My first memory of Sketch was when it had newly opened and I ended up doing a brief stint in the Gallery kitchen. I had no clue who Pierre Gangaire was, but that he was some big shot French chef who had teamed up with Mourad Mazouz of Momo to open an uber-luxe, decadent space in the West End where the restaurant was an enormous art gallery, the waitresses very beautiful, the kitchen brand new, the toilets worth a trip just on their own and the prices exorbitant. Almost a decade later, Michelin’s usual palaver of leaked results stated that the upstairs restaurant, Lecture Room & Library had just won their second star, having dined there just a week before.
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October 19, 2012
Lecture room at Sketch
October 2, 2012
Hélène Darroze at the Connaught
My first memory of the Connaught was of wheeling a very noisy trolley full of ice cream and sorbet mixes from the Claridges to the Connaught to be churned at 4am. I was working the night shift at Gordon Ramsay Claridges and our ice cream machine had broken down, and the closest ally was Angela Hartnett’s kitchen at the Connaught. Nothing makes more noise than a metal trolley full of metal containers rattling down the West End at an ungodly hour – even the police found it rather amusing. Since then, the Ramsay empire has crumbled, Angela has found other avenues on her own and the Connaught is now under its new queen, Hélène Darroze, running her second 2 star Michelin restaurant. Whilst London may not be the food capital of the world, it does have some of the best lunch deals and on this occassion, £60 for 4 courses and 2 glasses of wine seemed to fit the bill quite nicely.
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August 24, 2012
L’Atelier Saint-Germain de Joel Robuchon, Paris
Titan, legend, godfather, celebrity…just a few titles that adorn the legacy of Joel Robuchon, a chef who really needs no introduction and who’s empire extends from Las Vegas to Tokyo with a total collection of 28 Michelin stars (4 restaurants having 3) . Needless to say, the man knows what he’s doing and has done so for a very long time! In this years 50 Best Restaurants guide, his restaurant in Saint-Germain, Paris, notched up to 12, and during the month of August, is one of the very few Michelin restaurants open for business. At first, the cheek-by-jowl seating arrangement at the counter seems a bit odd for a restaurant of this nature, but as the meal progresses, one realises that it’s actually quite a lot of fun, and the most remarkable thing is the unpretentious, gregarious and laid back service that goes with the evening.
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July 3, 2012
Charlie Trotter’s, Chicago
Charlie Trotter: the man’s been a legend for 25 years having run one of the first fine dining restaurants to champion local produce and developing cross cultural cooking to a level that hadn’t been done before. Charlie Trotter’s Desserts was the first cookbook I ever bought, having left college to go work at Gordon Ramsay at the Claridges as commis pastry chef. In that book was a recipe for Goats cheese and grape ice cream – a fabulous combination and one that has been replicated at numerous restaurants. I, of course, being a bit of a rebel and over excited at having learnt how to make ice creams for the first time, decided to attempt a goats cheese and grape ice cream! I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with that, except, I used the recipe for a normal
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