Welcome to Ask Mario's August 06 Newsletter
Sometimes, just sometimes, I manage to come across something by pure chance that happens to be a little gem. No, it’s not a new restaurant – it’s matching food with beer. When we ran those beery news items last month, Quilon’s beer and food matching made sense – it is an Indian restaurant after all. But Le Gavroche offering a beer menu? I wanted to know more. So we asked Rupert Ponsonby to spill the beans on this new matching beer with food project – it’s a fascinating read. Elsewhere, you’ll find some brilliant new places to eat around the country and what better way to begin than with Bernice Hurst finally giving us a reason to visit Reading.
Read on and tuck in.
Elizabeth Carter, Editor
August's
features: |
Beer - there’s more to it than just ‘the best long drink in the world’ by Rupert Ponsonby
Rupert Ponsonby is director of one of the leading specialist drinks PR companies (randr.co.uk), and is a true expert in the field of matching beer with food. Read his fascinating insight into this fast-growing gastronomic trend, as well as his practical advice on how to select the right beer. He also exposes a few beer myths.
Read Rupert Ponsoby's story about beer
Cerise at The Forbury, Reading, UK by Bernice Hurst
‘The river is dirty and dismal here. One does not linger in the neighbourhood of Reading’, so wrote Jerome K Jerome in Three Men in a Boat. Decent restaurants in the town have, until recently, been few and far between, but as Bernice Hurst discovers, things are now looking up.
Read Bernice Hurst's review about Cerise in Reading
Bjorn again, but now on Sloane Street (London)
Bjorn van der Horst, until recently at The Greenhouse, W1, has become chef/patron at what was, until not so long ago, Pengelley’s (see July’s newsletter). Bjorn’s food at The Greenhouse was quite outstanding, and now he’s joined the Ramsay stable we believe his star will continue in the ascendant. Seared foie gras with coffee and amaretto, and chilled ‘poule-au-pot’ with salt-cured foie gras and toast are two signatures that feature on the new menu, which focuses on entirely seasonal dishes and is divided into fixed-price options starting at £45 for 3 courses, culminating in the Inspirational Tasting Menu at £65. This is billed as a culinary adventure, as the menu will be created on the spot, inspired by the morning’s market, and adapted to the diner’s specific desires. About £140 for 2, 3-course set L £21.
La Noisette, 164 Sloane Street, London SW1, tel 020 7750 5001 www.gordonramsay.com/
Chelsea’s French butterfly (London)
While Kilo (see below) has gone to restaurant heaven, owner Soren Jessen, who also owns 1 Lombard St, EC3, hasn’t been sitting on his laurels. Instead he’s come up with Papillon, a stylish restaurant offering a menu of modern French food firmly rooted in the classics - typically crab and celeriac rémoulade with shellfish bavaroise, or traditional steak tartare to begin, followed by Barbary duck with fig sauce, or roast veal chop with peas à la française. The set menu is good value at £17.50 for 2 courses. About £100 for 2.
Papillon, 96 Draycott Avenue, London SW3, tel: 020 7255 2555 www.papillonchelsea.co.uk
Gloucester Road’s new Moroccan (London)
Chef David Jones has spent the past five months in Morocco cooking with local chefs and learning their skills. Complementing his newfound expertise in North African cooking is a glamorously seductive and beautiful restaurant and lounge bar, all of whose furniture was handmade in Morocco. The varied menu takes in some wonderful hot and cold kemia (similar to Middle eastern meze), bastilla, tagines, couscous, and not forgetting meshwi slow-cooked whole lamb shoulder with apricots, figs sultanas, and prunes with cinnamon couscous. About £100 for 2.
Pasha, 1 Gloucester Road, London SW7, tel: 020 7589 7969
www.pasha-restaurant.co.uk/
Classic steaks and new cocktails in E1 (London)
Hawksmoor, named after the master 18th-C architect, Nicholas Hawksmoor, who designed nearby Christ Church, Spitalfields, is a steak house and cocktail bar in the same ownership as The Redchurch, and Green & Red bars in Shoreditch, and The Marquess Tavern in Canonbury. The interior is restrained and relaxed, and the food menu offers American style cuts, including bone-in sirloins, Porterhouse steaks, veal and pork chops, and rare breed meats, whole bass, and goose skirt, all cooked on a real charcoal grill, and accompanied by sides of triple-cooked chips, baked sweet potatoes, and slaws. Desserts include ice cream sundaes, served in vintage sundae glasses. There’s an extensive cocktail list with an American slant - from Juleps (including Hawksmoor Julep - fresh mint muddled with lemon thyme syrup, gooseberries and gin), to Sours (Jack Rose - apple brandy shaken with lime juice and homemade pomegranate syrup), and Punches, the latter designed to share, and served in antique Punch bowls, for 6 or more.
Hawksmoor, 157 Commercial Street, London E1, tel: 020 7247 7392 www.thehawksmoor.com/
London closure
Kilo, Soren Jessen’s replacement for Noble Rot on Mill St, London W1, opened too late for the 2006 printed guides. However, it has now has been sold and the new owner will reopen it as a bar/nightclub.
A touch of Kiwi magic in Cornwall (Cornwall)
What was Critchards is now Kota (Maori for shellfish), explained by the fact that Jude, the chef/patron, is from New Zealand. Shellfish is prominent on the menu, but so is local organic meat and seafood, prepared with an imaginative Asian twist. Starters might be Thai spiced local crab bisque with saffron aîoli and Reggiano parmesan croutes, pan-seared Falmouth scallops with yuzo fruit and orange syrup, or roast garlic and Jerusalem artichoke purée and five peppered spiced venison carpaccio. Among the main courses is tempura battered haddock with teriyaki dipping sauce, wasabi mayonnaise, salad and fries, while the Kota seafood platter (for two to share) includes, grilled lobster, salmon sashimi, oysters, scallops and tempura calamari. There are 2 double en suite rooms available, too. Dinner only. About £50 for 2.
Kota, Harbour Head, Porthleven, Cornwall, tel: 01326 562407
Two Ask Mario favourites up for sale
Shropshire
Hibiscus, Claude Bosi’s amazing restaurant in Ludlow, has been put on the market, with the Bosi’s hoping to move closer to London.
Cornwall
St Ervan Manor is where you’ll find ace chef Nathan Outlaw (see Ask Mario’s April newsletter) cooking up a storm. However, the manor‘s been put up for sale by its owners. Caveat emptor: Nathan is not part of the fixtures and fittings.
The Peat Inn, coincidentally, has a new owner (Scotland)
Geoffrey Smeddle, latterly of Conran’s étain in Glasgow has taken over this renowned east coast institution from David and Patricia Wilson, the owners of the whitewashed stone-built former coaching inn for the past 35 years. Mirroring the Wilsons, who were newly weds when they purchased The Peat Inn, Geoffrey and Katherine Smeddle married in October 2005. Coincidently, David was 34 years old at the time of the purchase, the same age as Geoffrey.
Peat Inn, Peat Inn, Fife, tel: 01334 840206 www.thepeatinn.co.uk
Take 3 Colleges Plus 1 Fundraising Dinner 2006
The Academy of Culinary Arts Chefs Adopt a School Trust, in conjunction with The Royal Automobile Club, Bournemouth and Poole College, Birmingham College of Food and Tourism, and Stamford College, has got Raymond Blanc, Giorgio Locatelli, and Mark Hix to devise a four-course menu, which they will be cooking alongside students from their partnered colleges, at this worthwhile fundraising dinner. The Chefs Adopt a School Trust provides children with a solid foundation for learning life skills by teaching them about food, food provenance, appreciation of taste, healthy eating and cookery. FEAST – Food Education At Schools Today – is its school food education campaign with a ‘healthy and social conscience’.
Saturday 30 September 6.30 for 7.15pm. There will entertainment, a raffle and auction. Tickets are £125 per person from tel: 020 8 673 6300 or email clemmymanzo@academyofculinaryarts.org.uk.
Mountbatten Room, Royal Automobile Club, 89 Pall Mall, London SW1
Ask
Mario Book Review by Jill TurtonVegetable Heaven Sensational Seasonal Vegetarian Cooking By Catherine Mason
Vegetarians must often feel short-changed as ever more glamorous cookery books are published from which they can only use a minority of the recipes. Now they can indulge in a collection of recipes that put vegetables first. In fact, it is a treat for anyone, veggie or not, who loves good food. Catherine Mason knows her onions and her shallots, pumpkins, tomatoes and green beans. She knows them because she grows them in rural north Gloucestershire and she has found fresh and inventive ways to use them: spiced pumpkin dip, fennel tart with dolcelatte and verjuice, spring vegetable stir-fry with chilli, basil and coconut sauce. Her recipes are modern, assured, inspiring and sensual. The book is beautifully illustrated with 72 of Elda Abramson's ravishing vegetable paintings. They are available to buy as prints from www.pauntley-prints.co.uk/
Vegetable Heaven Sensational Seasonal Vegetarian Cooking
Catherine Mason
Paintings by Elda Abramson
Pub: Grub Street /21st July 2006
ISBN 1 904943 53 5
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