping Institute, 21 – 25 St Anne’s Court, London, W1F 0BJ

Guest Post By Natalie York

I was thrilled to be going along to a Parma Ham Christmas cookery demonstration by amazing chef, Bridget Colvin, I love Parma Ham but have never really done much with it as an ingredient, being generally quite happy just to snack on it straight out of the packet, so I was keen to learn how to do more. I think I’ve always associated Parma Ham, indulgent and slightly exotic, with something special, with celebration, so it seems like a perfect ingredient to build a Christmassy menu around. On heading towards the Good Housekeeping Cookery School (a bastion of respectability in the heart of Soho) I was trying to guess what Bridget would come up with, I could imagine various things you could do for a starter and a main but a Parma ham dessert? That sounded pretty exciting…On arriving we kicked off straight away with a glass of Prosecco and some indulgent canapes, crisp little Parma Ham and Parmesan palmiers were gorgeous, straight out of the oven, but the real treat were wonderfully sweet figs, wrapped in Parma Ham and drizzled a little balsamic vinegar.The class kicked off preparing dessert, as that would need the longest time to set. We started making a panna cotta, I wasn’t quite sure how we would get the ingredient of the night in, would a Parma Ham panna cotta work? As it turned out the ham would be coming in right at the end with shards of candied ham garnishing a very festive clementine panna cotta. I’ve always found panna cotta a little bit too rich, especially after a big meal, but Bridget Colvin’s decision to halve the normal amount of cream in the recipe and replace it with Greek Yoghurt worked wonders, resulting in the lightest, tastiest panna cotta I’ve ever tried. The candied Parma Ham really worked- giving just the right hit of sharp, saltiness to cut through the panna cotta without overpowering it.With the dessert in the fridge and a Christmas morning smell of clementines in the air, we got on with making the soda bread for the starter- a towering bruschetta, piled high with Parma Ham, Roquefort, figs and roasted butternut squash. I’ve always been a bit lazy about bread making, I didn’t have the patience, but I had never tried making soda bread and this recipe was a revelation. With no yeast and no waiting around it was quick, easy and, when it came out of the oven, delicious- swirled through with pumpkin seeds and black-strap molasses.For the main, an indulgent Pork Wellington, we obviously didn’t have time to put one together from scratch in the few hours we had. Instead we got a brilliant demonstration from Bridget as she wrapped a pork loin in a thick layer of Parma ham and wonderfully savoury, almost meaty, mushroom duxelle. A sheet of puff pastry was covered in parmesan and sage, then folded over and rolled out, this worked beautifully when cooked, elevating the pastry to a rich, cheesy crust, something a little bit more special and festive than your average Wellington.And then with everything prepared and ready we got ready to eat! November may have been a little early to get started on a Christmas dinner but as we sat down to enjoy our work, Christmas songs on the radio, candles lit and the smell of good food, everyone started to feel very festive indeed.

CUB – Review

November 23, 2017 by Adrian

CUB Hoxton

Thursday, Friday, Saturday 6pm til late

155 Hoxton Street, London N1 6PJ

+44(0) 203 6933 202/cub@mrlyan.com

Sometimes something new happens. A paradigm shift occurs that changes the way we do things or see the world…I’ve been a fan of Ryan Chetiyawardana for some time. Going under the moniker of Mr Lyan He is the prizewinning mixologist and entrepreneurial spirit behind zeitgeisty joints such as White Lyan, Dandelyan and Super Lyan. He’s even managed to create cocktails to match successfully with Indian food at several of Vivek Singh’s restaurants (see my review here). Ryan has joined forces with an A-Team of corporate, creative and scientific collaborators including Doug McMaster of ‘pioneering zero waste’ restaurant Silo in Brighton, Krug Champagne, Belvedere and LVMH and Dr Arielle Johnson (food scientist at Restaurant Noma, now at MIT, Boston). Together they have created Cub which rather ingenuously claims to follow ‘a simple premise of bringing people together through great food and drink’. Your local Harvester could claim to do that. This is a much more sophisticated proposition and has the feel of a research project as much as a restaurant.Cub is on Hoxton Street in East London in the space that housed White Lyan bar. Unlike Hoxton Square which has become a hideous hipster Disneyland, the street has retained some edge and authenticity. I arrive with her Ladyship. She’s an ubercool grande dame in her nineties who has seen and done it all and the trendy young crowd look horrified as we totter in. It’s as if your dad and grandma had turned up ready to rave at your teenage party . However the staff were happy to accommodate us when we politely refused the offered table, being moved into a mustard yellow booth shared with three restaurant industry types. The space is cramped somehow shoehorning 35 covers into a space the size of an average chippie. Food and drinks are prepared together behind the bar. Our waiter convinces us to go for the set menu which includes four courses and four drinks. He’s absolutely right as there is a tiny a la carte menu and with the keen pricing of the set menu it makes little sense to do anything else.First out was a pretty coupe of Krug champagne with a ‘water jelly’, actually agar flavoured with olive oil and mandarin, and ‘spiked’ herbs. The mandarin flavour emphasised the citrus notes of the Krug and it made for an enervating opener.A salty chilled yellow tomato was given extra sweetness by slivers of muscat grapes and scented with a grape and lemon verbena dressing with a splash of Douglas fir pine oil for added Nordic appeal. This was really a delicious textural dialogue with layers of fresh flavours blended together – my only criticism is that it is maybe more of a summer dish. Our matching drink of chervil tops, Belvedere vodka and cider vermouth was a light, clean cider with a hint of the vegetal.

Bones Dulse was an intense and beautifully flavoured chicken stock with flakes of everyone’s favourite red algae adding a robust saltiness.

Stoneground sourdough bread from the E5 bakery was tangy with a fantastically crisp and rich crust – served with a creamy whipped butter made in-house. An unexpected glass of Halia saison style peach Pale ale from the Goose Island Beer Company had a similar yeasty sourness though not the expected lusciousness of the Georgia peach flavour.

The next dish poetically titled root, ripple apple and turbo whey featured revelatory flavours from the soft chervil and parsley roots with a massive umami hit coming from the brown rice miso whey.

Young cauliflower, black garlic and lemon thyme was another standout dish with the tender cauliflower florets sitting on a bed of cauliflower purée and salty feta with an acidic dressing giving the dish a real zing.

Rare tea, tea stems and compressed plum created a light, fragrant tea with a wicked sliver of plum soaked in absinthe and apricot and apple brandy bringing back the decadence. A lovely smokey peated barley ice cream (made with the grain from Scotch production) was served with apple skin and fig leaf oil. We finished with a sensuous blend of Square mile coffee, Cognac and Peach mixed with distillates of Szechuan pepper, Menthol and Capsicum.

CUB creates a new kind of offer for London; informal, eco-friendly, cutting edge, blurring the boundaries between gastronomy and mixology, no meat in sight, serving a wide range of highly creative food-matched drinks, and good value. It feels like the future is here.

Global Parmigiano Reggiano Night @ Le Cordon Bleu London

October 22, 2017 by Adrian Leave a Comment

Le Cordon Bleu London, 15 Bloomsbury Square, London, WC1A 2LS

http://www.parmigianoreggiano.comI love a celebration, so the opportunity to take part in Global Parmigiano Reggiano Night at Le Cordon Bleu London was an exciting prospect. A bevy of bloggers and I would be creating two delicious dishes featuring Parmigiano Reggiano with Eric Bediat, the Head of Cuisine at Le Cordon Bleu London. We had the perfect Aperitivo of a few glasses of nerve-settling prosecco and a tasting session of 24 and 30 month Parmigiano Reggiano. The 24 month cheese has a light colour, some crunch from crystals formed by the amino acid calcium lactate and a savoury ‘umami’ flavour. It’s great for snacking on with a glass of wine, cocktails or sherry. The 30 month was less moist with a more compact texture, a greater intensity of flavour and a greater density of calcium crystals. It’s an elegant cheese with notes of walnuts and dried fruit and would be a great match with port. Eric has worked with Michelin star chefs, such as Guy Martin and Michel Roux so it was a great honour and opportunity to work with him as well as to spend time in the hallowed halls of Le Cordon Bleu London in Bloomsbury. Apparently there are just 337 producers of Parmigiano Reggiano P.D.O. each making on average 25 cheeses a day from raw milk, with the only additives being salt and rennet.Our main course was a delicious sounding dish of glazed soft corn polenta, wild mushrooms, purple sprouting broccoli, grapes and 24 month Parmigiano Reggiano foam (recipe below). Eric talked us through it and then we were taken down to the kitchen!The mise-en-place had been set up for us by the lovely staff at Le Cordon Bleu London.Eric demonstrated how we should make the dish and then we chopped, microplaned, and sprinkled… melted, sweated and stirred…Eric’s version was a rather beautiful plate that created a symphony of texture, colour and flavour.My version looked like a vegetarian take on the Star Wars death star but still managed tasted pretty good courtesy of some great ingredients.Dessert was an autumnal Braeburn apple fondante with vanilla syrup, almond crumble and a delicious 24 month Parmigiano Reggiano ice cream that gently caressed the sous-vided apple.

After the cooking was finished we celebrated the fruit of our labours washed down with a good red. Parmigiano Reggiano is wonderful on its own but also the most flexible of cooking ingredients, adding terrific flavours and textures to a wide variety of dishes.

Glazed soft corn polenta, wild mushrooms, purple sprouting broccoli, grapes and 24 month Parmigiano Reggiano foam

Serves 4

Polenta

120 ml milk

120 ml double cream

60 g polenta

80 g parmesan Reggiano, thinly grated

Mushrooms, Broccoli

200 g seasonal mixed wild mushrooms, trimmed and cleaned

2 garlic clove, chopped

80 g butter

40 g shallot, finely chopped

120 g purple sprouting broccoli, trimmed, washed and boiled

Pickled grapes

100 g caster sugar

120 g black seedless grapes, washed and halved

100 g cider vinegar

Parmesan foam

50 g parmesan Reggiano, thinly grated

100 ml water

6 g soya lecithin

Xanthan gum

Decoration

50 g parmesan Reggiano, thinly grated

micro flat parsley leaves

Seasoning

fine salt and white pepper

METHOD

1. Pickled grapes: Bring the sugar and vinegar to the boil. Add the grapes, remove from the heat and allow to cool.

2. Polenta: Bring the milk, cream to a boil and season. Add the polenta gradually while stirring continuously until a thick consistency is achieved. Once cooled, pipe the mixture evenly into Silpat® moulds and chill.

3. Decoration: Make parmesan crisps by placing a layer of parmesan in a non-stick pan to the shape of your choice, then cooking until golden and crispy. Place aside on paper towel.

4. Mushrooms, Broccoli: To order, pan fry the mushrooms in butter, add the shallots and garlic then finish by adding the broccoli to the pan. Season.

5. Foam: Heat the water to 40°C and add the grated parmesan. Stir to dissolve the cheese and strain through a chinois. Whisk in the lecithin and a pinch of Xanthan gum. When needed, warm up the mixture and blend with a hand blender to create a light foam.

6. When plating the dish, reheat the pieces of polenta in the oven, sprinkle with parmesan and glaze with a blow torch. Place on a plate and garnish with the mushrooms, broccoli and grapes. Add the foam, parmesan crisps and micro parsley leaves.

The Polo Bar @ The Westbury

September 29, 2017 by Adrian

Mayfair Music and Cocktails

37 Conduit Street, Mayfair, London, England, W1S 2YF

0208 382 5006/www.westburymayfair.com/polo-bar

A good hotel bar should be glamorous and sleek, with a barman who can knock up a Ramos Gin Fizz without breaking a sweat and olives that could double as golf balls. I’ve been circling around The Polo Bar at Mayfair’s Westbury Hotel for a while. Friends of mine had recommended it and I had popped in for a look when reviewing the hotel’s excellent Tsukiji Sushi restaurant a few weeks back. With Swarovski Crystal fittings, custom Fendi detailing and a worldly Bond Street clientele it looked like the sort of place a chap like me should hang. When an invite came through to go for drinks and canapés and to meet some Bond St locals it was a no-brainer. The Polo Bar has won Best Hotel Bar by the London Club and Bar Awards 2017 and London’s Bar of the Year 2014 by The London Lifestyle Awards but is clearly not resting on its laurels as my invitation was to the inaugural gig at the Polo by a singer called Tiger Lilly who has become the official ‘Artist in Residency’ at The Westbury Hotel.Tiger Lilly is a multi award winning indie pop artist from the suburbs of London hailed for her raw and emotive ‘heart on her sleeve’ lyrics and captivating live performances. But before the music we started with drinks and canapés as designed by the hotel’s executive chef Brian Fantoni.The drinks menu has an enticing cocktail list mixing Polo Signature Cocktails with classics but whilst chatting to the charming Jimmy Choo girls we sipped on glasses of one of my favourite fizzes, Ruinart Rosé with its cherry and red berry notes.And then the canapés…which were much better than they needed to be. A deliciously smokey Red pepper and Ricotta tart with chilli, almonds and basil cress was first out.Soon followed by crisp Arancini, spicy Nduja croquettes, vegetable spring rolls and smoked salmon tartlets. Too often canapés veer towards the bland, but these were really well-executed and full of flavour.But my favourite were ‘lollipop’ Panko prawns with a sweet chilli sauce – irresistible! We were really well-entertained by Tiger Lilly and her pianist who mixed contemporary hits with pop classics – the Jimmy Choo girls were at the front dancing and singing along – and I can see the bar becoming an after-work drinks destination for people working locally on the Friday and Saturday evenings when the music is on.With great drinks, food and entertainment The Polo Bar is a great place to visit if your in London’s West End and want a touch of Mayfair magic.

www.tigerlillymusic.co.uk www.facebook.com/tigerlillyofficial www.twitter.com/tigerlillytweet www.instagram.com/tigerLillyofficial www.soundcloud.com/tigerlillymusic

fodder pop-up @ Brewery Below

September 22, 2017 by Adrian Leave a Comment

344A Essex Road, Islington, N1 3PD

https://boroughwines.co.uk/07-09-30-09-fodder/

Ex-Fera chef Michael Thompson, joined by fellow Fera alumni Ollie Downey, have returning to Brewery Below at Borough Wines in Islington in for a residency for their fodder pop-up from 7 – 30 September. Why does this matter? Well, chef Simon Rogan’s Fera at Claridge’s served some of the most progressive food in London and the chance to experience something similar from two of his trusted lieutenants at a pop-up price seems too good to miss.It runs Thursday – Saturday each week with guests enjoying seven courses of wild, seasonal, and locally-sourced food from the team for £45. I’ve been invited along to review and I’m intrigued to see how the Fera aesthetic will transfer to the more basic confines of an off-licence basement without a Michelin-starred ambience and the high-tech Claridge’s kitchens.Borough Wines & Beers have designed the drinks menu, featuring wine and beer flights to complement the food, including natural and organic wines as well as a limited edition foraged-ingredient beer created especially for the occasion. We went for the wine flight at £34 and were excited to see what was on offer.The basement space is basic but atmospheric and friendly with a buzz coming from the staff and the excited punters. There is a sense of being in on something new – a bit like the energy generated by The Young Guns residency that thrust Isaac McHale and and James Lowe of The Cove Club and Lyle’s into prominence. We started with an English Rosehip Spritz (£10), an upliftingly astringent blend of Sacred’s English Rosehip cup blended with English Nyetimber Classic Cuvée fizz.The first ‘snack’ was a dish of sweetcorn and mushrooms that was the essence of umami. The mushrooms had been grown on coffee grounds which added an extra earthiness to the flavour. The dish was matched with Domaine de l’Ausseil, Papillon Blanc Côtes Catalanes 2016 (Languedoc-Roussillon, France) – a blend of Macabeo, Grenache Gris & Muscat with bright, crisp acidity and minerality cutting through the savoury notes on the plate.Lamb ‘nuggets’ – actually deliciously tender sweetbreads – came with the acidic sweetness of a Rosehip ketchup and a tangy fermented turnip mayo. Cornish cod poached in seaweed butter (wakami and nori) sea vegetables (rock samphire and aster) buttermilk and apple marigold was a standout dish. The lightly poached fish was bathed in a luxuriant creamy bath of chlorophyllic ozone and the spicy sweetness of Luddite Wines’ The Saboteur, White Blend, 2015 with its oily finish was a great match.The main course of beef and nasturtium was beautifully plated with the meat having a lovely flavour; however it was too chewy and maybe needed a slightly less gentle cooking process. The matched red, Domaine des Bois Vaudons, Le Bois Jacou Gamay, Touraine 2015 (Loire) was not full-bodied enough for the beef with its raspberry notes but went brilliantly with the veggie alternative, bread grains and nasturtium.Blackberry sorbet with sour cream and fig leaf oil was a beautifully balanced and astringent pre-dessert; a lovely match with the liquorice and blackberry notes and strawberry finish of the Mas Bécha, Rivesaltes “Excellent Grenat”, 2014. Meadowsweet with sticky honey cake and sour crab apple was a crumbly mouthful of sweet and sour. We drank Domaine Pinnacle Iced Cider from Quebec made from frozen apples which was similar to an amazing appley Sauternes.Elderberry T-cakes were light and fluffy and a great end to a really creative and well-executed dinner. A lot of care has gone into fodder. Vegetables are handpicked from the wild or sourced from Good Earth Growers and ceramics have been specially hand-crafted. But most importantly there is a respect for produce, regionality and seasonality which is expressed on the plate in a way that is really pleasurable.