Food and Drink in London

No Spain no gain

Spain is a favourite destination for foodies, and not just for the theatre of El Bulli. Throughout the country there are restaurants worth seeking out, among them a compelling mix of traditional and modern cuisine. From tapas bars to Michelin stars and, as we saw last weekend in Barcelona's fabulous markets, some of the best ingredients you could hope for.

Barcelona is a fantastic city, replete with amazing architecture (which we mainly ignored) and cool bars and restaurants (which we didn't). The highlight was dinner on Saturday night at Comerç 24. As his first placement since leaving catering college fellow blogger Aidan Brooks (aka Trig) has been working in the kitchen there for six months or so now, during which time it has won a Michelin star. I'm sure he won't want to take all the credit.

I understand that as little as twelve months ago Comerç24 was squarely a tapas bar, albeit an upmarket one. It has kept the general style of small dishes, which lend themselves particularly well to a couple of decent priced tasting menus, but there are influences from all over the place now and real ambition and creativity in the cooking. One dish in particular will stay with me a long time.

Annoyingly, my new phone/camera jobbie ran out of juice early on so three photos are all I have in terms of evidence and memory joggers...

Openers were some grissini (which were fine), olives stuffed with anchovies (big and slightly scary for someone who's not a big olive fan), pig skin crackers (an improvement on the prawn crackers you might get in your local Chinese but not worth crossing continents for) and gold-dusted macadamia nuts. More interesting things were happening on the veggie side of the divide: some cute filo tartlets that seemed to contain just heaps of parmesan but actually had something liquid inside too (apparently yuzu was involved). I was too slow to taste one so I imagine they were very good. Likewise a pair of dainty toasted asparagus sandwiches.

The dishes proper tended to arrive in pairs, which makes me think I must have forgotten some, but here goes...

Mackerel and citrus fruit salad arrived with alongside a tuna tartare in a moat of egg yolk and soy. Both lots of fish were super fresh. A lovely start to the meal. For Antonia (who was having a full vegetarian tasting menu alongside my version - top marks there) the avocado maki roll that finally killed off my camera's battery, and probably something else at the same time. The roll was very accomplished, involving delicate slicing and quick work to get it to the table before it lost its colour (it was one of Trig's).

There followed some or all of the following in approximately this order. (Two bottles of localish Nunci, from a big separate list of reds that came handily accompanied by a nice French chap who seemed to know what he was talking about, have further conspired to blur records of the evening.)

Favas al a Catalana: broad beans and catalan blood sausage in a soup made from the bean pods. The sausage came as small grains of intense porkiness and worked well with the beans and the soup. The signature Kinder egg was presented only to Antonia, but at least this time I did get a taste of it. A lovely suspension of perfectly cooked egg in a creamy potato (I think) foam, probably with some truffles thrown in for good measure.

Cod tripe with artichoke two ways: a tiny dollop of artichoke ice cream with a blob of fishy mousse shared equal billing with a tiny cod and artichoke stew. Good stuff. The winter garden salad I can't comment on, other than visually it was stunning: lots of ingredients and pretty flowers. Antonia loved it. Maybe I should buy her flowers more often!

Then came my highlight: a single cuttlefish raviolo, the fish forming the pasta rather than the filling, which was an intense morel thing. It came with a very thin toast, a few smears of ink and instructions to eat the whole lot in one go. Good advice. Quite one of the best things I have ever eaten. It all but brought tears to my eyes. Antonia was almost as impressed by a glassful of piping hot cauliflower mousse topped with truffle oil. I later had something similar with dense oxtail buried within it. Very good.

There was a cold soup poured over some more delicate veg and flowers (interesting but a bit similar to the earlier salad), some more cuttlefish, this time draped over a line of black rice, and a simple but successful salad of asparagus and mandarin.

Sweets started with a delicate shot glass of mint soup with passion fruit foam. Then a quartet of bitesized goodies, three of which were a chocolate mousse with salt and olive oil (a traditional local combo), a tiny financier and an Oreo cookie stuffed with vanilla ice cream. There was also a fun bowl of yoghurt with "muesli" and frozen raspberry pieces and more passion fruit. The cheese plate we requested while we waited for Trig to help clean down the kitchen (a spectacle in itself from the vantage point of our seats at the bar) contained an unexpected but very welcome stinky stilton.

All this, a quick chat with the chef and a few more glasses with Trig added up to a very fine evening indeed. Planes were nearly missed the next day...

Restaurant Comerç 24, C/ Comerç 24, 08003 Barcelona, Spain +34 93 319 21 02

My shingle friend

Unlike Jay Rayner, who (to bastardise Mark Twain) presumably regards a walk as a good ride in a Golf spoiled, I rather like a stroll. Even better, a healthy yomp on a crisp winter's day. Better still, a healthy yomp on a crisp winter's day by the seaside with a splendid lunch to look forward to.

And so to Littlehampton. There's a sentence you don't come across very often...

The occasion was a kind of strange self-congratulatory treat after Antonia and I had both successfully been off the booze for a couple of weeks (it looks so trivial in writing). I say strange because the two weeks weren't quite up and the treat therefore involved... no drinking. But somehow we muddled through. We were staying in Bailiffscourt Hotel, of which more, I think, when we go back: the quality of the breakfast and the general level of service suggest we really ought to try the food in the restaurant proper rather than the making do with the decent enough fare available in the rabbit warren of parlours and lounges.

Got to love a hotel that provides wellies, though, so on Sunday morning, after a pre-breakfast swim in both indoor and outdoor (!) pools and, of course, a richly deserved post-swim breakfast, we set off on the two-mile walk along the beach to Littlehampton in search of a rather special café Antonia knew all about. Now I'm no expert, but this was a bloody long two miles. Not only was it blowing a fierce gale (despite the glorious sunshine), the beach was also of the big-pebbles-making-it-very-tough-on-the-calves-and-very-easy-to-fall-over variety. And when we finally reached the pier that we (rightly) assumed would bring Littlehampton into view, trendy beach café and all, the relatively modest walk stretching out in front of us turned out to be a sadistic optical illusion as the path took us on an inland diversion that must have added at least another mile and a half to the trip. No matter: all very bracing and worthy and we'd certainly earned our lunch.

And a very fine lunch it was too. The venue was the East Beach Café, a striking addition to Littlehampton's long, straight seafront. All dramatic curves and overlapping shapes evocative (on the outside) of shells and driftwood and (inside) of the weathered chalk pebbles we'd been slipping on an hour or so earlier.

The building is the brainchild of Thomas Heatherwick, a designer cum architect who's not above dropping in unannounced with his family on a busy Sunday lunch service to see if the staff and the cooking can live up to the space he's created for them. I'm happy to say that they can: not only did they find room for the Heatherwick clan (and the two of us), they served up some real treats.

I started with a dainty ramekin of potted shrimps, out of the fridge long enough to wake the flavour up a bit but not to melt the delicately crispy surface of the butter on top. Underneath, well judged spicing kept things interesting without dominating crustacea that had clearly gone in super fresh. For Antonia, big meaty field mushrooms on toast, which looked the business. For mains, I had a special of sea bream with sprouting broccoli. Brilliantly simple and - frankly - simply brilliant. Antonia had a mixed leaf and green bean salad with mini Welsh rarebit toasts. And chips, obviously. All good stuff.

So both a building and a menu that utterly confound expectations for seafront dining. Not for the East Beach Café sausage, egg and chips, soggy cod and squeezy sauce bottles in a damp and dingy dump. Instead, a stunning building, fresh fish, home potted shrimps and (in the evening) guineafowl terrine with quince paste. And on a freezing cold Sunday in the second week in February it was packed. Apparently it is every day.

Would that every seaside town had a place like this to walk to. (Jay, you might want to take a cab.)

East Beach Café, LittleHampton, West Sussex BN17 5NZ 01903 731 903

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

Old, blood and guts

I have a bit of catching up to do after a week in Southern France, so there will probably be little in the way of chronology about the coming posts. In fact, arbitrarily, I've decided to kick off with one of the most recent meals, the last one in France and one of the highlights of the whole holiday.

After a week that combined one or two bistro type lunches, lots of picnic snacking and some solid home cooking, Cat pointed out to me on the way to the airport for the journey home that I hadn't had a lot of offal. She knows I'm probably as big a fan as she is not, and apart from some buttery foie gras from a never ending jar (or two) in the fridge she was right: a compulsory duck gizzard salad at the start of the week, and that was about it. "There's still time," I scoffed, knowing, in truth, that opportunities were fast running out: we were on our way to Bordeaux for lunch wherever we could find it. On Bastille Day. I wasn't holding out much hope. In the end, though, we hit a rich vein. As it were.

Not for the first time, we really lucked out. For a start, although Al had been given a restaurant recommendation, he couldn't actually remember much about it. Like the name, for instance. All he could remember was it was near a city gate, and a quick Google on the increasingly user friendly mobile Internet suggested it might be La Tupiña. "That's the place!" he cried. Consultation of the worst map Hertz has ever supplied suggested a vague left turn from where we found ourselves in the city, so we took the first left we could and found ourselves immediately outside the very place. Not only that but the waiter offered to park our car for us. You don't get that at McDonald's.

What you might get at McDonald's, albeit unadvertised, is guts. Nothing wrong with that, although on balance I prefer them clearly identified, as they were here: a complementary plate of warm, earthy andouille to go with the salami and crudités we were all ready munching. Not for the faint hearted.

La Tupiña has been serving up rustic local dishes based on local rustic ingredients for 40-odd years. Many of the dishes are cooked by the waiting staff on or in front of the big fire that forms the centrepiece of the restaurant. As soon as I saw chips going into an angrily bubbling pan of duck fat in the hearth I knew we were in for a treat. I also knew I'd seen it before: Rick Stein is a big fan and went to La Tupiña on his French Odyssey.

To start, I had sanguette, translated on the menu simply as "chicken's blood". This was a new one on me, and I think I was expecting some kind of black pudding affair. What turned up was, in fact, something closer in texture to an omelette, albeit a black one. Apparently fresh chicken blood is allowed to coagulate before being fried off and served with a spiky garlic and parsley combo. The result was close to chicken liver in taste and took a bit of getting used to. Rest assured, though, it's far better than it sounds.

Al raved about his starter, a hearty looking bacon and asparagus salad; Cat's Duck carpaccio didn't hang around long enough to trouble the scorers.

More offal for me to follow, in the shape of veal sweetbreads and kidneys en croute. This was a real treat: a creamy sauce full of lots of lovely meaty treats with the welcome addition of a few broad beans and asparagus tips. Al's seven-hour lamb came with a white bean casserole (the closest we got to a cassoulet on this trip) and was hungrily devoured despite its huge size: the best part of a whole shoulder I think.

Cat went for the signature spit roast chicken with duck fat chips. The chicken was good, if not spectacular, the main joy of it being the very fact of seeing it roasting away in front of the fire while we scoffed our starters. The chips were fantastic, though. None of your triple-cooked, uniform-cross-section, perfection-seekers, here. Merely searingly hot chunks of spud, fresh from the fire, sprinkled liberally with salt and with an unmistakably meaty flavour from the fat. Dangerously good.

We had a plane to catch so had to call it a day at that point. A shame. I could easily have lingered for hours over a long lunch or an evening treat. And one day I certainly will.

La Tupiña, 6 Rue Porte de la Monnaie, 33800 Bordeaux +33 5 56 91 56 37

Wight goods

Back home, now, after a delightful week on the Isle of Wight, miraculously avoiding rain almost completely (I don't think anywhere escaped on Sunday), playing host to a few very welcome guests, walking the family dog, breathing delicious lungfuls of sea air and generally enjoying a period of what I believe the young people refer to as "chilling out".

Needles to say (see what I did there? That's an Isle of Wight joke) the liver didn't get quite the break I had promised it, and there was ample opportunity to sample local food and cooking as well. The Isle of Wight, apparently in ample need of a boost to the tourist trade, seems to be quietly reinventing itself as a foodie destination, and, as a foodie who visits the island regularly I couldn't be happier about this trend.

The island's reputation for top quality produce, a consequence of its rain-repellent micro-climate, presumably, is well established in certain areas already: stalls selling Isle of Wight garlic, tomatoes and asparagus are perennially popular at Borough Market. Less well known are the increasing cohorts of suppliers selling seasonal, traditional produce at farm shops and regular markets dotted throughout the island. This is a trend echoed up and down the country, of course, but it feels particularly obvious in the finite confines of a 147-square mile island.

It's hard, and maybe a little unfair, to pick out individual suppliers, but I have a particular soft spot for Captain Stan, who sells locally caught fish from a boat moored permanently among the house boats in Bembridge harbour. I called in on Tuesday without realising he's only technically open Thursday, Friday and Saturday but he was there doing some essential maintenance and readily sold me a couple of fantastic sea bream from his cold box. Simply grilled with a (very) green salad of spring onion, broad bean and avocado they were a perfect lunchtime treat. A trio of John Dory on Friday was a further highlight. If anyone feels like voting for Stan in UKTV's Local Hero awards, it would be a vote well spent.

As far as dining out is concerned, two of the main contenders are currently having work done. Eyeing each other suspiciously from symmetrical vantage points in Yarmouth and Seaview are two venerable institutions, the George Inn and The Seaview Hotel. The former has always been a favourite spot for a smart al fresco lunch, while the latter has a new chef who has ambitions of winning the island's first Michelin star. This time, round, though, I only chose from a limited menu at each, The George being in the middle of an extensive refurbishment that seems to have closed the main restaurant (but is no excuse for the execrable "espresso" I was served) and the Seaview being given a chance to settle in with its new chef. I'll be back, though, and look forward to reviewing them both later in the year.

The attention this time turns to The Essex, a smart and thoroughly agreeable restaurant in Godshill, home of the model village, a popular island destination. Godshill is surrounded by impressive looking organic farms, vineyards and other suppliers and The Essex takes full advantage, boasting an impressive list of local suppliers, many of whom I can personally vouch for!

Judging by the style of food and the presentation it wouldn't be too much of a surprise if The Essex pipped our friend at the Seaview to the post in the Michelin race. Amuse bouches - themselves surely an island rarity - of confit chicken with beet leaves were a nicely judged surprise kick-off to Saturday's dinner. Mum and I then had cannelloni of crab and lobster resting in a puddle of bisque; this was pretty good, although the bits of veg in the bisque were a distraction and the soup itself could have had a little more depth. Dad's gazpacho of tomato dressed with yoghurt and olive oil went down very well, praise indeed given that the folks had got back from Greece and had presumably therefore been sampling top quality representatives of all of the soup's major ingredients.

I went for slow cooked lamb for the main course, while the olds both opted for some pork (all the meat from animals reared within a stone's throw of the restaurant). The lamb was braised shoulder and was perfectly cooked flakes of well flavoured dense meat with no trace of the mouth-sticking dryness you can sometimes get with braised lamb. The accompanying sweetbreads were less successful, having been lightly battered and deep-fried: the predominant flavour was the frying oil not the terrific glands inside. The pork dish was a great ensemble: slow roast belly, black pudding with apples and some slices of unadvertised (but welcome) extra meat, I think tenderloin. This was generally well received, although both bemoaned a certain lack of crispiness in the crackling. A shame, and not really so hard to get right. Overall, though, imaginative combinations and great to see the kind of food you'd expect in an upmarket London "bistro deluxe" in a sleepy Isle of Wight village.

The Essex, Godshill, Isle of Wight 01983 840 781

Euro three-star

At some point during our Good Friday inspection of Gordon Ramsay's first venture in gastro-pubbery, Howard brought up the subject of his birthday. There is some form here: in the past this occasion has been marked by first trips (for me at least) to a stellar selection of restaurants including Tom Aiken, The Fat Duck and St John. My birthdays, conversely, are usually marked principally by a selection of Stella.

Once again, we apparently discussed all sorts of fine dining options and I readily agreed to all of them. I know this because two days later I received a text saying he'd booked a table at L'Arpege, the Michelin three-star in Paris. And apparently I was going with him. I really should be more careful about what I agree to when I've had a few...

I was quickly over the shock, however, and the prospect of going to Paris for lunch soon began to feel quite natural. Eurostar was booked, we rounded up a couple of other likely coves and the die was cast.

Chef patron at L'Arpege is Alain Passard, one of a select band of superchefs whose name is set to go down in history as the ultimate exponent of a certain style of cuisine. Passard's cooking is first and foremost about paying ultimate respect to the very finest ingredients. Although by no means vegetarian (by all accounts he has an amazing touch with venison, for instance), his focus is certainly on the best seasonal produce from suppliers he knows he can trust (in many cases the produce comes from the restaurant's own garden). Simple but beautifully crafted dishes that let the individual flavours of the best vegetables and seafood dominate his menus. There are no quirky molecular gastronomy experiments or tricks of perception here; this is the natural extension of classical techniques and - to an extent - nouvelle cuisine, and, if Passard's reputation as the most accomplished exponent of this type of cooking was to believed, we were in for a treat. It was, and we were.

After a painfully early start, a journey only marked by Howard's accidental separation from his bag (hence the lack of pictures) and a mildly desperate search for somewhere near the restaurant where we could grab a pre-lunch beer, we settled into L'Arpege's small and surprisingly informal dining room. The menu presented us with a choice of a tasting menu or an à la carte choice with one or two eye-popping prices next to them. I had heard tales of how expensive this place was going to be so I felt forewarned if not necessarily fore-armed but the final reckoning wasn't half as bad as most of us had been expecting. More on this later.

Munching away on exceptional bread and dangerously good butter, we opted for the lunchtime tasting menu with a couple of additions and substitutions from the à la carte. First up was a Passard signature: an egg. An ordinary egg, but at the same no ordinary egg: served in an amazingly neatly decapitated shell it was softly cooked, possibly even coddled (or maybe I just wanted to use the word) and flavoured with a little maple syrup and some sherry vinegar. Simple and fantastic. A sign of things to come.

A soup followed, a delicate concoction of parsnip and Jerusalem artichoke with the slightly theatrical table-side addition of a big quenelle of chantilly somehow flavoured with speck. This worked really well, combining earthiness, smokiness and sweetness into far more than the sum of the parts. A "radisotto" worked less well: nothing wrong with the combination of spring radish and parmesan but risotto is made with rice, not diced radish, for a reason.

There followed a palette-cleansing little salad of fresh young broad beans and pink grapefruit before one of the day's highlights. A huge whole turbot that had apparently been roasting for a good couple of hours was presented to the whole dining room in all its splendour before being spirited away for dissection and distribution. What we ended up with was a generous tranche of perfectly cooked flesh, topped with deeply flavoured skin, with a single smoked new potato, some great spinach (not something you'll hear from me very often) and a decadent butter sauce. Quite lovely.

After this came a special additional request, a brace of lobsters shared between the four of us. This meant more butter (the waiter thought twice before agreeing we could order it!) and was a messy, pick-it-up-and-suck-it kind of dish. That we were doing this in one of the great restaurants in the world made it all the more fun somehow.

After these culinary highs it was perhaps inevitable there would be a downward turn. No complaints about the cheese board, which was impressive in both size and quality, with an emphasis too on seasonality (a new one on me), but the desserts were a bit of a let down. A moccha sorbet floating on a lemongrass sauce neatly mirrored the presentation of the soup we'd had earlier but even the addition of a caramel sauce failed to disguise the fact that it might have worked as an interesting mouthful but was hard work as a full bowl. The grand finale, a chocolate millefeuille for which the restaurant is famous, also didn't quite reach the heights we'd been expecting. I'm not a big fan of chocolate desserts at the best of times, to be fair, but I thought the lightness, flakiness and slight saltiness of the beautifully crafted slice could have done with something else to set it off. Even a little simple cream would have helped.

Overall, then, very good savoury courses, less good sweets. A surprise really as this is where most fine dining restaurants tend to pull out all the stops, presumably on the reasonable assumption that it's the last things you eat that will stay with you.

And the price? With a couple of relatively modest selections from a wine list that made it hard to spend less than €120 a bottle, and bearing in mind the two lobsters we added were, I think, a cool €140 each, we did pretty well getting away with a little more than 200 quid a head. €330 actually felt like pretty good value. Part of this is down to the fact that we were here at lunchtime. The dinner equivalent of the menu we'd based our lunch on (which frankly looked very similar, albeit with a couple of additions) was more than two and half times the price. It's very hard to see how they can justify such a hike, although I fully expect Howard will want to find out. Half a shandy for me please, Gordon!

L'Arpege, 84 rue de Varenne, 75007 Paris. +33 (0)1 47 05 09 06

Everything you always wanted to know about sushi

Remind me to take my protractor next time I go for sushi.

Guts for starters

A year or so ago I had an entertaining argument with a friend of mine about how much better the food culture is in France than it is in the UK. I can't remember the details (I think we were in the middle of a Notting Hill pub crawl at the time) but I suspect I was banging on about France's ability to sustain both local butchers, bakers and probably candlestick-makers AND huge supermarkets in and around small towns, and the fact that even Monsieur LeClerq et al offer high quality, local ingredients rather than ready meals for the brain dead. Something like that anyway.

I probably blew it by saying it was almost enough to want make me want to live there: cue lots of predictable cheese-eating-surrender-monkey gibes and other good(ish) natured prejudice. I think we'd just lost at rugby again.

Anyway, the point is, for all Jamie Oliver's proselytising in schools and Hugh F-W's heroic efforts with microwave junkies, the depressing fact is that the French take the availability of decent food for granted, and for the most part the British are satisfied with - even enthusiastic for - fodder that is mediocre, bland or downright awful.

What would be your expectation, for instance, were you to pull off a motorway in the UK in need of shelter for the night and a bite to eat? If you were lucky, you'd find a B&B or a country pub offering "home cooked" food of the chips-with-everything variety. If you were very lucky, you might find something genuinely home cooked. More likely, though, you'd have to go to a Travelodge. I don't know what you'd eat there and I'm not keen to find out either.

Contrast this with my trip back from Switzerland this week with my good friends John and Lindi. We ended up with a bit of time in hand so we decided to drive back in two stages, stopping off at a motel just off the autoroute not far from Dijon, where they'd been once or twice before. Pretty ordinary accommodation, to be sure, but (for a Brit, at least) extraordinary food.

From the outside, Val Moret is not much to look at. A low-slung modern roadside building with a number of smaller outbuildings that make up the cheap and cheerful motel accommodation. Neon signs and fairy lights abound, not all of them hangovers from Christmas. Inside, things aren't much better, to be honest. Nothing shabby, as such, but there's a feeling of conference centre seconds about the furniture. Certainly very little to hint at the quality of the food you're going to get.

The first clue comes when an amuse buche arrives. In a motel restaurant. Something delicate involving prawns presented on a chicory leaf as I recall. The details are less important than its mere existence.

To start, I went for the feuilleté andouillette. The waiter was good enough to check I understood what I was ordering (bless him). Just as well I did know, as the English translation on the menu offered little help: it said something like "pastry filled with Ahn Douy". This was very generous and rich, the tangy offaliness of the chitterlings nicely offset by the lightness of the pastry. John had an astonishing salade Perigourdine, which proved to be foie gras toasts, a generous helping of smoked duck and a confit of what looked like half an adolescent duckling (I think it was actually quail). My kind of salad: not much room for the green bits. Lindi knew what she was going to order before she left Switzerland and was not disappointed by her escargots, which came in some sort of pastry shell (this doesn't do it justice) and were indeed delicious.

There was more offal to follow as Lindi and I opted for the ris de veau. A big old sweetbread each came delicately sautéed and accompanied by a little forest of watercress and a shot glass of more watercress in a hot creamy sauce. Magnificent. John went for one of the house specials, an intensely flavoured boeuf bourguignon, which was indeed special. The other semi-permanent special is the pot au feu, almost certainly worth trying next time as it's also made with high quality beef from the family farm. A bottle of Gevrey Chambertin helped everything along nicely. An side of unctuous dauphinoise was largely surplus to requirements, and with no room for pudding, or a bash at the impressive looking cheese trolley, we settled for a Marc and a coffee to finish off.

Now this was categorically not haute cuisine. Just a local restaurant with a few loyal followers and a flourishing passing trade from those people (quite a few Brits) who know it's there. No culinary flourishes, little in the way of fancy presentation, just great quality gutsy grub at sensible prices. By no means a destination restaurant, but if you're ever (controversially) passing through Champagne or Burgundy, you could do a lot worse. And if the equivalent does exist half way up the M1, I'd be delighted to know where.

Tres gros

Ben and I are in the middle of a gastronomic frenzy.  This due to a confluence of a visit I took to Lyon, the start of the festive season and some nice social offshoots from our online efforts.  So, here's the first of a slew of posts, this one all about my trip to France.

I ummed and aah-ed about whether to post this, because, after all it's not really a London thing, but one of the meals was just so good I ought to mention it.

My friend, Guy was in Lyon for a conference in the last half of the week so I decided to join him for a weekend there. It was my first trip to Lyon and on a recommendation I booked a table for Troisgros for our Saturday lunch.  Prior to this we had dinner on Friday night at a charming little restaurant called 'En mets fais ce qu'il te plait'.  It's run by a Japanese chef and his wife, but the food is very definitely French in style.  It was difficult to find and difficult to book, but worth it.  Inexpensive and definitely room for improvement, but food with an eye to the future.  It will be interesting to try it again in a few years.  It some ways it reminded me of Bacchus.  The interior of the restaurant is quirky vintage Tokyo, the proprietors are lovely people.

I have eaten in two star Michelin establishments before, as well as at the Fat Duck which subsequently went to get three stars.  I've also had a disappointing visit to Jean-Georges in New York which has since received three.  Troisgros though was, I felt, my first genuine three star experience.  I hadn't experienced the sheer number of waiting staff though. Although this was initially a tad intimidating eventually we were just floating along on a sea of careful attention.

We went for the Couleurs D'Automne menu at 180 Euros.

Bouillon frais de couteaux, a la clementine

This was a sort of sharp fruity mush with some pieces of clementine on top. That really doesn't do it justice though. Clear vibrant flavours and good palate cleanser.

Melba de coquilles Saint Jacques & wakame, a l'oursin

Toast melba with a carpaccio of scallops, short pieces of wakame seaweed, topped with a sea urchin. Great. You know you might think an oyster summons up a littoral sense, well this brought the coast to your mouth and brain in different dimensions. Freshness and complexity of taste and texture.

Bain-marie de fois gras, chataignes & cepes croustillants

This looks like a shallow plate of something brown mousse-like sauce covered in a darker jus with some thin slices of cep and chestnut. on top. When your spoon hits the surface though you go straight into a deep, sort of foie gras pudding. The dark sauce covering it was a veal reduction (almost demi-glaze). The cepes and chestnuts offered a wonderful chewy contrast, with the chestnuts also providing dryness and sweetness. This was profoundly good. Every mouthful a marvel. In between mouthfuls you couldn't quite bring to mind exactly how good the last mouthful had been. Not for the last time we mourned the ending of the dish.

Cuisses de grenouilles poelees au tamarin, chou-fleur croquant

Sauteed frogs legs with very thin slivers of cauliflower and a loose tamarind sauce - the tamarind sauce was vibrant, quite spicy with a strong sour kick. The sweetness that tamarind can give was played down.

Pieces de bacalhau doucement pochee, pomme Granny

Salt cod, poached at low temperature. This had a spice/peppered crust and was accompanied by potato puree and thin batons of granny smith apple. This dish didn't make sense to me until I tried the other two with the apple, then balance was achieved. Really quite a powerful pepper kick here.

Noisettes de chevreuil au beurre de capres & de raisins, conchiglione de chanterelles grises

This was a masterpiece. The noisettes of roe deer were very succulent and were topped by an almost imperceptible layer of foam. This foam was a meat sauce but with a strong hint of raspberry. At this point our bottle of Burgundy had fully opened up and with its own fruit hints matched the dish very well indeed. Capers and raisins were artfully scattered around the plate and there were sauce smears here too. The pasta shell held the mushrooms with a loose foam covering. Every mouthful was a thought provoking sensual pleasure. It raised my pleasure levels so much I suspected the chef had sprinkled MDMA powder over the food. What a shame to see this dish end.

Les fromages fermiers, frais & affines

A great cheese board, local and national representation. I had five samples. Not sure about names here.

Tartelette veloutee au topinambour et basilic

A jerusalem artichoke and basil tart. Soft veloute mix, perfect pastry sort of semi-savoury dessert and acting as another palate cleanser. Delicious.

Passion au chocolat blanc et a l'endive

A white chocolate ice cream, a mango(?) and passion fruit sorbet with some passion fruit seeds underneath and caramelised endive leaves adding bitterness and fibrous texture.

Creme de marron, cassis et gingembre meringue

Chestnut cream, piped out on top of a layer of cassis and then dark choc sheets with gold leaf. The highlight of the desserts.

With the desserts a cup of thin baked sheet things was brought out, including a dark choc slab with silver leaf. The best of these was a wonderful gingerbread man - melt in the mouth delicacy and delicious rainbow icing. Amazing.

To drink:

Laurent Perrier Brut
Demi Puligny Referts 2000 JM Boillot
Gevrey-Chambertin Lavaux St Jacques 1996 Armand Rousseau et Fils
Malaga Espagnol
Darroze Armagnac 1966

Wow!

Next day we needed something simple, so we opted for a specialist meat restaurant called 'Bouchon des Carnivores'.  A wonderful, packed, dining room, filled with eager diners, models of cows and authoritative though friendly staff.  I was looking forward to my Pave de Boeuf Charollais.  I have to say though, it didn't really compare well to some recent steaks I've had in London (Hawksmoor and Santa Maria Buen Ayre).  Maybe I was just jaded after the magnificence of Troisgros.