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Wednesday 20 June 2012

ZUCCA





Happy Birthday Blog !


Zucca Fritti Stacked


Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft - taste this.



Pineapple Grilled Veal Chop, Spinach, Lemon


Bonet, Brittle, Hazlenut Ice Cream.


#27 Gateway to Heaven


Happy Birthday Blog

This blog celebrates a whole year documenting my Favourite Places To Eat and fate could not have allocated a more apt bingo number than # 27 for this blog, as Zucca really is Bermondsey's 'Gateway to Heaven'. 

Zucca's ambient aesthetic and service was flawless from start to finish and the ideal place to be ensconced reminiscing a year blogging, while out dining with my beautiful fun loving  partner.  Interestingly and perhaps this is Karma dealing her own card, nearly all of the images taken inside Zucca for this blog, [thanks to my partners artistic eye] have mysteriously evaporated due to the wonders of mobile phone data transfer technology. 

Karma perhaps because discreetly written on the Zucca menu, along the lower border edge is this little comment on dining etiquette:

'The use of mobile phones is both unsociable and unnecessary.'

Indeed. There is something eloquent in this statement, although perhaps a part is lost in translation. It would be interesting to define 'unnecessary' and to note the protocol should in a dire emergency the babysitter try to get through on your mobile to tell you she has had a quick cigie and accidentally just set fire to your kitchen pantry.

Zucca is still a young pup on the London scene - its name means Pumpkin in Italian. It is part of the much heralded Slow Food establishment, though there is nothing slow about their attentive service. In keeping with the impeccable standards of the River Cafe restaurant, Zucca is on this evidence serving the finest Italian modernist food in London. 

The whole area of Bermondsey Street has undergone an amazing transformation in the last decade and has the feeling of visiting Lower East Side New York. The antique conservation framers, with Bermondsey open antique market on their doorstep, provides a fascinating place to pop into before going next door for an aperitif before dinner.

The kitchen at Zucca is open plan and there is the sense of this being a dining theatre, with chefs seeming to create shapes of a ballerina as they attend to their hand drawn pasta.

They also know their wine here, Zucca being bestowed the Decanter Restaurant of the year for 2011.

We shared for antipasti: White Crab, Scrambled eggs and pangrattato and 'Zucca fritti'. You don't get the impression this place has a house speciality, they are simply too good at everything - if they did, these Pumpkin Fritti would be high up the list.  For mains we shared plates of Orechiette Pasta with Zucchini, Aubergine Tomato and Chilli and a rather incredible grid iron grilled Veal Chop with Spinach and Lemon. For pudding a Salt Caramel Ice Cream and a Bonet, Brittle, Hazlenut Ice Cream.

Again faultless.

Zucca do not charge for service and it is these little touches - when the service is  perfectly balanced between restrained, personable and delightful - that makes all the difference between the very good.... and then the really great restaurants.

Though I don't particularly find myself drawn to the name Zucca, for sure I will be raving to all and sundry about this utterly fantastic restaurant. 

This will be a hard act to follow and on the agenda for this blogs 2nd birthday is a trip tp Noma in Copenhagen, where to get a table, if you are lucky, requires booking three months in advance.




Monday 18 June 2012

ROGANIC




A Peak Into The World Of Simon Rogan


Quiet Before The Storm


The Cross Hatch Placemat


The Bottle Glass



The Ten Course Menu


Compliments Of The Chef 1


The Bread


The Butter on a Rock



Bread + Butter


Course 1


Course 2


Course 3


Course 4


Course 5


Course 6


Course 7


Course 8


Course 9


Course 10


Compliments of the Chef 2


Compliments Of The Chef 3

Ok We Surrender !




#26 Pick and Mix

Horses For Courses


One year into a two year pop up  concept, the blogger decided the time was right to visit Simon Rogan's - 'Great British Menu' TV fame and Head Chef and Co Founder of the critically acclaimed L'Enclume in the Lake District -  venture Roganic on Blanford Street, Marylebone.

I am going to try and keep this blog short and simple, even though there is a lot to say, so I will probably fail.

This was one of the greatest meals I have had the pleasure to experience in London; greatest in these sense of the greatest abundance of incredibly inventive ingredients and amazing combinations of knock out flavours. It lasted for three hours and the pace and flavours simmered along on the 'perfect slowness' dial.

Simon Rogan is an incredibly inventive and genuine star chef and he has his young master apprentices impeccably well trained. 

To give you an idea :

Carrot with ham fat, wild basil and pickled celery.


Grown up egg yolk from the golden egg, celeriac, sorrel and garlic cream.

Mushroom broth with buffalo curds, salsify and water mint.

Raw venison in coal oil, mustard and onions.


Grilled Salmon smoked over embers, truffle custard and cobnuts.


On the other hand - and I am very reluctant to criticise anyone let alone a culinary artist, we had our first experience of conversation ending 'lock-jaw' brought on by the apparently cutting edge 'glazed Beetroot snaps'. Once we had unlocked our jaws we giggled, though others might panic.

While I am on a roll, the head maitre d' also had a rather over embellished candy-floss manner with an intense beaming hollywood smile. The general experience of Roganic's table service was bordering the limits of being a tad too affected, with over inquisitive gems such as 'So guys how are you feeling today?' Thankfully the two female waitress' had the effortless grace of being laid back, attentive, polite and very thoughtful.

The interior decor had the feeling of being unintentionally cobbled together, and didn't seem to know its true self, or reflect the values of the artisan cooking. This might be known as pop up syndrome. The furniture and tables felt uncomfortably heavy in weight and aesthetic and a bit claustrophobic to be pigeoned between pillars. The low hung lighting became a moving target and was accidentally head butted by patrons and the candles floating on pebble stones looked like they belonged in a new age hippy caravan.

A genuine star stand out was the wooden bread tray and dining plates - which were different for each course - and so beautiful they suggested the skilled hands of a Shaker craftsman

The bread was out of this world. You just have to go and taste it. I can't do it justice. Whereas the butter on a rock looked like it had been borrowed from the opening scene of Naff Butter Island. The lemon doughnuts as a complimentary dish from the chef tasted like they had fallen from heaven, but the slab of slate granite they had fallen onto was, well...... just weird.

Essentially the overall experience was a bizarre combination of some of the best, most inventive food I have tasted or experienced, coupled with some of the most cringeworthy accessory bits and bobs.

I loved the actual food experience and would love to go again - if only I could afford it. The ten course menu is £80 and the six course - £55, with is actually good value though with the cheapest bottle of wine starting at £37 this isn't a place to frequent on a regular basis unless you are minted.

A part of me wanted to write to Simon and say if you could just strip away some of the ornamental fluff and sugary service and concentrated on your incredibly creative food, amazing bread, beautiful wooden tray and charming potters plates you would probably have all the elements of the best restaurant experience in London.

Though I didn't. Life is somehow best left to its own devices.




Friday 15 June 2012

HARDYS






#25 Duck and Dive


Wine Eaterie

Watch this Space. More to come. A bit later. In the Year.



Monday 11 June 2012

SHRIMPY'S


The Modernist's Eating Hole


Yellow Sunshine Enamel Chairs


Canal, Waterway, Barge, Crane


Laid Back Comfort


All Hands On Deck


The Line Up.


Dog Art


Aperitif


As It Says On The Tin


Plantains, Chips And Dips


Peruvian Ceviche


Tuna Tostada


And The Kids Love It Here Too



The Prize Courier Delivery


Yes. That Really Is Two Whole Soft Shell Crabs


Batman & Robin, Tabasco & Crab, Gherkin & Bun


Off Piste Menu, Something Chocolatey Delicious


The Perfect Way To End The Night



#24  Two Dozen



Filling Up


What better place to be for the opening of Euro 2012 football tournament than far away from the television plasma screens and seated at the insanely hip retreat of Shrimpys - the latest place to hang and dine in London.

Opened just 3 weeks ago, Shrimpy's is tucked discreetly away on the site of the previously disused Filling Station; deep in the hub of the impressive Kings cross development, where notable architects of the 21st century have been given carte blanche to renovate this northern artery of London. With the imposing Guardian wave building, the Kings Cross Eurostar development and the new Central St Martins Art & Design school all on the door step, Shrimpy's is cleverly screened away alongside the peaceful Canal waterway.

In case you were wondering, there are no Shrimp farms in the canal.

With a substantial bright neon sign bearing the name 'Filling Station' it might seem unusual to describe Shrimpy's as hidden away, but the stark minimal exterior suggests this destination is for a clientele who know exactly where they are going. (Ok yes, this blogger did get lost on the first attempt.)

The space is designed by architects Carmody Groarke - who also designed the brilliant Bauhaus exhibition at the Barbican - and the restaurant is the latest venture of the owners of the East End hangout, 'Bistrotheque'. 

Inside the low hung modernist style bach, with translucent fibreglass screening to the open yard, you find a long manhattan bar, blue velvet banquettes, white linen tablecloths, silver ringed napkins and Donald Urquhart art scribed onto the walls.

The elegant buzz and white jacket service reminds the blogger of the timeless decorum of Harry's Bar in Florence. This is the sort of place you would find a mix of Erno Goldfinger, Woody Allen and Will.i.am deep in conversation poring over the cacti collection on Shrimpys uber long windowsill. 


Such an eclectic gathering you could only find in London.

The carefully curated combination of Mexican and Peruvian cuisine has the feeling of being inspired by 'my favourite bites'  jotted down inside Ernest Hemingway's diaries. Each plate is beautifully conceived and presented and tastes - to put it bluntly - amazing, supporting the consensus of opinion that London is now a serious and proven gastronomic global player.

The star of the show is the soft shell crab burger. This is innovation in a bun. Two tiny crabs with all 8 legs battered and stacked together like a deft high wire circus act. If this isn't enough excitement, the taste of the perfect thinly sliced gherkin will finish you off. It really is the pearly white gates to burger heaven.

Shrimpy's is all about fine dining with great service in a elevated design setting and for such a purist treat, it is priced correctly, with starters from £6.50 and main courses from £16.


Grab a cocktail as you lounge in the yellow sunshine enamel chairs and watch the stock of this star restaurant go shooting up into the night sky.


If you ever fancy filling up your tank with N1 gas, then this is definitely THE place to come.







Favourite Places To Eat

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