I went to Texture Restaurant and Champagne Bar when it first opened in 2007. While I thought the food was good, I found it unremarkable for a fine dining restaurant. But since then, the word amongst foodie circles is that the food has evolved and is now fantastic. It also won a Michelin star last year, a fact which is also hard to ignore.

The restaurant is a collaborative effort between Icelandic Head Chef Agnar Sverrisson, and sommelier Xavier Rousset who won the UK Sommelier of the Year award at the age of 22. The two met when working at Le Manoir Aux Quat’ Saisons. Sverrisson has also held positions at other notable restaurants such as Pétrus (under Marcus Wareing) and at the Michelin-starred Lea Linster in Luxembourg. With his classic French training, the food at Texture is Modern European with an Icelandic influence. The look of the restaurant is also Icelandic cool, sleek and stylish. Texture also boasts of an impressive 88 bottle champagne collection, the day to day running of which is now maintained by sommelier, Erica, who was runner up in the Young Sommelier of the Year Competition. Xavier is still co-owner of Texture, but now spends more time at his other venture, 28-50 Wine Workshop and Kitchen.

We selected the tasting menu for £68 (although on Texture’s website this is stated as £59). An appetiser of assorted diced vegetables with celery infusion and olive oil was stunning. The flavour of the celery was delicate and light, and the tiny diced vegetables were perfectly cooked. Who knew an infusion made from celery could be so naturally sweet and tasty?

Diced vegetables with celery infusion

(Continue reading her story…)

The Roux family are the closest thing we have to cooking royalty here in the UK. So the opening of Roux at The Landau, a collaborative effort between father and son Albert and Michel Jnr, was always going to be newsworthy. Housed in the Langham Hotel on Regent Street, the dining room has been elegantly and stylishly refurbished by interior designer David Collins. His client list includes such notable restaurants as J Sheeky, Locanda Locatelli, Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay and Bob Bob Ricard (ok I didn’t like the food at Bob Bob Ricard, but I did like the clever décor). The most memorable aspect about the design was the vaulted passageway that guides you through the restaurant’s treasured wine collection before leading you into the dining room.

Chef de Cuisine is Chris King, Michel’s young protégée who spent five years at Le Gavroche before working at Per Se in New York and then at Roux at Parliament Square as the sous chef.

I dined as a guest of Roux at The Landau. Amuse bouches included a creamy remoulade topped with a soft quail’s egg, spicy chorizo spring rolls and a fragrant beef tartare finished with truffle. These were very tasty.

Amuse bouche

(Continue reading her story…)

Vinoteca Marylebone is the sister restaurant of the original Vinoteca wine bar and restaurant in Farringdon. It opened in November last year, but unlike Brawn, the sister restaurant of that other well known wine bar, Terroirs, it has barely registered on the Richter Scale of restaurant openings. I found out about it purely by chance. Thinking I would go to the branch in Farringdon, I stumbled across the details of the Marylebone branch when I went onto the Vinoteca website. Despite the lack of PR fanfare, the restaurant is already doing a thumping trade. It was packed during our visit and justifiable so. Its concept is simple – good, seasonal food, in an ever changing menu, matched with one of the 25 wines that are available by the glass. There are also 280 reasonably priced bottles to choose from.

Vinoteca Marylebone is cosy and intimate. It does not take reservations, but there’s a bar area to drink at while you wait. Due to the lack of carpeting and rugs on the floor, its only drawback was that it was incredibly noisy which made conversation a little difficult. But this can also be construed as fantastically atmospheric.

We started with a heavenly smoked eel with celeriac and apple remoulade and wheaten toast (£8). The eel was delicate, succulent and lightly smoked, and the creaminess of the deftly made remoulade was a perfect match. There was a hint of sweetness in the well-made, flavoursome bread which made this dish all the more appetising. The suggested wine, an Austrian 2009 Kamptal Gruner Veltliner ‘Kies’, Kurt Angerer (£4.50 for 125ml) was a great accompaniment.

Smoked eel

(Continue reading her story…)

Tempo is a recently opened Italian restaurant on Curzon Street, right near the now-defunct Mirabelle. There is a bar upstairs on the first floor, and the ground floor houses the dining room which is contemporary but not flashy. The colour scheme offers up warm, beige-y tones and large paintings splash the walls. This is a pretty and comfortable restaurant, even if the tables are squished together and the seats are small. I guess space is precious in Mayfair.

I liked the menu. Subdivided between cicchetti (small eats), carpaccio, antipasta, pasta and risotto, fish and meats, side dishes and desserts over a compact two page format, it offered a reasonable range of choices without overwhelming the audience. It made me want to try a little bit of everything.

I dined as a guest of the restaurant. From the cicchetti section, an insalata di polpo, seared octopus, pomegranate with apple (£3.75) was lovely. The octopus was tender and and nicely seared, and there was a lovely freshness coming through from the pomegranate and julienned apples which well with the octopus.

Insalata di polpo

(Continue reading her story…)

I am a big fan of Atari-ya on James Street. The sushi is super fresh which is to be expected of a business that imports premium grade sashimi fish and supplies high end restaurants such as Nobu and Zuma. Prices at the James Street branch were very reasonable when I last went, especially given the quality. And its proximity to Oxford Street means that it’s an easy diversion when one is out on a shopping expedition.

Atari-ya seems to be branching out. Earlier this year they took over Sushi-Hiro in Ealing Common. There’s now a branch in Swiss Cottage as well which is where I recently visited.

Ohitashi (boiled spinach – £3.50) was topped with bonito flakes and finished with a lovely sauce of dashi and soya sauce.

Ohitashi

(Continue reading her story…)

Note: Chefs Massimiliano Blasone and Marco Calenzo have now left the restaurant. Consequently this blog post may not reflect the current state of affairs at Apsleys.

Back in March I went to Apsleys, a one Michelin starred restaurant, and had the five-course tasting menu. Apsleys is the London outpost of Heinz Beck, a chef who holds three Michelin stars with his restaurant La Pergola in Rome. I had therefore expected good things. Instead, I left the restaurant feeling a little under whelmed. It wasn’t a bad meal per se, but my tortellini pasta was a bit overcooked and there were inconsistencies in the presentation of the food. I also found the tuna tartare dish with herbal infusion and green tea sorbet slightly odd.

Somehow the restaurant got hold of my post. Perhaps they had a point to prove because they contacted me several months later to invite me to dine at Apsleys again, saying that things had much improved. Interestingly, The Critical Couple wrote of an underwhelming first experience followed by a much more positive one at Apsleys. I was therefore sufficiently curious to try it again.

To start was a trio of seafood amuse bouches. From left to right, tuna tartare sparkled with the gentle hint of orange pieces. Next was a seabass tartare with cauliflower and candied lemon mounted on some finely chopped cantaloupe melon. The sweetness of the fish contrasted wonderfully with the fruitiness of the melon and the acidity of the lemon. Finally, a stunning sliver of thinly sliced scallop marinated in olive oil and lemon was served on a bed of creamy amaranth (a black corn stock).

Amuse bouches

(Continue reading her story…)

As pointed out to me by some readers, Sushi Hiro which has now closed, use to be the Japanese restaurant favoured by chefs Heston Blumenthal and Anthony Demetre of Arbutus. But just a few steps down the road is another Japanese gem, Kiraku. The story goes that Heston only stumbled across Sushi Hiro because he was trying to get a table at Kiraku after being sent there by the head of his experimental kitchen, Kyle Connaughton. Finding the latter full, he wandered down to Sushi Hiro instead.

I haven’t been to Kiraku in a while, but I use to be a bit of a regular there, and time and time again I was hooked by the kaki fry (fried oysters: £8.80) and the saba shio (grilled mackerel: £6.90), so much so, I had to introduce the delights of these two dishes to my friends. They were suitable impressed. The meaty flavour of the giant sized oysters exploding in your mouth as you bit into the wonderful coating of crunchy panko (Japanese breadcrumbs) was impressive, as was the contrasting sweetness of the tonkatsu sauce.

Fried oysters

The mackerel also delighted with its fantastically crispy skin and moist succulent flesh. A drizzle of lemon juice and some grated daikon also worked a treat. I adore the way the Japanese grill their mackerel, and Kiraku probably produces some of the best in London.

Grilled mackerel

A special sushi set (£18.50) was very fresh. The sweetness and acidity in the rice was well balanced. It was reasonably priced, but Atari-ya still has better priced sushi in London just like the So Good Sushi bar in France.

Special sushi set

A serving of gyoza was good and decent (£5). Nasu dengaku (grilled aubergine with miso and sesame pastes: £5.90) was gooey and soft, as well cooked aubergine should be. Both the miso and sesame pastes were nicely flavoured, but there was a touch too much of each which slightly overpowered the delicacy of the aubergine.

Gyoza & grilled aubergine

Prawn tempura (£12) with firm juicy prawns was delicious. The tempura batter was wonderfully crispy but could have been a little lighter. Agedashi tofu was slightly disappointing as it was a little bland.

Prawn tempura

Agedashi tofu

We finished with a selection of ice creams (azuki beans, green tea and cinnamon: £3.80 to £4.30) which weren’t bad, although there were ice crystals to be found in my green tea scoop.

I like Kiraku a lot. I’ve been here a number of times and I think the food is consistently good, especially the kaki fry and the saba shio. Kiraku is a family business and it shows in the homely atmosphere, down-to-earth Japanese decor and warm friendly service. It’s well worth making the trip to Ealing Common for.

[xrrgroup]

Summary information

Food rating: [xrr rating=4/5]
Service rating: [xrr rating=3.5/5]

Price range: £25 to £35 per head, excludes drinks and service.
[/xrrgroup]

Web: http://kirakulondon.wordpress.com/

Indian Cookbook

Last week I was invited to Moti Mahal, an Indian restaurant in Covent Garden, for an Indian cookery masterclass followed by dinner. The occasion was to mark the publication of a new Indian cookbook, aptly named ‘India Cookbook’. Published by Phaidon Press, the book is authored by food writer Pushpesh Pant following twenty years of research across the gastronomic regions of India.

The book is divided into various chapters covering Spices, Mixtures and Pastes; Pickles, Chutneys and Raitas; Snacks and Appetisers, Main Dishes; Breads; Desserts and Drinks. There is also a Guest Chef section containing signature dish contributions from a number of well regarded Indian chefs from around the world. London chefs include Anirudh Arora from Moti Mahal (host of our dinner), Alfred Prasa from Michelin starred Tamarind, and Vivek Singh from Cinnamon Club.

The book contains 1,000 recipes and is beautiful to look at. Traditional Indian rice bags provided the inspiration for the book cover, and the photographs showcase a range of delicious looking dishes in technicolour.

(Continue reading her story…)