Launching and Lunching - the Slow Food Chef Alliance
It is always good fun to eat out with chefs. At the risk of generalisation, when they are on our side of the pass wielding a knife and fork chefs generally concentrate hard and apply themselves vigorously. They also have formidable appetites, pipe cleaner thin men full of nervous bounce will sit down and biff their way through three starters and a couple of mains without flinching. My kind of diners. Last week Slow Food U.K. announced that it was setting up a “Chef Alliance” which is corporate speak for trying to work more closely with professional cooks. Slow Food has a deceptively simple proposition, one so sensible that it is almost impossible to disagree with…
As Slow Food puts it: “We work to reconnect people with where their food comes from and how it is produced so they can understand the implications of the choices they make about the food they put on their plates. We encourage people to choose nutritious food, from sustainable, local sources which tastes great.”
Hear hear! Slow Food have enlisted the support of Highland Park whisky and persuaded Richard Corrigan to chair the Chef Alliance which inevitably lead to a magnificent launching luncheon in the private room of Corrigan’s Mayfair. Chefs in attendance included Michel Roux Jr (Le Gavroche), Marcus Wareing (The Berkeley, Knightsbridge), Massimo Riccioli (Massimo’s), Sam Harris (Zucca), Rowley Leigh (Le Café Anglais), Bret Graham (The Ledbury) and Bryn Williams (Odette’s). Corrigan’s head chef Chris McGowan devised a menu that featured some of Britain’s finest ingredients – it’s not often that you are faced by canapés like “warm brioche, Dorset Blue cheese”; “cured Windermere char, gin, treacle, juniper”; “homemade black pudding, pickled apple and Jersey black butter”. The breads were made from Beremeal – a wholemeal flour made from an ancient Scottish variety of barley – very nutty with a substantial crumb.
The starter was a Grimsby smoked haddock pancake with caviar butter. Then on to a roast red grouse with Hampshire watercress, damsons pickled in perry vinegar, game sausage, and finally a warm cobnut cake with clotted cream ice-cream. Good honest cooking, showcasing some amazing British ingredients. Finally a dram of Highland Park 12 year old – subtly peaty and with an implausibly rich finish.
This degree of respect for the character and possibilities of traditional and indigenous ingredients is something that French and Italian chefs have as a default setting. It is tantalising to think how our food would improve if that respect became equally widespread in Britain.
Corrigan's Mayfair, 28 Upper Grosvenor Street, London, W1K 7EH (020 7499 9943 www.corrigansmayfair.com)
www.slowfood.org.uk www.highlandpark.co.uk
Charles Campion - Friday 16th September 2011
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