Category Archives: Chefs
Dine With Dos Hermanos at Pizarro
Once inside I found a lively L-shaped room filled with the happy buzz of people whose appetites were soon to be sated. The decor is Manhattan loft-style, with exposed terracotta brick walls, cosy booths, an open kitchen with bright stainless steel surfaces and when I walked in the kitchen counter was already covered with plates of Iberico ham in different guises. I’d starved myself all day so that I’d have capacity for everything on the menu, so you won’t be surprised to hear that one glance at the ham caused some (discreet) dribbling into the flute of delightfully dry cava that had been offered at the door.
In his welcome address Simon Majumdar, one of the Dos Hermanos behind the event, explained that there had been one thousand applications for tickets for tonight and we were the fortunate fifty to receive them. That was certainly interesting to hear – only five per cent of applicants would share the Dine With Dos Hermanos experience at Pizarro tonight and I was one of them (HOORAY!). I took my seat at a table with three lovely strangers, ready to begin the serious task of eating Mr Pizzaro’s fare.
First to arrive at our table was a plate of croquetas –perfect orbs of gold and so very creamy that they disappeared in a flash, causing me to dub them ‘flash croquetas’. I adore croquetas and these were at the top of their league – no gristle or tough old chunks to distract from the smooth, cheesy potato, just the right consistency with a smoky ham flavour wafting through the middle.
Next to appear was a spread of Jamon Iberico in three different forms, my favourite of which was the chorizo. Sliced paper-thin each mouthful brought more strange noises of contentment. My husband, a die-hard sausage-lover, would have hogged (pardon the pun) the plate for himself, had he been there, so I’m quite selfishly relieved he wasn’t. The accompanying bread was also good – bouncy, yeasty sour-dough, but the quality of the ham before us was such that it fully warranted being eaten on its own.
I went slightly bonkers with delight over the carpaccio of cod with fennel and orange. As the self-dubbed Queen of Carpaccio this combination was right up my street. The fish was fresh with the versatility to add the smack of ocean to the aniseedy fennel and zing of citrus. The only problem with Neptunian carpaccios such as this is that I’m always left wishing for more, still, there’s a way to get around that: I’ll just have to order double quantities next time.
We were next presented with the head of hake – this was understandably ugly yet delicious, with forks about the room excitedly excavating cheeks and precious fleshy bits from all parts of the fish head. Softened red pimentons were scattered liberally about the dish and these were a revelation in themselves – packed full of flavour but with an unexpected velvety texture on the tongue.
By now the guests were all heads-down, merrily eating and critiquing each plate. Meanwhile, the staff didn’t stop. Plates were cleared and new ones presented in a very efficient operation, especially considering that this was soft-opening week so everyone was working hard to get it right before inviting the public to come in and chow down. Such seamless professionalism was impressive, a testament to organisation skill. Not one of the wait-staff looked harassed, just focussed. What’s really amazing is how friendly they all were – no mean feat given the pressure they must have been under.
A side of tiny florets of cauliflower was a pleasant surprise. Cold, crudité-like, with the unexpected tang of vinegar, the cauliflower was simple, refreshing and palate-cleansing before the shift towards the heavier tastes of the evening: duck livers and Iberico pork cheeks.
The duck livers were served with red onion – or were they shallots? Small, red skinned, onion family… the liver was heady, stronger than chicken liver, yet smooth and gamey. The Iberico pork cheeks then arrived – morsels of porcine paradise. They practically dissolved in the mouth requiring next to no mastication – therein lies the beauty of slow-braising.
Then we were onto the cheese course – I regret I didn’t get the names of the cheeses, but being a fromage fan I was easily pleased here as there was a good representation of types – a couple hard and manchego-like with rind, one I’m sure was made from sheep’s milk… some black grapes and fruit chutney were the accompaniment.
And lastly, some cake – my single mouthful of this was enough as desserts are not really my thing, besides which I was thoroughly enjoying the PX Fernando de Castilla sherry, which eclipsed anything else I might have tasted at the time.
Throughout the evening, José Pizarro’s partners in wine from Cillar de Silos had kept us informed about and topped up with various glasses of Spanish goodness. We’d started the evening with a beautifully dry cava, which I wouldn’t hesitate to serve to friends as an aperitif, and then moved onto a rare and special fino from Gonzalo Bayass. The Duero wine-growing region was well represented by the Rosado de Silos and Illar de Silos Crianza from the Silos cellars, and lastly we had the delicious sherry to round off the evening. By the time I left for home I was one very happy bunny.
And so to the verdict on Dine with Dos Hermanos: well worth the effort. The evening was superb, the food and drink quality, the conversation excellent – especially as it mostly revolved around the common interest of the Fortunate Fifty: food. The icing on the tarta is that Simon Majumdar is, in my opinion, a really good egg with the right sort of priorities – family and food. As for José Pizarro, well, he kindly gave me some advice on how to make my tortillitas de camarones better, and that was a bonus to the evening that was most gratefully received.
Pizarro is definitely worth visiting if you’re heading down Bermondsey way. Don’t try to book – there’s a no-reservations policy, but as a back-up, if things are busy, you could always pop along the street to José, the slightly more senior tapas bar in the Pizarro stable, which opened to great acclaim last year. Definitely go to Pizarro if you’re fond of all things Iberico ham, be sure to try the croquetas, and if you’re in the mood for bubbles, why not give the cava a whirl? From what I hear Pizarro has had the odd teething problem since the DWDH evening, but that’s to be expected of any new establishment. Put simply, I’ll be returning soon with my chorizo-chomping husband in tow; he’s even fussier about food than I am, so if that’s not an EPIC seal of approval, I don’t know what is.
Useful links:
Pizarro, 194 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3TQ
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Dining Success at Borgnefesse!
The Blind-in-one-eye Bum is an interesting name for a food establishment, and that’s the rough English translation for a Saint Malo restaurant named Borgnefesse. Borgne means blind in one eye (how efficient of the French to have one word for this affliction instead of four in English) and fesse means bum, buttock or bottom, whichever you prefer.
The original Borgnefesse was a certain buccaneer named Louis le Golif, who reputedly had had one buttock shot off by a cannon ball, hence the sobriquet which may also translate as ‘half-arse’ or ‘but one buttock’. No one can be sure whether or not the memoirs for which le Golif gained renown are fact or fiction, but apparently it’s quite an entertaining read if you’re a pirate nut who celebrates International Talk Like a Pirate Day each September. Thankfully, when Monsieur and I found Borgnefesse, the ‘half-arsed’ restaurant, there were no pirates (nor parrots) in sight.
We’d just arrived in Saint Malo after a long day which had involved much driving, battling of crowds at Mont Saint Michel, and a couple of fluffed-up €28.00 omelettes which were more like air bags than proper food and therefore barely sustained us through the afternoon. So tonight, we were hungry and boy, did we ever want to eat a fairly priced meal. Saint Malo boasted loads of eateries, but would we find one to suit our rather demanding palates?
A sunset walk about the ramparts of the old walled city had contributed to our appetites, so we set about finding somewhere to eat. One recommendation had closed and was now boarded up. The next on the list had changed in both name and cuisine. Some were closed because it was Tuesday. Some were closed for the summer holidays. We weren’t having much luck so we tried the strip of bustling restaurants along the wall between two of the town’s Portes but most of them served the same fare in similar prix-fixe formulae. Yawn. So we wandered away from the summer crowds and copycat menus in search of something a bit different.
The next restaurant we tried had taken its last orders at 9.30pm, even though its dining room was only half full. A handful of others we found to be too pricey and we’d had enough of feeling ripped off for one day, so we returned to a place we’d spotted earlier. The menu was compact but interesting and a pirate sign hung outside – now that’s different. Thus Monsieur and I entered Borgnefesse.
It was already close to 10pm but the waitress was smiling as she gave us a table. She single-handedly managed the entire room without even the hint of a grimace and all the patrons seemed happy. The decor had a subtle nautical theme, but all the table dressing was up-to-the-minute, with mushroom-coloured napkins and cloths. A stack of old books on a shelf between tables added a homely touch. In summary, the atmosphere was understated and warm.
There were no printed menus because this was a market restaurant, that is, they cook and serve whatever they find fresh at market each day. On a blackboard, across the room, were listed three different ‘formule’ or set menu options with different price points depending on the ingredients. Monsieur and I chose the middle-of-the-road €19.80 formule, which included a seafood starter, choice of main and cheese or dessert.
We both enjoyed our plates of fresh seafood, including succulent bulots (sea snails) which we twiddled out of their shells with a bulot pin, prawns and half a crab, complete with four long and spindly legs each. All the requisite shell cracking and crab-extracting tools were supplied so Monsieur and I could get our hands messy with produce so lipsmacking that it must have been that afternoon’s catch.
Monsieur was in need of a red-meat fix, so ordered the entrecote as a main. When it arrived it was smothered in a rich, peppery sauce and when my own main was set before me, I could see that the chef here must also be an excellent saucier because my stuffed squid was swimming in a little pond of aromatic sauce tinted a rich butter-cream colour with just a touch of saffron. Mon Dieu, how that squid was delicious – filled with a blend of minced calamari and tomatoes, and softened by the delicately spiced-up sauce. Served with a modest helping of wild rice and diced veg, the overall effect tickled all of the senses. The opposing textures jumped about on my tongue yet didn’t fight; rather they complemented one another. The squid was delightfully soft, having been cooked to perfection. The flavours blended into an overall impression of somewhere exotic and hot with a breeze from the sea. Oh yes, I did enjoy this dish very much indeed, and across the table from me, my husband had inhaled his entrecote so quickly that he’d been bored for a while now – a sure sign that everything on his plate had met with his hard-won approval.
For dessert, Monsieur polished off refreshing mango and strawberries with ‘their’ sorbets, as they say in France, while I had the most sensible cheese course ever: a simple slice of creamy camembert served with a couple of leaves of lettuce and some bread. It was tout simple but couldn’t have been more appreciated. Yes, I crave a taste of cheese at the end of a meal in France, but no, I didn’t always have the capacity for an entire cheeseboard. Long have I mourned the fact that I wasn’t born with more stomachs, like a cow, but it’s a fact I’ve learned to live with and the people at Borgnefesse make this hardship a little easier to bear by getting their portions right.
So, the food was superb, but at €26.00 our Pouilly Fumé tasted young and, strangely for a Pouilly, lacked in both character and bite, but in this instance even a duff bottle of wine remained perfectly quaffable. As we paid the bill and wandered back down towards the Grande Porte, Monsieur and I were comfortably (as opposed to belt-poppingly) sated.
“Do you want to know how much the bill was?” Monsieur asked,
“Sure,” I replied,
“Well, it was significantly less than those stupid omelettes at La Mère Poulard.” he announced,
“Hmmm. Doesn’t surprise me.” I said, “those were some seriously overpriced eggs.”
It wouldn’t take a mindreader to work out which of the two establishments, Borgnefesse or La Mère Poulard, is assured of our future custom, especially if the menu du jour shows the chef’s famous fish of the day stuffed with fresh Breton lobster or the Lotte (monkfish), which one former patron has described as ‘inoubliable’ (unforgettable). For now, Monsieur and I were simply relieved to have enjoyed a fine meal at a fair price. Even with a name like The One-Eyed Buttock, we will be back.
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Yoisho and the Dream Sashimi Sea
I have a dear, small, Scandinavian friend who, like me, loves food. This friend has survived a life-altering, direction-changing year, culminating in a decision to leave London in favour of her Tokyo-based love, going via Denmark to enjoy some quality family time. Needless to say, she couldn’t possibly leave the country without first dining with me, not least because such a large part of our friendship exists thanks to passionate discussions about FOOD.
The Tokyo Boy had recommended for us a little tavern-style Japanese place on Goodge Street. I googled it and the first review I read scared me. A Japanese person had written it, slating the staff and taking no prisoners about their surly attitude to white patrons. No no no, we couldn’t risk it, could we? Not on our last dinner together for some time. Scandi-La was resolute, however. Tokyo Boy liked it and so would we. In the wake of her culinary courage, I followed her lead and we went to Yoisho.
On entering this modest little restaurant, it’s obvious that this place is run by Japanese, for Japanese, with Japanese businessmen dotted around the place sipping on sake with loosened ties. We sat at the counter overlooking the grill chef’s work and immediately ordered bottles of Asahi dry and some warm sake. We had two waitresses, both of whom were perfectly professional towards us (no gaijin phobia there) and one of whom bore a fantastic short haircut of some style and geometric precision. Behind the counter the grill chef worked tirelessly, smiling at us and nodding shyly from time to time. Scandi-La and I felt not one hint of hostility towards us, although our enthusiasm for Japanese food and a few words of Japanese definitely did not go astray.
On the counter stood a lucky cat with waving paw and a figurine of a beer-hugging fisherman replete with fish and rod. The decor was hardly inspired, but felt refreshingly authentic in its tattiness, as if we’d walked off an Osaka street instead of a street in a wet and crowded pre-Christmas London. As usual, we struggled to decide on our food but eventually settled on gyoza (dumplings), a mixed sashimi platter, another of tempura followed by eggplant with miso – one of my all-time favourite Japanese recipes. Added to this was a selection of chicken skewers – some kebab-style; others mulched into grillable balls.
The gyoza were exactly as they should be: light, soft and tasty with that hint of Japanese chive, but it was the sashimi that stole the first part of the Yoi-show. In a more favourable review of this eatery, someone had written that the sashimi was so fresh that there must be an ocean in the basement. This praise was not an exaggeration of the quality of the fish we were served. Scandi-La and I hummed with a united appreciation of the yellow-fin tuna, salmon and some sort of delicate white fish – all absolutely fresh and almost creamy as each morsel dissolved altogether too quickly against my palate, with barely the need to chew, but the star of the sashimi platter had to be the prawns. Previously to dining at Yoisho, I’d never eaten sashimi prawns. These were served vaguely blue, ready to pop out of the pink prawn shell, and my word, how they tasted as they slipped around my mouth! Suddenly I wished myself a pelican so I could eat such things all day.
The mixed tempura, a heap of gilded king prawns and vegetable pieces, was almost fluffy, so perfect was the golden batter. And when we moved onto the eggplant with miso, I was ascending to eggplant heaven. The eggplant flesh was steaming and soft and slushy beneath the generous layer of miso – which both sweetens and salts the hot fruit beneath. We dug our chopsticks into the flesh, careful to load them with both eggplant and sauce, humming with yet more gastronomic delight.
At some point in proceedings I ventured down the modest staircase to the ladies’ room, tucked away down a corridor in the basement. En route I discovered another dining room, filled with more Japanese people enjoying some post-work down-time. The ladies’ facilities were scruffy, as I’d expected, and there, in the corridor, was the sashimi ocean we’d been discussing earlier. Well, not really an ocean, just more of a large puddle. There was no sign of pipework or a leak in the immediate vicinity, so I wondered how it got there. Could it be a magic, sashimi-producing ocean? Could it be that a sake-swilling patron had leaked on the way to the loo? Perhaps someone had left their brolly there and it the water was its legacy. Whatever it was, it made me smile. Perhaps there really are secret basement oceans capable of producing dream sashimi.
The verdict? Scandi-La and I were more than satisfied that our last London dinner together had been such a success. As we paid up, the grill chef looked sad to see us go. I think he must have enjoyed all our happy hmmm-ing and humming, yet I have to be honest and say that neither diner particularly enjoyed the chicken, leaving most of the skewers intact. In short, if you’re hungry for sashimi in London, give Yoisho a go. Here’s how Yoisho scored against the Epicurometer:
Gyoza – 8/10 (extremely good but not remarkable)
Sashimi – 10/10 (absolutely magical from that ocean in the basement)
Tempura – 8/10 (extremely good but nothing unusual)
Eggplant with miso – 7/10 (very tasty and I hate to admit it but I once had better in Sydney)
Mixed chicken skewers – 4/10 (had the texture of cheap chicken meat. It’s not like Scandi-La or me to leave food on our plates in a Japanese establishment so this was poor going.)
Asahi dry – 10/10 (great to have the choice of dry and comes in large bottles so it keeps you going for a while)
Sake – tut tut, wicked girls! We chose a sake for serving cold and asked the waitress if it was possible to serve it warm. Yes it was and there was no fuss about it or trying to upgrade us to a superior sake for serving warm. I don’t know enough about sake to score it but safe to say that it was perfectly drinkable with that lovely warm rush that’s so precious when you’ve just been drenched by a London downpour, as I had.
Decor – don’t go here if you’re passionate about interiors, unless you want to see a well-seasoned Japanese tavern-style eatery. Upstairs is definitely better than down, and that’s saying something.
Eating at the counter – 10/10 for entertainment value, relative comfort and the fisherman figurine. I think he’d be happy to come home with me and live with Blue Monkey.
Staff – The waitresses get a score of 7/10 and the grill chef earns himself a 9/10 for being so friendly.
Likeliness to return to Yoisho? 10/10 as in extremely likely. If I weren’t watching my pennies before Christmas, I’d teleport myself there right now. Those sashimi prawns are what dreams are made of.
Yoisho – 33 Goodge Street London, W1T 2PS - 020 7323 0477
New York Food Talk
It’s that time of year again, when a weekend in New York looms in Big Apple style on the pre-Christmas horizon. I have long associations with this city; it was in New York that, as a foetus, I first kicked my mother from the inside out, thrilling her with the reality of impending motherhood. It was as a teenager in New York that I first rode in a stretch limo and played the piano with my feet at FAO Schwarz, just like Tom Hanks did in Big. It was in New York that my Stateside friends threw me a surprise birthday party, the only one I’ve ever had, when I’d tiptoed out of London in order to avoid another year older. And now, decades after launching that first little kick, the inspiration to skip, and jump my way up and down that little island known as Manhattan still ignites me from the moment I start to plan a visit.
Some people like to shop in New York City. There’s certainly plenty of opportunity to do that: from bargains to be found at Century 21, located somewhat eerily adjacent to 9-11’s Ground Zero and its ever-present conspiracy theorists, through to the air-kissing environs of Barney’s and Bergdorf’s at the other end of the spender’s spectrum.
However, shopping is not what gets my Big Apple Fires a-burning; it goes deeper than that for me. There’s a vibe about Manhattan which ripples invisibly through the air, up and down the grid of streets and avenues, and straight into my soul. It’s the small things, as much as the skyscrapers, that thrill me here: the excitement of buying Motrin at Duane Reade (SO much better and more cost-effective than Nurofen), Chinese being spoken in Chinatown in front of windows of crispy fried ducks hanging by their feet, a glimpse of hand cuffed to briefcase in the diamond district, meetings beneath the clock at Grand Central Station. A smile threatens to break every time I see a yellow cab with bent plastic fender or when I hear someone in a deli order “pastrami on rye!” or when I pass a man wearing a battered Yankees cap or when a debate starts over where to find the best bagels in the city. Even when struggling to decide whether to go to the MoMA, the Guggenheim, the Whitney or the Frick because, goshdarnit, there’s just too much choice, I feel a constant buzz buzzity buzz.
Plenty of people go to New York to make money and/or spend money and there’s plenty to do there for all tastes and ages. Shoppers ogle at the animated Christmas windows, romantics sigh at chestnuts roasting on street corners and in every crowd you will spot Big Brown Bloomingdale’s Bags. It’s a melting pot of art and culture and music and design and hippy and chic – all in a mere 23.7 square miles. As might sound familiar to those In The Epicurienne Know, it’s New York’s food that really gets me going. There’s such a wealth of variety to be had, just begging for the attention of food lovers like me. So where have I been so far?
- The Red Flame Diner with its bottomless cups of coffee and evil stacks of pancakes swimming in maple syrup and crispy bacon is a breakfast favourite. It’s so busy here at weekends that there’s no time for pleasantries. Order, eat, pay and move outta the way for the next in line. Please note: I’ve never seen the place without a line, but it does move fast and it gives you plenty of time to read the How To Help A Choke Victim poster, just in case.
- Les Halles, the restaurant called home by travelling chef Anthony Bourdain. With a mouthful of cassoulet you could close your eyes and think yourself in Paris, so authentic is the atmosphere. It would be easy to believe that a tornado had picked up a brasserie in France and plonked it down, intact, in the middle of New York.
- Nobu Next Door is the no-reservations little sister to Nobu, located just next door to the main restaurant in Tribeca. It serves delightful small plates, including Nobu’s signature black cod in miso but it’s a bit of a trek and to be assured of a table, you really need to get there after 10pm. Even then, there will be a queue. Your patience will be rewarded, if you can stay awake after a long day exploring New York.
- Mama Mexico’s on East 49th Street (and another located on Broadway) is a Mexican food-lover’s mecca. The guacamole is made at your table by one of the friendly wait-staff, tasting better than any other guac on earth, there’s plenty of choice and the portions are so humongous that we watched an entire table of eight leave smiling with doggy bags. Not one of them finished their main. Nor, as it happened, did I. Mama Mexico’s even offers take-out, a BIG reason for me NOT to move to New York. I’d probably never cook again.
- Union Square Cafe is a place I will always cherish because the grim-faced bouncer carded me there when I was a ripe old 27. I laughed as I pulled out my passport. “This is no laughing matter, ma’am.” he growled. Au contraire, mon frère! I took being asked for ID as a massive compliment, though, and told him so, bless his size thirteen cotton socks.
- Spring Street Natural was recommended by a former colleague who knows New York well. I had a divine tuna steak there, served rare to perfection. The food is as healthy and organic as it is possible to be, but not at the expense of taste or portion size.
- Brasserie Ruhlmann on Rockefeller Plaza is faithful to Art Deco style, as it takes its name from a great designer of that era – Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann. Another former colleague whisked me into this restaurant for lunch and a whirlwind catch-up session when I was in town a few years back and my, what a treat! The food was divine, the service infallible, and the atmosphere absolutely authentic. The disappointment was in having to squeeze as much out of it as we could within the one-hour lunch-break time-frame. I guess I’ll just have to return when we’re less hurried.
- Heartland Brewery is a chain with multiple locations. It’s ideal for a laid-back bite with a Heartland beer in hand. The menu is quintessentially American fare with old favourites like Classic Caesar Salad, Clam Chowder and St Louis Smoked Ribs. You can have Maine & Jumbo Lump Crab Cakes with a side of Idaho Mashed Potatoes or a burger of free-range South Dakota Bison with Hand Cut Idaho Fries, ‘cos ‘dem taters dere dey all do come from Idaho, ya know. Being a brewery I must also mention their beers. They have great names like Indiana Pale Ale, Farmer Jon’s Oatmeal Stout and Indian River Light. I tried Cornhusker Lager and very pleasant it was indeed. With more time on your hands, you might even be tempted to take a Voyage of Beer, enjoying a sampling of Heartland’s six classic beers.
Other New York experiences in the Epicurienne catalogue include eating very average Chinese in an ominously-empty Chinatown restaurant, (now I am furnished with foolproof tips for that area so hopefully history won’t repeat itself in that neck of the woods) where the biggest action took place in the fish tanks. I’ve lunched with the glitterati at Barney’s and twirled spaghetti in Little Italy and ordered pizza delivery at a friend’s Midtown apartment. I’ve hung out with the son of an Irish immigrant who made his fortune pouring beer for the folks of the Upper East Side and I’ve stood with dropped jaw as a woman ahead of me at Dean & Deluca ordered a “skinny decaf soy latte” which is very Sex and the City but defeats the purpose of drinking coffee in the first place. However, my finest hour when eating in New York? Sitting opposite the man I love in the Pomodoro Rosso and NOT getting dumped. You see, the Pomodoro Rosso is THE recommended break-up restaurant in the comedy series, Seinfeld. It also does a very good Sunday brunch menu, which is some consolation if you’ve only just realised that ‘he’s just not that into you’.
That’s all for today. In the next instalment I’m going to write about places on the Epicurienne Hit List, New York Edition. I may need some help choosing where next to dine…suggestions are welcomed because this is a case of so many eateries, so little time. And sadly, only one mouth.
A Wintry Wahaca with Qype
Pity poor Monsieur: he’s the one responsible for my love of Mexican food, the complex moles, the cactus salads (hold the spines) and the juicy ceviches. Yet Monsieur wasn’t with me at Wahaca last Thursday, for a much looked-forward to evening with Thomasina Miers, the Executive Chef and co-owner of London’s Mexican street food sensation, Wahaca.
Along with a couple of dozen perpetually-hungry fellow-Qypers, I was invited to Wahaca in the mammoth Westfield shopping centre to test the new season’s ‘Cold Months’ menu. With sharpened teeth and notebook at the ready (but no camera, where on earth was my camera?) we listened as Tommi explained the dishes we were about to try. Then I had the great good fortune of sitting next to her. Tommi was nothing less than the perfect hostess, juggling gastronomic inquisition from guests with managing the event and staff. It looked effortless, but I’m sure it wasn’t. This is a woman with (invisible) nerves of steel. She won Masterchef after all, something Tommi admits was scary, propelling her into the world of professional cooking. Then, two years ago, the first Wahaca was born in Covent Garden, a new take on Mexican street food with reasonable prices and a no reservations policy.
Tommi’s Wahaca business partner, Mark Selby, also joined us last night. Equally affable, he welcomed us all as we arrived, work-weary but excited to spend an evening with he and Tommi and a kitchen doling out delicious Mexican food. It’s evident that in business, Mark and Tommi are well-matched.
The Westfield Wahaca opened with the mammoth London shopping centre last year, but once through its doors you’d never know it had neighbours like Debenhams and other high street stores. Its atmosphere is slightly sultry with dimmed lighting, functional wooden furniture and bursts of colour. The patrons themselves add splash and vibrance to the space, each bottle of tabasco or plate of taquitos or stack of Mexican bean cans or chunky hand-blown glass of margarita with salted rim enhancing the overall vibe of originality. Yes, I like it here.
Now onto the important part – eating. Tommi asked us for honest feedback, to find out whether or not the new menu would work. Would it be good enough to serve to her public?
First up were smoked herring tostadas served with a squeeze of fresh lime. The smokiness stayed in my mouth for a minute or so afterward, which is a very good thing because I love smoky flavours, especially with fish.
We looked on, bemused, as bowls of feta, tortillas, coriander and avocado were smothered by jugfuls of black bean soup. Then, taking our Tommy Tippee-style plastic spoons, dipped into the muddy mix, we sucked our spoons clean of the dark and spicy creaminess. It looked so wrong but tasted surprisingly good, if a little heavy on the heat at our end of the table. Usually I’d never order such a pond of bubbling mud with mystery ingredients concealed within its depths so this was a surprise for me. Yes, it was good but no, I probably wouldn’t order it again, at least, not unless I was sharing my slurps with a rugby team. It was served in bowls of a size that even sharing between four of us, we barely dented the surface. Perhaps if the bowls were smaller I’d be keener? No, there are plenty of other options at Wahaca to delight me so I’ll pass on the black bean soup for now, but it did create some interesting debate about coriander (like it or loathe it?) and spoons.
“I like the spoons,” said one Qyper.
“Yes, everyone likes them.” Tommi agreed, “so much so that we’ve had to put a spoon amnesty on our blog.”
“A spoon what?”
“A spoon amnesty. So many people take them home in their handbags that we’ve had to offer an amnesty so people can bring them back.”
I can see why. They were dotted about our tables – sturdy, and ergonomically comfortable to hold in their pretty baby colours of lime, raspberry and sky blue, but no, I did not take home my spoon, although I’d be interested to know where to buy my own set, just to add a touch of fun to the dining table at home.
The huitacoche (corn fungus), field mushroom and cheese quesadillas, folded into warm triangles, were winter-warming and delicious. With a dab or two of red salsa, I thought “I’ve just found my new comfort food!” Yes, this time I had seconds, but that was silly, really, because there was so much more yet to taste.
There were soft corn tortillas topped with shredded slaw, goujons of Baja California fish and a zingy drizzle of chipotle mayo. As an A-FISH-ionado, myself, I can smile and say these were good. Very, very good. I enjoyed the winter salad of butternut squash and spelt, with pickled hibiscus flowers and orange to sweeten the combination and chilli and radish to warm it. The baked pollock was also tasty, flaking into tender tomato-infused morsels; this would certainly take the bite out of a chill winter’s day, although by this point I was slowing down my intake so that by the time we got to the burritos, I didn’t have stomach enough remaining to comment on whether the cabbage in it detracted from the overall texture or flavour, one of the debates taking place amongst this avid crowd of food lovers.
Concerning the bar contents at Wahaca, usually I’d jump right in and order one of their delicious margaritas, but tonight I accepted the offer of a Modelo Especial beer with fresh lime. It was a very pleasant lager indeed. Then, as the food arrived, the wine was poured – red or white. I chose white, but couldn’t tell you more than that, apart from the fact that somehow, when my back was turned or perhaps when I was paying more attention to something that was about to enter my stomach, my water glass was filled with wine, too. So when I went to have a gulp of water after a particularly spicy bite of something, I managed to down half a glass of wine before I realised what it was. That was a truly dumb Epicurienne moment. I’ll be more cautious in future!
Under Mark’s guidance, we tasted three tequilas from the Wahaca stable: a Blanco (white), served cold, a Reposado (rested) served at room temperature and an Añejo (aged), also served at room temperature, with a lovely, caramelly tang. As many will confide, I, too, have had the occasional clash with tequila, but the selection we enjoyed last night was an utterly different sensory experience to student union layback sessions in a vintage dentist’s chair. This was refined, smooth, flavoursome liquid, to be sipped and savoured, not consumed in one swallow. This was tequila for grown ups and it was better than good. Click here to find out more.
But now I was flagging. The past few weeks have been hell at work, the stress of it strangely absorbing all appetite along the way and causing sleep to be elusive. Last night it picked its time to catch up with me and I had to leave the party early in order to catch some much needed zzzzs. But first, churros. What a delightful end to this tasty respite of an evening – dipping doughnut fingers into molten chocolate. How very Willy-Wonka-Does-Mexico it was. After a few wicked bites of churro and a quick word to TikiChris and Mel Seasons, I left Domestic Sluttery table-mate, Alex and Qyper Jessica to enjoy my espresso because I had to leave, lest I face-planted into my salsas, which would have been very poor form indeed.
**Huge thanks must go to Tommi and Mark, and all the Wahaca staff who helped this week’s event to be such a success, including those hardworking, unseen folk in the kitchen. Everyone was kind, patient with our neverending questions, and generous to the hilt. Thank you, thank you, thank you all.
***And because I was a complete doofus, not being able to find my camera, which was all the time hiding in the bottom of my idiotically-deep handbag, TikiChris has kindly allowed me to use his photos for Qype of the Wahaca event. Chris is a talented photographer, second to none. To see the rest of his Wahaca pics, click here. And to offer Chris a fabulous photographic assignment (because he’s so worth it) you can tweet him @tikichris
OTHER USEFUL LINKS
Week In, Week Out by Simon Hopkinson
Simon Hopkinson does not like chestnuts. He avoids honey, and his views on New Zealand’s green-lipped mussels are clear, if harsh: “they are as tasteless as they are unwelcome,” he writes in Week In, Week Out, a collection of his weekly food columns for the Independent, released in paperback this past July. Quirks of the palate aside, this book, replete with the sort of photography that will reduce a foodie to Pavlov’s dog-style salivation, is a blissful read.
I can vouch for this statement, you see, because when I sat down with my copy of Week In, Week Out on a Saturday morning a couple of months ago, I initially predicted spending an hour or two with it until such time as the sun lured me outside, for it was indeed a beautiful day out there with The Normal People. This plan did not work for me, however. In fact, it failed miserably. Had friends not insisted I keep my promise to attend a planned get-together, I may not have made it out into the fresh air at all that day. Week In, Week Out was my anchor to the sofa. I barely moved until it was absolutely required.
Apart from the fact that Week in, Week Out contains luscious photography and sensibly seasonal recipes, Hopkinson’s use of language is nothing less than inspired. He uses words like ‘flobbery’, gently instructs us to ‘worry not,’ in a fatherly fashion, and likens lazy game preparation to ‘intercourse with a blow-up doll: tasteless, bouncy, spineless.’ I have not had the pleasure of meeting Mr Hopkinson, yet his writing allows a very particular personality to shine through, so that by the end of reading this feast of seasonally-grouped columns, an idea of what it’s like to dine with this chap, under both good and intolerable circumstances, is very firmly planted in one’s mind.
References made by Hopkinson to his upbringing, including fondly-related memories of his mum’s Kenwood mixer and tales of his father’s forays into the kitchen, add a nostalgic slant to certain extracts, and his understanding that not everyone has 2.3 kids, dogs and extended family to hand prompt him to create a string of recipes for the childless couple’s quiet night in. This means that, for once, a celebratory meal for a mere two people, couple or otherwise, need not create excess expense or leftovers aplenty for days to come. How considerate.
The tips peppered generously throughout Week In, Week Out, are many and varied – from where to find wild smoked salmon, to how to get your hands on good, peeled shrimps and even how to bone a pair of rabbits. There are recommendations for the gastronome’s bookshelf and some noticeable reverence given to the late Elizabeth David, but just when you think that perhaps Hopkinson’s recipe inspiration is a tad too bygone in era (kidney soup with bone marrow and parsley dumplings, syllabub, poached chicken or rabbit tongue), suddenly out pops something with roots in a completely different hemisphere (chilli crab salad with grapefruit and avocado) or region (squid stuffed with minced chorizo).
Hopkinson’s mentions of meals enjoyed as far afield as Bangkok and Rome do not go astray here, yet may increase excess salivation. Places that rate high on the Hoppy Index include Amsterdam’s Oesterbar for smoked eel and impeccable peeled shrimps, Tre Scalini in Rome for espresso graniti and Cova in Milan for a cornetto or two. In the UK, Hopkinson favours, among others, Riva in Barnes for the sort of tiramisu that sounds as if it might actually make it to 10/10 on Monsieur’s tiramisu scale of perfection, a score as yet unreached.
At the other end of the foodie scale, Hopkinson displays typically passionate tendencies to rant about what does and does not work in the kitchen. He discusses torn versus chopped basil, comments on the apparent extinction of the brown paper supermarket bag and the scarcity of a decent high-street fishmonger. The confusion of metric versus imperial sizes of containers for various ingredients also rate a rant, and who could possibly disagree with this man? He may not be licking his lips or proclaiming his own cooking “dee-lish-usssss” every twenty lines, but that’s what makes this book an even better read: its honesty.
If that wasn’t enough to tweak the Epicurienne tastebuds, then the final section of the book proved to be my favourite. It’s all about eggplants, which I adore in all its forms, from fritters to baba ganoush and parmigiana, but there’s one eggplant dish which is seared into my memory: the one with miso sauce. When I lived in Sydney, my dear friend and colleague, Kayoko, took me for a quiet Japanese dinner in celebration of my birthday. When it came time to order, I deferred to her expertise. She insisted we try the eggplant with miso sauce and I’ll never forget its smooth touch against my tongue, or the subtle blending of tastes. I forget whatever else it was that we ate that evening. For me, it was all about that eggplant.
Now, years later, Simon Hopkinson has endeared himself to me forever by including the recipe for eggplant and miso in Week In, Week Out. In my opinion he saved the best for last. For that I may even forgive the fact that he doesn’t like New Zealand’s green-lipped mussels.
Lighten Up by Jill Dupleix
For the true grub-loving gastronome, the most fatal by-product of enjoying our food has to be weight gain. Monsieur and I are no different, loving our food as we do and engaged in a constant battle of taste versus calorific content. It was therefore serendipitous to catch a tweet from Quadrille Books, asking for bloggers to review Lighten Up by Jill Dupleix.
I admit that Dupleix’s name was relatively new to me, so for a girl with shelves plural devoted to cookbooks, I have had to ask myself why this is the first of Dupleix’s fourteen books to break into the Epicurienne fold. As I learn more about this seasoned kitchen whiz, I am astounded that her profile isn’t better known in London. I thought it might just be me, so I asked some foodie friends about Dupleix. Apparently, it wasn’t just me. It would seem that unless you’re a regular reader of The Spectator or The Times food columns, you may just have missed this writer, much like I have, and that is what I’d call an absolute travesty of gastronomic proportions. Here’s why.
Dupleix’s website profile tells us that she was born on a sheep farm in Australia, growing up with ‘good, fresh, no-nonsense home cooking’. (This sentence alone makes me nostalgic for the freshness of unregulated Downunder produce). But, in spite of a growing passion for food, Dupleix didn’t enter the realm of the food writer until she’d done a spell of copywriting, encompassing such non-food-related topics as cars and fashion. Then something happened along the way and a passion for food, cookery and restaurants overtook all else. Dupleix first took the mantle of Cookery Editor for the Sydney Morning Herald, later moving to London to do the same job for The Times. Nowadays, Dupleix contents herself with freelance food writing and cookbook work, which is a good thing indeed, especially for foodies whose nightmares involve a set of bathroom scales.
Bring on Lighten Up, the latest Dupleix offering, first released in 2007. From the moment I first flicked through this brightly-covered paperback, I was a fan. Then I read the introduction and became a total Jill Dupleix acolyte. Once I proceeded to test the recipes for myself, I started daydreaming about hanging out with Dupleix in her kitchen, making Chawan Mushi.
So what makes this book different from its rivals? For a start, the inspiration. Dupleix has created a more easygoing, lighter alternative to the heavier northern hemisphere diet, which sees altogether too many antipodeans expanding sideways once they’ve landed in the likes of North America or Europe. There is proven, personal inspiration also, in the form of Dupleix’s husband, Terry Durack, a restaurant critic who, through his self-professed love of long lunches, cultivated quite an impressive girth. With the help of Dupleix’s lighter approach to eating, he managed to lose an admirable 38 kilos. Now, with Lighten Up, we can all benefit from Dupleix’s tasty, healthy food and a few lost pounds to boot.
The book’s layout is so easy to follow that even a novice cook would find it difficult to make a hash of the recipes. The instructions are short and written in a brief, bullet point style, starting with the action required for each stage: SEAR, CUT, MIX, ADD, TOSS, TRIM, SERVE. The book is separated into sensible sections, such as Morning Food, Salad Food, Soupy Food, Spicy Food, Fast Food and Slow Food. These are interspersed with snack ideas using bananas, bread (yes, the Dupleix Way even bread-based snacks can be good for you!), Japanese ingredients like nori and miso, and perhaps not surprisingly, tofu. There’s a glossary of terms so you have no excuse for mistaking your tamari for tamarind, and if you’d like to know what kitchen accessories rate high on Dupleix’s list, you will find out in Lighten Up.
That’s the summary, but in practice, what are the recipes like? So far, so scrumptious. I’ve particularly enjoyed the ease of Fast Roast Fish with Anchovies, the Fresh Salmon burgers with dill pickles and watercress and Spring Onion Scallops served in their shells, which were so professionally tasty that friends might think you’d called in the caterers. Grilled Chicken with Salsa Verde has received exacting Monsieur’s seal of approval and I’m happily working my way through the little recipes in the Extras section. But what I particularly love about Lighten Up is that it’s time-friendly to the full-time working woman, allowing weight-loss to be quick in preparation with any sense of deprivation completely eliminated.
Still on food but with a whole different slant, here are some articles by Dupleix:
How I shrunk food critic Terry Durack, where Dupleix talks about transforming her husband from Mr Piggy into Mr Fit
Hollywood audiences must think we never eat, where Dupleix wonders why Great Australians are never seen eating on film
And if you want to try out some fantastic sweetcorn fritters, here’s a Dupleix recipe for you. Oh, boy, I’m actually making myself hungry now.
Lighten Up is certainly a worthwhile introduction to Dupleix, with the tantalising photography by Petrina Tinslay spurring me on to try more and more of the Lighten Up recipes. Next on my list will be Chicken Tortilla Soup with Avocado, Watermelon Carpaccio with feta cheese and kalamata olives and the Crab Salad with pumpernickel crisps. When I’m done with those I just might let have to pop along to Books for Cooks to pick up another of the thirteen Dupleix books I have yet to read. I have a funny feeling that Jill Dupleix will be popping up again on Epicurienne, so if you like her style, watch this space.
From aspic setting to lobster killing – Julie and Julia do French cooking
When I was about eleven, I started home ec classes at school. My classmates and I then spent the next two years fighting over ingredients in these core classes as we perfected the mangling of simple dishes such as scrambled eggs and kedgeree. The worst part of these classes, however, was post-cooking when we had to sit and EAT what we’d just burned, undercooked or over-salted. At this key time in my culinary development I learned precisely how not to cook in class; conversely I learned how better to cook at home, where I’d help in the kitchen and sit with my mother in front of afternoon TV shows of Julia Child slamming food around her studio kitchen amidst what could only be described as a slightly awkward, inelegant presentation. Part of me loved watching her infectious passion for food and admired the results, wishing she could visit our dated home ec kitchen to inspire our prematurely-jaded attempts at food preparation; another part of me sat glued to the set in awe of the hulking woman who obviously knew her onions when it came to food, but whose booming voice and giant stature were more than a little intimidating. In case you need reminding, here’s a clip of La Child in action:
Cue a bout of Julia Child amnesia, until last year, when I bought Julia Child’s memoir, My Life in France, written in conjunction with her great nephew, Alex Prud’homme. I’m embarrassed to say that it sat in my ‘to read’ pile for some time until recently, when I quite literally devoured it. Once more, I was mesmerised by this towering doyenne of cuisine as I learned that there was so much more to her own personal history than is first apparent when you think of an acclaimed author of cookbooks. For a start, she wasn’t born with a wooden spoon in her hand, nor could she bake soufflés before she could walk. Au contraire; Julia Child didn’t start cooking until she was 37 years old, when she moved to post-war France with her adored husband Paul. Once there, her love of eating and a fascination with French food led her to the Cordon Bleu school, where she studied food and its preparation. Julia also spent time getting to know the local market vendors, finding the best produce, learning French and experimenting in her own kitchen in an odd apartment on the ‘rue de Loo’, as she called the rue de l’Université. On top of all of the above, the tireless Julia somehow found the time to socialise with Paris-based foodies. She taught, gave dinner parties, helped a couple of new friends with their attempt at ‘cookbookery’, and it is this latter activity that eventually developed into Child’s weighty mega-oeuvre, Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961), which brought truly French methods and cuisine into the American kitchen and subsequently revolutionised many kitchens all around the world.
This new-found passion for French cuisine changed Julia’s life, but not without hard graft did she become a published household name with her own TV show. I dare not give too much away, as this book is filled with such characters and surprises and inside knowledge of famous restaurants, critics and foods (I yelped with delight at the part where she visits the original Poilâne bakery in the name of breadmaking research) that it demands a reader’s first-hand attention, rather than a second-hand account. However, to whet your appetite, I will say that the complex politics of the time does not escape mention and honest accounts of strain on a workaholic’s interpersonal relationships, a quite unexpected picture of Julia in the bath with her husband and the down-to-earth description of universal frustrations and disappointments can only add to the admiration which Julia fans will feel on reading what she referred to as ‘The French Book’. 
My Life in France was the sort of book that pained me to finish. There was only one thing to be done: I’d been bitten by the bug and now simply had to read more Julia. So, as you do, I popped onto Amazon, where Julie and Julia – My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell came to my attention. I’d heard of it; in fact, one of my grub-loving friends had recommended it to me; I just hadn’t bought it yet. One click later and the book was delivered to me at the end of last week, just in time for the May Bank Holiday weekend – a blissful three days of Nothing Planned. Julie and Julia arrived with impeccable timing because on commencing to read this book I experienced the startling result of waking up well before I would normally have roused myself on a long weekend. Why? To read The Book, of course, and for once I’m not complaining about waking early. Not at all.
So, every morning for the past three days, as Monsieur slumbered on next to me, my first waking thought was “I wonder what Julie does next?” as I grabbed the book and read as quietly as possible so that Monsieur wouldn’t wake up and disturb this precious reading time. You see, this Julie Powell person had decided on a whim to cook every single one of the 524 recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a mere 365 days. AND she had a full-time job, AND a tiny kitchen AND lived in Long Island City, which isn’t the best place to find some of the more unusual ingredients commanded by such recipes. To call this book entertaining is quite the culinary understatement. Refreshingly, there’s zero pretension. If the aspic doesn’t set or if murdering lobsters keeps Powell awake at night, we hear about it. Some recipes work, others don’t, and at times Powell enlists a search party to track down some strange foodstuff or other. Oh my Heavens, how I am loving this book, right down to the plumbing issues and day job and the strain that an obsession with cooking can place on a relationship.
As veteran Googlers tend to do, I’ve also spent some time reading the Julie and Julia Project blog, which is the unwitting inspiration for the book. There’s also the current Julie Powell blog to salivate over and on You Tube, there’s a trailer for THE FILM (see end of post), starring none other than Meryl Streep as Julia Child and Amy Adams as frustrated cooking-by-night-to-save-own-sanity government agency temp, Julie Powell. Now we just have to wait until it’s released on 7 August (I’m counting the days and if you know someone who can donate preview tickets to this particularly enthusiastic fan, then please please pretty please would you let me know?).
Believe it or not, you can also follow @Julia_Child on Twitter, only it’s not REALLY Julia (unless there’s a new app allowing us to tweet from beyond the grave), because she passed away in 2004, aged an astonishing 91. Following this sad date on the Child fan’s calenday, The Smithsonian was lucky enough to be given her kitchen, copper pans, units, books ‘n’ all and it’s now a crowd-drawing exhibit. (The Smithsonian has been added to my Bucket List. )
So, to sum up, unless I’m mistaken, it would seem that we’re in a mid-Julia Child revival and we just might have former government drone, Julie Powell to thank for that. Personally, I love the fact that courtesy of Powell I’ve now learned what a gimlet is and have added kattywhompus to my vocabulary.
In the meantime, here’s the trailer for the film of Julie and Julia:
Flicking knives on Valentine’s
Valentine’s Day is one of those occasions that has the potential to fail miserably. If you’re single, it can make you feel very alone. If you’re part of a couple, apart from being the romantic zenith of the calendar ,it can be very expensive, tacky, and can have the opposite of its intended effect by making you realise that no, you’re not the only person in the entire universe that loves someone. Then again, there’s also that breed of folk who deliberately ignore Valentine’s in the hope that it’ll go away, only to incur the wrath of their poor, high-maintenance (I mean neglected) partner. But mostly it’s just another excuse to spend way too much on cards and flowers in the name of commerce.
Many years ago, before my rose-tinted glasses cracked somewhat irreparably, I was invited to a Valentine’s dinner by a young man on whom I had a humongous crush. In preparation, I blow-dried my hair straight and left it long for full flirting flickability. We spent the evening at a Very Cool Jazz Bar where everything was dimly lit and the music so loud that I spent a lot of time leaning across the table, trying to hear what my date was saying. Then, a strange odour wafted up my nose.
“It smells like something’s burning,” I said, trying to locate the source of the stench in the club’s gloom.
“It’s your hair,” replied my date.
As I’d leaned across the table, my hair had dangled straight into the Valentine’s red candle and now a whole, thick strand had burned, had water thrown at it, sizzled, and disintegrated in a mere few seconds. The smell of burnt hair did not leave me for weeks, no matter how often I washed it. As for the budding romance, I think it’s fair to say that this one fizzled out.
Last year, Monsieur and I decided we should make a bit of an effort, rather than hiding ourselves away from the red rose salesmen, heart-shaped chocolate boxesand shop windows full of all things pink or red. Monsieur was decided. He wanted to go to a restaurant; I, on the other hand, wanted very much NOT to go to a restaurant. In the end, being the selfless love goddess that I am, I relented, on the proviso that I choose the venue. In fact, I cheated a bit because I already had an idea of where to book and it certainly wasn’t a place where we’d be an island in a sea of couples, all crooning sweet nothings to each other as they tried to dodge the little men with the buckets full of roses, swaying along to Frank Sinatra singing about flying to the moon. Those are the couples who don’t actually mind that their food is not much quality for a rather expensive quantity, or that champagne costs double the usual or that they’ve had to book weeks in advance to experience nothing short of mediocre. Well, Monsieur and I certainly do not fall into that category of couple-dom. We went to Benihana.
The reasoning behind this was that I hadn’t been to a teppanyaki place for ages and I quite enjoy them. Granted, it’s not the best Japanese that you’re ever going to taste, but flicking knives and flying devilled prawns should ensure that no rose salesmen would get anywhere near us. In case you haven’t yet experienced a Benihana (and admittedly there are quite a few people who don’t like them very much), patrons are seated on high stools surrounding the hot plate, in groups or blended with total strangers. This would surely be the perfect environment for practicing our Valentine’s Avoidance Techniques.
I managed to reserve a special Valentine’s dinner, which just happened to be the only dinner available and which was really just the usual fare teamed with a couple of glasses of fizz. The restaurant was packed and (cringe) there were quite a few couples there, but to dilute the atmosphere of lurve there were also groups of besuited businessmen and several families whose kids were thoroughly enjoying all the samurai knife action. Was it an Anti- Valentine’s success? I’d have to say, yes.
Now it’s that time of year again, when hearts and flowers and greetings cards are everywhere you look. So what do we have in mind for our special day? Well, for once it’s a weekend so domesticity reigns. The aerial guy is coming to fix our TV connection, and we’re (hopefully) going to have a peaceful day at home with some Epic cooking and a DVD or two. No hefty bills and no red rose salesmen in sight. Having said that, I can’t help but wonder if I’ll get any mail tomorrow, and we’re not talking the sort of mail that comes in a brown, window envelope.
Useful links:
*You might want to look up Benihana on You Tube. There are lots of films of Benihana samurai chefs flicking their implements around the place.
Image above borrowed from here: DiscoverNikkei
Clos Maggiore
When a top restaurant website rates an eatery number one in more than one category, you know you’re onto a good thing. When a friend recommends the same place, you know the reviews must have substance. Clos Maggiore is just such a place and really does live up to expectation.
We reserved a table recently for a birthday celebration and I surreptitiously e-mailed the restaurant to ask them to wish Happy Birthday to the Birthday Boy. The General Manager, Jean Kessler, replied courteously that he would pass on the message to his ‘boys’. I started to get that sneaky smiley feeling that happens when I’m planning a surprise for someone, then proceeded to count the minutes to our reservation.
When we arrived at Clos Maggiore, the receptionist exhibited brusque efficiency as she took names, whirled coats into closets and handed us over to the warm and welcoming wait staff. Located in London’s busy Covent Garden, to be led off the street into the warmth of this place is to be led into a very different world. It’s calm, it’s intimate, the artworks have been chosen by someone with a good eye for European painting and (sculptures of winged pigs), and what’s that at the back of the restaurant? A large dining room decorated to feel like an outdoor terrace, replete with trellises and spreading trees, but gladly lacking in threat of inclement weather.
Our table wasn’t in the terrace itself; we were located just outside that area, but our unusually early 6pm booking coincided with plenty of those in the know who were already part-way through their pre-theatre meals. Near us, a pair of girls finished off their meal, one of them sharing at volume unappetising tales of a baby with a sixth toe and its forthcoming operation, but her kind would be a foghorn in even the loudest of environments so this was easily forgiven, especially as we had glasses of kir to enjoy and menus to savour. Meanwhile, I watched the staff out of the corner of one eye to see when the Birthday Boy might be greeted. Or perhaps they’d forgotten? Their manner was so discrete it was impossible to tell.
Now it was time to test the oeuvres of Clos Maggiore’s chef, Marcellin Marc. Formerly of Michelin 2 star, le Clos de la Violette in Aix-en-Provence, the website tells us he “brings a Mediterranean style of cooking to every dish at Clos Maggiore”, with a keenness for seasonal fare. By now drooling in anticipation, we opened our menus and began.
I started with chargrilled wild scallops which were so perfectly seared that they still smacked of the sea, making me wonder if I’d ever before eaten such idyllic scallops. Perched on a crush of Charlotte potatoes, with adjacent nest of something crunchy (potato again perhaps?) to contrast the textures, this small plate offered what some might call an elegant sufficiency. It was just right, providing enough taste and sustenance to carry one over to the main course with room to spare. Having said that, the other starters sounded suitably seasonal for such an unforgiving February, such as pumpkin and pine nut soup with parmesan biscuit and truffle oil or braised shoulder of Loire Valley rabbit. Monsieur settled for the smoked aubergine caponata with basil pesto, murmuring his appreciation until the last morsel had disappeared.
Choosing the next course was genuinely hard work. The various options were all tempting and Clos Maggiore’s reputation for European fusion cuisine was beginning to show. I nearly went for the oven-roasted Maine lobster medallions and mousseline served with etuvée of winter vegetable in a cognac scented lobster bisque, but the Birthday Boy had already chosen that so I had to find something different. The steamed fillet of sea bass with basil sounded good; I love sea bass, but I’d already eaten it that week. Meanwhile, the slow cooked fillet of Cornish cod glazed with ricotta cheese and chive with a fëdûa of shellfish and chorizo cream sounded like a Basque sea front feast. (Fëdûa is a pasta-based paella of sorts). Then, for the carnivorous connoisseur there was the slow-cooked Charolais beef cheek, or the roasted fillet of ‘Duke of Westminster’ venison. I turned them all down in favour of the roasted ‘black leg’ chicken with Burgundy snails and foie gras, served with sautéed spaetzle, wild mushrooms and a sauce supreme. Now, that’s what I call a rollicking combination.
The chicken had been rolled with a farce of foie gras and a sneaky snail hidden in each of its three sections. It was tender, the snails were delicious, almost completely devoid of earthy taste, and the spaetzle appeared as irregular drops of eggy batter, quite different to the long noodles we’re accustomed to. The wild mushrooms were small and sweet, retaining a bit of moisture to give them bounce, and most of the snails had been sensitively pierced by a single toothpick, easy to remove by the less adventurous diner. I was only sorry that two thirds of the way through my main I had to stop, or not be able to try the dessert menu lest I pop with gastronomic pleasure.
For the vegetarian there are a couple of decent pasta options, including the decadent potato gnocchi stuffed with gorgonzola and served with celery, walnut pesto and poached pear, however, if that doesn’t float your boat, a combination of the side dishes of vegetables and salads would make a hearty meal in their own right.
As for the wine list, well, comprehensive is a relatively short word to describe its contents. If you enjoy wine, be prepared to spend time salivating over the Clos Maggiore selection.
Now, back to my preoccupation with the Birthday Boy. Still nothing had been said, no greeting made. Perhaps there had been some miscommunication along the way? Once again, I didn’t worry about this because we were thoroughly enjoying ourselves, right down to the friendly banter with the waiters and I say this to all budding London waiters out there: if you want to learn how to do it properly, save your pennies and visit Clos Maggiore. Their training is impeccable.
We hummed and hah-ed a bit about whether or not to have a dessert, but in the end relented, choosing the selection of ice creams and sorbets. As with every dish this evening we were thrilled by the presentation – spoonfuls of a creamy chocolate semi freddo along with lemon sorbet and another fruity variety which I forget now… The portions were well gauged so as not to overwhelm at the end of an epicurean evening, and what was that on the Birthday Boy’s plate? The chef had written Happy Birthday in a drizzle of chocolate sauce around the rim, and a single candle flickered in the central scoop of ice cream. Birthday Boy was surprised. ‘How did they know?’ he asked and on noticing the mischievous twinkle in my eye, he knew it was me. Thank you Jean Kessler and team. Your really made the Birthday Boy’s night, and I’m not just talking about the candle.
NB I didn’t take photos of my food here because somehow it just didn’t seem appropriate in the serenity of this restaurant. There are plenty of images to whet your appetite on the restaurant website. I suggest you have a look… Meanwhile, thanks to the LondonTown website for providing the image above.
