There used to be, perhaps still is, a band called Yello made up of two Swiss gentlemen called Dieter Meier and Boris Blank. When I heard that Dieter was now a 3 star Michelin Chef and heading up the kitchen at Andaman at the revamped St James Hotel I was all overcome with excitement. I visualised a restaurant throbbing to the sound of electronica as the chef robot-danced around the ovens. Imagine then my disappointment to find that the chef is actually Dieter Muller and nothing to do with the band at all.
The disappointment is leavened on this opening party night by the sight of the chef himself inside a glass box kitchen in the restaurant efficiently turning out small dishes for the crowd with ruthless, accurate, proficiency. These are not canapés, they are too grand for that and there’s not a cocktail stick in sight. Although Chef Muller spends some part of each month at his restaurant in Germany, he is very much at the controls tonight and while the brigade wear white, he has a steely-grey top on which, together with his air of concentration, easily marks him out as a man in charge.
The place is packed. A lot of people have been invited and a lot of people have come to see just how good Dieter might be. Initial reviews have been a bit cool but the jury is not in as these are early days and at least one of the critics hates ‘posh’ food as a matter of principle. Certainly it’s a bit easy to dislike foam, which is now passé in anyone’s book but here it didn’t detract from a nicely cooked scallop resting on a bed of cous cous whose granular texture matched the scallop’s smoothness very well. And there was more to come..
Continue reading "Andaman Opens As Banks Close" »
Wine writers eh? What a life. Here we are at Benares, the Michelin-starred Indian restaurant in Mayfair sampling nine courses by Head Chef Atul Kochnar matched with nine wines. The wine writers are discussing best Business Class supplier for long haul and comparing notes on the best place to sit, just like commuters working out where the train doors open on the 08:15 Ongar to London. My small contribution about Ryanair causes a pause in the conversation, a look, and then they carry on as before. A bit of a ‘I’ll get my coat’ moment.
Ah well, I may not get to travel the world on a regular basis but I am here at least ready to face the challenge of eating on an epic scale. Except Atul assures us the dishes will be small, bonsai versions, identical in every way to the full dish, just miniaturised and so it proves.
Of course Indian restaurants have tried to convince us of the possibility of wine with Indian food before. Their reason isn’t entirely down to enjoyment. The cynical fact is that restaurants make a lot of money on wine mark-up and not a lot on beer. The more high-end restaurants can lure us out of the clutches of Cobra and into the embrace of a Chardonnay, the more moolah they can make.
To do so does require a sommelier of some vision and persistence though, and Costanzo Scala is that man. An Italian working in an Indian restaurant, he tells me that he has chosen all the wines to go with tonight’s dishes after long hours pondering in the cellar. One thing he has tried to do especially is to use wines he already had, rather than search out new ones. And so after a few words of welcome from Costanzo the tasting and tippling begins. For anyone looking to try the pairings read on for the night’s menu
Continue reading "Wine Matching At Benares" »
There used to be, perhaps still is, a band called Yello made up of two Swiss gentlemen called Dieter Meier and Boris Blank. When I heard that Dieter was now a 3 star Michelin Chef and heading up the kitchen at Andaman at the revamped St James Hotel I was all overcome with excitement. I visualised a restaurant throbbing to the sound of electronica as the chef robot-danced around the ovens. Imagine then my disappointment to find that the chef is actually Dieter Muller and nothing to do with the band at all. 
