Archives for 'August 2012'


The Wright Brothers – Soho Oyster House

As its name suggests, The Wright Brothers Soho Oyster House is a seafood restaurant with a predominant emphasis on oysters. Located on Kingly Street in the Carnaby area, it is well located for the shopping pleasures of the independent boutiques and designer brand shops of this famous area. Carnaby also plays home to a string of other tasty restaurants such as Dehesa and Cinnamon Soho, and the boutique cake shop Choccywoccydoodah.

Wrights Brothers Soho Oyster House is arranged over three floors with a lovely inviting atmosphere. There is an open plan ‘raw bar’ on the ground floor that looks over Kingly Court, banquette seating upstairs and a communal dining area on the lower ground floor.

There is a decent range of oysters at The Wright Brothers, all of which are sourced from the Duchy Oyster Farm on the Helford River in Cornwall and other farms in the British Isles and France. Colchester oysters (3 for £6.50) were fat and intensely irony. In contrast, the Lindisfarne oysters from Northumberland (3 for £6) were milky and creamy. Wrights Brothers also offer a choice of oysters with toppings, one of which was caviar and crème fraiche (3 for £12). Using the Carlingford oysters from County Louth, Ireland, the combination of the topping with the creaminess of the Carlingfords proved a good match. All the oysters were delicious.

Oysters & prawns

Oysters & prawns

Oysters & caviar

Oysters & caviar

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Dingley Dell Pork Feast at The Leather Bottle

The Leather Bottle is a pub in Earlsfield, and to mark the launch of its luscious new garden with huts that available for private hire, welfare-friendly Suffolk pork farmer Dingley Dell hosted one of its ‘flying visits’ in the form of an al fresco barbecue bonanza with matching beers and ciders early last week.

The evening kicked off with a pig butchery masterclass followed by a six-course meal. First up was the whole hog board which included air-dried pork leg, crispy pig’s ears, potted brawn, mini hot dogs and black pudding trotter fritters served with gooseberry chutney and a purple basil jam. To go with the board was Aspall’s Premier Cru cider, which proved to be a good pairing. The fritters were delicious as was the pork leg, although the pig’s ears were a little chewy.

The whole hog board

The whole hog board

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La Portes Indes

La Portes Indes is an Indian restaurant with a difference. Opened in 1996, the food contains a Gallic twist and is inspired by the dishes of Pondicherry, an area in India that was formerly a French colony. Being a Franco-Indian restaurant it is possible to find dishes such as cassoulet de fruits de mer on the menu.

The restaurant occupies an incredibly grand space. Set over two floors, La Portes Indes has a look of the exotic to it, with a 40ft Mogul waterfall, a marble staircase and antique Indian artifacts.

The menu is plentiful with options. We started with a tandoori seared foie gras (£13.00) which was rich and unctuous. It was pleasantly sweetened by a fig and ginger chutney that matched the foie gras well.

Foie gras

Foie gras

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Cassis Bistro

Cassis

Cassis

Note: Since this blog post, Chefs Massimiliano Blasone and Marco Calenzo have both left Cassis Bistro.

You may recall that I went to Apsleys last year, an Italian one star Michelin restaurant in the Lanesborough Hotel on Hyde Park Corner. Executive and sous chefs Massimiliano Blasone and Marco Calenzo have since left Apsleys and now head up the kitchen at Cassis Bistro in South Kensington, therefore adding a star quality to the existing bistro menu. The restaurant is lovely, exuding a feeling of comfort and warmth with the use of earthy tones. There are also some high-end pieces of art on show, including original pieces by Matisse.

Cassis is part of the Marlon Abela Restaurant Corporation (MARC) which also owns a number of Michelin restaurants in both the UK and the US, including The Greenhouse and Umu, and the starred Italian A Voce in New York City. With Massimiliano and Marco on board, the idea is to launch an A Voce restaurant here in London sometime next year with the hope of it obtaining a star. Cassis is therefore the springboard for that project.

I recently dined at Cassis at the invitation of the restaurant. My meal was a specially created tasting menu that included some of the dishes from the à la carte menu. Davide Buongiorno, previously the Head Sommelier at Apsleys, has also made the move to Cassis and he expertly paired wines for us to go with our meal.

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Murano by Angela Hartnett – Lunch Menu

Many people will know Murano by Angela Hartnett from when it use to be part of the Gordon Ramsay family. But in 2010 Hartnett and Ramsay decided to part ways. Other than the change in ownership, little else seems to have changed. The restaurant is still Italian and it still holds a one Michelin star. Angela Hartnett might be the front woman for Murano, but it is really Diego Cardoso who is it’s head chef. I tried the set lunch menu at Murano about three and a half years ago and thought it to be great value. The portion sizes of each of the courses were pretty generous, and before we even began our meal we were plied with a plentiful platter of hams. All this for an incredible price of £25 for three courses.

Consequently I have always wanted to visit Murano for lunch again, and that I did recently. Conceptually, little has changed about the restaurant, not even the interior, but the set lunch menu portions have shrunk somewhat. The coppa di parma and salami platter we got at the beginning of the meal was much smaller than that dished up during my previous visit and we had to share this between four. Nevertheless the platter was very tasty.

Ham and salami platter

Ham and salami platter

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Choccywoccydoodah

Choccywoccydoodah cake

Choccywoccydoodah cake

Choccywoccydoodah specialises in a highly stylised bespoke cake service, offering cakes that are hand-sculptured from chocolate. The cakes resemble high art, and a visit to the shop on Fouberts Place near Carnaby Street (there is also a store in Brighton) is well worth it to ogle at the skill of the craftsmanship. Hard to believe that these are cakes, and that the icing designs are sculpted from chocolate.

Choccywoccydoodah cake

Choccywoccydoodah cake

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Umu

Umu is a one Michelin-starred Japanese restaurant located in Mayfair. The executive chef behind Umu is Yoshinori Ishii, a chef with 20 years of high end cooking experience. Chef Ishii previously spent nine years at Japan’s three Michelin-starred Kyoto Kitcho. This was followed by postings as the head chef at the Japanese Embassies in both Geneva and New York and as the omakase chef at New York’s Morimoto Restaurant.

Umu offers an à la carte selection of cold and hot starters, traditional and modern sushi as well as main courses. But Umu is perhaps best known for offering a kaiseki menu, a multi-course Japanese dinner which draws on traditional Japanese cooking skills and techniques to harmoniously balance the taste, texture, colour and presentation of the best seasonal ingredients that are used in the preparation of this meal. As well as the standard kaiseki menu, Umu also has a sushi kaiseki menu option, both priced at £100.

We eased into our meal with an amuse bouche of turnip with an unusual pairing of espoisse cheese, wasabi and a balsamic vinegar reduction which proved to be very tasty. It was an unusual concept but it worked surprisingly well.

Turnip with espoisse cheese

Turnip with espoisse cheese

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Fornam and Field Hampers

Fornam and Field do a range of gourmet food hampers which can be purchased for delivery and are customised for specific occasions and tastes. For example there are the breakfast in bed and afternoon tea hampers for a more relaxed treat, or for the more discerning, the gourmand gift box which contains items such as Keta caviar and chicken liver & brandy parfait . Basic packages start from about £35 and go up to the deluxe variety which costs about £220.

My hamper

My hamper

I was sent a taster hamper basket which included Genuine Wild and London Cured Smoked Scottish salmon, potted lobster, hand carved Alderton ham, a selection of Neal’s Yard Dairy cheeses, and some sweet selections including a chocolate brownie, banana bread, and Paul Wayne Gregory Pure Indulgence Chocolates.

Both varieties of smoked salmon were delicious with a delicate flavour, and the ham was impressively flavoursome with a hint of sweetness and none of the heavy saltiness. In fact, I was really mesmerised by the ham and how tasty is was. The chocolate brownie was decadently rich and the chocolates were a delight. It was difficult to gauge the general value for money of the Fornam and Field hampers since the one I received was a taster package and not available for sale, but there was no doubting the quality of the produce. I liked the hamper basket itself which can be reused and would look great on a picnic blanket. Delivery hovers at around the £10 mark.

The hamper basket

The hamper basket

Website: http://www.formanandfield.com/


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