Review: Benares, Mayfair

Malabar scallop

Malabar scallop

Benares was the first ever true Indian fine dining restaurant I tried, maybe 14 years ago. I remember being knocked out by the elegance of the cooking while a symphony of spices were gradually building to a mighty crescendo on my palate. I’ve had a lot of fine Indian food since then but I’ve always had a soft spot for Benares, even though it apparently went off the boil for a while. Well, I’ve been back and all the elegance and spice is still there.

It’s a modern dining room on flashy Berkeley Square, sculpted walls and lots of black shiny surfaces with the occasional splash of primary colours. I must admit the service felt more business-like than personal, but really nothing to complain about.

Dry ice oyster

Dry ice oyster

So what can I tell you about the food? Well, the “street snack” was so-so, but then it’s actually quite refreshing that Benares is a properly grown-up menu and doesn’t feel the need to feed us gussied-up Mumbai street food like every-other Indian tasting menu. Much better was a truffle, chestnut and chicken broth with real warmth.

The oyster and sea bream got dry ice poured all over it, which was a bit worryingly retro, but I needn’t have worried: the scallop backed in a fierce and heart-warming malabar sauce was absolutely splendid. I’d have happily eaten five. Instead I ate a piece of beautifully tandoori’d halibut with plenty of firm, bouncy texture still inside the fish and a lovely red char outside. The moilee sauce, one of my favourites, was tangy and sweet.

Halibut moilee

Halibut moilee

Oh, but then the tandoori muntjac. This was hands-down the best piece of venison all year, in fact for many years. Tender, slightly iron-y, cube of meat with a great set of spiky/warming spices on the outside. And that wasn’t even the best main, because the baby poussin tikka masala was even better. Sharp, sour, fiery, sweet gravy on the nicely charred meat, an absolutely knock-out daal and fine pilau rice. An absolutely unabashed British curry classic but so greatly elevated by just top-drawer cooking, plating and balancing of spices.

The rasmalai pud was good, the crispy pastry rose with dabs of pink goo were even better, and I really enjoyed the crystallised fig leaf even if it got completely stuck in my teeth. The menu is £120 before drinks and we had a great value bottle of Gewurtztraminer (well, you have to really). I think it’s spot-on and if you want to know what can be done at the top end of Indian cooking then Benares is for you.

Melt in the mouth pastry

Melt in the mouth pastry

Review: Ogino, Beverley

Ogino

Ogino

When we reported back to friends about our meal at Ogino, a Japanese restaurant in Beverley, they reflected that after a few grim experiences they have basically given up on trying Japanese restaurants outside of major cities. And I must admit I can also think of three really poor examples without much effort. Four, now.

So yeah. Beverley is a really handsome old market town in East Yorkshire and I’d recommend a wander round its old centre to anyone. I couldn’t recommend Ogino though. In spite of the snazzy ceiling decoration.

Duck

Duck

We started with one of their speciality sushi rolls. This was a thug of a roll, each slice way too large to eat in a mouthful. Stuffed with blue crab, salmon and tuna with tempura crumb sprinkled on top it would have been a nice combo if not so overwhelming. Perfectly nice sushi rice, just too much of it.

My main course was smoked duck with a red wine and paprika sauce. Putting a glass cover on a roast duck breast and squirting some smoke underneath before service doesn’t make it a smoked duck breast, and sure enough once the smoke had blown away there wasn’t any flavour left. The sauce was a vaguely sweet brown goo. The duck was okay but hardly melt-in-the-mouth. It had a slightly odd taste that I would have associated with boiled meat if it hadn’t clearly still been pink. Too long on a warming plate? Dunno.

Sushi roll

Sushi roll

Funnily enough, Maureen’s seared tuna had the same sort of taste. And a very odd texture, sort of like spam. It also had almost zero actual searing on the surface, just a grey outside and pinkish middle. The tuna was served on a bed of noodles with a bit of soy sauce; I guess this was the “soy and red shiso reduction”?

By far the best dish on the table was the accompaniment of kimchi fried rice. But you know, I defy anyone to f*ck up kimchi fried rice! So that’s not saying a lot. At £35 each for two courses before drinks, Ogino needed to be a whole lot better. Their ambition is waaaay beyond their actual ability.

Tunah

Tunah

Review: Joro, Sheffield

Joro

Joro

I don’t usually go for wine pairings with a tasting menu. I find it ends up being too much booze and I can’t really pay attention to the later courses, often leaving the restaurant feeling a bit dyspeptic to boot. Now and again we make an exception and I’m very glad we did at Joro. It’s a ten course tasting menu and we had no less than ten drink pairings. Ten! With sake, vermouth and cider mixed in alongside a wide range of wines. The sommelier was deeply well informed, passionate about his stuff and easy to chat with. In some ways this absolutely made the whole meal.

But then again, it would have been a great menu even without the drinks. Joro is very much Nordic via Japan, with plenty of British produce. The restaurant is in converted shipping containers that sit fairly lonely on the side of a big road. You get the impression that someone hoped to spark a revitalisation of the whole area and it hasn’t quite happened. It’s an odd spot, but once you are through the door it is dark and comfortably welcoming inside, smart open kitchen and comfortable seating.

Kombu ice cream

Kombu ice cream

Right in the middle of the menu we had a good early candidate for my dish of the year. Perfectly cooked langoustine buried in a pile of vivid orange and massively spice-warming Thai red curry foam. Underneath, a sticky rice puree that added a clean and nutty taste to balance the power. This was knock-out cooking.

Of course, pretty much everything that came before and after was splendid. Chunks of aged hamachi and turnip in a pool of fish bone oil. Chawanmushi custard with onion broth and tiny apple cubes to add zing. Beautiful piece of lamb with a pickled dulse gel and a stonking wild garlic raita. Kombu ice cream! There’s a special savoury seaside flavour to kelp, but who knew it worked well as ice cream? This was all stunning stuff. The trout with beurre blanc was about the only thing I could say “meh” to, and that’s really only by comparison; it would be a top dish on most lesser menus!

At £85 for ten courses, Joro is just superb value for the sheer invention and quality. Go to Sheffield! Find the shipping containers! Have the flippin’ wine pairing even if you don’t usually!

Lamb

Lamb

Review: The Pack Horse, Hayfield

Lyme Park

Lyme Park

We’ve got a new vice. It’s this: self-catering stays attached to National Trust properties. Okay, not as exciting as you were hoping. But so far it’s been great, staying in a historic building, in what have been huge and well-equipped apartments or cottages, and with free access to roam around the grounds (when no-one else is there!) and visit. Cotehele in Cornwall was the first (brilliant!) and this time we stayed at Lyme Park in the Peak District.

It’s not all self-catering though, we found time to go out for an utterly brilliant pub dinner at The Packhorse in Hayfield. This is a 100% proper pub, but of course with the food being this good it’s also fully laid out for dinners in the evening. The menu is more inventive than the usual, without trying in any way to be fine dining. Just delicious.

Trotter and gribiche

Trotter and gribiche

Starters were crispy pigs trotter with gribiche and chicken liver parfait. The trotter was a nicely breadcrumbed baton, full of flavour, with a good tangy gribiche and an even more tangy piccalily emulsion. Wicked stick of crackling on top. My parfait was an excellent specimen, smooth as silk with a great balance of fat and iron. Nice chutney. But make way for the main courses, for they were the stars…

Truffle butter chicken kyiv. Let that sink in. It oooooozed with exactly the warm buttery-truffly scent your brain is imagining. Paired with a good rich Lincolnshire poached veloute, a really nice thing to be scooping up with chunks of kyiv.

Meanwhile Maureen had a hand-raised shortcrust pie, full to the brim with the most stunning beef curry. I’m hopeless at describing the distinct mellow-earthy-toasty flavours of good curry gravies, but regardless of this being a pub in the Peak District, this sat handsomely among the top five curry gravies ever, elevated a country mile above a typical curry house madras. Garlicky mash and honey-roast carrots were good. The pastry was top-notch.

Rounded out with a splendid creme brulee, and a good selection of beers and wines, we left utterly delighted. The Packhorse deserves to be a star on the culinary map of British dining pubs. It’s around £35 for 3 courses before drinks. Splendid.

Pieeeeee!

Pieeeeee!

Swede gratin

The combination of brassica, cheese, vinegar and chilli work really well (think: kimchi toastie) and this gratin is just the best.

1 big swede (4-500g?)
1 onion
1 garlic clove
80g cheddar
180ml double cream
1dsp of little pickled Brazilian chillies

Slice the swede thinly and par-boil for 4 mins in salted water. Slice the onion thinly and cook it down to soft and brown. Mash the garlic clove with salt, put it in the cream and bring to the boil then switch off. Mix cream, swede, chillies and onion together with half the cheese, then dumb into a gratin dish and spread out. Top with the rest of the cheese. Bake covered at 180 for 40 minutes, then uncover and add breadcrumbs and bake for 10 minutes more.