In Pursuit of Food

Chefs, restaurants, kitchens... words and photographs from a food, drink and travel writer

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Where to shop for your kitchen appliances and accessories

Where to shop for your kitchen appliances and accessories

Happy new year! It’s been a while since I’ve updated In Pursuit of Food. I haven’t been nearly as motivated or inspired over the last four years, mainly because I’ve been working full time in editing jobs that demanded long hours and a lot of mental capacity. In 2020, I started a new project, Money Talk, that reignited my interest in writing for myself and building a website as a business. And…

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What I Ate: The best Chinese food outside of China, a tiny slice of Singapore and some surprising pairings with gin

What I Ate: The best Chinese food outside of China, a tiny slice of Singapore and some surprising pairings with gin

It’s been over two years since I last blogged. So long in fact, the template I’m using has morphed beyond recognition and it’s taken me a good five minutes to get started.

Though, of course, that’s not as long as I’ve lapsed.

In the last two years, I’ve been busy working, busy eating but taking a step back from blogging. It wasn’t really a conscious decision, just a time constraints thing.…

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'Secret Recipes from the World Famous New York Bakery' by Dominique Ansel

‘Secret Recipes from the World Famous New York Bakery’ by Dominique Ansel

Last year I had this great spate of productivity – I promised myself that I would read at least one book a month and often managed two. I was trying to get through the classics, the Nobel prize winners and the smart books that every intelligent thinking person should be able to casually boast about.

To be quite honest, it got pretty boring. Some of the books were so tedious, that I had to splice…

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El Poblet and Restaurante Quique Dacosta

El Poblet and Restaurante Quique Dacosta

On a night in the last week of March this year, I had a bizarre dream. No grand political visions but rather, a blissful nightmare of sorts about eating at a fine dining restaurant with my mother and vanquishing demons in between courses.

Make of it what you will.

In the morning, I posted a solitary photo of one of the dishes from my dream – one that I had enjoyed in real life also – to…

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Restaurante Quique Dacosta, Denia, lunch The Fronteras menu at the three Michelin-starred Restaurante Quique Dacosta in Denia where Dacosta explores his understanding of the kitchen today as the theme of 2016:

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El Poblet, Valencia, dinner The transformed landscapes menu from Quique Dacosta's one Michelin-starred restaurant El Poblet in Valencia with selected dishes from past menus at Restaurante Quique Dacosta in Denia and dishes created for El Poblet:

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89 Kingsland High Street, London E8 2PB www.jidori.co.uk

Jidori was Plan C. Not in earnest, as it was always the plan to visit after Lyle’s and The Clove Club, though there was a Plan D.

I’m not sure there’s anyone who found it on the first go. This Dalston restaurant lives in the stripped down shell of another establishment, the tell-tale sign of which is still over the entrance. The only thing that advertises Jidori is a simple branded print out of the menu, stuck on the window.

It feels like I’ve been there before though. Perhaps in it’s previous incarnation as a Vietnamese restaurant. Now it’s a yakitori joint with tiny tables that make the cavernous room look huge.

There’s enough of us to try just about everything on the tight menu, with just eight yakitori options, a set of sides, a smattering of small plates and one dessert.

A couple of things weren’t available. Like the liver for example, which was replaced by the much more delightful oyster. They were kumamoto oysters, and I really ought to have had them without the dressing, but shallot and vinegar is just so god damn good.

I also rather enjoyed it’s vegetarian options of king oyster mushroom and aubergine and miso butter. The onsen egg was gracious, as was the koji fried chicken, though I think I preferred the wings. You’d be spoilt for choice if you loved chicken or rather sick of it by the end if you’re not.

There’s only one dessert on the menu, a ginger ice cream. It came loaded with sweet potato crisps, miso caramel and black sesame. It’s unusual, but not necessarily in a bad way. I think the Jidori pickleback, a shot of whisky followed by a shot of pickled ginger juice, was made for it.

And after that solitary dessert, it was onto Plan D. A different Plan D.

Jidori – Dalston, London – Review 89 Kingsland High Street, London E8 2PB www.jidori.co.uk Jidori was Plan C. Not in earnest, as it was always the plan to visit after Lyle's and The Clove Club, though there was a Plan D.

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Menu from an a la carte lunch at Celeste Restaurant at The Lanesborough:

Cracker bread with hummous

Pan-fried langoustines with wild grains and a langoustine basil broth

Suckling pig

Pineapple

Petit fours

I had an à la carte lunch at Celeste Restaurant at The Lanesborough while conducting an interview recently. It’s in the same space as the restaurant that once occupied Apsley’s but with a completely transformed atmosphere and approach to food.

While the dining room had previously been quite dark, it’s now been painted a powder blue with bas-relief friezes decorating the ceilings. Two new wine rooms flank the entrance.

The food is under the watchful eye of Florian Favario, a protegé of Eric Frechon, chef patron of the three Michelin starred Épicure at Le Bristol in Paris, another hotel in the Oetker Collection. Naturally, Celeste is aiming for a star.

But the food is quite hard to pin-point.

It’s not quite classic-French. There are notes of Middle Eastern influences, as seen by the hummous and cracker bread that opened the meal. The langoustine, with the basil broth and wild grains, also reminds me of the Mediterranean. And then there’s the suckling pig, which somehow manages to be a little bit British.

This eclectic collection of influences isn’t necessarily a bad thing though – the flavours don’t fight each other. And the execution has been done very, very well.

Celeste Restaurant at The Lanesborough, Knightsbridge, lunch Menu from an a la carte lunch at Celeste Restaurant at The Lanesborough: Cracker bread with hummous…

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53 Lexington St, London W1F 9AS baolondon.com

I finally made it to Bao.

After a morning of tasting German wines and months after everyone else has already paid their dues in the queues.

I got there shortly after 2pm thinking that, as it’s a week day and there’s just an hour left until it closes, I should be able to avoid the queues.

But I was wrong. And so I ended up standing behind two groups of people, staring across the road at the people staring back at me through the window. In no time though, I was waved through the doors, and dodging traffic to get there in one piece.

My coat, hung up high in front of me at at the table and my bag underneath the bench, I sit down.

The menu is compact. I vaguely recall trying the buns at an Observer Food Monthly party but I can’t be sure. So I order the old faithful – confit pork bun. For my adventurous side, I chose the pig’s trotter croquette. And for Instagram, I chose the blood cake.

There were no surprises with the bun. It is what it is and similar versions can be found all over. The blood cake I could have done without. It’s sexy for Instagram with its runny yolk suggestively trickling down, but beyond that, well, my palate failed to be titillated.

The croquette however, I loved. Rich and fatty but cut through famously by the dipping sauce. I almost ordered a second serving straight away.

Pondering over getting the bill, I opted for a second bun instead. This time the lamb with cumin and it came with a surprise but pleasant stash of jalapeños. The tangy heat backing the light spice of the cumin actually made me like this bun more. If nothing else, it was more interesting.

As I step out 30 minutes later, leaving a half empty restaurant, I spot more diviners queuing up at the Bao stop.

Bao – Soho, London – Review 53 Lexington St, London W1F 9AS baolondon.com I finally made it to Bao. After a morning of tasting German wines and months after everyone else has already paid their dues in the queues.

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Menu from a dinner at the three Michelin-starred Azurmendi in Larrabetzu, with mostly new dishes and a few classics:

[Artichoke cracker with citrus gel]

[Peanut]

[Pumpkin-parmesan butter biscuit]

[Asparagus cotton]

[Avocado bonbon]

[Pickled courgette]

Homemade salted anchovy millefeuille

Roe and dill

CaipiriTxa

Hibiscus Infusion

Chestnut leaf

[Frozen olive on black olive soil]

Egg from our hens, cooked inside out and truffled (2009)

Oyster, tartar and geleé (2015)

Natural spider crab, emulsion and infusion (2015)

Tomato and eel (2015)

Roasted lobster out of the shell on herbs oil and chives (2010)

Artichokes and pesto (2015)

Stewed wheat with farmhouse milk emulsion and ox tail (2015)

Roasted red mullet on vine shoots, fried eggs and the broth of the bones (2015)

[Mandarin emulsion]

Rabbit confit, mushrooms emulsion and grilled sweet potato (2015)

Coconut and passion (2015)

Cheese, red fruits and mint (2015)

Sheep milk and black olives (2015)

Petits fours

After about an hour getting lost on the way out of Bilbao, we finally found our way to Azurmendi. It’s my third time to the restaurant and my second visit of the year. This time, I brought my parents for a birthday supper.

I had been to the restaurant just a month earlier so was delighted to find plenty of new dishes to try on the Adarrak menu. But of course, there were some old classics like the truffled hen’s egg.

Among my favourite was the roasted lobster out of the shell on herbs oil and chives – its striking colour immediately tickling the taste buds. And the flavours, oh I tried to recreate them at home but I feel it might be one committed to memory.

Another favourite was the tomato and eel. The delicate profile of the vine fruit really shown through with the gentle treatment – especially when it was served with the tomato sorbet.

I think it is perhaps my favourite restaurant in the place right now.

See photos from my visit in 2015 and 2013.

Azurmendi, Larrabetzu, dinner Menu from a dinner at the three Michelin-starred Azurmendi in Larrabetzu, with mostly new dishes and a few classics:

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Menu from a food and beer matching dinner with Innis & Gunn in Mark’s Kitchen Library at The Tramshed:

De Beauvoir smoke salmon ‘Hix cure’

Innis Until Proven Guilty – Woodford Reserve, Innis & Gunn Original Ale reduction, triple sec, sherbet, orange bitters

Beer-fried oysters with holy fff… mayonnaise

Innis & Gunn Toasted Oak IPA

Wye Valley asparagus salad with Herefordshire goat’s curd and land cress

White Oak wheat beer

Innis & Gunn glazed sugar pit ribs of Glenarm Estate beef with Pink Fir apple, potatoes, green onions and Guinness mustard

Innis & Gunn Original

Innis & Gunn Rum Finish zabaglione with Hall Hunter Farm raspberries

Innis & Gunn Rum Finish

Innis & Gunn Scotch Whisky Porter cheese fondue

Innis & Gunn Scotch Whisky Porter

Craft beer giants Innis & Gunn hosted a dinner in Mark’s Kitchen Library at The Tramshed, an intimate room in a huge space with food by Mark Hix.

Innis & Gunn’s founder, Dougal Sharp, talked us through the beers we were drinking while one of the chefs was at hand to talk about the food.

The food was rustic and masculine but also well matched to the drinks. The beers were woven into the cooking process and also in the cocktail we had as an aperitif. And the kitchen table set up was ideal for the chef to take centre place.

After the dinner, I sat down with Sharp to record a podcast, which you can find over at Amateur Wine.

Innis & Gunn dinner in Mark’s Kitchen Library at The Tramshed Menu from a food and beer matching dinner with Innis & Gunn in Mark's Kitchen Library at The Tramshed:

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Menu from a dinner at the James Beard American Restaurant at Seven Stars Galleria in Milan, Italy, with food by Paul Sanguinetti with ingredients from the beaches of Fort Myers and Sanibel:

Canapés

Snapper popcorn with pineapple jam

Burnt scallop with lard and trout floss

Tartare of Florida shrimp

Crab cakes

Main

Ceviche of redfish with yam and tropical slaw

Raviolo of Florida shrimp in ‘sea water’

Hot glazed grouper with carrots and coconut

Dessert

Salad of fruit with sorbetto of coconut water and almond milk

During the Milan Expo, the James Beard Foundation brought a restaurant to the city – the James Beard American Restaurant.

The restaurant was all about featuring American ingredients, in this case seafood from Fort Myers and Sanibel, with the help of resident and guest chefs. It was a hugely successful popup that ran for six months.

I really enjoyed the menu of the night, which took its influences from Creole food. There was little intervention on the ingredients, which meant that the freshness of the seafood really came through. My favourite? It was perhaps the fruity and creamy grouper with its coconut notes.

James Beard American Restaurant at Seven Stars Galleria, Milan, dinner Menu from a dinner at the James Beard American Restaurant at Seven Stars Galleria in Milan, Italy, with food by Paul Sanguinetti with ingredients from the beaches of Fort Myers and Sanibel:

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Menu from a dinner at Carousel London where Oswaldo Oliva was the chef in residence:

Snacks

Fossilised citrus and worm salt

Carrots, carrots, carrots

Savoury

A sequence of herbs, pickles and dressings

Sesame praline in fragrant nage

Hake, kohl rhabi and pistachios

‘Blue’ steak, sour leaves and marrow butter

[Langoustines, chicken and basil emulsions]

Sweet

Fresh cheese, strawberry and chamomile

Carousel, an events space in London, runs regular chef residencies in Marylebone.

Oswaldo Oliva, formerly head of the development kitchen at Mugaritz, took up one of these slots. Originally from Mexico and having worked at the notoriously quirky kitchens of Mugaritz, Oliva wanted to share something of his home country while bringing forth that same quirkiness.

If you’ve been to Mugaritz, you will know that the presentation of a place is not always straight forwards. It’s not always the aesthetically pleasing plates that you see on Michelin-starred menus. However, it does always promise to intrigue.

In this case, there were plenty of unusual treatments of ingredients, like the fossilised citrus that started my meal.

Like at Mugaritz, the flavours are divisive. The sesame praline in the seafood nage was incredible but the carrots dish was a little more obscure.

Still, I’m excited about the things that might appear on the menu at Oliva’s own restaurant, once it opens.

Oswaldo Oliva at Carousel, Marylebone, dinner Menu from a dinner at Carousel London where Oswaldo Oliva was the chef in residence: Snacks…

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Menu from a ‘popdown’ from Cuisson London with food by Pedro Passinhas:

Cuisson cocktail

Cultured butter, sourdough

Ratte potatoes, hay, blue cheese, grelot onion

Chicken parfait, charred pineapple, walnuts

Slow cooked salmon, horseradish cream, watercress

Lychee and mango bavarois, strawberry, black olive

Popups are no longer trendy. Once the cool word to be brandished by any would-be restaurateur, it’s starting to draw reactions that echo ‘not another one’.

So instead of a popup, Cuisson London decided to do a popdown – that is, a popup in the basement of a Haymarket building.

The chef, Pedro Passinhas, trained with a whole host of Michelin-starred restaurants, including The Fat Duck, Le Gavroche and The Square, so the food had a lot of promise. And indeed, judging by the menu, a lot of care has been taken to source lesser known ingredients.

The kitchen was open so diners can look in at what the chef was doing – something that a few diners were happy to get involved in. Others, meanwhile, preferred to stay in their seats.

For me, the food was inventive and interesting. I especially enjoyed the potatoes.

But the showpiece was definitely the dessert. A huge platter of sweet things that delighted the eyes and the palate.

I was the guest of my friend but at £39 per person for those four courses plus bread and cocktails, it’s much better value than any supperclub I’ve tried.

Cuisson London popdown dinner Menu from a 'popdown' from Cuisson London with food by Pedro Passinhas: Cuisson cocktail Cultured butter, sourdough…

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Menu from a lunch at Hélène Darroze at the Connaught in Mayfair with food from the two Michelin starred restaurant and wines from Château Angélus to match:

Bollinger Special Cuvée Brut

Sweetbread, cauliflower, muscat grapes, ‘vadouvan’

Carillon d’Angélus 2012 St Emillion

Pork, pumpkin, Medjool date, Ras el Hanout

Château Angélus 2008 St Emillion

Chocolate, mint

Château Angélus 2006 St Emillion

Château Angélus lunch at Hélène Darroze at the Connaught, Mayfair Menu from a lunch at Hélène Darroze at the Connaught in Mayfair with food from the two…

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Aranori tasting menu from a lunch at Pedro Subijana’s three Michelin-starred Akelarre in San Sebastian:

Just to begin:

Bloody Mary

Stuffed mussel

Potato and prawn amber

Anchovy stuffed black olive

Aranori:

The leaves and the foie under the rain

Green broth infusion, scampi and smoked monkfish

Very thin and light beef tartar, new potato soufflé and aromatic herb bread

Hake and its kokotxa with oyster leaf

Squid as a risotto, butter flower

Roasted suckling pic, ‘bone’ and Iberian emulsion

‘Xaxu’ and coconut iced mousse

The broke jar of yoghurt, ‘gatzatua’ and berries

When you meet someone for the first time, you have an impression of what they might be like. For chefs, this translates into the food. Pedro Subijana, with his huge moustache and portly stature, gave me the idea that his food might be a sort of stuffy, traditionalist take on a three-star menu. But the reality was so far from it.

I went with the Aranori, a menu of mostly new dishes at the restaurant as I was keen to see creativity – and it was exactly what I was shown from beginning to end.

I still remember the delicate flavours of the ‘rain’ in the first dish and how every vein was painted on a ‘leaf’ of foie – the attention to detail of which caused an exclamation to escape unexpectedly. The green broth infusion that came next highlighted the very essence of a seafood dish, without the overwhelming richness. Its clarity was like drinking a fine green tea. And then there was the squid as a risotte, blackened with its ink. It’s so precisely flavoured that you felt there was something missing – until you stir in the perfectly styled rose made of butter.

I paid 175€ for the menu, plus very reasonably priced and considered drinks and service. It’s not the cheapest three-star tasting menu in the area, nor the most expensive. But it was worth every cent.

Akelarre, San Sebastian, lunch Aranori tasting menu from a lunch at Pedro Subijana's three Michelin-starred Akelarre in San Sebastian: Just to begin:

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Menu from a lunch at the Mexican Embassy in London with food created by Elena Reygadas, from Rosetta in Mexico, ahead of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2015:

Ostiones, raiz fuerte y borraja (Oysters, horseradish and borage)

Espárragos blancos y estragón (White asparagus and tarragon)

Mole rosa, flor de jamaica y hoja santa (Pink molé, hibiscus flower and holy leaf)

Hierbas, helado de romero y aceite de oliva (Fresh herbs, rosemary ice cream and olive oil)

Elena Reygadas lunch at the Mexican Embassy in London Menu from a lunch at the Mexican Embassy in London with food created by Elena Reygadas, from…