This second series by one of the world’s most cutting edge chefs is as whacky and entertaining as the first but the chicken tikka masala did not impress

I’ll be honest, I think Heston is fantastic. I love what he does and how he does it. He tickles my engineering brain cells and my foodie ones at the same time. The location of the Fat Duck was the only reason we didn’t eat there for our ten year anniversary.

This series, like the first, has him trying to create the ultimate “X” each week. This week it was chicken tikka masala. He strangely went to India to start with when most people agree it was invented in the UK. He found two places doing something similar (particularly butter chicken) but neither was very close.

The spices catching on the back of his throat as he wandered around the market was interesting. I’ve had that effect when using chilli powder, not fun.

The key to great indian cooking appears to be the clay tandoors which reach temperatures nearing 400C instead of the usual kitchen ovens which max at 250C. What did he do? He built one in the car park of the restaurant in the ground! I swear I was tempted to try it too. His version for home cooks was a stack of bricks in a kettle BBQ surrounded by hot coals.  

His overall approach with the dish was not that crazy, just more precise that any of us would do. He had marinades analysed by MRI to see how deep they penetrate the meat. It turns out that the yoghurt is critical in getting the flavour deep into the chicken. I’m guessing it’s the acid?

Unfortunately as the dish progressed I thought it went further and further away from my idea of a tikka masala. In particular the use of coconut milk really seemed wrong. For me a great version is saucy but absolutely not like eating cloying sweet cream of tomato soup. His final result looked far too rich and overwhelming and he just kept adding bits. 

I’ll never attempt to cook anything he does but I’ll revel in watching the geek’s ultimate chef every week.

Rated 5/5 on Oct 21 2007 by Conor O’Neill
Review Tags: bbc2, cookery, cooking, food, gastronomy, molecular gastronomy, tv, uk
Rate this review or write your own at LouderVoice

Good Italian food ruined by some of the worst service I’ve had in a restaurant in years. These people need to learn some manners and learn how to smile.

This was our final dinner in London and I had very high hopes. I’ve been a fan of Giorgio Locatelli since the wonderful Tony & Giorgio TV series in 2002. He came across as a great cook with a sparkling sense of humour.

It’s just at the back of Marble Arch tube station and is in an “Italian restaurant looking” building. The door staff were friendly enough and the counter was piled high with his new book. We were shown to a table with only one couple near us. Unfortunately they were the stereotypical loud Yanks who must have spent 20 minutes discussing wine with the sommelier so we could all tell how much they knew.

Our waitress come over and greeted us with a with a characterless “buona sera, good evening”, handed over menus and told us the specials in a style more suited to someone reading death notices. She also mentioned a special cocktail of the evening involving strawberries which we both went for and enjoyed.

One expects a bit of friendliness and chat in an Italian restaurant not robots repeating learned lines and clearly not giving a crap what you think of anything. But that is what we got for the entire meal. It was like the place had been taken over by the Red Army Faction. Had Giorgio just cut their wages? The grumpiness and curtness got to the level of being funny. “You finished with the breadsticks?” “You finished with the bread?”.

The wine list was extensive and completely beyond me but I had taken a dislike to the sommelier too having listened to him at other tables. So I picked one of the few things I recognised, a pinot grigio, and went with that. Actually I think a normal waiter asked for our selection, we must not have deserved a sommelier. The wine started slightly harsh but got much better over the meal.

They then proceeded to fill our glasses every five minutes with approximately 3 millilitres of wine. The glasses spent 90% of the time empty. I finally gave up towards the end and said “you may as well keep going” which caused a pained smile to appear on his face.

The food? Good but not incredible by any means. Catherine had some salad to start but a week later she has forgotten the details. I had a very tasty dressed cress salad with sweet onions and some fantastic salami which they described it as cured neck of pork on the menu.

We both decided to skip the meat course as nothing grabbed us at all and we went with pasta as mains. We also both picked specials - this is something I do more and more now. I work on the assumption that it is their freshest stuff and they will try to impress with it.  

Mine was a ravioli of oxtail in a tomato based sauce. It was excellent. Deep flavours and lovely textures but about half the size it should be for a main.

Catherine had a red mullet based pasta dish with tomato sauce. We both assumed the fish would sit on the pasta but it had been broken down into tiny pieces and mixed in . Whilst it was tasty enough, it could really have been any fish and disn’t impress as much as mine.

I went with the special desert which was a fig based tartlet. Good but not particularly memorable. Catherine had the usual chocolatey thing which was ok but again didn’t stick in the mind.

Two quick coffees and we were done. Barely 1.5 hours. The bill arrived and we were out the door without one person asking us if we had enjoyed the meal.

I had heard that this was one of the top three Italians in London, if not the best. I had also read somewhere that they were after a Michelin star. Based on our experience they haven’t a hope, I’ve had friendlier and more genuine service in a McDonalds. 

Rated 2/5 on Oct 21 2007 by Conor O’Neill
Review Tags: dining, eating, food, italian, italy, restaurant
Rate this review or write your own at LouderVoice

The dining experience of a lifetime. Just as we thought it couldn’t get any better, we were given a tour of the kitchen and met Marcus Wareing.

Of all our anniversary meals in London last week, this was the one where I wasn’t sure what to expect. Would it be overly formal and stuffy? Would it be filled with Gordon Gekko types and Russian tycoons?

The restaurant is in The Berkeley Hotel in Knightsbridge not far from Harrods. This is one of those high-end hotels where you even wait to be seated in the bar. We had a quick tipple and then wandered into Petrus itself at 6pm. It is behind an unassuming door at the end of the hotel lounge area.

The greeting staff were very friendly and gave us a seat mid-room beside the wall looking out over everything. We were first to arrive which initially caused us to be slightly tense but we needn’t have worried, we were in the hands of the most professional waiting staff I have ever encountered in my life.

We didn’t even look at the main menu and decided immediately to go with the ten course tasting menu. The charming sommelier came over with a selection of champagnes and the wine list which was less “list” and more “novel”. We both had a glass of the Rose champagne which was gorgeous and a bit different from the usual (yes we drink champagne every day, cough).

I was wayyyyy out of my league with the wine. They started around £40 and went to over £4000. I just chanced my arm and picked a £55 bottle of Crozes Hermitage Graillot. The tone for the evening was set when I asked the sommelier if he thought it would work ok with the tasting menu. He could easily have been snooty about our cheap bottle but said “spicy, fruity, an excellent winemaker, good choice”. What a star.

The Maitre d’ then popped over and was wonderfully lighthearted. We had pre-warned that it was our anniversary so he claimed that the restaurant was empty since they had decided to close it for the night just for us.

I know I’m going to get some of the dishes slightly wrong here so bear with me. We started with an amuse bouch of hummous + crisps and triangles of sweet crunchy coated fois gras (yeah yeah PETAphiles, go talk crazy to the McNugget chicken farmers, we know the story). Fois gras was great but the hummous was the best I’ve ever tasted. If I could make it that creamy and light, I’d eat it every day.

We then got a tall shot glass of frothy mushroomy soup which hit the spot. Next up was more fois gras with fig compote, spiced pears and almond puree. The sommelier offered us a glass of sweet wine to go with it. Normally I hate that but I was blown away by how absolutely perfectly it melded with the food in my mouth.

The scallop with braised onions and bacon was one of the most perfect portions I have ever eaten. Dear god he made the foam taste of bacon, the man is a legend. I can still taste it in my head.

Roasted partridge, sweetcorn, cobnuts and tarragon jus was another piece of food joy. Who knew sweetcorn could taste so nice?

Turbot with baby gem, capers and raisin puree was one of those course where you’d lick the plate if you were at home. It’s only recently I’ve realised how gorgeous cooked lettuce can be.

Roast saddle of venison prune puree and pommes boulangere suited me beautifully but was overly rare for Catherine. I’m not a fan of the treacley intense sauces that are often put with game. With this (and several other dishes) the waiters came with a little sauce boat to add some jus to the plate. This one was much more delicate than I expected and better for it.

At this point we were starting to get a touch full. The room had also filled up and I revelled in watching an efficent machine in action. These guys were awesome, constantly moving, serving, checking and doing it quietly without fuss. If you want to know why some places get Michelin stars and others don’t, just come here and look. I just checked and realised they have two stars, not one. They deserve them. I’ve eaten in two other Michelin starred places - The Commons and Patrick Gilbauds. Neither comes close in either food or non-obsequious service.

I loved watching the sommelier decant wine for the table beside us. The was the full works with candle and side-table and pre-tasting by him to make sure it was ok. I’m guessing that bottle cost a smidge more than £55.

At no point during the meal did we overhear any other conversations despite being reasonably close to other diners. The mix of people was refreshing too. No obvious footballers, football club owners, mobsters or movie stars. Just average looking people there for the food not the scene.

We had two desserts, one of which still has me thinking. It was a vertical cylinder of ultra-thin white chocolate filled with a fantastic creamy filling. How the hell did they make the cylinder? Both desserts were awesome and I loved the plum sorbet.

We decided to skip coffees and nibbled on petit fours whilst waiting for the bill. Once paid, the Maitre d’ popped over again to make sure we enjoyed the meal. We were more than effusive in our praise.

Then he dropped the bombshell “Chef Marcus Wareing is here tonight, would you like a tour of the kichen?”. Would we? Would we? I nearly ran!

Marcus (as best buddies I can now call him that) was on the hot plate in a tiny kitchen. I was shocked at how small it was. No noise, no histrionics, just another efficient people-machine. There was a chef’s table facing him and they appeared to be having a great time. We were introduced and he wished us happy anniversary. I’d happily have dropped dead from clogged arteries there and then.

We were shown around all the other stations (the opposite of stations of the cross) and saw some incredibly fine detail work happening. The guy on caviar must have the steadiest hands on the planet. For the first time ever I realised that they have different heat in different parts of the kitchen. A cold gale blew from the pastry area.

Both of us lost the ability to speak intelligently and just stared and nodded and said thank you over and over.

We left with the biggest smiles you have ever seen on two people’s faces.

I doubt we’ll ever top that night.

Still smiling.

Rated 5/5 on Oct 16 2007 by Conor O’Neill
Review Tags: dining, eating, fine dining, food, michelin, ramsey, restaurant
Rate this review or write your own at LouderVoice

A fine collection of articles he has written over the past few years on all things food and restaurant related. A great food writer.

This book has been on my ever growing pile of unread books for a long time. I finally took it on a flight to San Fran so I could make a dent in it. The format is perfect for picking up intermittently since each piece is from a magazine or other publication.

The range of articles is wonderful, ranging from “Woody Harrelson: Culinary Muse” about that cretin and the raw food movement to “Food and Loathing in Las Vegas” where he and the great Micheal Ruhlman do the frankly bizarre Vegas food scene.

Passion screams from every paragraph that he writes along with a sense of embarassment that he doesn’t deserve the fame that he has. This actually stuck me when watching Top Chef recently where he was a guest judge. The competitors were in awe of him but as he points out in several pieces in the book, he was just executive chef in a French-style brasserie in New York. He ain’t no Thomas Keller.

This is just a thoroughly enjoyable book where you’ll like the writing and like the man. I know have a bunch more places I want to eat in around the world including some stalls in a mall in Singapore!

Rated 5/5 on Oct 06 2007 by Conor O’Neill
Review Tags: book, chef, collection, cooking, food, non-fiction
Rate this review or write your own at LouderVoice