Wreckfish at The Twenty Six

Gary Usher and Luke Richardson from Wreckfish, Liverpool

Luke Richardson, head chef of Wreckfish, is cooking an 8-course guest chef menu at The Twenty Six on Sunday, 19 November.  

Wreckfish is the much anticipated fourth restaurant in Gary Usher's Sticky Walnut group, a former derelict building in Liverpool, that was renovated with a £200,000 crowdfunding campaign. The restaurant launched in late October 2017, with dishes such as caramelised pork cutlet with chorizo; cashel blue arancini with port poached pears; pan roast skate wing with brown butter dressing and gin cured trout with pomegranate molasses. Desserts include salted caramel tart; marmalade sponge and a matcha tea mousse.

Luke began his career with Gary Usher in 2013, where he worked his way up to head chef of Sticky Walnut and now at Wreckfish. During Luke’s time at Sticky Walnut they were named the AA Guide’s Restaurant of the Year and are regularly listed in The Sunday Times Top 100 Restaurants.

Cooking alongside Simon Ulph, head chef at The Swan Wine Kitchen and Scott Goss, head chef at The Twenty Six, Luke’s eight-course menu is £60 per person and will be served in one sitting for dinner on a long communal table to 26 guests.

Baguette
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Chicken wing and melon
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Moroccan mackerel
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Skate, brown butter, cabbage
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Lamb rump, burnt onion and Shichimi Togarashi
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Comte 24
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Toasted Porter
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Salted caramel tart

Reservations are open on www.thetwenty-six.co.uk or call 01892 544607 to book. A deposit will be taken at the time of booking. As this is a special dinner the restaurant is unable to cater for dietary requirements. Guests are to arrive at 7.30 for drinks to be seated for dinner at 8pm. Further events in The Twenty Six guest chef series include Calum Franklin from Holborn Dining Room, Rosewood Hotel, London on 3 December.

Toasted Porter

The Wine Kitchen goes west

Simon Ulph, head chef at The Swan Wine Kitchen in Tenterden, Kent

The Elephant restaurant in Torquay has announced the first date in its next guest chef series. The seafront restaurant, which has retained its Michelin star for a 13th year, will be hosting some of the UK’s top chefs over the coming months.

Simon Ulph is the first chef to take-over on Wednesday 22 November 2017. Simon is head chef at The Swan Wine Kitchen in Tenterden, Kent. Part of the I’ll be Mother family, The Swan is set in the award-winning Chapel Down vineyard and winery, one of the leading English wine producers in the UK.

Simon is cooking a 5-course menu, with each course paired with a wine or beer from Chapel Down. Chapel Down wine expert Freddie O’Sullivan will introduce each beverage pairing.

Simon has previously worked at Morimoto in Napa, California where he developed a passion for Japanese and Asian flavours, which strongly influence his cooking today and most recently as head chef of Thompsons on the Isle of Wight.

Diners at Simon’s guest chef dinner at The Elephant can look forward to the following menu:

A glass of Chapel Down Brut on arrival
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Cured halibut, Union Red and garlic purée, fermented mushrooms, kale
Chapel Down Union Red
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Seared Orkney scallops, salt baked and pickled swede, burnt apple and thyme
Chapel Down Orange Bacchus
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Roasted venison loin, miso braised haunch croquette, smoked pear purée, sauce grand veneur
Chapel Down Pinot Noir
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Curious cider sorbet, granola and poached blackberries
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Salted caramel tart, bitter chocolate sorbet
Curious Porter
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The dinner is priced at £75 per person. As the evening involves the pairings being presented with each course, there will only be one sitting, which will begin at 7.30pm prompt. 

It will be the first guest chef event since Simon Hulstone and his wife Katy took over full ownership of the restaurant, following a management buyout from co-owners and business partners Friederike Etsemmi and Peter Morgan.

Simon commented, “By taking over taking the restaurant, we are putting down roots in Torquay, where we’re all very happy to live. It’s not just about fantastic local produce and the stunning location for the restaurant, Torquay is our home and we can’t see ourselves anywhere else.

Please call 01803 2000 044 or email info@elephantrestaurant.co.uk to book your table. 
 

Simon Hulstone, chef patron of The Elephant in Torquay, Devon

Pretty as a picture

Wild, pretty, tasty. And free.

Wild rhubarb compote, lemon sorbet and wood sorrel

I can't resist sharing this recipe by Scott Goss, executive chef at I'll be Mother, which is in the June/July issue of Good Things Magazine. Wood sorrel is easily spotted in early Summer as it has beautiful, fresh green, heart-shaped leaves and delicate white, pink-veined flowers. It forms distinctive clumps in woodlands and shady hedgerows. Tasting of juicy green apples and lemon, it's mouth-puckeringly delicious.

Serves 4

Ingredients:
2 sticks of wild (or cultivated) rhubarb
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons water
100g ginger biscuits, bashed to a crumb

Lemon sorbet
250g caster sugar
4 lemons juiced
250ml water

Handful of wood sorrel and fennel fronds

Method:
Dissolve sugar and water in a pan, allow to cool and add the lemon juice. Add a little lemon zest for extra tang

Once the lemon sugar water is cool, churn it in an ice cream mixer or put in a shallow tray in the freezer and mix every half an hour for three hours

Lightly stew the sliced rhubarb, sugar and water for a few minutes until just soften. Blitz with a stick blender

To plate:
In each serving bowl, place a tablespoon of ginger biscuit crumb, just enough to sit a scoop of sorbet on. Spoon in a tablespoon of rhubarb compote and go crazy with the wood sorrel and fennel fronds. A few microplane thin slices of raw wild rhubarb will finish the dish with a lovely sharpness.

WeFiFo - airbnb for food

A social dining revolution from London to Lancashire

A Game Feast at Ronnie Murray's Peckham Manor supperclub hosted with WeFiFo

To a cold and drizzly Peckham last night for Ronnie Murray’s (ex-Group Head Chef of HIX and of recent Great British Menu fame) Peckham Manor supperclub with WeFiFo. It was a sensational menu full of Autumnal flavours with blackberries, pigeon and venison steamed suet puddings. The standout dish was pudding, an Autumn Tasting Plate, a dish Ronnie described as a walk through the woods with various blackberry preparations, granola, lemon curd, honeycomb and a greedy, tooth-tinglingly-sweet dollop of honey, fresh from his Dad’s beehives in Berkshire.

Autumn on a plate.

It was my first experience of WeFiFo, a new platform leading the social dining revolution connecting people, who love cooking, with those who love eating. Cannily described as ‘airbnb for food’, WeFiFo is for home cooks, supper club hosts and pop restaurants to create and host food based events in their own home.

Supper clubs are not just for professional cooks though, people up and down the country are opening up their homes to share food and company. Maria Grieco, a truly wonderful human being, from Lancashire joined WeFiFo in June and has already fed nearly 200 people, many of whom would otherwise be eating in isolation. She hosts an average of two WeFiFo events a week, from a traditional Sunday roast to exotic Syrian themed evenings for the recent #CookforSyria charity initiative. Guests have included a dementia sufferer and her live-in carer, five woman all in their 70s who live in sheltered accommodation and a single mother and her son, who hadn’t had a Sunday roast in 5 years.

"We all have to eat - and food is the building block of humanity. Meals should be shared. Eating should be about sharing food, conversation, laughter, tears, stories and life. No one should eat alonE, unless they want to."

Maria Grieco, WeFiFo host, and all round superstar

Hear, hear Maria. I will be joining you on the WeFiFo revolution!

www.wefifo.com

Ronnie plating a salad of pigeon, pickled elderberries and wet walnuts.

Guest chef supper series at The Twenty Six

Scott Goss, Chef Patron of The Twenty Six, is to host a series of supper clubs with guest chefs, who all have strong connections to Kent. Andrew Clarke of acclaimed restaurant Brunswick House, London, will cook the first supper with Scott on Thursday 13th October.

Scott and Andrew, with a shared passion for fresh flavours, colours and seasonal produce, will each cook 3 courses for a 6 course menu, including a cheese course and paired wines. Tickets for this exclusive, one-off event are £60 and can be purchased by calling The Twenty Six on 01892 544607 or www.thetwenty-six.co.uk.

The 6 course menu will also have an accompanying wine flight, included in the price.

Cep and bone marrow gougères (AC)
Gruner Veltriner Yealands Estate, New Zealand

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Raw salmon, devilled crab, cucumber and sea rosemary (SG)
Herdade Do Rocim Amphora, Portugal (white)

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Salsify, razor clam, fennel, trompette, radish (AC)
Herdade Do Rocim Amphora, Portugal (red)

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Goatober faggots, parsnip, burnt butter, Cornish ale gravy (SG)
Cote du Rhone La Petit Caboche, France

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14 day-aged Challans duck, green olives, red chicory, mint (AC)
Barbaresco Conti Speroni, Italy

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Malt ice cream, espresso stout affogato (AC)
Pedro Ximénez, Spain

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Chocolates and a night cap (SG)

Andrew and Scott have known each other for over 10 years. Both favour British food with European and other worldly influences with an emphasis on flavour, colour and texture. Andrew is now Chef Director of Brunswick House, situated in Lassco, an antique dealers and architectural reclamation yard in Vauxhall, South London. Previously Head Chef at Salt Yard and more recently Rita’s Bar and Dining, Andrew’s food is bold, fresh and full of character. London restaurant critic Fay Maschler described a dining experience at Brunswick House as ‘Like a treasure hunt with clues, a piece of music with reflective melodies or a tapestry with tight intricate stitches, the menu is woven together in a way that is enticing and also sensible.”

Further dates and chefs in The Twenty Six series to be confirmed in due course.

Goat for Gold!

Winners! James Whetlor from Cabrito and James Martin, winner of Favourite Celebrity Chef

Cabrito Goat Meat wins Champion Meat Producer at Good Housekeeping Food Awards

So pleased for client James Whetlor from Cabrito Goat Meat who took gold for Champion Meat Producer at the Good Housekeeping Food Awards 2016 last night, at a ceremony held at Royal Institute of British Architects, London.

Good Housekeeping’s prestigious annual food awards are in their twelfth year, and celebrate the all-time favourite foodie brands and products as voted by the magazine’s readers and GH’s expert panel of judges. 

In front of a packed audience of food producers, industry insiders and celebrities including James Martin, Jane Asher and Mary Berry, James commented; “I can’t believe it but I’m so proud and excited for this recognition of goat meat. We still have a lot of work to do but this is another indication that goat meat is moving into the mainstream. The consumer gets more choice and more exciting menu options, and the humble Billy goat gets six months of good life before it becomes someone’s dinner, rather than being considered worthless and chucked in the bin. It is great to see, even if it has taken a while, but Britain is finally waking up to what the rest of the world has known for a long time; goat meat is delicious.”

Other winners at the awards included Fairtrade Foundation for Best Ethical Brand; Yeo Valley for Best Organic Brand; Isle of Wight Tomatoes for GH Food Hero and Marks and Spencer for Best Supermarket Wine Range. James Martin won Favourite Celebrity Chef and Mary Berry won Favourite Cookbook for her Foolproof Cooking.

Cabrito Goat Meat is currently available to buy at online supermarket Ocado but it won’t be long, with multinationals such as Lidl and Marks and Spencer at the Food Awards that goat will become more widely available.

Britain is finally waking up to what the rest of the world has known for a long time; goat meat is delicious.

Kid goats are a similar size to a spring lamb - around 20kg - and have a delicate, sweet and musky flavour.  The meat takes well to punchy flavourings including Mediterranean and Middle-Eastern herbs, spices and rubs. It is lower in fat than beef or pork, is rich in potassium and has twice as much iron as beef. The range at Ocado includes Kid Mince, Kid Diced, Kid Chops, Kid Shanks, Kid Provencal Sausages, Kid Merguez Sausages and Kid Italian Meatballs.

www.cabrito.co.uk