Bonfire potatoes

Review: Embers, Brighton

Embers is a cooked-on-wood restaurant in the Brighton Lanes. Most fun is sitting up at the counter, so you can watch the chefs do their thing with the flickering orange flames, the coals and ashes. Sizzling fat etc. The menu is small plate style and they’re really doing their utmost to bring you maximum char …

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Trout

Review: Furna, Brighton

I wonder to what degree my enthusiasm for a menu is guided by the whole experience? There’s absolutely no doubt it has an effect: I don’t have professional tastebuds nor zen-like detachment, so how much I enjoyed the fish dish will be influenced by how much I’m enjoying the whole dining experience. But is the …

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Skewers

Review: Robata, Soho

Today we fancied an izakaya. There’s a good one called Flesh & Buns towards Covent Garden (review here) but we decided to try somewhere new and widen our options: Robata, named for the coal-fired grills used for cooking yakitori sticks. The sticks we chose were: lamb belly, Iberico pork, king oyster mushroom, sweetcorn. The lamb …

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Mead flight!

Review: Apiary, Brighton

Apiary is a smart little bar that looks out of place in the middle of Western Road – it ought to be in a much hipper corner of Brighton. But it’s worth seeking out. We stopped off for drinks on Saturday evening and then breakfast on Sunday, and if I superimpose the two then I …

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Cooking our oysters

Review: Ekstedt at the Yard, Whitehall

Ekstedt at the Yard is one of those restaurants that has gone all-in, put the gas and electric out to pasture, and claims to cook the entire menu on wood. This is why there is a mighty pizza oven just by the chef’s table, ensuring an extremely cosy evening no matter how many layers you …

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Review: Embers, BrightonReview: Furna, BrightonReview: Robata, SohoReview: Apiary, BrightonReview: Ekstedt at the Yard, Whitehall

Review: The Raby Hunt, Darlington

Categories:

Fine dining, Michelin, Rest of UK, Restaurant Reviews

5 January 2018

Fat oyster

Fat oyster

TL;DR: We enjoyed something like fifteen courses of splendid fine dining at the Raby Hunt. There were no dishes we didn’t love, and some we loved a lot!

It looks like the old drovers’ inn has had a thorough makeover recently, with a sharp modern display kitchen and edgy touches like the silver skull that grins up at you as you cross the threshold. I reckon they’ve got the combo just right, the dining room itself feeling relaxed and country but with those modern elements hinting at the spiffy food to come.

The first little puff of potato with a saline seaside taste of oyster hidden inside was superb. Followed by a whole oyster, absolutely perfectly poached. This might be my favourite oyster ever, from Lindisfarne where apparently the oysters are fat and sweet and delicious. Oyster leaf and cucumber granita were clean, helpful accompaniments. Another great bite was the cube of roast suckling pig, served as a taco on a disk of blue corn tortilla that was as soft as a feather but had a great dirty taste to go with the sweet lump of pork. One of those “please, just line me up ten more of these and I’ll be happy!” dishes.

Razor clam magic

Razor clam magic

Crispy fried Jerusalem artichoke skin with hot and cold offal on top was another deliciously filthy bite. Next up, joint-best dish of the day: buttery razor clam with brown shrimps and pied de mouton mushrooms. I have no idea why this works so well, but the earthy flavour of the mushrooms was a big part of the magic. So was the presentation. There’s no grand centrepieces or dinner theatre at the Raby Hunt, just very beautiful plating.

I’ve never had beef tartare paired with smoked eel mousse and caviar before, but I could certainly get used to it! I guess I might have preferred the beef chopped even finer, but otherwise a magical little dish. Oh! And then a teeny tiny burger made with a slice of meltingly soft pastrami and two slices of black truffle. Heheheh… loved it.

Tiny truffle burger

Tiny truffle burger

Joint-best dish number two, surprisingly, a salad of winter vegetables. Pinpoint perfect flavours, and such a mixture of elements; turnip, squash, cauli, artichoke, broccoli, carrot, kale. Smartest of all, chef resisted the urge to throw in beetroot and overwhelm the rest. I’ve forgotten how it was dressed, though I recall that scallop powder may have been involved.

The main couldn’t possibly compete. But it was a very nice piece of lamb, and the scorched leaf and anchovy mousse worked well with it.

First pud was best pud: black olive tuille over a gorgeous little chocolate mousse and a dollop of goat cheese ice cream on top. Second pud was also great: a mango tart with brillat saverin cream and coconut ice cream.

The Raby Hunt was a great ending to the year, immediately joining Ynyshir and El Portal de Echaurren as my top 3 gastronomic experiences of 2017. The menu is £105 and the ambition and execution of every single dish makes that price tag perfectly good value to me. Wines by the glass were expensive, but we did leave ourselves in the hands of the (very helpful and well-informed) sommelier.

First pud best pud

First pud best pud

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Review: Moshimo, Brighton

Categories:

Rest of UK, Restaurant Reviews

29 December 2017

Cod cheek tempura

Cod cheek tempura

It’s so long since I last visited Moshimo that I haven’t even blogged it! So it must be at least six years. In fact this Brighton sushi restaurant has been here in the very centre of the Brighton Laines (and yet neatly hidden in a small empty square that most visitors walk past unnoticed) for as long as conveyor belt sushi has been in the UK. And Moshimo is to Yo! Sushi what Five Guys is to McDonalds. The same, but much better. As an aside, they’re also the restaurant responsible for starting the FishLove photography campaign that has been so successful in raising international consciousness of the issues of overfishing.

We sit down and enjoy chunks of char-grilled aubergine bathed in dollops of really pungent miso and sprinkled in sesame seed. Simple tuna nigiri with generous chunks of purple fish and rice having the perfect bite and just a delicate hint of vinegar. Inari sushi with a savoury rice and veg mixture inside the tofu skin case. We order one hot dish off the menu: tempura cod cheeks. Light, crisp, dry batter encasing slippery pieces of fish – it goes better dipped in soy and wasabi than in the classic tempura sauce it comes with. We finish with authentic rice flour buns filled with dark bean curd.

We’re in and out in thirty minutes, made happy by sushi washed down with clear green tea. The menu has a whole lot more but this was a quick lunch stop. Exactly what conveyor belt sushi is for. The interior isn’t cheap-n-cheerful though, it’s stylish and modern with a vivid red ceiling and slaty grey walls: you could have a splendid evening feast here too. Price is right around the Yo! mark.

Moshimo

Moshimo

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Review: Pascere, Brighton

Categories:

Fine dining, Rest of UK, Restaurant Reviews

29 December 2017

Pascere

Pascere

There’s something about Christmas that brings out the worst in dining out. The phrase “Christmas menu” usually has me turning a swift 180 on my heel and heading elsewhere. And oh my, the work Christmas party! This year’s was a classic. Floppity “roast” veg. Slices of turkey so thin and processed that I swear – I swear – it was the same stuff they use in Tescos basics turkey sandwiches. And the vegetarians got a mushroom risotto with two mushrooms in. Because how Christmassy is mushroom risotto, eh?

And this perhaps explains why I was deeply underwhelmed by Pascere, which most food writers and bloggers have raved about in recent months. Because I was lucky enough to have their Christmas tasting menu.

The place is a nicely chilled out modern dining room, good design aesthetic, dark and cosy with golden touches, turquoise and gold menus. Staff are friendly and service was good.

Tiny crab tarts, filled with white meat and topped with a bisque-y hollandaise for flavour, were a jolly promising start. Haggis bonbons too.

Tiny crab tarts

Tiny crab tarts

The first starter was a dish of properly bitter raddichio with a drop of artichoke puree. The puree was nowhere near useful enough in cutting through the really singular bitterness of this red raddichio. Next was a neat little package of sous vide haddock, translucent and toothsome, with a neat cylinder of roast salsify and an unctuous smokey mousse. All great. But with a blob of celeriac remoulade on the side that had all the subtlety of industrial coleslaw. Jarring.

The rabbit I liked, very nicely sous-vided so that it was still deeply pink and as toothsome as the fish before. Paired well with a lobster foam and wrapped in… a delicate green pasta? I’m gonna be honest, I’m not sure! Nice dish. And the mushroom orzo in risotto style with little cubes of blue cheese was a really nice dish too. Two hits!

Haddock

Haddock

Sous vide trout was, like the haddock, a neat package of fish. Quite literally. Both fish still held the exact shape and edges of the vacuum bag they’d been cooked in. That just seems… clumsy. But hey, as long as it tastes good. It actually just tasted okay. The beetroot accompaniment was too earthy and rooty for the soft amber fish. And the fish was “roasted in burnt butter”? Maybe it briefly met a hot pan, but far too briefly to show.

I’ve got to have a pick at the main goose dish too. I really had to saw away at the roast goose, and that’s not a good sign. Just as with a normal Christmas dinner, the extra bits – the little sausage and the cube of stuffing – were much better than the main meat. So I suppose they’re just sticking with tradition…?

First dessert of pine curd topped with tart cranberries and pine granita was good, a lovely seasonal dish that I’d have preferred a double portion of, as the main dessert was a bit of a muddle of pistachio, passionfruit and chocolate. Not bad at all just a blur of flavours.

Pine custard

Pine custard

I’d want better for £75 a head before drinks. Incidentally, I liked their wine list – not super long but a good selection; we paired our meal with six good wines. There were enough good ideas and solid ambitious cooking here for me to want to give Pascere the benefit of the doubt, and maybe come back at a normal time of the year. Perhaps all restaurants with high aspirations should just ditch “Christmas menus” as too likely to compromise their high standards (and good name) with hastily devised menus straight-jacketed by a theme?

Hmm… and then again, check out how beautifully The Clove Club delivered seasonal delights to us last year!

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Review: Bibendum, London

Categories:

Fine dining, London, Michelin, Restaurant Reviews

29 December 2017

Stunning starter

Stunning starter

Our meal at Bibendum was quite an example of what a difference menu choices can make. Left to my own devices, I’d have probably given an unambiguously glowing review. But it was very clear that of the four of us I’d definitely made the best selections from the a la carte menu at Claude Bosi’s 2-star restaurant in the famous Michelin building.

The dining room is iconic, with fantastic stained glass windows of the slightly bizarre cigar-puffing fat tyre man of Michelin, a towering ceiling overhead, and elegant chairs tucked beneath crisp tablecloths. The service was the kind of silk-smooth smiling efficiency you’d expect from a 2-star classic French establishment (though not faultless; our main courses arrived pretty much on the back of our starters being cleared, and then afterwards we were left completely untouched for almost 30 minutes; we felt a little like a table of ghosts, watching the world of fine dining bustling around us).

So. Food.

Fantastic fish

Fantastic fish

There were some polite little amuse bouches. The liquorice-flavoured black sticky bun filled with salt cod was the stand-out specimen for originality and a flavour that lingered pleasantly with our wine. Tiny cone of foie gras icecream was meh. Though I freely confess to a huge “meh” on any attempt to chill foie gras.

My starter was an absolute stunner, visually and in taste. Duck jelly, tiny cubes of smoked sturgeon, and a generous dollop of caviar. The jelly was clear as a bell and pure umami, giving a beautiful earth edge to the salty caviar. And this was definitely the most classically beautiful plate of food I’ve seen in a long time. By complete contrast, Maureen’s pastry-coated sweetbread with pickled walnut jam was really quite an unrefined beast for such a refined table. Jolly good though. Tim’s golden beetroot terrine was a huge glowing amber brick of lovely beetroot with a smart mixture of blobs to add flavour pairings; the salty white feta especially good. Vanessa’s crab and apple I didn’t try; it was pronounced light yet unamazing.

Resplendent rabbit

Resplendent rabbit

On the main course I scored again, with a turbot grenobloise. The chunk of fish was cooked to toothy perfection, emerging from a fluffy cloud of brown butter foam. Hidden below the clouds, a bed of really dirty crushed potatoes, made super-filthy with plenty of burnt butter and something with a pronounced caramel flavour. My arteries creaked a song of pure joy. Maureen went for lobster in Singapore black pepper sauce. In hindsight, a mistake: 2 Michelin stars is never going to deliver the depth and power of flavour in a proper Singaporean black pepper sauce. Even so, this was very toned down. The pepper was there, and the sauce was fine, and that really was a splendid lobster tail. But…

Well, I guess that’s the contrast. Refined French cooking of a classic French gave me mouth-gasms, while refined French cooking of a classic Asian dish sucked the joy out of it and left behind another “meh”. Tim’s rabbit and langoustine dish was very excellent, and Vanessa also partook of the lobster and found herself wishing for some other element to vie with the single-minded lobster.

Magnificent meringue

Magnificent meringue

My dessert was a cep vacherin, which turned out to be a prickly golfball of pure white meringue filled with a delicate banana creme patissiere and sprinkled with cep powder. I enjoyed the novelty of the funky fungi flavour. All in all a good end. Others plumped for the chocolate souffle with Indonesian basil ice cream. This souffle was a monster, and the brush of shiny chocolate ganache over the perfectly raised surface was a good stroke. The ice cream cut the richness just enough.

So… Bibendum. For £90 per head without drinks (and there are very few wine bottles under £60) you’re getting absolutely classic French fine dining. For the food alone, it’s not great value – though my own choices came close to brilliance. This is experience dining though, and you’re also paying for the crisp tablecloths, the effortlessly elegant waiters and good ol’ Bibendum with his fat cigar. Depends what you’re after.

Mr Bibendum

Mr Bibendum

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Review: Wilder, Nailsworth

Categories:

Fine dining, Rest of UK, Restaurant Reviews

15 November 2017

Jacket potato soup

Jacket potato soup

Nailsworth officially has a restaurant empire. Just like Rick Stein in Padstow or Heston in Bray, chef Matthew Beardshall has now got no less than two… count ’em, two… restaurants in town! There’s the brilliant and relaxed Wild Garlic where we’ve always enjoyed great meals full of straight-forward good cooking, and now there’s Wilder which offers a higher-end tasting menu experience just a hundred yards down the road.

The menu is £70 for eight courses and, kinda like the Wild Garlic, the decor and the tableware doesn’t really flatter the menu. It’s pretty ordinary stuff and (I hate myself for saying this) ultimately I think some of the excitement and pleasure of an expensive tasting menu is where it’s served and what it’s served on. It might be that they’re planning on investing more when they know they’ve got a hit? Or that they just don’t have the touch for that aspect of dining.

Pork tenderloin

Pork tenderloin

Still, they certainly know how to dish up good food! The first amuse was a cup of jacket potato soup. And that’s exactly what it was. Absolutely no mistaking the rough earthen flavour of a jacket potato coming through the smooth gulp of soup. Clever. Paired with a tiny sobrasada toastie that absolutely hummed with its own deeply earthy pig flavour.

There were a trio of good starters with some neat ideas. Salt-baked parsnip with curd was lovely, the parsnip having a richly creamy texture to go with with its sweet/funk flavour. Home-cured salmon was delish, so was the roast and spiced cauliflower, though I wasn’t 100% certain the two really went together. Sweetcorn tortellini with a truffle emulsion made for another gently amiable dish, although the pasta was a bit thick; didn’t detract from the flavour at all, but I guess I had my “fine dining radar” on and this wasn’t refined.

The main was a beautiful piece of pork tenderloin, still toothy and pink but nicely glazed without. The five-spice gravy was good, though subtle. Butternut puree, cavolo nero and a blob of transparent apple sauce accompanied well.

Cheeeeese

Cheeeeese

The rest was a bit anti-climactic. The cheese dish included a few nuggets of spicy Hampton Blue served with pickled pear plus roast, crisp and puree’d jerusalem artichoke. Creamy puree was just weird with cheese. The pear had lost its sweetness in the pickle. Pre-dessert of coconut sorbet with charred pineapple was better, though a very sweet sorbet indeed. Dessert was from the blob school of tasting menu desserts. A quenelle of (good) chocolate ganache, a quenelle of very sweet blackberry sorbet, and two dollops of chestnut mousse. I liked all three flavours in combination but this was a texture-free plate and after a few mouthfuls just too sweet and rich to love.

The wine pairing was very reasonable and the wines very good and intelligently paired. Service was also lovely. But really I’ve got: starters that I enjoyed but didn’t knock my socks off, a main course that was pleasant, and a disappointing pud. That’s not a great investment of £70 per head without drinks. I’m going back to the Wild Garlic for an unfussy dinner I know I’ll love, and will wait quite a while before checking whether Wilder has turned up the volume on its tasting menu.

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