I am acutely aware of my softer, self-indulgent attitude to dieting now. After a summer spent on the water or beside it, invariably ending the day in a good restaurant, I decided to give it a bit of a break. This does not mean swapping to a diet of dust and greens. Indeed, I have been in the company of too many good men who started out that way and then dined on wine, leaving their plate looking like a garden in autumn: strewn with basil leaves. No, I only resolved to refrain from going to restaurants for about six weeks. This seemed reasonable and manageable......two weeks ago. Tonight I decided to follow Oscar Wilde’s (rather than my wife’s) advice on dealing with temptation, and yielded to it. Off I went, protestant spouse in tow, to Pepe Nero’s latest addition to a fast growing chain of restaurants. It is the Lebanese place in Tal-Ibragg on the premises of the historic Jessie’s bar, which opened here in 1921. Jesse stayed in the family business and her long years as a kind … [Read more...]
A truffle kerfuffle in Provence
Foodies are always on the lookout for the uncommon and the creative. This does not always work out well. I once ate at a truffle-only restaurant in the Var in Southern France. The place was called Chez Bruno and was so pretentious you could only see waiters by appointment. When we turned up and announced we were ‘sans reservation’ the Gallic horror and hand wringing was pure comedy. Had Kim Jong Un sauntered over the border yesterday and told the S Korean president ‘I’m gonna nuke your nuts’, he would have taken it better than them. My wife, who considers über-expensive restaurants to be a form of disinheritance, took one look at the assorted Porsches in the carpark and helpfully suggested we eat what was left of the melted brie sandwiches in the car. But I had spotted something worse than the automobiles: this place had a helipad !! Well, fuck-me-blind I thought, if people fly into the mountains to eat at Bruno’s I want in. Somehow we got a table. Don’t ask how, it was ages ago … [Read more...]
Zuma and the Blue Hill in New York
Zuma in Manhattan is a nightclub where people sit and eat, not dance. Like the best nightclubs - its a Japanese restaurant by the way - it is hard wired to spike sexual behaviour: The music pulsates, the lights are forgiving, the senses bathed in alcohol and the palate honeyed by its offerings. The absence of mirrors meant that I did not see even one unmuscled hunk of a man. They were mostly big and black and cool. The women were drawn from a broader group of the human pool and came in various styles of dress and undress. They all seemed hotter than the hotate, the really large Japanese scallops that Zuma serves grilled with pickled plum, shiso and mentaiko butter. I can only speak about the latter when I say they melted in your mouth. The lobster miso felt like comfort food and was a great combination of two soups I frequently have separately. Since black truffle was in season, we had the wild mushroom rice hot pot which comes in a wooden pot and ladle. The flavours were well … [Read more...]
Nacarat (Amsterdam): ‘To die for and believe me I really like living’
I dutifully followed my wife who was climbing up every floor of the Hudson’s Bay Department store on Rokin in Amsterdam. It felt like it was the Via Dolorosa. Then, in between the suede boots at a 70 per cent discount and the new collection of bright yellow bikinis that Ralph was offering while it was minus three outside, I saw a sign I could finally warm to. Restaurant, it said. I hunched my shoulders and overtook the spouse, shoving her to the side with all the grace of an American football player who is about to be reunited with the touchdown line. I thought I was heading towards one of those self-service oases that the weary shopper, or her husband, gets to visit when in a department store. The kind where you weigh the cucumber and potato salad, pay for it and grab your cutlery all in one svelte urban movement. No way. This was Tel Aviv Bauhaus meets New Amsterdam cool. The grand open kitchen running down the middle of the place is flanked by rows of tables for two which are … [Read more...]