London restaurant miscellany

I keep on stumbling across odd developments on the London restaurant scene I mean to blog about and never get round to so I'm going to jam them all into one post.

All-day brunch at Angelus
A brilliant move from a long-standing favourite in Lancaster Gate, run by ex-sommelier Thierry Thomasin. You can eat breakfast all day on a Sunday. I discovered this recently when I was staying nearby because of an early Monday morning meeting. We went to eat at 8.30pm and found we could have a full English. There's also an omelette menu and the best steak tartare (above) I think I've eaten, hand-chopped, beautifully seasoned and, dare I say, even better than Racine's. Served with a generous portion of excellent chips so you don't really need to order extra ones with the omelette. Amazing winelist too. An overlooked gem.


Ribs at Pitt Cue Co
The entire blogosphere has raved about this southern-style barbecue joint so there's not a great deal to add except to say that the ribs live up to the hype. I think I like the St Louis pork ribs marginally better than the beef ones - there are also superb chicken wings, home-made pickles and a side of mash with burnt ends - which is basically mash with gravy and leftover bits of roast meat. Mmmmm. For a more measured, coherent but equally enthusiastic assessment read Jay Rayner's review here.


Meaty mash seems to be a bit of a trend because you also find mash with roasting juices and truffles (above) at Dabbous, which I've already described as London's hottest opening this year. Admittedly we're only 9 weeks or so in but it's apparently already booked up till May. You can, I imagine, walk into the bar though which is worth doing as the cocktails are really good too. And - who knows - if you're lucky you may pick up a table from a no-show. This is Ollie, the chef, a star in the making if I ever saw one.


And finally it's the annual winter set lunch promotion at the River Café which enables you to eat for £25 for two courses and £31 for three instead of the £15-18 and £33-37 you have to pay for a starter and main course respectively at dinner. I did it the year before last and it's a terrific deal. On till the end of March.

New harvest olive oil from Fattoria la Vialla

There's almost nothing as luscious as freshly pressed olive oil as I was reminded last night when we dunked our bread into a saucerful of bright green grassy Tuscan oil. It's a world away from the cheap - and not so cheap - commercial oils which are blended from all over Europe. Think of the difference between a cup of coffee made from freshly roasted beans and one made from instant coffee granules and you get the picture.

I was sent a sample of the new year's harvest by Fattoria La Vialla who I visited a couple of years ago to research a feature for the wine magazine Decanter. It's a large estate in the south of Tuscany that produces its own organic oil, wine, cheese and various artisanal food products but what makes it especially interesting is that they sell not to wholesalers or shops but direct to the public*.

You can buy their products online (you need to register first) or by ordering from their charming handwritten catalogue. And because they cut out the middleman their prices are very reasonable - £12 a 750ml bottle for the new estate bottled olive oil, £1.80-£1.95 a 500g pack for pasta and £3.20-£5.50 for sauces, including delivery.

The product I'm most interested in - and plan to order next - is a non-alcoholic freshly squeezed grape juice or spremuta di uva which is made from Sangiovese grapes ("a healthy drink ... which is liked by both big and small" as the brochure nicely puts it) and which they claim has similar health benefits to red wine. That's £4.10 for a 750ml bottle or £1.55 for a 200ml kid-sized one.

They're also selling their bright, fruity Vino Novo - Tuscany's answer to Beaujolais Nouveau which pairs really well with the oil and the estate's own pecorino cheese - at £5.50 a bottle. I'm not quite so grabbed by their more mature reds though the vin santo at £7.50-9 a bottle is terrific value.

Most of the products come in bulk - the spremuta di uva, for instance in packs of six so you might want to band together with friends to put in an order.

*In the UK, Germany and a number of other European countries.

Chairman's Reserve 'The Forgotten Casks' rum

If you've never been to Gerry's of Old Compton Street, remedy that straightaway. It's the best offie in London - not that I spend a lot of time hanging round offies - with every drink you can possibly imagine.

They also have a thing about rum, hence a monthly rum promotion which this month - as it was last month and apparently next month* - is the Chairman's Reserve 'The Forgotten Casks' from St Lucia distillers - a sumptuous rum that tastes of dark, fudgy muscovado sugar. At £26.50 (around £29 elsewhere) it's a bargain.

The story goes that the rum was produced after the company discovered a number of casks which they'd thought were lost after a fire destroyed part of the distillery in 2007. I haven't tasted the regular Chairman's Reserve so can't vouch how special they were but it did pick up a gold medal and best in class trophy at last year's International Wine and Spirit Competition. The perfect drink for the last dark days of January, anyway.

* So possibly only a new rum every three months but hey, who minds that?

Pashmak Persian fairy floss

As one of those people who no sooner sees a weird dish or ingredient than has to try it I was never going to be able to resist the offer of Pariya Pashmak Persian fairy floss on the menu of Riverstation in Bristol this week.

As the name suggests it's a bit like candyfloss but not as wiry or sugary - more like the texture and appearance of a soft toy or cushion filling to be honest. It comes in several flavours including pistachio, chocolate, vanilla and rose and you can buy it by the bag from Harvey Nicks and branches of Ottolenghi. (And Selfridges, which stocks a saffron flavoured one, so I'm told.)


What on earth does it taste like? Well the vanilla one wasn't wildly vanilla-y but the chocolate one was rather nice - like a whipped up Galaxy or a milky mug of Cadbury's chocolate.

I can imagine making a fabulously kitsch Valentine's dessert - a sundae topped with a sprinkling of rose pashmak, perhaps, or a pavlova with a furry topping like a mad Ascot hat. You could have a lot of fun with this.

Five more blogs

New year, new blogs. Except that I’m hardly quick off the mark. January 13th is a bit late in the day to kick off a month’s blogging. It’s been a hard few weeks though which I won’t bore you with.

Anyway great new blogs keep on appearing or at least drifting across my radar. Here are five (and a few extra links along the way just to make up for my tardiness):

Drinkster
I met wine writer Philip White in Australia last month and immediately took to his iconoclastic and thoroughly un-PC blog, Drinkster. Full of anything that takes his fancy such as this recording of Robert Wyatt’s Sea Song and an old French poster headed l’alcool empoisonne lentement. The sidebar bears his credo “relishing the power concealment brings, I refuse to hide.” Good for him.

Breakfast by the Sea
A blog I discovered through food writer and photographer Dan Lepard, written by Heather from Brighton (which is on the south coast of England for those of you who don’t know it). Nothing flashy in the way of words just simple recipes beautifully photographed. Charming.

Forever Eggsploring
I like a blogger with an obsession and David Constable’s is eggs. Not just eggs but scotch eggs. That’s right - an entire blog devoted to scotch eggs which David describes for the unenlightened as "consisting of a shelled hard-boiled egg, wrapped in a sausage meat mixture, coated in breadcrumbs, and deep-fried". You’d think there wouldn’t be enough to sustain a blog but David has found them. He also has another food blog called David J Constable. His review of the Rainforest Cafe is memorable.

The London Review of Sandwiches
Talking of obsessions one of my favourite bloggers Helen Graves has come up with a sharply written new blog this week: the London Review of Sandwiches. No problem sourcing material for this I’d have thought simply finding the time to post. Helen’s main blog Food Stories is already regularly updated and she also blogs for AOL as well as having a pretty demanding day job. Still, as she puts it “I am sandwich loving lady”. You can’t keep a good obsession down.

Cook’n’scribble
Less of a read, I suppose, more of a business idea, this is the website/blog of American food writer Molly O’Neill who runs writing courses for food writers and bloggers. Before you jump up and down with excitement and think this would be a great excuse to go to the states the sessions are held online or via conference call over a period of weeks - great for busy bloggers whose writing has to be fitted in round the day job. She also writes a blog which addresses interesting subjects in the world of writing and other interesting blogs and podcasts like Spilled Milk and Edible Radio. Thanks to Ruth Reichl for this heads-up.

Beerd, Bristol - the new face of pubs?

If you were going to open a new business would you send up your potential customers? Calling a beer bar Beerd and - cheekier still - getting your waitresses to wear T shirts with 'beerdy weirdy' on the back seems a high risk strategy akin to calling a new nail salon Chavs. Especially if some of your punters are not noted for their sense of humour.

So, Bath Ales' new opening in Bristol - a craft beer and pizza bar along the lines of the new places that have been opening in London (Brewdog, Craft Bar & Co and Draft House) - is a brave move and one I hope will succeed.


Its audience is obviously going to be very different from the CAMRA crowd. The airy rooms are dotted with brightly coloured tables, the bar sports bright neon hand pumps, lots of bottles and - shock, horror - keg beer. It's a student area - near the university and next to the hospital. Will they be interested in bottles of Scheider Aventinus at £7.95 a pop and small tapa style bowls of padron peppers at £4? I'm not sure.


They should go for the pizzas though our youngest, just out of uni and a pizza aficionado pronounced them underseasoned. I thought they were pretty good myself with a fantastic crust but I think I just chose a more interesting topping (prosciutto, artichoke, olive and mushroom). They were hard to cut on the somewhat slithery plates though and took a fair while to come which I'm guessing could mean a long wait on a busy evening.

Still it was only the first full day's trading and the friendly staff were eager for feedback. Apparently they'll be changing the beers regularly and they obviously know how to serve them, as you'd expect from a brewery-run operation. My half of Thornbrige Jaipur was in very good nick. And it's great to find them available in thirds for tasting as well as halves, two thirds and pints.

An interesting development. Cool beer places serving 'craft beer' rather than 'real ale' are going to be one of the hot trends for 2012, I reckon. Let's see if I'm right.

My top 10 books for Christmas

My bookshelves are groaning under the usual end of year avalanche of books. Despite the recession there seem to have been more than ever in 2011 - and bigger ones than ever. Publishers' answer to the relentless march of the iPad and other readers seems to have been to produce larger and more lavish volumes to demonstrate that a screen can never replicate the pleasure of handling a book.

So what would I give my friends (books being the most useful of last-minute presents for the congenitally disorganised)? Here in no particular order are my top 10:

Tasting India Christine Manfield (£40 Conran Octopus)
The biggest and blingiest book of the year, this gold satin-covered tome is admittedly not one I’d pick up in a bookshop not least because its weight (about 2 1/2 kilos) would cripple you on the way home. It’s also totally impractical for a messy cook like me. BUT despite the sumptuous presentation and photography it’s no mere coffee table book, but a passionate tribute to Indian food and culture by Australian chef Christine Manfield with some surprisingly straightforward home cooks’ recipes. Including an irresistible number involving potatoes which makes it a must-buy for me. At £23.30 on amazon, the price of a modest Indian takeaway, it’s a steal.
Who should I buy it for? Anyone who loves India and Indian food.

Short and Sweet: Dan Lepard (£25, 4th Estate)
A misnomer if there ever was one. At 560 pages this book is far from short but the recipes, it’s true, are reassuringly brief. Reading Lepard, who in addition to being an cracking good writer is also a talented food photographer, is like having a friend in the kitchen. The book is peppered with really useful tips (such as that you need a lot of baking powder in a banana cake to avoid it being heavy) and explanations of techniques. It covers everything from bread to home made sweets with some irresistible savoury recipes (garlic butter and cheddar scones, anyone?) along the way. The most inspiring baking book of the year - and there have been many.
Who should I buy it for? Someone who thinks they can’t bake. (Like me). Or someone who can but wants to bake better.

Perfect: 68 essential recipes for every cook's repertoire. Felicity Cloake (Fig Tree £18.99)
Despite my dislike of ‘the perfect’ tag on recipes this is a terrific book based on Felicity Cloake’s engaging weekly columns for the Guardian where she seeks out the ideal method for many of our best loved dishes. Cloake’s rare combination of diligent digging and lightness of touch makes these absorbing reading even if you might not agree with her conclusions. (I still can’t be persuaded that tomatoes are the right topping for macaroni cheese)
Who should I buy it for? Someone who doesn’t want too many recipe books (amazingly there are such people) but wants their recipes to work first time. Recently graduated students.

The Good Cook: Simon Hopkinson (£25 BBC Books)
For me this was the TV series of the year - much to my surprise. I feared that ‘Hoppy’ would be stiff and awkward in front of the camera. Instead he was warm, reassuring and inspiring and these are the recipes he cooked. He also writes like a dream. Don’t make the mistake of doubting his word as I arrogantly did with a recipe for baked papardelle, pancetta and porcini which I thought didn’t contain enough pasta. He’s a supremely accurate recipe writer. Trust him.
Who should I buy it for? Any good cook will love it but older ones will probably have all his other books. Keen cooks under 40.

Made in Sicily: Georgio Locatelli (£30, 4th Estate)
I don’t actually own this book yet, but have flipped through the pages on amazon and fingered it longingly in bookshops and it strikes me as the Italian cookery book you’ll most want to own this year. (Hint to my nearest and dearest). Locatelli is one of London’s most talented Italian chefs and Sicilian cooking is very special, quite unlike the rest of Italy. The recipes are simple and delicious but you will need good ingredients. Insalata calda di polpo (warm octopus salad) is not going to be something you can run up from your local Tesco fish counter. Maybe download it on Kindle and take it on holiday.
Who should I buy it for? Any Italian food nut. Chef groupies.

Pieminister: a pie for all seasons, Tristan Hogg and Jon Simon (£17.99 Bantam Press)
A strong contender for comfort food book of the year this book does exactly what it says on the tin. Lots of great ideas for wacky pies like the wabbit roll (pork, rabbit and black pudding), ‘flying frying pan’ smoked haddock and cider pie and plumble (mulled wine and plum crumble) should ensure your New Year gets off to an unhealthy start. There’s even a spread on booze matching.
Who should I buy it for? Pie obsessives.

Veggiestan: a vegetable lover’s tour of the middle east. Sally Butcher (Pavilion £25)
I’m impressed by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s new veg book, I must confess, but celebrities of his ilk don’t need any further endorsement. Instead buy Sally Butcher’s quirky and delightful Veggiestan for the veggie in your life. Sally owns an Iranian deli in south London and it’s her second book (the first being the equally entertaining Persia in Peckham). My copy is already full of Post-it notes marking recipes I want to try like Afghan leek pies, Armenian Green Lentil Garlic and Spinach soup and Onion, Chilli and Mint Marmalade. A refreshingly original book.
Who should I buy it for? adventurous veggie cooks. Adventurous cooks who cook for veggies

Supper Club: Kerstin Rodgers (£25 Collins)
The name Kerstin Rodgers may mean nothing to you but if you inhabit the blogosphere you’ll know her better as underground restaurateur Ms Marmitelover. This is less a cookery book than a manual on how to run a supper club and entertain your friends outrageously. (Think punk Nigella.) In contrast to Simon Hopkinson I would treat the recipes with a certain amount of caution. To give you a flavour: Chav’s White Chocolate Trifle with Malibu, Cockaleekie without the Cock, deep-fried peanut butter sandwiches .... Hugely entertaining.
Who should I buy it for? Lovers of kitsch

Couture Chocolate: William Curley (Jacqui Small £30)
Confession time. I don’t get that excited about chocolate and wouldn’t dream of making most of the recipes in this book by Britain’s foremost chocolatier William Curley but it undoubtedly wins the prize for the most beautiful book of this year (just look at the picture of Curley’s gleaming millionaires shortbread which he makes with salted caramel. Well maybe I might have just one ....). Although the techniques involved are complicated there are clear step-by-steps and some of the recipes like chestnut and sesame brownies look surprisingly straightforward. Stunning.
Who should I buy it for? Aspiring pastry chefs, chocoholics

Jellies and their Moulds Peter Brears (£12 Prospect Books)
Prospect Books in Devon is a tiny publishing house which publishes titles no other publisher in their right mind would touch. I eschewed two of this year's offerings (Tripe: a most excellent dish and Testicles: Balls in Cooking and Culture) in favour of this delightful book from last year on jelly from food historian Peter Brears. There are some charming illustrations which I can’t help but feel Ms Marmitelover would approve of.
Who should I buy it for? Jelly lovers and those who like to read cookbooks in bed

And then there’s . . .

Hawksmoor at Home (£25 Preface publishing) in which I had a hand along with my son Will Beckett, his business partner at Hawksmoor Huw Gott, chef Richard Turner and Dan Lepard, this time as photographer. I like to think I can be objective enough to say I’d want to own it even if I hadn’t been involved but clearly I’m not. It is a terrific book though, full of outrageously meaty recipes and killer cocktails along with some splendidly discursive meanderings on the origin of recipes, food traditions and ingredients for which Huw is largely responsible.
Who should I buy it for? Meat fiends. Food history geeks. (Not vegetarians. Oh no.)

And some other books I’ve already reviewed and enjoyed this year: Signe Johansen's Scandilicious, James Ramsden's Small Adventures in Cooking Niamh Shield's Comfort & Spice and Everyday and Sunday by Jane Baxter of Riverford Farm.