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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Peruvian food was a barely known cuisine in London until a few months ago. All that seemed to change when half-British, half-Peruvian Martin Morales opened Ceviche back in March, a Peruvian restaurant and pisco bar on Frith Street in the heart of Soho. The restaurant is named after the famous Peruvian dish (ceviche) of raw seafood marinated in lime. Since its arrival, Ceviche has created the kind of hype that seems to suggest Peruvian food is the latest craze in old London town. In the months ahead, Morales plans to open two more Peruvian restaurants, and with that, Peruvian food seems here to stay. About time I say. Craze or no craze, as far as international cities go, London is behind the times. New Yorkers have long embraced Peruvian (fusion) food and their association with it goes way back, even before I was living in NYC more than 10 years ago.

The food at Ceviche isn’t just about ceviche. The menu is split into lots of different sections with nibbles, grills, salads and classic favourites (but sadly no guinea pig). From the nibbles, we tried the deep-fried tequeños fritters (£3.75) filled with a delicious mix of chicken and chilli. I adored the accompanying ají amarillo chilli dipping sauce which was moderately spicy and moderately sweet. However the fritter effect would have worked better had the wrapping been a little less soggy. A little bit crispier and the tequeños would have been spot-on.

Tequeños

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Dalla Terra, a lovely Italian wine bar in St Martin’s Courtyard in Covent Garden, set up shop about three months ago. Its focus is to offer a wide variety of quality (and predominantly Italian) wines – some 180 bottles and 30 by the glass – and a simple but delicious food menu in a welcoming setting. For the heart of Covent Garden, wine prices were reasonable with a Billecart-Salmon Brut Reserve champagne costing only £10.

Chef Araldo De Vitis, who previously worked at St John Bar and Restaurant, has come up with a small menu of delicious tasting dishes to match the wines. The menu was well thought out and included simple delights such as a selection of bruschetta that featured cherry tomato with rocket and oregano which offered freshness and bite, and spreadable “Ventricina di Campotosto” salami with broad beans and pecorino which was rustic and hearty (£3.80).

Tomato bruschetta

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Our visit to The Henry Root was a bit of a surprise visit. We were meant to be eating at Elleven Park Walk, an Italian restaurant (on 11 Park Walk in West Brompton), but a power failure at the restaurant meant that we turned up only to discover that there was no food to be had. The restaurant was nice enough to comp us a glass of champagne for the inconvenience, but thereafter there was no point staying. 11 Park Walk use to be the home of Aubergine, a Michelin-starred restaurant that closed in 2010. I had a disastrous meal at Aubergine in 2009 and it was just as well it closed as it seemed to be on its last legs. Two times unlucky. This address must surely be jinxed for me.

Anyway, that is how we ended up at The Henry Root which is right next door at 9 Park Walk. Named after the pseudonym of writer and satirist Charles William Donaldson, The Henry Root must be the most darling of neighbourhood restaurants that you could ever hope to come across. Homely and cosy are the words that immediately spring to mind when you enter The Henry Root. Warm subtle tones run throughout the restaurant which is wonderfully light and airy. Good use has been made of the space and the dining area feels quite roomy.

The menu was a more accomplished read than I had initially expected. I thought its style would be more café-type food, but instead we were presented with dishes like seared scallops with grilled chorizo, roasted red peppers and sweet basil (£10). The scallops were beautifully cooked, and there was a real depth of meaty spicy flavour coming through from the chorizo. However, the chorizo was a touch overpowering against the delicacy of the scallops. The peppers were also well done, proving to be soft and sweet.

Seared scallops

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The Gilbert Scott is situated in The Renaissance Hotel St Pancreas (previously the Midland Grand Hotel) which finally reopened last year after being closed for almost three-quarters of a century. In keeping with the style of the original architecture, the restaurant has maintained many of the ornate features of the building. With high ceilings, limestone pillars and intricate details. The Gilbert Scott feels grand, but also somewhat old-fashioned and sterile. The refurbishment of the dining room was undoubtedly expensive (the whole hotel cost about £150m), but I didn’t care much for the garish peachy colour scheme or the icy atmosphere of the restaurant.

The restaurant is named after Gilbert Scott, the architect who originally designed the building. However it was the name of Marcus Wareing that I was most curious about. The two-starred Michelin chef of Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley is behind the brasserie and bar operations at The Gilbert Scott. The menu made for a nice read, and fittingly, resonated Britishness.

The kitchen operated with clockwork precision, and eerily so. It only took a few minutes from the time we placed our orders until our starters turned up. The turnaround time was so quick it made me question the level of effort that had been made with our food. My first course of curry spiced mulligatawny with quail (£9) tasted like it had been pre-cooked and quickly reheated for service. The mulligatawny could have been hotter and better spiced. The quail was a nice touch, but as it had been immersed in the broth for some time it had become bland. This was an unremarkable dish.

Mulligatawny

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The Delaunay is the sister restaurant to the grande dame of brasserie eating, The Wolseley, and it is in every way as resplendent as its older sibling. Owners Jeremy King and Chris Corbin’s approach was simple – to bring the best touches of old-world European café glamour and sophistication into one establishment. Think doorman with top-hat, dark wood and shiny brass fittings, a gorgeous French antique clock, and you have a sense of the Continental grandeur that The Delaunay exudes and which is also the trademark characteristic of The Wolseley.

The restaurant offers an all-day service. There are soups, eggs and sandwiches, but the slant on the food is decidedly Germanic, and there are items such as wieners and ‘tagesteller’ (dish of the day) on the menu. There is also a bit of French and British thrown in with the likes of croquet monsieur and Welsh rarebit, and for something more refined, Sevruga and Beluga caviar are available as well.

A steak tartare (small with toast – £10.50) boasted of quality meat with a rich hearty flavour. It was extremely tasty, but the tartare was a touch too acidic, and it also needed a little more onion to better balance the dish. It was served with some rustic sour dough bread.

Steak tartare

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2011 Masterchef winner Tim Anderson and car brand Citroën recently came together to work on a charity project in aid of FareShare, a charity that tackles food poverty by challenging food waste. For this purpose, Tim created a special five-course tasting menu based on the five senses for a pop-up restaurant known as Delicious by DS5 (one of the cars in the Citroën range). The charity restaurant was held at 89 ½ Worship Street and proceeds from the evening went towards FareShare.

I was excited by the prospect of trying his menu. Winning Masterchef is no mean feat, and his eclectic take on food – at least from what I observed by watching him on Masterchef – showed that he drew a lot from Japanese influences.

The Delicious venue

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Quo Vadis is something of an institution on the London restaurant scene. It first opened its doors in 1926 and has seen Marco Pierre White amongst its owners. It now belongs to the well-known restaurateur brothers, Sam and Eddie Hart, who also own Fino and Barrafina. Much noise was made about the glam factor and kudos that the brothers brought to the restaurant when they purchased and refurbished it in 2008. Now, noise is again being made about the arrival of Chef Jeremy Lee who was previously at the Blueprint Café and was responsible for its well-received cooking for the best part of 16 years.

The glam factor has not dissipated since Lee’s arrival and the décor still has that same classy, elegant feel to it. But the menu seems less fussy than the food that I ate during my previous visit (for that post, click here). It makes for a scrumptious read and offers good variety, with a pie and braise of the day, small bites and sandwiches, grills and a range of à la carte options. The theatre menu, which is available all day, has been designed to beat any recessionary blues with two courses at £17.50 and three courses for £20.

To kick start my meal, I couldn’t pass up the chance to try a gull’s egg. These eggs are available only during the spring and have an incredibly short season of about 3 weeks. The egg had been perfectly cooked and was runny to accentuate the richness of its lovely yolk. The accompanying celeriac salt worked well with the egg.

Gull's egg

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