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With a little help from my friends

Not the song by The Beatles, from the film, Yellow Submarine, but the title of the latest tasting menu at Osteria Francescana in Modena, Italy. The restaurant reopened in its Via Stella location in central Modena on 1 June, following the most recent lock-down restrictions with a menu which pays tribute, across 12 plates of food and 18 individual creations, to 16 Italian chefs.

The dishes are each inspired by the originals devised between 1963 and 2020, and have been reimagined, in homage to the original creator and presented in the most elegant and delicate way possible. In some cases chef Massimo Bottura plays with the mind as well as the eyes and the palate perhaps initially to confuse and then certainly excite the diner, but always in a way that makes sense, at least by the end of the particular course. One dish, Zuppa fredda di Carbonara, in homage to Gianfranco Vissani, translates as Cold Carbonara Soup. It is described as Crema Inglese (custard) with pepper, guanciale (cured pork cheek) banana, pecorino cheese ice cream and caviar! This was in fact the first of the deserts but perhaps is best described as a cross-over course! The sharp eyed among readers will notice the key ingredients for Carbonara sauce are mentioned (guanciale, pepper, pecorino and egg in the form of the custard) and clearly that classic Roman dish is the inspiration for this course. The salty tang of the fried guanciale, nestled under the custard and the cheese ice cream really set this dish alight with flavour. A-ma-zing!

I last mentioned Osteria Francescana in 2016. After my previous visit in 2014, I’d had a great desire to go again. Seven years of patience eventually paid off and I was very pleased to celebrate my birthday there just a few days ago with two friends, for one of whom it was his first experience of a Michelin 3* eatery.

My admiration for the chef is unbounded, not only for his undoubted skill in the kitchen, his limitless imagination and his kind personal welcome to every guest, but also because of his significant efforts in developing future talent in the hospitality industry, his interventions to help save the Parmsan Cheese production following an earthquake in 2012, his establishment of a ‘refectory’ during Milan Expo 2015, to feed the most vulnerable people of the city with the food from the various pavilions of the Expo and then the not-for-profit organisation he created with his wife, Food for the Soul, which grew out of that intitial enterprise.

This is a man who has a social conscience and one who, when you meet him, exudes a simplicity both in his love for food and hospitality. He has an open way of communicating and a gentle manner in treating his staff in what must be a very demanding working environment. Many of us are familiar with a style of running kitchens, espoused by the likes of that uncouth gorilla of a man, Gordon Ramsey. The foul language and aggressive way of treating staff, and sometimes customers, makes good TV but with Chef Bottura it’s completely different and consequently his accolades are higher and he remains first and foremost a cook. I wandered down a small road to the side of the restaurant shortly after Massimo had worked the dining room and spoken to each table. A small door into the kitchen was open and I was able to witness the man himself returning to the brigade full of smiles and friendly greetings. If massaging Wagyu cattle produces the finest beef in the world then being nice to the staff when you’re the boss produces quality too.

Osteria Francescana was ranked as number one in the world in 2016 and then again in 2018. It was the first Italian Restaurant to achieve this. It was second in the world in 2015 and third in 2013 and 2014. No one stays at the top of the league forever of course and now Mirazur has taken that first place but it’s clear that Bottura has stayed at the top of his game. His expansion with Franceschetta58, also in Modena and his kitchens in Istanbul, Dubai, Florence and Beverly Hills, often in conjunction with Gucci, make me worry that one day he will overstretch and that Osteria Francescana will consequently cease to be the unique experience it still is today.

June 9, 2021 0

MoS – my mistake

Yesterday many of the major websites across the globe failed. This makes me feel good because I’d been struggling to understand why my latest post, MoS, wasn’t appearing on my blog home page. Knowing that others, even governments, experience tech failures makes me feel included. I still don’t really understand what I did wrong but for the sake of completeness, here is a link to the original article.

June 9, 2021 0

Summer Time

Summer 2020 has probably been one of the strangest of my life so far. Covid-19, even if we managed to avoid its health impacts, has changed most elements of our lives, eating being no exception.

Writing a blog-post about an altogether pleasing eating experience is always a pleasure, whereas reviewing a restaurant which ought to have done much better is a bit of drag. I have two places on my to-do list to review and I’m starting here with the pleasant experience because in writing, I’m already re-living the joy it brought to a wet Saturday afternoon. The less pleasurable experience will have to wait for another day.

The restaurant in question, which has so excited me, is called Posta and its located in the small spa town of Sant’Ombono Terme, nestled int he mountains of the Province of Bergamo, North of Milan. They’re also in the Michelin Guide, with ratings of ‘Good Cooking’ and ‘Comfortable’.

Posta is family run, dating back to 1910 and is part of a small number of hospitality businesses they operate. On our visit last Saturday, one sister was managing front of house while the other ran the kitchen. The Chef describes herself at la cuoca (the cook), which tells you all you need to know about the lack of any pretensions.

A cheap menu of the day, with limited selection, is available to cater for those on budgets or as a working lunch for the locals. There’s also an interesting a la carte option offering both traditional and more modern dishes but we chose the tasting menu. Two versions were available, Di Mare (from the sea) or Di Terra (from the land). Everything was absolutely delicious and, with the exception of the duck breast (which was slightly over), expertly cooked to precision.

The ‘amuse bouche’ was a little cannoli of filo pasty stuffed with creamy goats cheese and chives all whipped up to the consistency of a fluffy mousse. It was so light it melted in the mouth.

The first course, proper was a hand prepared beef tartar (fasona breed from Piemonte) accompanied by the freshest and most aromatic of raw, thinly sliced porcini mushrooms – a reminder that this is the start of the porcini and truffle season. That tiny amount of crumb made all the difference in terms of offering a contrast to the softness of the beef and had the slight salty tang of parmesan to it.

Next up was what I would have chosen from the menu as a starter, lasagnetta di taleggio e tartufo nero. The pasta sheets that made up the little lasagna were wafer thin and as soft and smooth as silk, bound together with creamy taleggio cheese and the whole thing crowned with fresh local black truffles – the first of the season. Words aren’t enough to describe how delicious this dish was. If I’m ever condemned to live as a vegetarian, this is what I would want to eat

Duck breast followed (Petto d’anatra e pesche al Porto). Of all the dishes this was the weakest, as the meat was a little tough from the just a few seconds over cooking. The peaches in port though were juicy and luscious and the taste of the meat was robust and yet not too heavy. While other courses scored 10/10, I’d mark this one down to only 9/10! 😉

Two puddings were served. One was, of course, described as a pre-desert, which was an apple cake – moist and full of caramelised apple flavour. The second was zabaglione (rich with eggs, sugar and booze in the form of Marsala) served with a contrasting ice cream. Who would have thought of serving two ‘wet’ elements together but it so worked, as the ice cream cut through the richness of the custard; the sbrisolona (biscuity crumb) offering a nutty texture contrast. Another ten out of ten dish.

Coffee was served with a generously sized measure of their homemade egg liquor and some frosted grapes and orange peel, and tuilles.

Posta, without a doubt is on my list of places to keep returning to and I’d encourage anyone within an hour or two’s drive to pay a visit too. I may see you there!

August 31, 2020 1

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside

When the temperature is in the high 30s and it’s lunch time, the idea of sitting inside a restaurant with air-con suddenly becomes very appealing.

I was staying for a couple of days at Syracuse on Sicily and just before heading to the airport eight of us had a light Sunday lunch at La Lisca. Their website is minimalist so the link above is to their Facebook page.

Most of us only had one course each, in my case Octopus with purée potatoes and spinach. It was simple and simply delicious. The octopus was perfectly cooked and the purée as smooth as can be.

Picture stolen from their Facebook page!

Beyond the excellence of that one plate of food though, La Lisca offers much more in terms of being a serious food place. The menu is extensive and majors on fish and seafood. The chap in charge was clearly knowledgeable and facilitated the desires of the group with a sense of hospitality, efficiency and good humour and the overall sense is of eating well – at VERY reasonable prices.

My only regret was not having a starter and particularly not having the raw violet prawns from the just over the other side of the sea wall.

Go to Sicily and if you do, be sure to visit Syracuse and eat at La Lisca at least once.

June 24, 2019 0

A Chef to Watch!

Sometimes, when it seems likely I’ll eat in a particular place on numerous occasions I wait a while before writing about it, in order that what I write can be informed by a broader range of experiences and therefore less coloured by my mood on a particular day.

Bianca Maria Palace is a 4* hotel in Milan about twenty minutes walk from the Duomo. It has a restaurant, Bianco Quattro, that’s open to non-residents and is, in terms of the food offered, a far cry from what could be described as a hotel dining room. Notwithstanding this, the location of the restaurant in the basement of the hotel has the feel of a breakfast room, which I guess it doubles for. The same space also seems to encompass the hotel bar.

I ate in the restaurant for the third time in three years quite recently. It was a Friday night and it was relatively quiet, in terms of the number of covers. Consequently, the service was calm and unhurried and waiting staff seemed keen to please.

I want readers to understand that the appearance of the restaurant itself is nothing special, in fact, it is typified by seeming a bit outdated and ordinary. In some places, this can be a disguise for what turns out to be a spectacular culinary experience. Was that so in this case? Well, yes and no!

There is much to commend this place and the greatest is the Executive Chef, Alessandro Menoncin, who has managed to design a very exciting menu and deliver some outstanding flavour combinations. Having worked in kitchens at the Connaught Hotel in London he will have experience of sourcing great ingredients and cooking for discerning diners. He clearly understands food.

It was a real thrill to taste the umami richness of the Beef Tataki made with hanger steak, so full of deep savoury flavour, but that was just me stealing a piece from a friend’s plate – it’s certainly what I’ll order next time!

For my own starter I chose from the Antipasto menu, Animella di Vitello in Tempura (veal sweetbreads) this was served with thin slices of artichoke, candied lemon and with subtle flavours of liquorice. Taken as a whole it was delicious but if I have a criticism it would be that the sweetbreads weren’t uniformly crispy, nor indeed as crispy as I would prefer. The picture below is of the dish served on a different occasion, where the sweetbreads appear to be very crispy indeed. My plate, but not the serving, seemed smaller and therefore was more crowded, thus allowing the wetter elements on the plate to soften the tempura. an easy problem to solve – bigger plates!

My main course, from a choice of three meat dishes, was listed simply as Agnello. The English on the menu told me it would be yoghurt marinated lamb shoulder, coffee sauce, cardamom and spring onion, although the Italian didn’t specify which cuts of meat would be used. Once again the flavour of this dish was truly amazing. Using coffee with meat seems to be a trend at the moment. On this occasion it was used to very great effect as the slightly bitter taste from the coffee was a great balance to the sweetness of the lamb. Differences between what is described on the menu and what appears on the plate are a little bit irritating and the issue, in this case, is something I’ve only fully realised as I’m writing this. What was presented, as can be seen, included part of the rack of the lamb; three tiny little chops that clearly indicated it was baby lamb, alongside the slower cooked shoulder meat and the confit onions. Let me stress again the taste was delicious but the rack was to my mind undercooked. Being so small it was always going to be a choice between (well) cooked or effectively raw and I think the addition of a bit of charring to those sweet little ribs would’ve enhanced them enormously. Discussion with the chef about this dish at the end of the meal also indicated he’d used leg meat and not shoulder. There’s an issue of consistency at stake here that is so so important. Cardamom is a very distinctive flavour and I couldn’t identify it in this dish – which of course doesn’t mean it wasn’t present. Not to be able to do so didn’t detract from what was an exciting combination of tastes but I sort of think if it’s listed I should be able to identify it on my palate.

Pudding was not at all disappointing. I had Panna Cotta al Peperoncino which was described in English as Chilly (sic) Panna Cotta! In fact, while I’ve brought your attention back to the use of English on the menu I should say it wasn’t the best translation I’ve seen! It’s sad in a way that these small errors detract from the overall experience. Going back to my not so chilly, Chilli flavoured Panna Cotta, I’ll tell you it had the amazing effect of feeling not at all spicy in the mouth yet had a gentle kick in the back of the throat which was immediately soothed by the scrumptious yoghurt and honey ice cream with which it was served. I’m not a pudding person but this was truly lovely.

In summary, let me say that Chef Menoncin is one to watch. He has a superb talent for flavour combination and menu design. He needs to ensure the brigade delivers consistency as well as quality though and to perfect his skills for the even greater challenges that I’m sure lie ahead in his career. Bravo Chef!

May 21, 2019 1

The Red City – or is it pink?

Bologna is the heart of the foodie and agricultural region of Emilia-Romagna. It is known by many different names, la dotta ( the learned one) refers to its reputation as a place of knowledge, being home to the oldest university in the west, la rossa, refers to the red stone and brick of the buildings as well as reflecting the left-leaning politics of the city, since the second world war. La rosa (the pink one, similar to the red), also indicates the colour of the buildings and, shall we say, the city’s liberal social attitudes.

Another sobriquet that is of particular interest to us on this blog, is that of la grassa (the fat one). Bologna has an immense and well-deserved reputation for good products and great cooking.

Eating local salami, mortadella and tagliatelle al ragu (never, ever “spagbol”!) in an unpretentious local trattoria is a great way to spend an afternoon.

A number of years ago I discovered a restaurant that offers a slightly more polished version of local delicacies. I’ve been back four times now and each time it has got better, in terms of the level of sophistication of the cooking and its presentation but most especially in relation to the intensity and combination of flavours in the food.

Camera con Vista (Room With a View) is the place and while the website isn’t the best, it is very out of date, I think, if you go, you’ll experience some great food. The decor is whacky, the staff friendly and helpful and English is spoken well.

On my last visit, yesterday, I started with Uovo pochè, patate al tartufo, salsa Perigueux (poached egg with truffle potato and Perigueux sauce). The combination of soft poached egg, silky smooth potato and heady black truffles could only have been improved if the potato had been put through a foam gun to make it even lighter.

Next up was Ravioli d’anatra mantecata topinambur, foie gras (ravioli with creamy duck, Jerusalem artichoke and foie gras). This was a rich, buttery and intensely flavoured dish which I’d wolfed down long before I thought to take a pic!

For my secondo, I choose Maiale in due cotture, insalata di pomodori, glassa di arance amare (pork cooked two different ways, tomato salad and a glaze of bitter orange). Despite being full of flavour and well cooked this was the weak point of the meal for me, for a number of reasons, perhaps the most significant being, I’d already eaten too much and my appetite was beginning to suffer. One of the servings of pork was the cheek which was unctuously soft and tender, the other a piece of fillet which by comparison was slightly dry. I would’ve been perfectly happy just to have the cheek, sometimes less is more. The bitter orange glaze was a welcome addition to the dish and it was tasty but I can’t say I could detect any orange flavour. The addition of the coastal vegetable, barba di frate, gave a little bitterness and salty sea flavour to the dish which certainly added a layer of complexity.

I highly recommend Camera con Vista if you’re in the area!

May 20, 2019 0

Home is where the food is

Eating out is often a great experience but sometimes a bit of home grub is best.

Photo credits: Esteban S

January 29, 2019 0

What’s the point?

Sometimes I wonder what it is that makes people want to eat out. Maybe its an inability to cook at home or at least a lack of enthusiasm for that activity which was so normal for previous generations. In the UK at least, supermarket ready meals and take aways often allow people to eat reasonably well without the effort of cooking themselves and yet more and more people these days choose to eat in pubs or restaurants on a regular basis.

Special occasions often give rise to a visit to a restaurant for many more people than choose to eat out on a regular basis and I guess in those situations they want to experience something a bit special. Others eat out, I suppose, in order to try something new, or at least different, compared to the sort of food they eat on a daily basis. By different of course, I mean ‘better’.

Is it all about the food though? Are restaurants, especially fine dining restaurants solely the canvas on which a high-end chef can display his artistic creations? If we think about any market town in the UK we can probably identify a former coaching inn where, centuries ago, travellers with their horses could stop for the night and have a decent beer and some nourishing food. In these cases the fore-runners of todays restaurants offered something much more than just grub and arguably its something more important; hospitality! Hospitality is much more than a plate of good food, it’s about a warm welcome and being made to feel a bit special.

Today’s top-drawer restaurants, in my view, are sometimes in danger of forgetting that as they rush to present the latest food trends and showcase the technical skills of the chef and his brigade. Eating out is generally expensive and I’m getting a bit fed up with paying a lot of money to be treated like a spectator at a circus. When I go to a restaurant I go to eat well, to enjoy myself with friends, to admire the skills of the chef and the waiting staff and most importantly I want to be made welcome and to feel as though I am the special one, not the staff, not the chef.

I’m more than delighted that my home region, the North-East of England, is producing some really good and interesting places to eat at every price point. I’ve written about some of them on here from fish and chip shops to Michelin starred restaurants. Recently I booked to visit a 2-starred Michelin place near to Darlington, Co Durham, called the Raby Hunt As the North East of England’s only 2 star restaurant, there is much to admire. In particular the hard work and determination of largely self-taught, former pro-golfer, James Close which has put this former gastro-pub run by his parents, firmly on the culinary map. His philosophy that chefs should ‘eat out more than they do’ is absolutely right.

We’re told that he took his sommelier and front of house manager on an all expenses paid trip to Mirazur, ranked as no 3 in the world and where I celebrated my birthday last year. This is to be applauded and more restaurateurs would do well to emulate this behaviour. There is a similarity between the two restaurants though and I’m afraid its a mixed bag.

The food at the Raby Hunt was excellent, cleverly executed and stunningly presented (although I was left longing for just one ordinary round white pate to replace the over used raised porcelain presentation devices), the dining room is stylish and not over formal and the view of the kitchen from the car park raises expectations as you’re left wondering if they can produce truly great food from such a small space. We had fifteen tiny courses, each enigmatically named on the fixed tasting menu and the service was efficient.

My big gripe with Raby Hunt and to a slightly lesser extent with Mirazur however is one of attitude. It relates back to my opening remarks in this article. Is it just about the food or is it about hospitality? The email I received from Raby Hunt the day before our booking told me they had been tying to reach me on the telephone so that I could confirm my booking and as I’d not answered (I never received the call) they were emailing instead. The opening remarks were “We hope you are looking forward to your reservation…” When we arrived at the restaurant the greeting from the waiter was “Are you looking forward to your dinner at Raby Hunt?”. Catering, however highly rated it might be, is a service industry. Or at least that’s what I thought. Surely they meant to say ‘We are looking forward to welcoming you to the Raby Hunt for dinner tomorrow” and ‘Welcome to the Raby Hunt we hope you have a great evening”. Those two things really put me in a bad mood.

On the whole though I’m happy that my home County has such an interesting restaurant. I hope it will become more customer focussed as time goes by. Chef’s dislike of Trip Advisor is indicative of someone who has a firm idea of what it is he wants to create and that his customers should fit in with that, rather than being critical on the grounds of personal taste (likes and dislikes). It’s the Gordon Ramsey approach and it worked for him but I still think the attitude of Raby Hunt needs to be more welcoming and less superior. If it were I’d go back!

Meanwhile here are some pics of the food.

Ingredients of the salad

Salad

January 15, 2019 1

Vive la France!

France is a big country with significant regional differences so it is of course almost impossible to generalise about food. In my experience however, as the quality of restaurants in the rest of Europe has risen significantly over the past 20 years or so, France has remained where it always was. Choices, unnecessarily complicated by fixed price menus as well as a ‘carte’ (usually including the same things at a slightly higher price) seldom fail to include Terrine, Tete de Veau, Magret de Canard and everything served with limp leaves, albeit dressed with a fine vinaigrette.

There are of course exceptions and it is possible to find truly delicious food at all price points and in this post I want to highlight a couple from my recent visit to the Indre department in Central France. Each of these establishments offers something bit different, either in terms of the menus themselves or the style of service and I’d be happy to revisit any of them again.

Le Lissier was Hobson’s choice on a wet and cold day spent visiting Aubusson, home of the historic and famous tapestry industry. There was nothing inviting on the outside of the restaurant and had it been a drier and warmer day we may well have searched further afield for somewhere to eat. Inside, the place resembled a bar/cafe that we are used to in Italy more than a restaurant.

The layout was simple, the atmosphere informal. Top of the compliments list for Le Lissier must be the relaxed and friendly welcome by a guy who turned out to be Australian. Despite the place rapidly filling up with diners he took time to chat with us and told how a Tasmanian ended up in the middle of France while he guided us to select a very acceptable bottle of wine. The menu included two particular specialities, Fish and Chips (and they really were proper fish and chips) and a couple of choices of Burgers as well, of course, as the ubiquitous Magret de Canard! Everything was superbly delicious, without pretension and tasting exactly as it was meant to taste. Chefs who can prepare such simple dishes to this standard need an award system all of their own! If you’re ever in Aubusson you must check this place out.

From previous visits to Le Blanc I already knew that it would be difficult to find anywhere to eat and this was especially true over a public holiday (La Toussaint). In fact so desperate was I to eat on a previous visit here that I had to make do with a kebab van in a carpark – and very nice it was too! This time, lunch was found in what looked like a tiny little pizza place (complete with a wood-fired pizza oven) called Pizza Bella In fact it turned out to be quite a large establishment beyond the small shop front and offered menus that went far beyond pizzas and included tartiflette, steaks, fish, kebabs. Service was friendly and the atmosphere warm and festive owing the large number of customers who filled the place with their conversation. We came back again for lighter meal the same evening, and not only because there weren’t many other options.

In Bourges, at a fairly smart looking place, listed on TripAdvisor as ‘fine dining’ and called Le Bourbonnoux there was some pretty awful food which I’ll just post here for you to contemplate. It really was very unpleasant and as I hinted above is more what I have come to expect in many French towns, sadly.

The bread and wine were quite decent and the style of the restaurant raised one’s expectations but the food left a lot to be desired . The picture second from the right, above, is of leaks stuffed with what seemed to be nothing more than chopped egg. The leaks were so stringy they were almost impossible to cut, the egg was tasteless and the whole thing was waterlogged. The beige splurge down the middle of the plate was beyond either comprehension or description. The plate on the right was the cheese dish. Supposedly it was whipped goats cheese with parsley. The acidity of the dish was so high it was almost impossible to eat.

By way of a complete contrast was a restaurant recommended by the owners of the Gite, The Barn at Vijon, where we stayed. The restaurant in question was part of Hotel called La Bonne Auberge Although there are the usual suite of menus (a pet hate) they contain dishes, the descriptions of which excite interest and get the gastric juices flowing. Chef Sylvain Lanusse presents clean elegant plates of modern food with enough flair to make you want to dive in! The restaurant has gained the accolade of a Michelin plate and is well worth a visit. And guess what? I had the most delicious Magret de Canard here which was beautifully cooked to point of being soft and full of flavour.

On the opposite side of the River Saone to the city of Macon, in the Commune of Saint-Laurent-sur-Saone, is the aptly named L’autre rive (the other bank) also with a Michelin Red Guide listing. Its a stylish restaurant with views across the river to Macon and serves gorgeously presented, sophisticated interpretations of the best of French cuisine. Despite this it won’t break the bank and was cheaper than many other places of indeterminate quality we came across during the 7 days in France. The Poulet de Bresse (that Rolls Royce of products) was particularly splendid! Not for nothing has the Bresse Chicken been described as,”the queen of poultry, the poultry of kings”.