Seafood tapas at Barra de Cañabota

Tapas in Seville

San Sebastian might have become the darling of international foodies with its buzzing Basque pintxo culture, but Andalusia and it’s great capital of Seville are the original home of the tapas cuisine that now spans the globe. I can certainly remember that awkward phase of “British tapas”, “Thai tapas” and “modern tapas” before restaurants thankfully …

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Lechon with liver peppercorn sauce

Review: Donia, Soho

Donia, up on the top floor of Kingly Court, are serving up Philippine food through the filter of London modern high-end small-plate cooking. I find Philippine cuisine hard to pin down. It doesn’t have any of the powerful sweet-salt-hot-sour melange of other SE Asian cuisines, and doesn’t go in heavily on the spices like South …

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Hake and gorgonzola

Review: The Gaff, Bath

Whether the name of this restaurant rhymes with the city it is set in depends on what part of the country you come from. : ) Having not visited Bath properly for a few years it was nice to go back and mooch around for a day. I was struck yet again by what a …

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The Compleat Angler

Review: Sindhu, Marlow

A rambling old Victorian pub-hotel on the banks of the Thames at Marlow called “The Compleat Angler” is an odd venue for modern Indian cooking, but that’s where Sindhu is – one of Atul Kolchar’s growing crop of restaurants in the Thames Valley. We came for a mid-week lunch and we decided on the lunch …

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Pork belly benedict!

Review: The Curious Kitchen, Brixham

If you are ever down in Brixham, I recommend The Curious Kitchen for breakfast, brunch or lunch. And I think they open some evenings too. Brixham is one of those lovely south-west old fishing towns, hidden in a cove with little streets full of narrow houses clambering up steep-sided valleys of woods and fields. The …

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Tapas in SevilleReview: Donia, SohoReview: The Gaff, BathReview: Sindhu, MarlowReview: The Curious Kitchen, Brixham

Review: Meadowsweet, Holt

Categories:

Michelin, Rest of UK, Restaurant Reviews

25 September 2022

Jewel-like canapes

Jewel-like canapes

You can tell when a hotel room has been designed by someone (probably a woman) who stays in hotels a lot. There are a few telltale signs, but the most infallible is the full-length mirror. The first point: does the place even have a full-length mirror? Does it have any kind of useful mirror at all, for that matter? The second point: is the light good where the mirror is? And the killer third point: is there a powerpoint within easy reach of the mirror? For a hairdryer.

Our room at Meadowsweet passed the test with flying colours, being really thoughtfully designed and very comfortable. The dining room downstairs is calmly decorated and I loved the hand-built tables with a little cutlery drawer for each diner built into the corner. It’s a place to have a romantic meal and the very excellent cooking did nothing but enhance the mood.

Splendid scallop

Splendid scallop

We had about eight courses, beautifully plated, classically fine dining but never too rich or heavy. The jewel-like canapes made for a bewitching opener; chicken liver parfait encased in black cherry and baron bigod encased in beetroot respectively. The series of little seafood starters that followed were all magic, especially the breadcrumbed oyster with a dab of peppy jalapeno mayo. The real cracker was the caramelised Orkney scallop with a blob of strawberry jelly and a punchy verjus-infused beurre blanc. The sweet fragrant strawberry worked so well with the creamy scallop, burnt edges and tangy verjus.

The little veggie pasta dish with parmesan and asparagus was merely okay but everything was good about the halibut – delicately cooked – with peas and potato and a herby butter sauce. Beef with mushrooms was a good main and the jus really made the dish. First pudding was a delicate little vacherin of crispy meringue with a strawberry sorbet inside, pretty to look at and just okay to eat. I was in a chocolately mood, so the salty chocolate confection with a big honking tonka bean hit was a fine finale.

This was a £110 menu and I think that’s okay. I’ve had more exciting tasting menus this year at a lower price. But if you’re after a romantic weekend break in Norfolk then a stay and a meal at Meadowsweet is not going to disappoint.

Pretty vacherin

Pretty vacherin

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Review: Chez Bruce, Wandsworth

Categories:

Fine dining, London, Michelin, Restaurant Reviews

5 June 2022

Squid salad

Squid salad

So then I realised that I hadn’t been back to Chez Bruce since I started the blog, and that was twelve years ago. Which meant we finally got back here, to discover that it is still an effortlessly brilliant place to have a splendid meal in convivial surroundings.

I could spend the rest of the article trying to work out how they do it, because Chez Bruce regularly crops up high on “favourite restaurant” lists. Not “the best restaurant in the UK” lists, because that’s not their ambition. They seem to have targeted “favourite” as their ambition, and nailed it. But I spent a while thinking about this and I’m just not canny enough to work it out. It’s a magical formula.

My ox tongue-and-tail starter was superb. Beautiful oxtail croquettes, some slices of soft and deep flavoured tongue, bound together with a “dragoncello” sauce (a bit like Italian gribiche with lots of tarragon) and paired with beetroot. Maureen’s squid salad was an equally satisfying melange, with monksbeard, chorizo, chickpeas and aioli working wonders with delicately cooked pieces of squid.

Veal main

Veal main

For main course I was a sucker for “sweetbread, veal fillet and trotter sausage.” The beautiful medallion of rose-pink veal was perhaps the star, although every element was frankly lovely. Roast onion was a great accompaniment, as was the wild garlic puree. Maureen’s slow roast pork belly had a wonderful wafer-thin slice of porchetta draped over it and was served on a bed of crunchy fried black rice, with a sweetcorn sauce on the side. This was a really clever set of earthy and sweet flavours and went down a treat.

All a bit more classic to finish: a smashing creme brulee for Maureen and an assiette de fromage for me. But what an assiette! Ten cheeses… eleven, because they had some nice Gorgonzola they added to the middle of the plate. All well kept, and including various old favourites as well as some new ones on me.

The three course menu is £75 each before drinks, and I’d say that’s a spot-on price point. But I’d have to add that there really is a certain je ne sais pas about Chez Bruce, and it’s quite hard to put a £ value on that!

Pork belly

Pork belly

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Review: Plaza Khao Gaeng, Soho

Categories:

London, Restaurant Reviews

5 June 2022

Super-snack Miang Phuket

Super-snack Miang Phuket

Plaza Khao Gaeng hit the spot in so many ways.

They’ve gone all-out to echo the street food markets of Bangkok, with tables wrapped in brightly coloured plastic tablecloths, little metal boxes with your eating implements in and stacks of bowls and plates in pale blue or pale pink. This would all have been so much pastiche if the food itself hadn’t done an even better job of conjuring the bright, fiery, sour-sweet flavours of Thai street food.

We kicked off with the only “starter”. Miang Phuket is just a little pile of sticky sweet, fragrant, nutty, fiery, tangy gubbins that you wrap in a fragrant leaf and then scoff, like a tiny herbal fire taco. Luckily they do some classically refreshing cold drinks to go with; a snake fruit soda is bright pink and eerily flavoured if you’re not familiar with snake fruit. My iced coffee is sweetened with condensed milk, which always makes everything better.

Beef massaman

Beef massaman

The rest of the dishes come out in a fluffy. There’s slow-braised pork belly in a broth of the most amazingly warm and earthy spices, a gooey piece of meat absolutely permeated with flavour. The beef massaman is an equally yielding bit of shoulder cooked in another heart-warming gravy with only a hint of fire. It’s the sea bream that brings the heat. Two beautiful pieces cooked in a fragrant oil packed with chillies, garlic, kaffir lime, holy basil and who knows what other spices. It’s fierce but incredibly satisfying and I can taste it hours later. Finally, a dish of morning glory stir-fried with chillies in a sauce of fermented soy beans. The smoky-umami flavour of this humble vegetable side added a whole extra dimension to the meal.

You’ll pay less than £25 each for lunch, and you’ll instantly mark it as a place to come back to whenever you want some proper Thai food. Or you’ll drain five cups of tap water and stagger out sweating and realise you never want proper Thai food. Up to you!

Plaza Khao Gaeng

Plaza Khao Gaeng

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Review: The Watergate, Deptford

Categories:

Cafes etc., London, Restaurant Reviews

5 June 2022

The Watergate

The Watergate

So if you ever find yourself in Deptford for some reason, I think I can probably recommend The Watergate on the strength of a very good brunch. In the evening it’s a cocktail/wine bar with small plates.

The place is pared-back industrial-modern, but kinda welcoming for all that. There’s a bit of a Carribean vibe going on. Maureen’s salt beef turned out to be two very sturdy slabs, beautifully slow cooked and packed full of flavour, served with two good poached eggs and hollandaise. There was also a big breadcrumb-fried ball of bubble and squeak, very well done. I went with a sweet option; a piece of coconut cornbread with poached rhubarb and lemon custard. The coconut bread was absolutely superb, moist and crumby, I could have eaten a loaf. It went a treat with the tangy custard and the rhubarb.

Yeah, so there we go. Brunch dishes were between £8 and £12 and coffee was pretty good. Nice to know a place worth eating in Deptford.

Salt beef and bubble squeak ball

Salt beef and bubble squeak ball

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Review: L’Amarante, Paris

Categories:

Overseas, Restaurant Reviews

10 May 2022

L'Amarante

L’Amarante

I love this kind of find (reader: its not really a find, we saw it on a list of places to try in Paris). Wander away from the busy streets and grand squares near the Bastille, down an unlikely looking side road with an odd nightclub and a couple of shops selling household supplies, and in through the open red door of a restaurant that isn’t much wider than the door. Six tables and a single waiter who looks like he’s auditioning for Oliver Twist. It doesn’t have an online reservation system, you just need to text or email the chef; luckily my French stretched to “do you have a table for four this evening?” and luckily he did.

Tongue

Tongue

My starter was thin sliced of veal tongue with a beautiful blob of mayonnaise and some powerful eclectic salad leaves dressed perfectly with salt and oil. Maureen’s was a stuffed pig trotter with the skin fried to a wafer-thin crispy deliciousness while the gelatinous muddle of meat and stuff inside very satisfyingly stuck to our teeth. Same salad. This is obsessively pared-back stuff from the school of St John.

Main for me was a monstrous pork loin chop, fried to absolute perfection. The meat and fat were robustly flavoured and nicely pinkish inside, the caramelised outside giving it another dimension of loveliness. Cauliflower came as florets and also as a darkly caramelised mash of some kind. The gravy was wonderful. Maureen’s guinea fowl was beautifully soft and tender meat, and a very flavourful bird. The skin had been artfully crisped until it resembled the best skin on a Chinese crispy duck (minus the spices). This was served simply with a pile of green asparagus.

Wild bois

Wild bois

Even the puddings were single-minded but great: huge bowl of wild strawberries with creme fraiche. A chocolate fondant so ruthlessly savoury and pure that it hummed with all kinds of unexpected notes, of currants and leather and smoke.

It takes a bit of research to find really good food in a metropolis that is used to eating up and spitting out tourists in constant rotation. L’Amarante is the kind of place you need to find in Paris.

Pork

Pork

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