Who needs to quaff Taittinger with the Bafta award winners at yet another James Bond styled party, when an unprepossessing Monday night turns out to be high foodie in the extreme.
First, I convinced myself it was fine to be sipping Champagne Gosset Grande Reserve NV at 5.30pm when I was greeted with
Michel Roux senior saying I must hurry for the comedy act of the year in his deepest Gallic accent. The banter between Michel and Albert is an important part of the ritual of
The Roux Scholarship which this year celebrated its 25th anniversary. The winner was
Daniel Cox of private fining dining company Compass Group, private who triumphed on his third attempt to reach the final with his definitive rendition of Escoffier challenge dish Rouen ducking with Burgundy Pinot and Brandy served with potato gnocchi and peas. As ever his prizes include a stage with a 3 star Michelin restaurant inn Europe arranged through Roux connections. Though, I couldn’t help sympathising with honest fellow finalist who admitted he loathed making gnocchi with a passion, it’s something I’ve never managed to master. The fact that a significant number of the past scholars (pretty much all those based up in the UK) turn up for the event, many in extremely illustrious roles such as
Frederick Forster at
The Ritz, Sat Bains and
Steve Drake with their own (Michelin starred places) speaks volumes for what Michel Roux repeatedly called his extended family. Needless to say the stations post awards were good especially the lobster pasta in Thermidor sauce and more surprisingly the dim sum.
Sustenance enough to take me on to
The San Pellegrino 50 Best Restaurants of the World which has raised its game and capacity once again and was held this year in the awesome Freemason’s Hall with a good 500+ audience of mainly chefs and critics. I guess the winner was pretty much a forgone conclusion
Ferran Adria of
El Bulli, for the third year in succession. Yet his “acceptance speech” was endearing and rousing in the extreme. As he’d done the previous year, he asked all the other Spanish chefs who featured in the list to come up (and perhaps it’s no coincidence that there are further 6 Spanish restaurants in the top 50: Mugaritz, Arzak, El Celler de Can Roca, Can Fabes ) . He made a particular fuss of “chefs’ choice” Andoni Luis Aduriz of Mugaritz now rated at number 4, widely seen as his heir apparent to lead the second generation of avant-garde gastronomy in Spain. I liked the way Adria also gave due credit to his great mate and no 2
Heston Blumenthal of
The Fat Duck. Equally he dedicated the award to the awesomely determined and extremely creative Chicago based chef
Grant Achatz of
Alinea who’s winning a personal battle against cancer of the tongue and a definite ascending star.
Perhaps even more significant were a number of other chefs/restaurants singled out as culinary forces to be reckoned with. Most notably
Simon Rogan of the wonderful and refreshingly different
L’Enclume in Cumbria, who won a reader’s choice award. Equally interesting was the singling out of
Victor Arguinzoniz of
Etxebarri restaurant (approx 40 mins from Bilbao) as “hot” property. Arguinzoniz, a self-taught chef and former forester, is elevating the bbq to culinary cutting edge (a whole side of the dining room is dedicated to his bespoke designed grills and pulleys on which he cooks everything from eggs, foie gras, seafood, awesome chuletas to ice-cream. He even makes all his own charcoals each day, fine-tuned to suit each dish. Rumour has it that stellar Italian chef
Cracco Peck (whom I enjoyed meeting for the first time) was spectacularly late for a demos as he was so all consumed by the food. And this is despite being self taught and fittingly a former forester.
I was also intrigued to see a Parisian restaurant I’d visited in Paris only a fortnight previously at bistronomique
Le Chateaubriand owned by young Basque chef
Inaki Aizpitarte featured as the the restaurant tipped to break through into the top 50 in 2009 . Certainly my meal served in a buzzy bobo rustic room was trailblazing in terms of texture, taste and visual presentation from the starter of raw grated cauliflower and cauliflower “powder”, lime couscous and shavings of foie gras arranged at a jaunty angle in a utilitarian small pyrex bowl to black al dente Camargue rice with frog’s legs and tarragon juice and stunning sous vide low temperature cooked salmon with miso foam and espuma-like chocolate mousse with a definite tantalising edge of wasabi.
I was also delighted that
Noma, Rene Redzepi’s thrillingly different and delectable New Nordic restaurant in Copenhagen (which I was bowled over by and have talked about and written about frequently over the past year) rose to coveted no 10 stop.
The 50 Best provided a wonderful chance to mingle with the great and the good of the gastro-world. It was lovely to meet
Paulo Marchi who runs the ground-breaking Identità Golose gastronomy festival in Milan, and most excitingly, this October will recreate elements of the festival in London, watch this space. It was an unexpected surprise to catch up with delightful and arch foodie
Ignatius Chan, chef-proprietor of Iggy’s over from Singapore too.
And because every party is judged on its food and I arrived too late for the canapes, it was good to be able to soak up the Laurent-Perrier and go round a series of immaculate food “stalls” of exemplary British producers. These included Forman’s inimitable wild salmon carved to order; Wright Brother’s Duchy oysters: newcomer Deli Farm charcuterie made only with Cornish pork and beef – especially taken with salami substituting black olives for fat to pleasing effect - and Paul A Young’s irresistible sea salt chocolate.
My wonderful, wholly seasonal starter was a mix of iced morel and warm asparagus velouté with candied pistachio and fricassé of more morels – sensational. Equally seasonal and delicately different was asparagus very lightly confited in salted butter and smoked over hay and presented dramatically at the table sprinkled with tamarillo powder. Another intriguing starter partnering oysters poached in their shell with baked canembert cream had already sold out!
Though I’d quibble about preferring my beef served slightly warmer than tepid, what I assume was its’ low, slow water bath poaching treatment delivered properly medium rare meat of memorable melt-in-the-mouth yet still firm texture. Its quintessentially Spring accompaniment of broad beans, braised baby gem, seaweed vinaigrette was spot on, especially with the extra star turn of poached razor clam mixed with lardo di colonnato and momentarily grilled – sublime. Other wholly successful dishes included slow grilled Pyrenean kid with caramelised onion, glazed turnip, whole onion and lemongrass puree and lemon thyme with a “kid” parmentier of the extra offal. Even a relatively safe option of sea bream with morels and lime came with a gently earthy coffee and morel polenta and chicory jus.
