Food and Drink in London

Angel's Gate

The search was on to find a restaurant open on Sunday evening to give Trig, a fellow London food blogger, a final send off. We had hoped to go to Portal, the Portuguese restaurant on St John St. Sadly that was closed as are most places in London at that time. In the end I narrowed it down to Wild Honey and Angelus. I'd heard about the latter's foie gras creme brulee, so that was that, we were off to a restaurant named after James Bond's favourite wine or perhaps just the Latin for 'angel' (again, a Latin/religious name for a restaurant).

The restaurant feels old-school French - dark paneling, art nouveau on the walls, staff dressed formally. It feels quite relaxed though, as well it should on a Sunday. The proprietor Thierry Tomasin, used to be manage Le Gavroche and before that was sommelier at Aubergine.  The menu has a choice of eight or so starters, all at under £10 and a similar number of mains, most in their late teens. The menu descriptions are somewhat badly translated - or maybe it's just that they think English readers don't need as much detail.  Many dishes have a slight global slant with minor ingredients sourced from diverse cuisines.

I had the aforementioned savoury brulee, three of us had sardines with a goats cheese and tapenade terrine. Ben had crab in aspic withe a layer of guacamole - rather similar to a dish we had a L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon around this time last year. The brulee is very light, almost a mousse, the topping is only vaguely sweet, poppy seeds being mostly noticeable with grains of salt. I really enjoyed this. Good toast too with it too.

It was hard not to choose the rabbit, foie gras and vintage port pie. I somehow persuaded myself that I shouldn't have another foie dish so soon. Anyway, there was the Anjou pigeon on offer too and I'd heard this was good. This came with salsify wrapped in pancetta, a paste of the bird's liver with a healthy mustard kick came on a small roundel of toast. The pigeon had been perfectly roasted, not a hint of dryness, perfectly pink. This successfully staved off dish envy even as Ben sang the glories of his pie, declaring it was almost as rich as grouse.

I skipped dessert, but some of the table ordered the 'panna cotta'. There was, in fact, no gelatin in this, which you might have guessed if you read the french description. A small glass of jellied sangria accompanied this and there were murmers of general satisfaction.

The wine list is strong on French wines and good value among the regions with many bottles around the £30 mark. We shared two bottles of Sancerre, a bottle of Gigondas and a wonderful bottle of 1995 Coteaux du Layon. With bottled water and service this came to around £65 a head.

Angelus is a good addition to London and it's a style of cuisine I warm to. It probably won't make as many waves as similarly priced mid-range restaurants such as Magdalen and Arbutus, perhaps because it's pretty much a straight French bistro, rather than somewhere with an English accent.

Aidan's off to Barcelona, for an exciting start to his career as a chef.  He hopes to keep blogging.  Best of luck, Trig, and bom apetite!

Angelus, 4 Bathurst Street, W2   020 7402 0083

Ever get the feeling you're in the wrong job?

Next time someone in the office suggests sending out for some sandwiches, consider this...

I was at a party on Saturday with a few foodies (imagine) when I received a text message from a friend of mine that read "This is absolutely incredible. I am at an El Bulli catered meal at someone's house outside Barcelona. I won't remember very much but I'll bring you back the menus." Cue lots of jealousy and use of the word "bastard".

True to his word, though, the wanderer returned and here I present first the menus:

... and then (with only a little editing) his account of the event:

Background is that we and some of our Spanish colleagues host weekend retreats every year for each other to ensure the relationship is close and that people know each other well etc. This year it was their turn to host. About 14 of them and about a dozen of us went to stay in a hotel about an hour and a half outside Barcelona and therefore quite close to El Bulli itself. One of their guys has had a second home down there for about 30 years and so knows everybody/everything in the village.

Dinner on the Saturday was hosted at the Spanish guy's house with a team from El Bulli doing the catering. No idea if this is a regular service they offer or it was done as a favour to him. Anyway, they sent three chefs and half a dozen waiting staff and a load of their own equipment and set up in his house. Service impeccable and food sensational.

As you might imagine, the whole thing was something of a haze (we had a wine tasting at lunch which really set me up nicely....), but from what I can remember:

Drinks

- didn't have a mojito. Had a couple of whisky sours which weren't at all sour but actually incredibly smooth and obviously quite sweet given the passion fruit. Gintronic was the undoubted star of the show though. Mixed in a huge mixing bowl into which they poured a bottle of gin, a small amount of tonic and then a load of liquid nitrogen or something to produce this incredible gin and tonic slush puppy. It was visually impressive and tasted wonderful. Also just remembered the white sangria which tasted good but looked amazing with the fruits somehow suspended in the drink.

Appetizers

- the olives were fucking amazing. I had no idea what he did to them (and no-one would tell us), but they had clearly been hollowed out in some way and infused in something which basically meant that they exploded in your mouth as you bit into them

- not sure what the philopizza involved. Taste and texture of a pizza so the cleverness escaped me

- cauliflower and raspberry was very clever - miniature caulis and raspberries in a vinegar reduction and served kebab style on a skewer. Hard caulis and soft raspberries worked very well. Really good.

- don't remember much about tomato puff pastry. not sure if that means not memorable, I didn't have it or senses affected by gintronics.

- didn't see fried fish chips or cheese w/anchovies

- king prawn was great. Did what it said on the tin. Fiery mayo set off the prawns nicely

- tartlette of gorgonzola et al very good. Again, did what it said on the tin rather than trying to be clever

- tuna belly and piquilo peppers was the best of the lot for me. Most amazing thing I ate all night. Don't have the foodie vocabulary to describe it properly but top sushi quality tuna formed the base with a sliver of pepper on top. Wunderbar.

Mains + Dessert

- Mains were all good except for the fish which I didn't think really worked. Interestingly, someone else said the same so it probably wasn't just the booze kicking in by then. Really enjoyed the mushrooms. They had a great flavour and the vinaigrette was a perfect complement. Pork ribs were great too. Very meaty and substantial - not at all the strand of meat blasted in a thermonuclear reactor and served in a teat pipette I was expecting. Dunno what "Thai style" involved but a slightly piquante sauce from memory. Sadly, I can't tell you anything about the chocolate dessert other than I remember enjoying it but the fruit (melons, mango, pineapple etc) at the end was sensational. God knows what he did to it, but it was as if frozen but not quite frozen (i.e. incredibly cold but without being hard).

Big thanks to our roving reporter for completing what was clearly an extremely arduous assignment. I only have three things to add:

1) "Incredibly cold but without being hard" screams Pacojet to me
2) The secret of the spherical olive can be found here
3) "Wunderbar" is perfectly acceptable foodie vocabulary

Off Wight

Bank Holiday weekend was spent, once again, in Seaview, on the Isle of Wight: there can be few more pleasant places to be when the sun is shining. After a delightful couple of days pottering around the local shops, picnicking on the beach, and barbecuing local meat and fish in the garden, four of us (plus one small child) booked in for a much anticipated lunch at Seaview's eponymous hotel. What better way to round off a splendid weekend than a gourmet meal at one of the island's aspiring fine dining establishments? "Just about anything else at all" was the unfortunate general consensus.

The Seaview has changed hands in the last few years after a long stretch under the same owner – chronicled slightly nauseatingly in book form – when it maintained a pleasing family aura. It dabbled in decent food, evolved two quite distinct bars (a clubby, yachty affair at the front and a more down-to-earth pub out back) and generally seemed to pull off the mixture of professionalism and chaos that is so endearing in such well established seaside treasures. The new owners have clearly tried to focus on the professionalism but you can't help feeling that the personal touch may have disappeared somewhere along the way.

On the food front a new chef has been shipped in and been given free rein to stamp his mark on the fine(r) dining in the multi-room restaurant (the bar menu appears to have changed very little, so fans of the famous crab ramekin need not fret). Graham Walker, a veteran of the George (the Seaview's long-time rival over on the other side of the island) apparently describes his food as Modern European with a hint of British... except when he's describing it as Modern British, of course. Unfortunately, this air of confusion extends to the food his kitchen produces too.

The menu is pleasingly packed with local ingredients (the island is embracing home grown produce as much as anywhere in the country) but sadly such fine ingredients were never quite done justice. After some excellent bread and butter (and having avoided the temptation to nibble any of the glass beads pointless scattered on the table) I started with "Isle of Wight spider crab risotto, pink grape fruit [sic], Tarragon [sic], Parmesan crisp". I was intrigued by the thought of grapefruit in a risotto but thought it might be OK: a twist on the classic seafood/lemon combination. And to be fair that bit did kind of work; the tarragon added little except confusion, however, and the Parmesan crisp was just wrong. There's a reason cheese isn't usually added to seafood pasta/risotto dishes, but there's an even more compelling reason not for doing it like this: a burnt offering of bitter flakes of cheese that left me feeling a little sick.

Talking of burnt, I also had another curiosity as a main course: "Sandown black bream, toasted rice water, haricot Blanc [sic], fennel, lemon oil". I'm not sure what toasted rice water is exactly. From the taste, I'm guessing the water used to soak a pan in which you've burnt your rice. Anyway it dominated and spoiled a dish that was never a good idea in the first place.

Elsewhere, a watercress soup with local blue cheese and sweet and sour beetroot was underseasoned, a main of duck breast appeared to have come from a singularly underendowed bird and "Truffle flavoured brownrigg free-range chicken, cauliflower puree, roasted pearl barley, and truffle sauce" was described as "truffly". The vegetarian main course, billed as a wild mushroom and shallot tart, proved to be a large disk of puff pastry on which some mushrooms had been scattered before being hidden under a pile of underdressed leaves. Hard to see what made this a tart and even harder to see how it justified the same £16.95 price tag as the rest of the mains (save the fillet which will set you back an extra £5.95 [sic]).

Clearly I chose badly and there's always a danger this will cloud judgment, but this meal was a real disappointment. There's obviously some talent in the kitchen, but despite the obvious effort to go the extra yard the memories you're left with are of someone trying too hard rather than any of the dishes the effort is going into. More than once we caught each other casting envious glances at the fish and chips the bar customers had been ordering. I think I know what we'll be eating next time.

The Seaview Hotel and Restaurant, The High Street, Seaview, Isle of Wight PO34 5EX 01983 612711

Amazing grouse

(Image taken from a BBC News website article about, um, British endangered species . . .)

Over the last two weeks I have gone straight from grouse virgin to grouse addict.  This fine, exclusively British, bird has the first game season, starting famously and gloriously on August 12th.  I'm very keen on game and it's a bit of a mystery why I hadn't got round to eating it before.  The push this year came from a bunch of foodie friends who were keen on organising a feast and so after a brief restaurant search we settled on Patterson's, in Mayfair.  Although the restaurant declares itself to be 'modern European', we had been assured we could get a classic British rendition of grouse there.

We had grounds for optimism with Patterson's and grouse.  Not only had we heard good things about the restaurant in general, from people online, but we'd also heard that the Scottish chef used to work at the Garrick Club.  If anyone's going to cook grouse well it was a Scottish club chef.  There was also a rumour that grouse tasted great this year, although I have no idea which factors affect this.  After a pre-prandial pint we entered Patterson's.  It's strikingly modern in a slightly 80s James Bond way - it even has illuminated fish tanks.  Modernity is evident with the menu too, with dishes sustaining complexity and the use of fashionable flourishes by being based mainly around top quality British ingredients - langoustines, turbot, dover sole and lobster surfside, Scottish beef amoung the turfside treats.  We ordered a variety of starters and a turbot to spare.

The first pleasant surprise had been a round of champagne soon after being seated, the next was a surprisingly robust amuse bouche.  One online review of Patterson's had hinted that their amuse was not substantial enough . . . we had a portion of osso bucco with risotto.  Very nice indeed with a beautiful herb crust, the meat flaked away nicely and the rice was the right consistency.  It was almost substantial enough to pass for a main course at some places, but this provided some comfort from the unseasonal gloom outside.  Next we found out that our spare turbot had been magically transformed into an extra starter each.  This was a good thing as it was completely delicious, the fish matched with minted pea puree, peas, shallots and pea shoots.  The next starters met with a mixed reception, some, for example a langoustine dish, very successful, other dishes perhap needed further development.  In many ways this was a mere sideshow before the arrival of the grouse.

The arrival of five grouse at the table should have been accompanied by a trumpet fanfare or perhaps the wail of bagpipes.  The roasted birds, were simply presented on wooden boards with a traditional accompaniment of bread sauce in a small copper pan and game chips in a big bowl.  Alongside the bird, on the board was the grouse liver on roundel of toast, also traditional.  In addition, red cabbage, bacon, wild mushrooms, vegetables, a pan of wine/redcurrant sauce and . . . a lobe of seared foie gras.  The bird itself  blew everything else out of the water though.  It has a complex, lengthy taste, highly savoury and succulent.  As you ate further you abandoned cutlery in favour of fingers.  Then you found the darker, gamier meat, eventually ending up with bitterness.  Conversation came to a halt as myself and my companions became lost in the taste of this flesh.  Wow.  It was good . . . really good.

Sadly it was so dark in Patterson's the only picture that came out was of this not very grouse-like creature:

After this, dessert seemed a bit ambitious and also that it might lead to comparative disappointment after the high of the grouse.  With four bottles of wine, including a Savigny-des-Beaune that matched the grouse well, and some Armagnac, the bill came to about £100 a head.

After eating that meal I just had to have grouse again.  The opportunity arose with dinner at St John where the bird was on offer at £31.  The presentation here was much simpler with just watercress and bread sauce as accompaniments and actually that was just fine with me.  The grouse was delicious, tasting very much like the one at Patterson's.  Again, I was lost in the flavours for a while.  If you've never tried it, do so.

Patterson's, 4 Mill Street, W1 020 7499 2122