A Dish a Day: Polpetto’s Clams with Wild Garlic

Clams with wild garlic and crème fraiche

Today the spotlight is on the clam. Particularly the ones in the newly opened Polpetto in Soho: fiddly to get to and salty to taste, slightly sweet on the chew and enveloped in a thin coating of sauce (crème fraiche with wilted wild garlic). The fingers of focaccia are torn off to mop up the juices and collect the flecks of wild garlic flowers.

In between dishes are sips from a tumbler of a sweet bellini, softly fizzy and pink with rose and rhubarb.

The second best dish consists of slivers of cauliflower with the edges browned and wizened, a sculptural shard next to plump scallops, and hidden under the folded fat that is lardo. All on a cream-coloured purée of truffled cauliflower, which is utterly moreish.

Actually, joint second is a dish of Marinda tomatoes from Sicily which are naked bar a modest lick of oil. In short, I recommend that you visit Polpetto in Berwick Street, because it seems at home in its new home and you’ll soon feel at home there too. Especially when you've a bellini or two in hand.

The rude bottom of a Marina tomato

Polpetto 11 Berwick St, London W1F 0PL 020 7439 8627

Read my first thoughts on the original Polpetto.

A Dish a Day: Blood Orange Posset

Ramblings from a voracious eater 

on the dish that made her day

The blood orange posset

Once a year, around January and February, the sunset colours of blood oranges give us wintry cheer. The oranges that we have are from Sicily - from the foothills of Mount Etna, so Riverford tells me, and the blush of the segments varies from modest to deep crimson - evoking those Mediterranean hues of the evening sky.

After considering a granita or a jelly, I decide to make a posset. I haven’t many oranges left (after many are consumed nakedly fresh, without fanfare, and as instant cure for the effects from the-night-before) and posset doesn't require a lot of juice. With its use of three ingredients – oranges, sugar and cream, this is possibly one of the simplest puddings to make while looking as though you've put in abundant effort.

  

Squeezing the orange

Serves 4-6

125ml fresh blood orange juice (about 2 oranges)

500ml double cream

115-120g caster sugar (to taste. I don’t like it too sweet)

Zest from one orange

Blood orange segments - from 1 or 2 oranges

Shortbread to serve

Put all the ingredients into a pan - I love pouring the blood orange juice in last and watching the ruby liquid marble the cream as I stir with a wooden spoon. Like thick paints that you mix in primary school, watch the cream turn a pale peach (not unlike the colour of strawberry angel delight).

Heat until it reaches a simmer, then cook on the lowest heat for five minutes. Take off the heat and cool at room temperature. This should take an hour or two. Stretch clingfilm over the mixture to prevent a skin forming.

Served up

Pour into champagne coupe glasses and chill in the fridge until set (another three hours at least). Garnish with two segments of blood orange and serve immediately with a thin shortbread.

More reading

Diana Henry writes a fascinating article about the blood orange here.

A Dish a Day: Slow roasted lamb shoulder on a bed of potatoes

Ramblings from a voracious eater 

on the dish that made her day

Sunday lunch on a Tuesday: lamb shoulder and potatoes

A Sunday lunch meal for a Tuesday night supper. Not everyone has the luxury of pottering in the kitchen in the daytime, making friends for five hours with a juicy lamb shoulder on a layer of sliced potatoes. But luckily for us our friend Stew has; he is executing a Tom Kerridge recipe - a one tray dish for five hungry friends (six if you include the dog, who aches for that bone). The tender meat is a little garlicky, has hints of rosemary. The potatoes are soaked with juices from the lamb, they are salted and encrusted with it. Half an hour before serving, Stew has to decant some of the lamb juices and put the bed of potatoes (sans lamb) back in the oven to crust them up even more, and these become the most coveted bits that everyone wants to steal off one another's plates.

I find lamb the most communal of the meats; all round the table partake in the shredding (in particular the hapless labradoodle Ted whose wet nose pops up every five minutes to see whether we've finished).

Stew forgets to tell us that there's another course before the trifle: that he's put a camembert in the oven topped with caramelised onions, served - in wholesome manner - with homemade bread. We make noises and grumble that we would have been more abstinent with our second helpings - both of lamb and last bits of potato in the tray that we dig straight into with our spoons. But in truth, we really wouldn't have.

Watch Tom Kerridge's video recipe of slow-cooked lamb shoulder with boulangere potatoes here.

A Dish a Day: Tom Yum Soup - a Monday night supper

Ramblings from a voracious eater 

on the dish that made her day

A quick bowl of steaming Tom Yum soup

Today, supper is a Thai Tom Yum soup - a warming furnace that sets innards alight; igniting the body with its head-clearing properties. The broth itself is clean and wholesome, but when you add those classic four flavours - sweet, salty, hot and sour - right at the end, the soup is transformed into something spectacular. Most enjoyable is the rasp of chilli that hits the back of your throat just when you least expect it. 

I had some chicken bones in the freezer that I used to make a quick stock, but if you have ready made stock, this soup for two can be cooked in ten minutes. 

Tom Yum ingredients:
coriander, lemongrass, chilli, ginger, kaffir lime leaves

Simply heat up a litre of light chicken stock until boiling. Turn the the stock down to a simmer and add all the fragrants: a stick of lemongrass, a few slices of ginger, a few slices of galangal (or a teaspoon of paste), a handful of coriander stems and 2 or 3 kaffir lime leaves - all bruised slightly with a pestle. The flavours will infuse perfectly after a 5 minute simmer. 

Fish out the spices, add a big handful of king prawns and cook until pink. Turn off the heat add some splashes of fish sauce, a teaspoon of palm sugar, a generous squeeze of lime and plenty of sliced chilli (birdseye is the best - and as much as you can manage) - enough to blast through the February chill. Garnish with coriander leaves and a slices of spring onion. 

Serve with rice and feel restored. 

Other Tom Yum recipes

I'm a big fan of Felicity Cloake's 'Perfect' series. Read about her perfect Tom Yum soup here.

Andrew Kojima's version for the Telegraph is quick and easy. 

A Dish a Day: Beef Rendang (for ten)

Ramblings from a voracious eater on the dish that made her day

Beef rendang and green beans with prawns and coconut

‘It’s England v France on Saturday, can we host the match?’ he asks. It’s rugby season. The Six Nations is about to begin. I can tell he wants to cook beouf bourguignon (or to be patriotic, beef stew).

I’ve got other ideas. I’ve a craving for spices and chilli and put my case in for Nonya food from Malaysia. I have in mind the deep, complex textures of beef rendang; pieces of beef shin cooked down in coconut milk until tender and spiced with the flavours of South-East Asia: lemongrass, galangal, chilli… ‘Indulge me,’ I plead.

‘Okay, but what’s that got to do with England (or France for that matter)?’

‘Umm...’

‘I suppose there is Rory and Tony Underwood…’

Rory Underwood was a rugby hero of mine when I was younger, the England wing whose Malaysian-Chinese heritage made our family proud whenever he was on the pitch. He reminded me of my older brother, my other rugby hero (though only for about three years, and on a cold, Hertfordshire school pitch). When both he and his brother Tony played for England, the camera would pan onto their diminutive mother, who fiercely cheered at the sides. We adored her in our household, and enjoyed the incongruity of stern Chinese mother letting rip at a rugby match.

And so the conversation goes on and the ‘Underwood menu’ is born: beef rendang, green beans in a light prawn and coconut sauce, and tamarind chicken. At kick-off, the rendang is ready; each piece coated with four hours of flavour. It’s had a lot of oven love.

England loses. By a sliver of a breath. The room is inconsolable. There’s only one thing to do, and that’s to tuck into seconds.

Bruising the rendang spices before putting in the spice grinder

Beef Rendang (serves 8-10)

In the past, I’ve cooked rendang with more spices – star anise, cinnamon, cardamom. This time I used a recipe from ‘The New Mrs Lee’s Cookbook: Nonya Cuisine’ as a base, which calls for minimal spices. I've also adapted proportions and cooking time (her recipe calls for boiling for 30 minutes, but the shin would be toughened by rapid cooking).

3 onions, sliced

1.8kg beef shin, diced

3 x 400ml cans of coconut milk

3 slices of tamarind block soaked in 400ml boiling water, then paste squeezed through a sieve (available from Chinese supermarkets)

2 handfuls of dessicated coconut – toasted in a dry pan until light brown. These give texture to the tender pieces of shin

2 tablespoons palm sugar

Salt

In the spice grinder: rendang spice paste

12 slices galangal

12 slices ginger

12 cloves garlic

6 red chillies (usually made with 15 dried chillies, but I only have fresh ones)

3 stalks lemon grass (white part only)

3 tablespoons ground coriander

1 and ½ teaspoons ground cumin

Preheat the oven to 160C or 140C (fan oven).

Bruise and roughly chop the rendang paste ingredients, before either pounding (hard work) or spice grinding into a paste.

In a big heavy bottomed pan, add the spice paste and the rest of the ingredients. Stir to make sure every piece of beef is mixed well with the coconut milk.

Half cover the pan with a lid and stew in the oven for 2 hours. Bring up to the stove top and skim the fat off with a spoon. It’s worth doing this as there will be a lot.

Bubble for another 1-2 hours on a medium heat until a third of the gravy is left. Stir frequently to avoid the stew sticking to the bottom of the pan. The stew should be quite dry and change colour to a deep deep brown.

Serve with rice.

Other rendang recipes

Feast to the World contends that rendang doesn’t have coconut milk or tamarind in it. I look forward to trying his recipe here.

For another variation, here’s a recipe for ox cheek and venison rendang.

A Dish a Day: The Rum Kitchen’s Jerk Fried Chicken Thighs

Ramblings from a voracious eater on the dish that made her day

The jerk chicken garnished with onion rings

Though a lapsed vegetarian’s weakness may be bacon, mine would be steak or fried chicken. And as this is a celebratory dinner (heralding one promotion, and the end of the week), we ought to eat in celebratory manner. Hence two rum sours, one classic daiquiri and a portion of fried chicken. 

Outside the Rum Kitchen are the clean lines of Carnaby Street’s Kingly Court. Inside is a holiday of Caribbean colour, tactile waitresses, reggae and rum. Diners are here for one reason only: to party. If they aren’t partying now, they will certainly be partying later. All this place needs is to do away with the tables, install a beach and a pool the colour of the ocean, and the beach shack it so aspires to be is complete. There is no standing on ceremony here, it’s fingers in as the food arrives. The chicken is crunchy with a heavy-handed deep nut-brown batter but delicately spiced - too delicately perhaps (I’d like more allspice and ginger in mine). Stacked on top are onion rings (light and crisp), pineapple slaw (where is the pineapple?), and ‘rum jerk bbq ketchup’ (satisfying, fruitily tart and scotch bonnet hot). It’s not the best jerk chicken I’ve had; I’m not sure whether my St Kitts sister-in-law would approve, but when you’re nursing that daiquiri and you know the lie of the evening land ahead, it will be the best £7.50 you have ever spent. 

The Classic Daiquiri

Rum Kitchen, 1st Floor, Kingly Court, Carnaby, Soho, W1B 5PW

A dish a day: Bocca di Lupo’s Rabbit Saltimbocca

The voracious eater on the dish that made her day

Every now and then, an evening falls into place. When you can, with half closed eyes, sit back and appreciate how right it feels and let it swim over you in that moment. Last night, London thrilled in a way I’d forgotten it could – I’d been away in dreamlike Brazil for three weeks on honeymoon; the cold rain quickly washed away any vestige of sun and samba – but wandering the streets of Soho surrounded by lights blinking and the sound of spirited drinking, I knew there was a reason this was my favourite city.

That moment last night happened in a dimly lit Bocca di Lupo, on a first date back in London with my new husband (I’m still stumbling over that word – I’m a terrible newlywed). We’d done that classic Soho thing of wandering from restaurant to restaurant after drinks, admiring yet annoyed at the queues outside each one. But of course, on the quiet of Archer Street, peering into the window of Bocca di Lupo was like looking into the warmth of your grandmother’s fireplace through a frosty window. It was irresistible. It was nostalgic. I’ll always remember my first visit here, when I ate one of the best pasta dishes of my life – rigatoni with guanciale (cured pigs cheeks); a simple dish but for some reason impossible to recreate.

To be honest, I could talk about the whole menu – the ungovernable cream of burrata (pictured) which licked the aubergine beneath, the clever clever salad of wafer thin radish and celeriac (layered with the salt tang of pecorino, bursts of sweet pomegranate, uplifted with the unmistakable whiff of truffle), the teal that was squashed open and grilled to perfection, and lay on a bed of deep red treviso.

But it was the first taste of saltimbocca that made us truly relax. We’d been frantically talking – about what Antonio Carluccio was eating (he was sitting on the next table, tucking into a treviso salad), about the future, about the crazy two weeks since coming back to work – and ate frantically to match. But when it arrived, the meal felt complete. Under a blanket of prosciutto was flattened rabbit loin – pale and glistening. Before each piece could reach our mouths, we would run it over the serving plate again, mopping all the rabbity Marsala it could; on bite - a little salty, a little sweet, a little tender, a little crisp.

After the meal, we ran over the road to Gelupo for some salted caramel and fresh mint ice cream. We huddled over a table and shared three scoops. It didn’t matter that we were in the thick of winter. This was what we were coming back for – the cold, the wet, Bocca di Lupo and a whole host of dates in the best city in the world.

Bocca di Lupo, 12 Archer Street, London, W1D 7BB, 020 7734 2223

The big breakfast: what to eat after a snow run

Snowy run in Wandsworth Common

During his polar expedition Sir Ranulph Fiennes ate 5,200 calories a day. With this in mind, seeing how snowy it was on Sunday morning, we went on our own expedition (round Wandsworth Common) with the promise of a big breakfast fit for explorers. Running in the snow can be a hazardous business. Just think - snow in your eyes; cold ears; ponds that masquerade as paths. But these dangers, I believed, were all worth conquering for the spoils that were waiting for us at home...

The breakfast box

...namely a box of breakfast goods. Spoiltpig sausages and bacon from Denhay Farm in Dorset's Bridport, mushrooms, eggs, ketchup and smoked chipotle salsa from Tracklements and HP sauce.

A long stretch ahead in Wandsworth

The run was refreshing rather than spikily cold. The snow underfoot - crunchy on grass and squeaky on pavements - gave extra satisfaction to a standard park jog. We ran for breakfast, there was no doubt about it, but it was a joy to run through, especially as we emerged unscathed, without injury and most importantly, without falling over.

The breakfast...

There was no point trying to go fancy. It was all about the classic. Grilled sausages and bacon and fried eggs. Mushrooms fried whole and rolled in the pan with thyme, a slick of butter and a squeeze of lemon. The sausages were fulsome - they had a deep herby flavour - almost black puddingy in depth, but the texture was strangely crumbly. The unsmoked back bacon was very thinly sliced - to the point where there was not much choice but to crisp them up, but that was no detriment to the taste.

Burford Brown eggs

Fried Burford Brown eggs

The real winners were the Burford Brown eggs from Clarence Court, their sunset orange yolks added creamy rich luxury to the breakfast. Though I found their ketchup too sweet, the smoked chipotle salsa from Tracklements was also a welcome discovery. Though it may not be my breakfast staple, I can see it working with cooked meats.

The snow is set to stay awhile. I think that means more breakfast.


Other things we made with the breakfasty ingredients:

Carbonara with spoiltpig bacon

Spaghetti carbonara: Burford Brown eggs, parmesan, parsley, spoiltpig bacon, garlic

Sausage and butterbean stew with chipotle salsa

Sausage and butterbean stew: spoiltpig sausages, garlic, thyme, butterbeans, onion, cloves, tomatoes, dollop of chipotle salsa


With thanks to Phipps for the breakfast box

Click here for more recipe ideas. 

New Culinary Tales with New Culinary Presents

Having professed that I don’t make resolutions (read my attempt to give up red meat last January), I am a glutton for punishment and shall make some more. Friends and family have been generous  with their culinary Christmas presents, so it would be rude not to use them. 

I, therefore, vow to cook more with these enabling gifts in 2013. 

Here are the new additions to the kitchen, and what I will do with them: 

Clockwise, starting from far left: spice grinder, fine mini grater, ice cream machine, David Hockney tray, meat thermometer, tea ball.

The spice grinder 

It’s easy to be a martyr for the spice-pounding cause. A few years ago my mother bought me ‘The Little Nyonya’ - a Singaporean epic drama set in Malacca, Malaysia. The protagonist, a Cinderella-type figure, would seek refuge in her cooking crouched on the floor as she pestled all the spices in her mortar for babi pongteh (braised pork-belly stew), winning love and a husband along the way. 

I have since discovered that crouching for two hours on the kitchen floor pounding spices for curries and satays won’t win you love. It is a highly antisocial activity. If you live in a first floor flat like me, pity the residents on the floor below - victims of constant dull thudding for hours on end. And pity anyone who comes near as you stink of shallots and turmeric. And the blisters - let’s not even talk about the blisters. 

I think of the spice grinder as the gateway to the food of the straits of Malacca, and to social acceptance. 

The fine grater

A grater not just for zesting but for making mush of ginger. When I cook Hainanese chicken, one of the sauces requires smoking hot oil to be poured over grated ginger with the most satisfying sizzle. My box grater produces woody shards of ginger, which doesn’t meld well with the oil. 

The ice cream machine

I am desperate to make Christmas pudding ice cream (in my head, just vanilla flavoured with clumps of leftover pud folded in. Or should the base be laced with brandy in the place of brandy butter?). Also Campari sorbet for summer. I wished and was good, and Santa delivered. 

The David Hockney tray 

This present from my betrothed is his way of asking me to make more tea. 

The meat thermometer 

I’m not a roast-meat purist. By that I mean that I often judge my pork belly or beef joint by looking and poking and slicing it open. Obviously, this is not ideal. If anyone asks me for different levels of done-ness this will send me into a spiral of panic - hence the meat thermometer. According to Heston Blumenthal (and who can argue with HB?), to achieve a rare rib of beef the central insides need to reach 55C. Gone are the days of putting a licked finger to the wind, now I can brandish my digital meat wand. Panic no more, Miss Lee, panic no more. 

The tea ball

I have stacks of loose leaf tea, abandoned and crying in the dark at the back of my cupboards. Now with my new tea ball I can unearth the Japanese roasted rice tea, the darjeeling, the strange LOV teas I’m not sure I’ll like. Or I could use it for infusing bouquet garni in soups...  

Here's to endless feasting in 2013. 

Voracious is Square Meal's Food Blogger to Follow in 2013

New Year’s Eve dinner tonight. Our host is cooking venison, and I have been charged with preparing something to amuse the bouches. My first thought was to make my friend Sonia’s bloody Mary cherry tomatoes (tomatoes filled with infused vodka and worcester sauce) but I lack some basic equipment (syringe and needle). Perhaps Hix quail’s egg shooters instead - the insides still wibbly and topped with crunchy bacon and chives - each to be downed in one. We have plenty of time to decide, plenty of time until countdown.

Whatever it is, it needs to be fabulous to round off a fabulous year. Last week, the restaurant authority Square Meal tweeted me to say that I was one of their fifteen ‘food bloggers to follow in 2013’. What a marvellous accolade, especially when amidst the company of the likes of Hugh Wright, the perfect Felicity Cloake, gloriously acerbic Chris Pople and Niamh Shields among others. It’s also heartening to discover quality blogs - more reading to look forward to next year. 

I also write about food (and the arts and culture) for Harper's Bazaar, so if this blog does go a bit quiet, I may be at my Bazaar blog here or writing for their restaurant guide here instead. 

Anyway, thank you kindly for reading my culinary tales and I hope you continue to enjoy them fully in 2013. 

Happy New Year!

Hx

Click here for the full Square Meal feature.

Christmas Clementine Champagne

I'm feeling festive. 


The rustle of present wrapping accompanies the camp jazz-hands neon lights on the tree. We're looking forward to the hearty out-of-tune warbling at midnight mass tonight, the sprouts (with bacon, chestnuts and a splash of soy sauce, if you please), roast duck and crispy potatoes tomorrow.

And of course - the drinks. Instead of Buck's fizz, we’re having clementine champagne in the Lee household. I don't like the idea of drowning out a crisp Champagne with a potent juice, so this is my alternative.

Squeeze out the juice from 10 clementines after zesting one of them, bring the juice and zest to a simmer with 200g of caster sugar and a cinnamon stick for 3 minutes. Strain. Cool on a wintry kitchen ledge, then on Christmas morning, pour a splash in each glass and top up with Champagne (or sparkling water for the children). 

A fresh, boozy, merry start to the day.

Happy Christmas for tomorrow!

x

Kaosarn, St John's Hill: Guaranteed Good Times

‘Why don’t we go to Kaosarn instead?’ The text from wine-botherer Ruth Ford read a year or so ago when I suggested we visit some upstart of a restaurant in Brixton village. ‘I’ve heard not-great things about ___, but Kaosarn will be guaranteed good times.’

We didn’t end up going for some reason or another, but that epithet stuck with me. In my head, Kaosarn became the unfaddy, honest restaurant we all needed round the corner. 

Oh the excitement, the unfettered joy we felt when we heard that Kaosarn was opening on St John’s Hill in Wandsworth. The lead came from a tweet from Luke Mackay that the much-loved Thai canteen was making its way westward, expanding from its Brixton home closer to my home. 

St John’s Hill has had a strange relationship with restaurants - so often has some unsuspecting and naive budding-restaurateur arrived and fled within the year. St John’s hill is no Northcote Road - sans gloss and prams, but it’s lately had an influx of good things happen to it. Joining the rather brilliant Fish Club, French deli and Chinese Good Earth Express were Ben’s Canteen, which recently hosted a dinner from Roganic’s ex head-chef Ben Spalding, and two new popular drinking establishments - the Plough and Powder Keg Diplomacy. 

Thrown into the mix is Kaosarn, the Thai canteen with the cult following. And the ‘Hill’ has been screaming - aching, in fact - for a place like this. 

Opening today, it was manned by a full staff of efficient ladies and led by the industrious Gisele. Much more of a restaurant than the cafe in Brixton, the space is roomy and light (there’s a back room that can be hired for private functions as well), with tables lit intimately with candles. The menu is so extensive (the first page already divided into starters, salads, noodles and soups) we had to reign ourselves in. Armed with four bottles of Chang beer from the offie across the road, we were ready. 

On Gisele’s recommendation we started with moo ping - skewers of tender pork, sticky with sauce and dark and shiny with the caramelisation of palm sugar. It was a confident and competent start to the meal. 

The tom kha gai - chicken pieces in a hot coconut soup - was a compact explosion of flavours - laced with chilli and lemongrass and flavoured with slices of galangal and plump mushrooms. 

Hot tiger prawns and bamboo with red curry paste had the lick of Thai basil and was sprinkled with Thai aubergines and green peppercorns. The menace of red chilli slices thrilled through this stunning dish - our favourite and the one that will draw us back. (Pad prig gang on the menu)

Yum woonsen - warm glass noodle salad with prawns, minced pork, peanuts, chilli, coriander, red onion and spring onion was light yet satisfying. The balance of sweet sugar with the tang of fish sauce was right on. I could eat bowls and bowls of this. 

Though it was the first night, there were no nerves, no cock-ups and by seven o’clock was almost full. Kaosarn will live up to its Brixton reputation and draw the food-loving crowd to St John’s Hill, light up nights out and provide what they’re known for: guaranteed good times. 

Kaosarn

110 St John’s Hill

SW11 1ST

020 7223 7888

BYO, cash only (cash machine across the road), takeaway

The Gilbert Scott: A thoroughly British affair

Evangelists occupy the Gilbert Scott restaurant. This is no place for indifference. The security guard chats for twenty minutes about the wrought iron from Coventry with Olympic fervour next to the now-famous staircase in the Spice Girls’ Wannabe video. The front of house enthuses about Marcus Wareing who pops in at least once or twice a week to run the team here with head chef Oliver Wilson. A grail for history-lovers, artists, models and academics who take refuge from the British Library, the newly refurbished St Pancras renaissance hotel (which houses the restaurant) is an ode to the skill and splendour of British architecture and industry. 

So prescient is the personality of the St Pancras Renaissance that you almost feel short-changed by the simplicity of the bar and dining room. Unfairly so, as the ceiling is cathedral-high, the marble twinkles and is splendidly grand and altogether impressive. It’s shiny and polished and, quite frankly, splendid. 

It’s such an exhibition of the best of home manufacturing and design that one can only wonder about the food. 

It would follow that Marcus Wareing seems a good fit, after all, he is a Lancashire craftsman who evolves already staunchly British dishes to become iconically British. This is the Wareing whose care has won Michelin stars for the likes of Petrus and brought Prue, Oliver and Matthew to their knees with the wibble of his custard tart in the first ever Great British Menu.

And so a charming evangelist at front of house takes us to the bar, where the evangelist barman serves us up a spiced virgin mary (for my pregnant friend Claire who’s saving her drinks for the main)...

...and an a-pear-itif cocktail (Pear Grey Goose, Sipsmith gin, cucumber, elderflower), fresh with that taste of English gardens. A most elegant drink with the cool of the cucumber wrapped round an ice cube in a coupe glass.

We’re taken through to the impeccably elegant dining room, and dinner begins. Claire’s Portwood Farm asparagus are fat and sweet, accompanied by a burnt butter hollandaise. They are unspectacular but wholly delicious. 

My bone marrow with snails is a quite perfect dish. Juicy snails, deeply dark in taste and look, sit affably on the jelly of the marrow. Spooned onto toast soaked through with garlic butter, it’s almost creamy in its richness and overall, exquisite in conception.

We take a quick break to sneak down to the kitchen table, a front-row view (for up to ten people) of the cool mechanics of the steam-lined kitchen. The curious can also peer at the wines kept behind the table. 

Back up to our table, our mains are ready to serve. My rump of veal is a solid symphony of flavours - wild garlic and sage accompany the pink, surprisingly meaty and juicy veal, lifted by the sweet of plump roasted onions. 

Claire’s coral-pink scottish sea trout is a succulent and slim fillet under a blanket of crisp skin. It’s a well-executed dish. We expect something cold and salady from our side order of peas, lettuce and lovage but with the latter wilted and thickened with a touch of cream to mellow its pungency, it is a welcome surprise. 

For pudding we have Mrs Beeton’s snow egg, a variation of the French dessert ile flottante - poached meringue atop a light and cold custard or creme anglaise. It is slightly ‘ile’ heavy (I'd love more custard), but cleverly lined with marmalade in the middle and the smooth almost foam-like richness is cut through with the crunch of caramelised almonds. 

Claire’s warm chocolate cornflakes makes up for all those times you were deprived pudding as a child; the dessert is almost unforgivably rich and a nod to the glory of the chocolate crispy cake. 

There is a sort of humour and pride that laces the Gilbert Scott menu; where else outside of Cumbria will Kendal mint cake be an ingredient? I would certainly love to pop in for a peanut butter ice. Either way, I do believe for those who arrive in straight from the Eurostar, the Gilbert Scott should be the first stop for a happy and glorious view of London town. By the end of the meal we are satiate, evangelistic, and terribly proud that the British are such devilishly good cooks. 

The Gilbert Scott

St Pancras Renaissance Hotel

Euston Road

London

NW1 2AR

020 7278 3888

Website

Helena and Claire were guests of The Gilbert Scott.