Nordic Nibbler

La Grenouillère, La Madeleine-sous-Montreuil – Restaurant Review

noreply@blogger.com (Nordic Nibbler) — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 12:46:00 +0000

To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the demise of French haute cuisine are greatly exaggerated. In fact, it would appear that the upper echelons of French cooking are alive and well and capable of producing modern, inventive, and exciting food. Behold exhibit 'A' for the defence: the mesmerising and wilfully eccentric La Grenouillère in La Madelaine-sous-Montreuil.

Tucked away in this northern corner of France on the banks of the Canche river, closer to London than it is to Paris, is an old Picardy farmhouse that had been serving French classic such as frogs legs and Crêpe Suzette since 1900. La Grenouillère had held a Michelin star since 1936, so the loss of it in 2001 must have come as a bitter blow to owner Roland Gauthier. In 2003, Roland summoned his son, Alexandre, then just 24 years old, to return and tasked him with transforming the restaurant's fortunes.

Alexandre had trained as a chef in nearby Le Touquet before spending time working in kitchens across France, the UK, China and Switzerland. On returning to La Grenouillère he broke with his father's tradition and set about creating something much more modern with a focus on seasonal ingredients. His efforts were rewarded, when in 2008 he regained La Grenouillère's lost star and the restaurant is now listed as one of the top 100 restaurants in the world according to the influential Restaurant magazine.

We began our meal in the lounge, part of the original building, and what used to be the former dining room. Visually, there's a lot to absorb in this somewhat cluttered room: half-timbered walls, intricate rugs, an iron fireplace, and some spectacular frog-themed frescos. Every horizontal surface seemed to be littered with more amphibian memorabilia, the effect being not unlike walking into the dusty old living room of an endearingly mad frog-loving aunt.

Over glasses of champagne (is there any better way to start dinner) we were served a series of hors d'oeuvre.

Hors d'oeuvre 1: Soft-boiled quail eggs dusted with dried seaweed were popped in the mouth to release a yolk of liquid silk.

Hors d'oeuvre 2: Shards of "squid paper" were exactly as their name suggests: translucent wafers of dried squid, which tasted fine but could have been crisper.

Hors d'oeuvre 3: Thin slices of toast with rhubarb were served next; tasty if somewhat muted in flavour.

Hors d'oeuvre 4: A small dollop of cod cream wrapped in turnip. These were again fine, but gave no hint as to the culinary fireworks that were soon to come.

We were then led into the main dining room and shown to our table. The contrast between this room and the lounge from which we had come couldn't have been starker. La Grenouillère is probably home to one of the world's most unusual and visually stunning dining rooms, and on entering I couldn't help but stand and stare, my jaw making a beeline for the floor.

Built just two years ago, the dining room is part of the Patrick Bouchain designed structure that was constructed during the recent renovation and expansion of La Grenouillère. Along with the dining room, a gargantuan new kitchen and luxurious self-contained grass covered huts for guests, complete with hidden bathtubs, wood-burning stoves, and iPod docks, were also added.

The juxtaposition of the twee rural style of the original building with the glass and metal harshness of the new structure is marked, and the effect is simply astonishing. From our pleasingly tactile leather-clad table we sat, eyes agog, surveying the odd mix of steampunk quirkiness meets industrial warehouse. Above us, a tangle of wires hung from steel rafters feeding a myriad of tiny LED lights. The centre of the room is dominated by a bizarre clockwork fireplace which houses a single flame that emerges from a large Bunsen burner type device. A breadbasket is suspended from an elaborate pulley and wire contraption.

La Grenouillère offers both an à la carte as well as tasting menu. We went for the 11-course menu priced at €115 with matching wines for €60. Although, as it turned out we ended up enjoying over twenty courses during our four hour gastronomic voyage.

Course 1: Asperge Verte, Lotte (Green Asparagus, Monkfish). A small bowl containing a beautiful presentation of raw monkfish wrapped in shavings of asparagus had a great contrast of textures. Unfortunately the addition of a "fish entrail" sauce (which I guess must have been made from monkfish liver) rendered this dish a little too fishy for my liking.

Bread and Butter

Course 2: A surprise additional course of razor clam was placed on the edge of our bowl. The clam was served in its shell on a layer of soft egg white foam dusted with corn. This dish had a nice clean mineral-like taste with a little crunch provided by the corn. Very nice, but to be honest we were starting to become a little apprehensive that the wished-for culinary magic wasn't going to materialise.

Course 3: Asperge Verte, Cébette (Green Asparagus, Spring Onion). It turned out we needn't have been worried at all, as what followed was a plate of food so beautiful that I almost couldn't bear to disturb it. Spears of asparagus were set in asparagus purée, sitting proud and vertical, like some imposing metropolis skyline. Each spear had been threaded through a loop of spring onion and the dish was finished with small shiny spheres of balsamic vinegar. What a dish this was; crisp, grassy asparagus in its prime, creamy purée and a nice acidic kick from the balsamic. Finally, it seemed like the kitchen was now firing on all cylinders.

Course 4: Seiche, Petis Pois (Squid, Peas). If there were such a thing as a global flavour repository, a place where examples of what different kinds of food should taste like, then this dish would most certainly have to be the shining example of what the humble pea should taste like. A bright green dish of peas with a pea pod sauce tasted sweet, fresh and earthy – the very epitome of spring. I haven't even mentioned the squid hiding underneath, which was soft and supple and such a joy to eat. A magnificent dish!

Course 5: St Pierre, Épinard Fumé (John Dory, Smoked Spinach). Another wonderful dish, this time fillets of John Dory were served with lightly smoked spinach and leeks. The sweet, buttery fish paired well with the smokiness from the spinach, while the addition of wild herbs added a slight bitterness to balance the dish.

Course 6: Another dish not listed on the menu was this course of smoked veal tartare, served with grilled onions and dusted with broccoli. Soft, roughly cut pieces of veal appeared to literally dissolve on the tongue, while the acidity from the grilled pickled onions cut through the beefy fat nicely. The broccoli added some welcome vegetal bitterness. Such a well thought combination of flavours. Faultless.

Course 7: Ravioli, Persil (Ravioli, Parsley). So we have a simple parsley ravioli nestled under some parsley leaves right? Well, not quite so simple. For hidden in the raviolo, which was made from exquisitely thin pasta, was a warm liquid egg yolk that oozed out so seductively over the plate that the dish should probably come with an 18 rating.

Course 8: Grenouilles Meunière (Frogs' Legs Meunière) Next was a dish that didn't appear on the tasting menu, but one we saw on the à la carte menu and simply had to try. I mean who comes to a restaurant called La Grenouillère without eating frogs' legs? The frogs' legs were served family style in a large tray having first been dredged in flour and sautéed in butter and lemon. They were accompanied by small crisp croutons, which gave a textural contrast and had the added bonus of soaking up all the delicious juices. This was another imperious display of Gauthier's skills and it vanished in a matter of minutes, leaving behind a small neat pile of froggy bones. And yes, they taste just like chicken.

Course 9: Next, a large bunch of stinging nettles was brought to the table. "Please take one," instructed the waiter pointing to a small pillow-like square nestled in the middle of the nettles. Bracing myself for the inevitable stinging pain, I reached in to grab one of the pillows and placed it on the table, my hand miraculously unscathed. The pillow was actually a soft doughy square of bread filled with a warm nettle purée, rich with the fragrance of a spring walk along the riverbank.

Course 10: Homard, Genièvre (Lobster, Juniper). Plates of burning juniper branches were theatrically served next, nestled in the middle of which was a fat succulent lobster tail. We were to dive in and eat the lobster tail with our fingers. The lobster was beautifully sweet and tender, and had been gently perfumed with the fragrant smoky scent of juniper. I really enjoyed this dish; clever presentation and great execution.

I should add, though, that living in Norway has completely spoiled me when it comes to shellfish, the quality of which is unimpeachable and is surely some of the best seafood in the world as a result of the cold pristine northern waters. This dish was very similar in concept to the magnificent langoustine and pine course served at Oslo's two Michelin-starred Maaemo. And as these dish were so similar, I couldn't help but marvel at just how special Norwegian shellfish really is.

Course 11: Gnocchi, Truffe d'Été (Gnocchi, Summer Truffle). A clever little dish was next in the form of a playful take on the classic Italian gnocchi. A potato had been encased in crisp black pepper spiked pasta and silky smooth goose egg yolk was poured over the top straight from the shell. The black pepper packed quite a kick that was tamed by warm comforting potato, while the egg yolk bound everything together nicely. There were truffles in there too, somewhere, which is always a good thing in my book.

Course 12: This was followed by a wonderfully crazy dish. An enormous morel mushroom had been stuffed with sweetbreads and garnished with dainty thin cones of raw turnip. This was savouriness turned up to 11 – dense and meaty, full of earthy and gamey flavours. It was heavenly, and quite nearly the straw that broke the camel's back (stomach?), but a few minutes break saw us ready to continue.

Course 13: A reviving dish of spinach with a risotto of green wheat grains was next, the grains having a satisfying chewy bite to them.

As the evening progressed I stopped to look around the dining room. The huge glass windows that looked out onto the surrounding gardens ensured that the light was constantly changing throughout the meal. Bouchain's design of the new building stipulated that there was to be no outside lighting, so as the night drew in the outside world appeared to vanish and soon we were left looking at our reflections in the darkened windows. It's a simple, but effective trick and adds a touch of magic to an already beautiful dining room.

Course 14: A neat stack of burnt leeks, bitter and sweet, were served with the lactic tang of a goat cheese-like cream. Another fantastic dish.

Course 15: Cutlets of tender, pink Boulogne lamb were served with potato purée and ash-dusted mushrooms. A plate brimming with sautéed spring truffles was then brought to the table, which turned this humble and hearty dish into something positively decadent. This was a great example of cooking at its best; keep it simple and let the produce shine. And what produce it was – the French countryside at its best!

Course 16: A large vat of a mysterious golden liquid was brought to the table. The waitress then proceeded to decant glasses of the liquid using a strange mouth pump contraption. A large slab of honeycomb was then brought to the table and pieces were cut out and placed on a spoon and doused with a few drops of lemon juice. The liquid, of course, turned out to be homemade mead made from the local honey. This was a wonderful combination, the honey being light and floral while the lemon juice stopped it being too cloying. One for the honey-lovers, and love it I did.

Course 17: Pomme de Terre, Fraise (Potato, Strawberry). A white chocolate shell covered with potato was broke open to reveal a thick jammy strawberry centre. The real surprise was the dusting of an intensely sour white powder, a bit like the stuff sour candies are made from, which served to intensify the strawberry flavour.

Course 18: This was followed by one of the most beautiful and exciting desserts I've ever had. Tall batons of meringue were carefully placed in a base of sea buckthorn mousse and served with wild marjoram and a tart sea buckthorn purée. The effect was explosive, a riot of fresh sweet and sour flavours combined with soft and crunchy textures that the brain at first struggled to comprehend. Absolutely sublime!

Course 19: Cacao, Pissenlit (Cocoa, Dandelion). A bizarre angular structure of different preparations of chocolate (sorbet, praline, sablé biscuit) was liberally covered with dandelion flowers. I'm not usually a fan of chocolate desserts, finding them to often be too heavy, so it's testament to how good this one was that I actually finished it with glee.

Course 20: A crisp translucent sugar shell contained sorrel ice cream and was garnished with fresh mint and sweet cicely. This was a lovely cooling, fragrant and reviving dish.

Course 21: Our final course was an inventive dessert of avocado and pistachio sponge, fresh avocado and grass sorbet – a combination of flavours that sounds implausible on paper, but which was absolutely heavenly. Fresh, cooling sorbet, tasting like a newly mown meadow, creamy avocado, and a touch of exotic nutty aromas from the pistachios was a dream to eat.

And with that, as the clock struck midnight, the spell ended and we retired to our rooms to reflect on the meal we had just experienced. It's difficult to sum up a visit to La Grenouillère. On the surface it seems so old world; a Picardy family restaurants that dates back over a hundred years is hardly the place you'd expect to find cooking as inventive as this. Yet Gauthier's delightfully eccentric style in the kitchen produced one of the best meals I've had in France.

Although Gauthier's style may be eccentric, his is not a scattershot approach, being keenly focussed with perfect technical execution. On each plate Gauthier picks two or three flavours and combines them in new and surprising ways (chocolate and dandelion, or lobster and juniper, anyone) to create something beyond its constituent parts. His focus is on delighting with fresh, wild flavours, using produce in ways you wouldn't expect. Gauthier is also not afraid of challenging diners and isn't trapped in the mould of trying to please everyone all the time. He won't compromise on a dish even if only twenty percent of diners like it. But it's a focus and determination that pays off handsomely.

A visit to La Grenouillère is an all-encompassing experience too. From the flawless and friendly service of the front of house team, led by the affable and charming Pascal Garnier, to the rustic luxuriousness of the rooms and the simple breakfast spread that awaits you the next morning. Indeed, for what it's worth, I find it somewhat surprising that La Grenouillère is listed in the Michelin Guide with 'only' one star, for surely this is one of the most exciting and innovative restaurants in France at the moment? And I for one certainly plan on making a special journey back.

Food: 9 / 10
Service: 10 / 10
Ambiance: 10 / 10

La Grenouillère
Rue de la Grenouillère
62170 La Madelaine sous Montreuil
France
Tel. +33 3 21 06 07 22

Maaemo, Oslo – Restaurant Review (Jan '13)

noreply@blogger.com (Nordic Nibbler) — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 14:00:00 +0000

Regular readers of my blog (hello, Mum) will know that I am more than somewhat enamoured by this utterly captivating restaurant. Indeed, Maaemo has been the location for some of the greatest meals of my life, and since it opened just over two years ago its food has unequivocally topped my annual list of the 10 Best Restaurant Dishes.

I've written at length about Maaemo from my previous visits to the restaurant, so I'll just try and focus on the food for this review. You can read a more comprehensive account of my meal from Starvefood, who kindly invited me to join him for this dinner.

Suffice it to say that the Maaemo team headed by chef Esben Holmboe Bang and sommelier Pontus Dahlström are serving some of the most exciting food I've had, and their use of only organic, biodynamic, or wild produce that originates mostly from within 100km of Oslo has transformed the once staid Oslo dining scene. But if you want to read more about the restaurant and the people behind it then you can read my earlier posts from Feb '11, May '11, Aug '11, Oct '11, Mar '12, Apr '12, and Jun'12.

Amuse Bouche 1: Cooling pucks of frozen nýr (a fresh, acidic cream cheese) and salty orange pearls of løyrom (Kalix bleak roe) – a nice contrast of texture and temperature.

Amuse Bouche 2: Small batons of salsify lightly pickled in juniper arrived under a smoke-filled glass cloche, which was removed with great flourish at the table to release that warming evocative smell of the campfire.

Amuse Bouche 3: Smoked rygeost cheese from Fyn in Denmark, a soft sour milk cheese, was served with crisp pieces of chicken skin and some cress.

Amuse Bouche 4: Small pucks of sloe berry-filled biodymanic beetroot, which had a sweet earthy intensity to them.

Amuse Bouche 5: Nature at its finest in the form of a single pristine bite of raw sea urchin. The urchins had been caught by Scotsman Roddie Sloan who dives for them in the icy waters off Nordskot in the Arctic Circle and they are about as good as it gets in my book – a sweet, custard-like taste of the ocean itself. Just close your eyes and imagine you're snogging a mermaid.

Amuse Bouche 6: Rømmegrøt is a traditional Norwegian staple typically eaten around Christmas time. Here, the warm sour cream porridge was elevated to Michelin level, and its silky smooth texture was enhanced by the addition of brown butter and tiny cubes of cured reindeer heart. A bowl of pure soothing comfort.

Amuse Bouche 7: Crisp chanterelle-dusted cones filled with chicken liver mousse and topped with a sweet chanterelle gel.

Amuse Bouche 8: Prawns from Hvaler served with cucumber balls, lobster mayonnaise, horseradish and smoked parsley sauce. A dish as fresh and cooling as it was beautiful.

Amuse Bouche 9: This next course hardly needs any introduction. It's been a staple of the Maaemo menu since they opened and it's still every bit as stunning as when I first tried it. Oysters from Bømlo are served as a creamy, voluptuous emulsion blanketed by a thin disc of mussel gel, while a light mussel and dill cream sauce is spooned over the top. Its taste is haunting: ethereal and fresh, a multi-layered burst of an ozone-rich sea breeze on a warm windy day.

Amuse Bouche 10: Bitter leaves of curly kale were served with a sweet caramelised onion sauce, cauliflower purée and a smoked cream sauce.

Course 1: Gran Fra i Fjor & Sjøkreps fra Frøya (Last Year's Pine & Langoustine from Frøya). Another Maaemo classic is this jaw-droppingly good dish. An enormous langoustine tail from Frøya has been lightly sautéed in pine butter and brushed with a sweet rapeseed oil, pine and vinegar emulsion. A pine infusion was poured over dry ice hidden around the dish releasing clouds of pine-scented smoke across the table. If you've never tried a Norwegian langoustine in its prime before, then biting into the sweet, fresh tail will be one of those life-affirming moments. Incredible!

Drink pairing: A fruity and acidic 2011 Egon Müller Riesling QbA Scharzhof that was a good foil to the sweetness of the shellfish.

Course 2: Kamskjell & Gulrot (Scallops & Carrot). Raw diver scallops from Frøya were served with scallop mousseline, seabuckthorn gel, pickled carrots and carrot vinaigrette. This was a light and fresh dish, with the fluffy mousseline and sweet scallops cut with the sharpness of the berries and pickled carrots.

Drink pairing: A 2011 Sydre Argelette from Eric Bordelet, a wine-like cider made from over 20 different varieties of apples, whose flavours echoed that of the seabuckthorn nicely.

Course 3: A surprise extra dish arrived next in the form of a nugget of flaky white cod that had been lightly torched and topped with a sliver of poached Arctic monkfish liver. A clear buttery rosehip vinaigrette sauce was spooned over the top. This was a gorgeous dish, with the monkfish liver tasting every bit as good as the best foie gras.

Course 4: Hvete (Wheat). Maaemo's separate bread course was next. Here, warm bread rolls made from wheat and wild emmer flours from Holli Mill in Spydeberg were served on squares of traditional Norwegian matpapir (food wrapping paper) with individual pots of whipped salted butter from Røros.

Drink pairing: A refreshing wheat beer from the tiny Bøgedal microbrewery in Vejle, Denmark, which had spicy notes of orange and coriander seed.

Course 5: Sellerirot & Eple (Celeriac and Apple). Celeriac pieces had been baked in salt for five hours and were served with caramelised celeriac cream, crystal clear apple flavoured sage pearls and juices from the baked celeriac.

Drink pairing: 2008 Silvaner Spätlese Trocken from Rudolf May, which lent a bitter freshness to the sweet vegetal grassiness of the celeriac.

Course 6: Løk fra i Fjor med Aquavit (Onions from last year with Aquavit). Pristine fillets of Arctic char came served with pickled onions filled with elderflower purée and topped with discs of red onion gel. An aquavit and wheatgrass sauce was poured over the top tableside. The slightly raw pungency of the pickled onions was tamed with the sweet purée and was a great match with the oily fish.

Drink pairing: A 1998 Riesling Auslese "Ürziger Würzgarten from Jos. Christoffel Jr. Typically quite sweet, the age of this Auslese took the edge off its sugariness and it was full of lively flavours of apples.

Course 7: Another surprise extra course was this little number of fenalår baked potatoes served with grated dried egg yolk and a dollop of warm creamy cheese from the island of Hitra. A wonderfully warming dish, with a nice contrast in textures.

Drink pairing: A powerful and heady 2010 Viré-Clessé from Les Héritiers du Comte Lafon in Burgundy.

Course 8: Brent Purre med Kalvetunge (Burnt Leek and Veal Tongue). An immaculate dish of burnt leeks topped with veal tongue and served with dots of apple-ramson gel, a poached quail egg yolk and an acidic ramson and bone marrow sauce.

Drink pairing: A 2010 Chateauneuf-du-pape from Château de Beaucastel – a smooth and rich white made from 80% Roussanne and 20% Grenache Blanc, whose notes of flowers and honey brought out the sweetness of the leeks.

Course 9: Reinsdyr & Jordskokk (Reindeer and Jerusalem Artichoke). Red meat is something of a rarity at Maaemo yet I've never felt its absence. So this dish of reindeer seemed all the more striking for it. Medium rare medallions of reindeer from Mo i Rana, just south of the Arctic Circle, were ridiculously tender with a mild gamey flavour. They were served with Jerusalem artichokes (roast, purée, raw slivers) and a truffle sauce.

Drink pairing: A 2006 Gevrey Chambertin 1er Cru Clos Prieur from Domaine Trapet – a soft biodynamic wine full of the soft berry flavours of pinot noir.

Course 10: Ost fra Eggen Gårdsysteri (Cheese from Eggen Farm). A welcome return of a course I first had in October 2011. Fjellblå blue cheese from Eggen Farm had been cooked with milk and then frozen in liquid nitrogen. It was served with a purée of lightly pickled black trumpet mushrooms and a sprinkling of black mushroom powder.

Drink pairing: A 1980 Mas Amiel Maury Millésime, an oxidative natural sweet wine made from 90% black grenache, 5% maccabeu, 5% carignan. A bold, yet surprisingly fresh sweet wine full of aromas of chocolate and figs that was a great match with the pungent cheese.

Course 11: Buttermilk sorbet served with brown butter and tea foam. A wonderful palate cleanser with a good contrast in textures. The cooling, fresh and slightly sour sorbet pairing really well with the sweetness and spice notes of the tea foam.

Course 12: Hvete Eddik, Rug & Mjød (Wheat Vinegar, Rye and Mead). Ice cream made from wheat beer vinegar from Herslev brewery in Denmark was served with mead gel, burnt marzipan and a crème pâtissière made from rye bread. This, our first dessert proper, was a crazy combination of flavours that at first glance sounded a little too experimental. But what a spectacular combination of flavours! Tart, acidic ice cream, chewy nuttiness from the marzipan, sweetness from the mead, shards of rye and the soothing embrace of rye cream. Paired with a sour gueuze beer this proved to be a sensational blend of flavours.

Drink pairing: A 2012 Gueuze Tilquin, a sour lambic beer with a touch of sweetness and tart fruit flavours.

Course 13: Smør fra Røros (Butter from Røros). Ahhh, hello my old friend. A dish that's never been off the Maaemo menu and one that never ceases to make me smile. A smooth, light butter ice cream is served with hazelnut-butter crumble, coffee molasses and brown butter caramel. Yes, the earth did move!

Drink pairing: A special treat in the form of a 1949 Don Pedro Ximenez Reserva Especial from Toro Albalá. Shockingly dark in colour, it was smooth as silk with a long finish of dried fruits and caramel.

Coffee is never an afterthought at Maaemo. In fact it's one of the few restaurants that takes the coffee service every bit a seriously as the rest of the dining experience. At Maaemo, coffee from one of Norway's leading roasters, Tim Wendelboe, is steeped in the traditional kokekaffe (literally "boiled coffee") style over a gas camping stove so redolent of a trip in the mountains.

Maaemo usually use their own custom-roasted beans but here we were lucky to sample some award-winning Esmeralda Special from Panama. It's one of the most sought after (and therefore expensive) coffees in the world and had a complex taste of citrus, soft fruits, bergamot and flowers. One coffee reviewer describes it as "more like diving head first into a swimming pool filled with mixed fruits," and I can't say that I disagree. A glorious cup of coffee.

Petit Fours 1: Macarons infused with a subtle taste of birch.

Petit Fours 2: "Liquid waffle." As its name suggests, this one-bite wonder burst in the mouth releasing a sweet liquid tasting exactly of Norwegian waffles.

Petit Fours 3: Nitrogen-frozen granules of brunost (Norwegian brown cheese) and strawberries.

Petit Fours 4: In an echo of our first amuse bouche was this little bite of frozen nýr except this time it was sweetened with maple syrup and filled with a sweet and sour sea buckthorn gel. A cool and cleansing bite.

Petit Fours 5: Finally, some coffee ice cream made from Tim Wendelboe's espresso blend. I'm not usually a fan of coffee ice cream, finding it to be typically too sweet and creamy. Here the balance of flavours was just right and the lightly roasted espresso beans allowed the underlying citrus and berry flavours of the coffee to shine through. A wonderful way to finish the meal.

It's clear that the Maaemo team are far from content with sitting on their laurels. In fact, the team seem to have stepped up yet another gear over the winter, and this focus and precision resulted in perhaps the most comprehensive meal I've had to date at the restaurant. Each of the 28(!) courses was beautifully executed; an exercise in Nordic aesthetics and restrained luxury, full of the clean, vibrant favours that have come to characterise Esben's cooking.

On the 14th of March, Michelin's 'Main Cities of Europe 2013' guide will be published, which covers the Nordic capitals. As of writing, the Nordics have never been home to a three Michelin-starred restaurant, and the excitement is building as to what the latest guide will reveal. For what it's worth, I think Maaemo is certain to achieve Michelin's highest accolade. Having been awarded two Michelin stars a mere year or so after opening, it remains to be seen whether this gem of a restaurant will join the rare club of three Michelin starred restaurant this time round. I for one certainly hope they do, and it would be an achievement that's thoroughly deserved. But regardless of what the Guide Rouge brings, Maaemo remains one of the best restaurants I've ever been to.

Food: 10 / 10
Service: 10 / 10
Ambiance: 10 / 10

Maaemo
Schweigaardsgate 15
0191 Oslo
Norway
Tel: +47 91 99 48 05

Inn i Granskauen — An Evening in the Norwegian Forest

noreply@blogger.com (Nordic Nibbler) — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 10:50:00 +0000

The instructions in the email were intriguingly vague. "Take the subway at 18:06 from Oslo Central Station all the way to Voksenkollen" – some twenty stops and 500 vertical metres away, and roughly where the compact urban-ness of Oslo gives way to the vast expanse of wooded hills that is Oslomarka.

Oslomarka is the Norwegian capital's playground. It's here where impressively fit Osloites come to walk, cycle and ski and generally rekindle their bond with nature, a bond that seems to be so deeply ingrained in the Norwegian DNA. But tonight the 30 people huddled in the train carriage are in for a different sort of experience. We're here for a very special culinary adventure indeed.

...read the full article on Food Studio's website here.

2012: My Ten Dishes of the Year

noreply@blogger.com (Nordic Nibbler) — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 10:03:00 +0000

Another year draws to a close and yet again I'm left wondering where all the time has gone (probably spent in restaurants judging by this post I'm sure you're thinking). Anyway, I thought I'd continue my tradition of looking back at the most memorable restaurant dishes I had over the year. I've been really lucky enough to have indulged in some epic meals this year, the highlights of which have undoubtedly been experiencing the truly magical Fäviken for the first time, a return to Noma and The Ledbury, and of course Oslo's sublime Maaemo.

So, in reverse order here is a list of the ten best things I ate in a restaurant in 2012:

10. Asparagus – Le Louis XV, Monte-Carlo

There can be few restaurants on the planet that are as over-the-top as Alain Ducasse's legendary three Michelin-starred Le Louis XV. Fortunately, though, the food doesn't share this same sense of ostentatiousness. A perfect example of this was a simple dish of steamed asparagus. Presented with great fanfare on a gold tray, the waiter then proceeded to plate up the dish (on a gold-trimmed plate), dressing the immaculately trimmed asparagus with a fluffy emulsion of soft-boiled egg, shallots, vinegar, and olive oil. The quality of the asparagus and its cooking was just outstanding and the tangy sauce perfectly complemented the fat grassy stems. To help me eat them I was given some utterly ridiculous (gold-plated, naturellement) asparagus tongs – only in Monaco.

9. McFoie Burger – Tapaç24, Barcelona

Ex-el Bulli Michelin-starred chef Carles Abellán opened this casual tapas bar just off Barcelona's bustling Passeig de Gràcia in 2007. Here you can grab a cold beer and eat from a selection of traditional as well as modern tapas. The one dish that I still think about was this bonkers take on the classic American burger, whose name has somehow managed to avoid the wrath of the Golden Arches' lawyers. The beef patty, cooked rare and loosely packed, rendering it tartare-like was mixed with foie gras and encased in a thin, crisp brioche-like bun. As if that wasn't heavy enough on its own, a small side dish contained a quenelle of foie gras ganache. The flavours were mind blowing – über rich and silky smooth beef, melting foie gras and crisp bread. Sweet, soft bites of beefy goodness. Crazily decadent!

8. BFG – The Fat Duck, Bray

The only dessert on my list this year comes from The Fat Duck in Bray. I'm not a huge fan of chocolate desserts, so the fact that I adored this one probably says everything about it. Heston Blumenthal's version of the kitsch 1970's favourite of Black Forest Gateau is a hugely technical tour de force. Layer upon delicious layer of delights such as chocolate (cake, ganache, and aerated), kirsch cream and sour cherries were encased in a spray-painted chocolate coating giving it a suede-like finish. It was topped with a sour cherry with an edible stem made from vanilla. The gateau's richness was cut with some cherry gel and kirsch ice cream. A waiter provided the finishing touch in the form of a spritz of kirsch above our table. This was a crowd-pleasing, perfectly executed dessert with a nice boozy kick to boot.

7. Ox Tartare – Manfreds & Vin, Copenhagen

Manfreds is the more casual sibling to Christian Puglisi's Relæ, which is just across the road on Copenhagen's fashionable Jægersborggade in Nørrebro. This is gimmick-free, tasty Nordic food with a hint of Italy, a good list of natural wines to wash it down, and a shabby chic cosy interior. Their 4-course menu is a steal and is probably one of the best culinary bargains in the capital. The dish that really stole my heart, though, was this exquisite tartare that has become a firm Manfreds favourite. Small cubes of roughly cut ox meat had great depth of flavour with a soft and light texture. It was served with poached egg mayonnaise, mustard seeds, curls of crisp peppery watercress and crunchy crumbs of rye. A fantastic mix of textures and flavours and an utter joy to eat.

6. Mushroom & Quinoa – Mirazur, Menton

Perched on a sun-drenched hillside almost straddling the French/Italian border is the two Michelin-starred Mirazur with achingly gorgeous views over the azure blue waters of the Mediterranean. Here, Argentine chef Mauro Colagreco produces light, vibrant, modern food that makes the most of the local area's natural produce.

One of the best courses of my lunch there was this warm dish of quinoa risotto that was served with morels, parsley brioche, different preparations of potatoes (roast, fried, crisp), parsley foam, peas, potato-parmesan cream and wild herbs. The flavours of this dish were unbelievable, being earthy and intense and full of umami goodness with a touch of freshness from the herbs, while the mushrooms were almost meat-like in their richness. This was one of the real highlights of the meal and was as comforting as a great big hug.

5. Grilled Salad – Roganic, London

Simon Rogan's London outpost, Roganic, offers a little taste of his Michelin-starred L'Enclume in the Lake District. His cooking is packed with bold flavours but remains restrained and elegant. But it's just a salad, right? Wrong! This dish completely took me by surprise at its sheer inventiveness and concentration of flavours. Salad leaves had been grilled to different degrees, with some having blackened smoky edges, others being slightly wilted, while some still had a crisp fresh bounce. The leaves were dressed with truffle custard, garlic oil, cheese foam, and cobnut crisps. Wonderfully balanced and full of complex flavours and contrasts between the soft custard, acrid burnt leaves, and crisp nuts – it was incredible.

4. Saddle of Roe Buck Deer – The Ledbury, London

Aussie chef Brett Graham's Ledbury is hands down my favourite restaurant in London and surely is deserving of a third Michelin star. A meal there never disappoints, with Graham's old school kitchen producing faultless plates of modern food that bow to no trends or fads. Graham is undoubtedly a master of game, and this dish of saddle of Berkshire roe buck deer showcased just how good he is. Tender roast venison (no sous vide fanciness here) was paired with venison sausage, beetroot, a nugget of bone marrow, cherries, cherry blossom and endives. Such a divine balance of flavours – the mild gamey meat went so well with the fruity juiciness of the cherries, the beetroot brought some earthy oomph, while the endives added a touch of welcome bitter freshness. This was game cooking at its best.

3. Sea Urchin – Noma, Copenhagen

Here, at the "World's Best Restaurant," I had one of the best dishes of the year. Pristine raw Norwegian sea urchins sat on a thin sliver of toast and were covered with a wafer thin, glassy shard made from duck stock. The crisp toast gave way to the soft and creamy urchins, which had such a delicate briny sweetness, like a savoury custard made from very essence of the ocean. There was a gentle hint of umami acidity from the addition of “lactic fermented sep water”, while the delicate duck topping added some rich salty savouriness. The star of this dish was, of course, the sea urchins, which had been caught the day before by Scotsman Roddie Sloan who dives for them in the icy waters off Nordskot in the Arctic Circle. What an extraordinary bite of food this was!

2. Scallop "i skalet ur elder" – Fäviken, Järpen

Magnus Nilsson's Fäviken is one of the most exciting restaurants I've been to. This scallop dish is one of his most iconic and perhaps the most representative of his style of cooking. Pristine scallops from Hitra on the west coast of Norway have been steamed in their shells over burning juniper branches, the meat is then separated and the cooking juices are poured back into the shell.

A deceptively simple dish, but the devil is in the details and timing is everything, with the scallops needing to be served no later than 90 seconds after being cooked. "Eat the scallop, then drink the broth," instructs Nilsson. Needless to say, its taste is something that will remain in a little corner of my mind for a very long time indeed. The enormous scallop took a good four bites to finish and was as fresh and as sweet as could be. This was as close to culinary perfection as you can get. Simply stunning!

And, finally, the best restaurant dish I ate in 2012 was ... (drum roll please) ...

1. Oysters – Maaemo, Oslo

Oslo's two Michelin-starred Maaemo is quite simply one of the best restaurants I've ever been to and for this exercise I struggled to limit myself to choosing just one dish from this amazing place. One of the many highlights of a meal at Maaemo is this extraordinary dish of oysters. This was also my number one dish in 2011, and this year I was lucky enough to experience it again. Nothing I ate in 2012 could top it and it's an experience I'll never grow tired of. I'm still amazed by its ability to stun everyone around the table into silence every single time.

Oysters from Bømlo are served as a creamy, voluptuous emulsion blanketed by a thin disc of oyster jelly, while a light mussel and dill cream sauce is spooned over the top. Its taste is haunting: ethereal and fresh, a multi-layered burst of an ozone-rich ocean breeze on a warm windy day, the very soul of the sea. It really doesn't get better than this.

So, those are my top ten restaurant dishes of the year. What have been the standout dishes of the year for you? What is your top-ten food list of 2012?

Finally, here's wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Fäviken Magasinet, Järpen – Restaurant Review

noreply@blogger.com (Nordic Nibbler) — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 08:33:00 +0000

A late afternoon in November, somewhere in Sweden, and already the inky black swathe of sky seems to envelop the rental car tightly. Two narrow yellow beams from the headlights carve out our path through the gloom over the treacherously icy roads of this mountain plateau. It's captivating, hypnotic even; the dull rumble of tyre over ice, the ghostly soft glow from the dashboard, the car seemingly piloting itself. You see, a trip to Fäviken doesn't seem so much of a journey as a pilgrimage. For what else could a jaunt to eat at a restaurant just 200 miles south of the Arctic Circle be? And, like all the best experiences in life, I never saw this one coming.

To tell the story of Fäviken Magasinet you first have to understand the turbulent history of Jämtland province in which it is located. For it is here some 1,300 years ago a band of Norwegians from North Trøndelag settled after fleeing the tyrannical rule of King Eystein Hardråde. They were led by a man called Kjettil Anundsson, who dreamed of one thing: freedom. He named the new province Jämtland, and for the next 400 years it remained an autonomous peasant republic, with its own laws, currency and even language.

Today, some 900 years later, after being conquered by Norway, governed by Denmark, and then ceded to Sweden, there's still the faint whiff of independence in Jämtland. Indeed, you may even see the blue, white and green flag of the province proudly fluttering in the breeze, and the old language of Jämsk is still spoken to this day. Mavericks, some may say, but maybe pioneers is more apt. For it is this ancient pioneering spirit that is still alive today in the people of the region, and it's this same spirit that manifests itself in everything that Fäviken does.

Suddenly, just as we feel like we've reached the edge of the world: "you have reached your destination," announces the staccato voice of the car's GPS, much to our consternation. It's pitch black outside, and at first only the evocative smell of burning birch wood marks this place out as habited. Our first tentative steps over the icy ground lead us to the source of the smell: two large metal bowls of glowing birch embers welcome us, burning bright in front of a large wooden house painted Falu red. We appear to have arrived.

Fäviken itself is an 8,400 hectare estate of sweeping hills, shimmering lakes and lush forests. It began as a farm in the late 19th century and grew to be a place where people would come to hunt, fish and eat. In 2003 the estate was bought by the hedge fund magnate Patrik Brummer who set about turning Fäviken Magasinet into a restaurant as remarkable as the landscape is beautiful.

The man tasked with running the restaurant at Fäviken is 29-year-old Jämtland native, Magnus Nilsson. Looking like a cross between a mythical Norse deity and a heavy metal guitarist his boyish enthusiasm comes across instantly.

Nilsson started his cooking career in Sweden before moving to Paris and beginning his tutelage under a certain Pascal Barbot of the three Michelin-starred L'Astrance. There he learnt perhaps the most valuable lesson a chef can learn: produce is everything.

Returning to Sweden a few years later, Nilsson continued to cook at a Stockholm restaurant but became disillusioned with the lack of decent produce and he quickly started to lose interest in cooking altogether. Training his sights on the world of wine instead, Nilsson embarked on the ambitious Master of Wine programme and spent almost two years studying oenology. He wanted to be a wine writer.

Then in 2008, a chance call from a friend working at Fäviken saw Nilsson head back north, not to cook, but to establish the estate's wine cellar. An initial three-month stint was extended, and when Nilsson's friend moved on to new endeavours, out of necessity Magnus was left in charge of the kitchen. Slowly, his passion for cooking began to return, and the Brummer family enthusiastically embraced Nilsson's plans to turn Fäviken Magasinet from a place that served moose fondues to over a hundred guests to something much smaller and more ambitious. Something that people would travel for.

Today, there are just seven chefs working in the kitchen at Fäviken serving dinner to a lucky 14 people (16 at a push) each night. Remarkably, some 50% of the chefs' time is not spent cooking in the kitchen, but on sourcing the very best produce the region has to offer. In fact one chef has full-time responsibility for managing the produce that comes in to Fäviken. And what produce it is! By virtue of its mountain location and a northerly climate tamed by the Gulf Stream, and with easy access to the coastal waters around Trondheim there's a massively diverse array of produce available, from game and meat to seafood, vegetables, wild herbs and berries.

But this isn't food that's tweaked and tweezed to within an inch of its life. It's simple, pure food with a healthy dose of respect for freshness, not only of ingredients, but of preparation too. Most times dishes are prepared and finished at the last possible moment to ensure not a single molecule of volatile flavour compounds is wasted. Nilsson is clearly a mercurial chef and his is an intuitive skill that can only come about as a result of absolute mastery of the technical elements of his craft.

Dinner at Fäviken (and it is only dinner served here) starts at 7pm sharp. Very sharp. In fact, Nilsson has been known to lock the doors and turn away latecomers at a hardly tardy 7:05pm, no exceptions! Needless to say, we had arrived on the estate early, which gave us time to check-in to our rooms – a unique mix of modern/Nordic traditional and spartan/luxurious – and get ready for dinner; for unless you live in the area, a meal at Fäviken will involve the hardship of a cosseting overnight stay followed by a mind-blowing breakfast in the morning.

Although the restaurant is usually fully booked for weeks in advance, by some quirk of fate there would be just five of us for dinner that evening. "As there are only five of you, we've decided to seat you together," announces one of the staff. "We were waiting until you had all arrived to see what you were like. You all seem like nice people." Relieved to have passed this test of normalcy, and delighted to share the experience with others (one of whom it turned out I knew virtually through the powers of the interweb) we were ushered in to a large ground floor room made from rough unfinished timbers and furnished with sheepskin covered chairs and a striking 100-year-old wolf skin coat. The room used to be a grain store, but is now used as the restaurant's lounge area and it is here that a meal at Fäviken begins and ends.

Snack: Lightly fermented turnips. While awaiting the rest of the dinner guests, my companion and I are served fermented turnips – simple wedges of crisp, cooling earthiness. And then, as I sat back on the sofa taking in the surroundings, with the hiss and crackle from the adjacent fireplace and a glass of chilled champagne in hand, suddenly everything felt, well, right.

When the rest of the guests arrived, the appetisers began in earnest and came in a whirlwind of plates.

Appetiser 1: Flaxseed and vinegar crisps, mussel dip. Tart translucent shards of flaxseeds cooked in water and potato starch had been sprayed with vinegar and came with a soft mussel emulsion dip. They were not so much 'eaten' as inhaled; nutty warmth from the seeds, the acidic bite of vinegar, and the cooling taste of the ocean from the dip.

Appetiser 2: "A little lump of very fresh cheese served in warm whey, lavender." An agitated looking Nilsson comes in and brings us our next dish. "Less talking, more eating" he gently admonishes us – such is the buzz of conversation around the table we've barely had time to finish the previous course. We do as we're told and make a start on the next dish. Except it's not so much a dish as a memory. A childhood memory of Nilsson's to be precise, one indelibly etched in his mind from a time he watched his grandmother make fresh cheese on her farm many years ago.

Very fresh raw milk from Fjällko mountain cows had been gently curdled with rennet and then cut into cubes. It was served within minutes of being made and was delicately perfumed with a single petal of dried lavender that had been gently rubbed between the fingers to release its aroma. That something so simple has the power to shock so completely is an enduring mystery to me. We're instructed to breathe in the delicate floral fragrance from the lavender then eat the whole thing in one go, like an oyster. The ambrosial, silky texture of the lukewarm cheese was astonishing – a taste of fresh milk and mountain pastures. An edible cloud.

Appetiser 3: "Wild trout's roe served in a crust of pig's blood." A dish that took two years to perfect arrived next. Brittle, shiny black croustades made from pigs' blood were filled with pigs' blood custard and topped with glistening pearls of impeccably fresh wild trout roe from the estate’s lake, which burst with salty egg yolk-like creaminess in the mouth. A creaminess that was wonderfully balanced by the metallic tang of blood. A bold, beautifully executed dish and understandably one of Nilsson's most iconic.

Appetiser 4: "Pig's head dipped in sourdough and then deep fried before being injected with sour cream." Exactly as billed on the menu, these crisp bites of hot, porky, fatty goodness were as comforting as a great big hug.

Appetiser 5: Crispy lichens, lightly soured garlic cream. Fluffy tangles of reindeer lichen and seaweed-like Icelandic moss have been steamed then deep fried to a fragile crisp. They were seasoned with shavings of dried trout and cured egg yolk. The lichens had a curious mushroom-like bitterness to them, while a garlic perfumed dipping sauce of sour cream bound everything together in the mouth nicely.

Appetiser 6: Cured sow. The last of our appetisers was slices of cured pork from a "good-sized sow." Nilsson makes all the charcuterie onsite; indeed you can see the latest examples hanging in the dining room finishing their maturation process. The thin slices of meat had a good layer of creamy fat that melted seductively in the mouth. The taste was just phenomenal too: robust, deep and savoury – as good as any Jamón Ibérico.

And with this, the end of the appetisers, we're lead up some creaky wooden stairs to the main dining room above, where our table decorated in nothing more than dried garlic bulbs was waiting for us. The room is rough and rustic, sparsely decorated with tapestries, dried herbs and hanging meats. Over the speakers traditional Jämtlandian folk music is playing, with its shrill, eerie, and hypnotic sound of the fiddle seemingly transporting us back hundreds of years to a bygone era.

Course 1: Scallop "i skalet ur elder" cooked over burning juniper branches. Another iconic Fäviken dish – perhaps the most representative of Nilsson's cooking – heralds the start of the main courses. Pristine scallops from Hitra on the west coast of Norway have been steamed in their shells over burning juniper branches, the meat is then separated and the cooking juices are poured back into the shell.

A deceptively simple dish, but the devil is in the details and timing is everything, with the scallops needing to be served no later than 90 seconds after being cooked. "Eat the scallop, then drink the broth," instructs Nilsson. Needless to say, its taste is something that will remain in a little corner of my mind for a very long time indeed. The enormous scallop took a good four bites to finish and was as fresh and as sweet as could be. We greedily dunked them into the iodine saltiness of the broth and then drank the rest of the liquid straight from the charred shell. This was as close to culinary perfection as you can get. Simply stunning!

Course 2: Lobster, fermented and dried mushrooms, rosehip. Next, a dish of lobster, grilled so that it is still almost raw in the middle. Rosehips added a sweet and sour note, while dried mushrooms added a meaty umami punch. Another wonderful dish.

Course 3: Skate and onions. Soft skate, cooked to translucent exquisiteness was served with petals of sharp onions and a herb sauce. I loved the boldness of this dish, the way the flavours of the onions were left unmasked, their raw pungency going so well with the sweetness of the skate.

Course 4: Monkfish grilled over the fire, carrot cooked in whey, spruce and "attika" vinegar. Norwegian monkfish had been grilled over an open fire so that the outside retained a gentle smoky char while the centre remained rare, glowing a pretty pearlescent pink. It was served with a baton of carrot cooked in whey, whose caramelised lactose intensified the sweetness of the vegetable. A small, but very potent dollop of spruce jelly made with alcoholic ättika vinegar really set this dish alight, its cooling flavours of the forest almost fizzing on the tongue.

Course 5: Raw mussel and pea pie. Then, a one bite wonder of raw mussel served in a shortcrust shell made from Jämtlandian grey pea flour and filled with an emulsion made from fermented pulses. Although devoured in a couple of seconds, this dish requires a huge amount of effort to construct, requiring a whole year to produce both the fresh and fermented components.

Course 6: "Very fresh potatoes cooked with autumn leaves that have been decomposing under the snow during the winter." Next, we dug into a pile of decomposing autumn leaves, smelling of warm earth and wet forests, and picked out small sweet-tasting potatoes, which we crushed between our fingers and dipped into some fresh salted butter.

Course 7: Steamed leek, cream whisked with mead, dried and grated cod's roe. Another minimalist masterpiece was a single leek, steamed and served with yeasty mead cream and seasoned with salty dried cod's roe.

Course 8: "Porridge of grains and seeds from Jämtland finished with a big lump of butter, broth filtered through moss." A hearty porridge made from various grains was finished with lashings of smooth butter and a beef broth filtered through moss was poured over the top. This dish was a riot of textures – its comforting warmth acting like central heating for the soul.

Course 9: Marrow, dices of raw cow's heart, turnips, toast, and herb salt. When Nilsson next comes into the dining room it is with one of his cooks who is carrying a large roasted bone that instantly fills the room with its smell. The cow's femur is set on a wooden block in the middle of the room and Nilsson begins to saw through the bone brutally like some medieval surgeon. The bone is then taken away and the molten ooze of marrow is extracted from its core. The still-pink marrow is then mixed with dices of surprisingly tender raw cow's heart and crisp grated turnip. We place a little spoonful of the mixture on slices of grilled sourdough, sprinkle some lovage salt over the top and tuck in. This is rich, dense, hearty food – food to get your blood pumping and a joy to eat. One of the true highlights of the meal.

Course 10: Sirloin from a retired dairy cow matured for 6 months, sour onions. And then there was beef. Oh, the beef! Remember the first time you tried real Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese as opposed to the fake dandruff-like powdered stuff, or real vanilla instead of the chemical-laced flavouring? Remember what a revelation it was? Well that's how I felt about this beef.

Meat at Fäviken is purchased as whole animals, usually when they are still alive. The restaurant then takes care of butchering and ageing so as to give it absolute control of the final quality. And what glorious quality it is. The piece of beef we were served came from a local 10-year-old dairy cow that had been dry-aged for a staggering 6 months. To give you some comparison, most beef you'll find in a supermarket comes from castrated bulls of around two years and you'll be lucky if it's been aged at all, while the best steakhouses will typically dry-age their beef for around a month. Be in no doubt then, this is seriously radical stuff.

The beef had been roasted in a pan; its level of doneness judged only by sight and touch, which in today's world of sous vide machines and meat thermometers seems fantastically quaint. The result is something really quite extraordinary: a piece of tender beef – not too tender, mind – with a good outer charred layer yielding to pinky rare in the middle. Its flavour was profound, complex, and nutty; the ultra long dry-ageing serving to intensify all those meaty flavours and add a slight blue-cheese gaminess to it. It was garnished simply with some acidic, yet creamy, sour onions that had been gently cooked in whey and some sliced root vegetables. This was beef from an animal that's worked for a living. Beef in dazzling Technicolor. Beef as it should be.

Course 11: Next, a simple cheese course of thin slices of black radish, reduced yoghurt whey and chunks of bitingly sharp local cheese.

Course 12: Fermented lingonberries, thick cream, sugar, blueberry ice. And then, all too quickly, desserts are upon us. The first of which was another product of Nilsson's childhood memories. Ruby coloured vattlingon, or fermented lingonberries, were served like jewels on a long wooden spoon with a dollop of thick cream and a sprinkling of sugar, while another spoon held a scoop of refreshing blueberry ice.

Course 13: Egg yolk preserved in sugar, crumbs of pine bark cake, ice cream seasoned with meadowsweet. The next dessert needed a little input from us to complete and we were instructed to mix together an egg yolk preserved in sugar with crumbs of pine bark shortbread. "Like you're making cement," says Nilsson encouragingly. Pine bark has been used to make flour for thousands of years in the Nordics, but its use in baking nowadays is a bit of a lost art. Here the sablé-like crumbs bound in the thick luxurious egg yolk had a taste of fresh pine and caramel. To go with it, some meadowsweet ice cream balanced the dryness and crunch of the pine bark biscuits and added a fantastic taste of ground almonds.

Course 14: Sour milk sorbet, raspberry jam and whisked duck eggs. The Fäviken estate used to house a dairy school for young women, and one of the things left behind was an old hand-cranked Husqvarna ice cream machine dating back to 1920. It is this same old machine that is brought into the dining room and used to make a sour milk sorbet before our very eyes. The fresh, slightly tart milky sorbet was then cocooned in vast soft folds of duck eggs whisked with golden syrup, while a little puddle of raspberry jam lay hidden underneath just waiting to be discovered. Can there be anything more comforting for dessert than milk and berries? This was a taste of summer meadows rekindled in the middle of a frosty November evening.

Petit fours: Finally we retreat back to the lounge downstairs where we are served black coffee and a large box of tricks containing a cornucopia of Nordic treats such as meat pies, raspberry ices, tar pastilles, meadowsweet candies, dried berries, sunflower seed nougat, and smoked toffees. We also managed to make a fair dent in the house made digestifs including a deliciously unusual duck egg liquer and one made from sour cream.

And then, sometime in the small hours, after much coffee and laughter, we retire upstairs to bed. A revitalising sauna for some and a long dreamless sleep (I'm guessing) for others. Except I couldn't sleep. Lying on the crisp cotton sheets of my bed in the pitch-black silence of the moonless night my mind was working overtime trying to understand the meal I'd just had. The sights, sounds, smells and flavours (my god, the flavours!) going round and round in my head like a whirling dervish.

Daylight brought little respite for my overworked mind, but I didn't have time to dwell on this, as it was soon time for more food. A magical breakfast had been laid out for us – groaning plates of eggs, tjukkmjølk (yoghurt-like sour milk), cloudberries, cheese, cured reindeer, pâtés, porridge and the most heavenly freshly baked thimble biscuits. A brisk morning walk around the estate with the bracing westerly winds blowing in, then a couple of hours reading by the fireplace before the merciless march of time caught up with us and we had to leave to catch our flight back to Oslo.

So just how does one sum up those few hours at Fäviken? I've struggled with this for a while and do you know what? I don't think you can, not in words anyway. It's such a surreal yet visceral experience – emotions you feel but don't quite know how to process, and it was with a heavy heart that I got into the car to drive away. For the simple fact was that I didn't want to leave. I didn't want to leave this little piece of wild utopia, where the symbiosis of man and nature is so strong and evident in everything that is done here. I didn't want to go back to the world with its noise and angst and buy-one-get-one-free supermarket offers.

Nilsson and Fäviken have understandably been associated with the new Nordic food movement. But on reflection, there's nothing really 'new' about this cooking. Of course, I've never tasted flavours like this in my life but, if anything, this is old Nordic cuisine, just not as anyone would ever recognise it. Old traditions for preparing, cooking and preserving food have been resurrected, and a gentle, responsible bond with the land has been formed. This is food with a beautiful and enchanting simplicity; food that makes you feel connected with nature and just glad to be alive. And really, when it comes down to it, there's no better feeling than that.

Food: 10 / 10
Service: 10 / 10
Ambiance: 10 / 10 (I'd give more if I could!)

Fäviken Magasinet
Fäviken 216
830 05 Järpen
Sweden
Tel: +46 64 74 01 77

Von Porat, Oslo – Restaurant Review

noreply@blogger.com (Nordic Nibbler) — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 09:29:00 +0000

Typical, isn't it? You wait ages in the freezing cold for a bus and then two come along at once. And so seems to be the case for the Oslo food scene. Restaurant von Porat and Oslo's shiny new food hall, Mathallen, where it is located are two such examples. Already, in the two short months the restaurant has been open I can see it (and the food hall) becoming an established favourite for the capital's food lovers.

Named after a Norwegian heavyweight boxer of the 1920's, Restaurant von Porat, like its namesake came from seemingly nowhere to deliver a sucker punch that leaves fans cheering for more (OK, that's the only tired boxing cliché, I promise). Located on the mezzanine level of Mathallen, von Porat's menu is a celebration of Norwegian produce cooked simply and honestly with a focus on delivering big, robust flavours with minimal frippery. The icing on the cake is a sublime Nordic-influenced cocktail menu put together by talented ex-Bar Boca barman Anders Ugmod.

The restaurant's menu is a pleasingly straightforward affair. The dinner menu changes two or three times each season and offers a choice of 5 or 3 courses made from wonderful local produce. An equally tempting vegetarian option is also available. The real surprise though is the price. At 545 Nkr (€74) and 395 Nkr (€53) for the 5 and 3 course menus respectively, this has to be one of the great culinary bargains in one of the world's most expensive cities. It seems that restricting choice, focussing on delivering a small number of great dishes, and clever sourcing of produce really pays dividends. And the result is a meal that's as pleasing to the taste buds as it is to the wallet.

We arrive at an already bustling restaurant and perch ourselves at the counter overlooking the open kitchen. We had originally turned down a fairly cramped table in the main area of the restaurant, preferring instead to have a view of the chefs at work, and I can highly recommend you do the same. The decor, like the food, is simple but effective: unadorned wooden tables, exposed brickwork and bare-filament industrial lighting dangling overhead blend well with the exposed iron girders of the main building. There's a relaxed and pleasant buzz about the place and it's a wonderful spot to spend the evening. The one small downside of the restaurant's location is that parts of the dining room directly overlook the food hall and as a result can feel a little detached from the rest of the restaurant, especially if you're seated near the entrance. But, if you are seated there, it really is only a small downside, which the food and service more than make up for. And what food it is!

We started our meal with a tart and cooling sea buckthorn and Campari sour mixed by Anders Ugmod who, together with the folks at Oslo's eclectic Fuglen is part of the vanguard of Norwegian mixologists creating new and exciting cocktails from Nordic produce.

Our first course was a vibrant and delicious salad of pork cheeks and kale cooked with celery root, and served with pickled red onions, smoked cream, and dried blackcurrants. The pork, packed with flavour, came from Valdres some 200km to the north of Oslo and had been confited for 12 hours, rendering it beautifully tender and rich. Bitter kale was offset with soothing smoky cream, while the red onions and blackcurrants exploded with intense little bursts of flavour. Interestingly, this dish was paired with sake made by one of Japan's first female sake brewers using an ancient variety of red rice. Sweet and acidic, it had a complex smoky and umami-rich taste and was an inspired choice to go with the salad.

Next, a dish of sei (pollock) roasted in butter and served family style on one big plate with sprouts, caramelised onions, pickled mushrooms and parsley purée – a simple, but bold dish full of big flavours that was a real joy to eat. Paired with this dish was a full-bodied 2011 Grüner Veltliner Kremstal from Weingut Stadt Krems, full of notes of citrus and tropical fruit.

A little intermezzo next in the form of the most exquisite pork crackling I've had for a while. Perfectly airy rinds had been dusted with rosehip salt and MSG (you may want to watch this before passing judgement on its use). It was served with a tangy dip made from pickled plums. Simply gorgeous – I just couldn't get enough of these.

To follow, a hearty main course (again served on one large plate) of shoulder of lamb and lamb sausages served with barley cooked in lamb stock, quince, pickled golden beetroot, and salsify. A rib-stickingly good dish for these cold winter months; I loved the way the barley had absorbed all that fatty lamb goodness so none of its flavour was wasted. The quince and beetroot provided good acidity that cut right through the meat's richness. Again, another dish that was small on pretension but big on flavour. To go with the food, a lively and elegant 2009 Benjamin Leroux Bourgogne Blanc.

And because I couldn't resist, an optional cheese course of Roquefort-like Blåmandag (Blue Monday) cheese from Den Blinde Ku dairy in Ås, just south of Oslo. This was served with roast chestnut crumbs and elderberry gel. To wash it down, a sweet 2010 Forstmeister Geltz Zilliken Riesling Spätlese that had a good balance of fruit, sugar and acidity.

For dessert, a beautiful looking dish of parsnip ice cream served with parsnip purée, rye crumbs and pickled carrot, which was sweet, crisp and cooling. A really unusual combination of flavours for a dessert, but one that worked really well.

Finally, petit fours in the form of sea buckthorn jellies and little elderflower meringues, which have the wonderfully evocative name of pikekyss, meaning "girl's kiss" in Norwegian.

And with that, our bellies full and our spirits sated we wandered off home with big smiles on our faces. Von Porat fills a gaping hole in the Oslo dining scene and brings great, simple modern Norwegian food with assertive flavours at a reasonable price. Food that is served by efficient, knowledgeable staff with a pleasant informal manner. This is food you actually want to eat, food with soul, food that is equally suited to a quiet Tuesday night dinner as it is to a Saturday evening of revelry with friends. If you can't guess already, I love von Porat and I can't wait to return.

Food: 8 / 10
Service: 9 / 10
Ambiance: 8 / 10

Update 17.06.13: Von Porat today announced that they have gone bankrupt and will no longer be open for business. Whether it was the choice of location or a general level of apathy among Norwegians for affordable first-class local produce is difficult to say. But either way, it's a big loss for Oslo's food scene.

Restaurant von Porat
Mathallen Oslo
Maridalsveien 17
Oslo, Norway

Noma, Copenhagen (revisited) – Restaurant Review

noreply@blogger.com (Nordic Nibbler) — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 10:04:00 +0000

Just over two years ago I had a culinary epiphany. The event that led to this was dinner at Noma. It took me a while to process my thoughts on my meal there, but on that July night as I walked away from the old warehouse in Copenhagen's Christianshavn, I had this strange lightness of step and giddy excitement, like some spotty teenager with a newfound crush. But this wasn't to be a holiday fling, I promised myself, it was the real deal, we'd keep in touch. I vowed to come back.

So much for good intentions for it would be over two years until I returned. Courtesy of a kind invitation from Arve at Starve – "would you like to eat at Noma with us?" he asked; a question that could only possibly have one answer – I found myself standing outside that same mottled stone building looking out over the cold waters of the canal. A little flutter of butterflies in my stomach betrayed my concern. Would it be just as good as I remembered? Or was that meal one of those rare moments where the right stars aligned at the right time to create something utterly magical, never to be repeated. What if it was just a fling? How had time changed my Noma experience?

We were joined for dinner by Danish food blogger Trine Lai, who's positively a Nomaholic, having had more meals at the restaurant than I can count on my fingers and toes. In fact not even getting hit by a car while riding her bicycle earlier in the day was going to stop her eating here tonight.

A bit ahead of schedule we stood chatting outside. The door to the restaurant swung open suddenly, catching us off guard, to reveal a smiling welcoming committee of chefs, as though welcoming back their Prodigal Son. Not in that fakey American kind of way, though, but in the sparse yet genuine way people seem to communicate here in Scandinavia.

"I hope you're hungry," says René Redzepi, Noma's mercurial chef and co-founder/owner. And then with a playful glint in his eye, "Do you guys like lasagne?"

We’re seated, and with glasses of Andre Beaufort Brut Nature Réserve Champagne in hand have a moment to take in the room. Since I was here last, the restaurant has undergone a gentle makeover; less of the botox kind and more of a revitalising facial. Gone are the brown and taupe hues, to be replaced by soothing tones of grey, white, and black. There's a new oak floor and bar, while the adjoining lounge area seems to possess much more of that intangible Danish hygge. Subtly different tables and chairs complete the calm and natural look.

But it's not just the design of the restaurant that has changed. The kitchen is now presided over by Californian head chef Matthew Orlando, who's been at Noma for over four years in between stints at The French Laundry, Per Se, and The Fat Duck. Redzepi has now stepped away from much of the day-to-day running of the pass to focus on being the guiding spirit for the evolution of Noma's food, spending much of his time in the test kitchen upstairs overseeing the creation of new dishes. Gone also is the formidable presence of Swedish sommelier Pontus Elofsson. Instead, the Norwegian (yay!) Mads Kleppe takes over this role and, for good reason, continues his predecessor's famous ban on Bordeaux (too full-bodied, too many chemicals).

But I've barely had time to contemplate these changes when the meal is upon us with arrival of the first flurry of the many opening ‘snacks.’

Snack 1: Malt flatbread and Juniper. Awaiting our arrival at the table was a vase filled with what, at first glance, looked like a pretty table decoration. This would actually turn out to be the first of our many ‘snacks’ before the main courses began in earnest. In the vase were twig-like sticks of crispy malt flatbread, dusted with juniper. We plucked them out of the vase and dipped them into some crème fraîche; a clever and playful way to start the meal, bringing smiles of surprise to the table.

Snack 2: Moss and Cep. An ethereally light tangle of this pale lichen had been fried to a fragile crisp and dusted with cep powder. Its flavour was a fleeting thing of damp earthiness, while the mushroom powder gave it an umami kick of savouriness.

Snack 3: Crispy Pork Skin and Blackcurrant was a delicious airy fried pork rind wrapped in a thin strip of tangy blackcurrant ‘leather.’ The best bar snack ever?

Snack 4: Blue Mussel and Celery. A plate of beautiful blue mussel shells arrived bearing three seemingly unopened specimens. We were instructed to discard the top shell off these, leaving the mussel in the bottom half of the 'shell,' and then eat the whole thing, shell and all. A little bit sceptical I gingerly bit into the inky black shell, to find it completely edible and completely delicious; its crunch contrasting nicely with the sweet mussel and soft creamy celery. I’ve no idea how the edible shell was made, but it was apparently a direct result of the weekly ‘projects’ that Noma chefs work on and which Redzepi oversees in the upstairs test kitchen.

Snack 5: Cheese Cookie, Rocket and Stems. An old biscuit tin was placed on the table and opened to reveal small delicate 'cookies' made with a sharp Swedish cheese (Västerbotten, I think) that went well with the vegetal freshness of the rocket.

Snack 6: Potato and Duck Liver. A sandwich of crispy strands of potato and creamy duck liver mousse dusted with black trumpet mushroom powder was wonderfully moreish with a satisfying contrast in texture.

Snack 7: Shrimp and Butter. Quite possibly one of the most challenging things I have eaten was a dish I had been anticipating with some trepidation. A kilner jar was opened to reveal three seemingly docile fjord shrimp ‘sleeping’ on some crushed ice. A quick poke of one of them revealed them to be anything but sleepy. In fact, they were very much alive and, judging by the way they were frantically wriggling, seemed very much aware of their impending fate.

Holding onto the little critters was a challenge in itself, with mine being positively hyperactive, bucking like a rodeo horse at the faintest prod. “Yeah, we’ve had trouble with him all night,” joked head chef Matt Orlando as he mercifully offered me the use of some tweezers for better grip.

The trick it seems is to dip them into some brown butter emulsion – whereupon they are momentarily stunned – and just go for it. A little squirm on the tongue, a quick scratching at the roof of your mouth, stilled as you crunch into them. It’s quite a disconcerting feeling, and after the initial rush of adrenalin subsides, your first sensation is one of surprise. It tastes like the freshest, sweetest prawn you could possibly imagine. A brief Eureka moment, as you realise that this is what prawns are meant to taste like!

A culinary stunt it may well be but, as a way of forcing you to confront exactly what is on your plate and focus your mind on the fact that everything we’ll eat here has at some level been living, it’s a little piece of genius that’s in stark contrast to the dish’s pure simplicity.

Snack 8: Dried Carrot and Sorrel. On an ash plate lay batons of dehydrated carrot. Removing much of the water from the humble carrot served to intensify its flavours and gave it a chewy rather than crunchy texture. They were dipped into sorrel sauce painted onto a plate. It was a simple, yet beautiful dish in both flavour and presentation.

Snack 9: Caramelised Milk and Cod Liver. One of my favourite snacks was this one of frozen cod liver, thinly shaved and served on a disc of crisp caramelised milk and sprinkled with kelp salt. It melted seductively on the tongue and was utterly sublime, with a rich creaminess from the liver and gentle sweetness from the milk. Surely this is Scandinavia’s answer to foie gras on toast?

Snack 10: Pickled and Smoked Quail’s egg. A Noma classic next, and one of the only two dishes common to my first meal here two and a half years ago. A porcelain egg was opened, releasing a wisp of warming smoke and revealing lightly smoked and pickled quail's eggs. The eggs were consumed in one go with the warm silky yolk exploding in the mouth.

Snack 11: Radish, Soil, and Grass. Again, another classic Noma dish next. Radishes were served in a small terracotta pot. Everything was to be eaten, including the leaves, which were pleasantly bitter with a peppery bite. A 'soil' made from crushed malt, hazelnuts and beer sat on a creamy dip made from sheep's milk yoghurt and grass. It was great fun to play gardener and pull out the radishes and scoop up the 'soil' with them.

Snack 12: Toast, Sea Urchin, and Duck. For this next course we would play happy guinea pigs for a brand new dish that would turn out to be one of the best things I’ve tasted all year. A thin sliver of toast held pristine raw Norwegian sea urchins that were covered with a wafer thin, glassy shard made from duck stock.

The crisp toast gave way to the soft and creamy urchins, which had such a delicate briny sweetness, like a savoury custard made from the very essence of the sea. There was a gentle hint of yeasty sourness (presumably from the addition of some mysterious sounding “lactic fermented sep water”), while the delicate duck topping added some rich salty savouriness. What an extraordinary bite of food this was!

The star of this dish was, of course, the sea urchins, which had been caught the day before by Scotsman Roddie Sloan who dives for them in the icy waters off Nordskot in the Arctic Circle. To give you some idea of the man’s sheer passion for sea urchins (sea urchins have literally become part of him from the many spikes that have become embedded in his body over the years) check out this video of his speech at the Mad Symposium this year. It’s really quite remarkable and shows you the lengths both he and Noma go to get produce of this stunning quality.

Snack 13: Æbleskiver and Muikku. Æbleskiver are traditional Danish doughnut-like pastries, typically eaten at Christmas time. However, Noma has created a very different version of this to create what is now one of the restaurant’s most iconic dishes. The sweet beignet-like pastry contained a ball of lightly pickled cucumber and was skewered by a whole muikku, a small freshwater whitefish found in northern Europe and a delicacy in Finland. It was absolutely delicious; a mix of sweet, sour, and salt, and I loved the way they sat there on the plate looking like little Viking helmets.

Snack 14: Veal Neck and Seaweed. An impossibly labour intensive dish of veal was next. Here, veal neck had been gently braised and then the individual muscle fibres were painstakingly separated one by one into single strands with tweezers. The strands were then formed into a ball and then deep-fried, dotted with crème fraîche, and slicked with some seaweed oil. They were fantastically light and crisp with a deep savouriness enhanced by the seaweed, and I’m sure I also detected a hint of liquorice. I still cannot believe how much work must go into this one extraordinary bite of food.

Snack 15: Sorrel Leaf and Cricket Paste. The next course was insects. Crickets to be precise. Tangy sorrel leaves, seemingly sprouting from a block of ice, were smeared with a dark sticky paste made from fermented crickets. At the base of the leaves was a dusting of peppery nasturtium leaf ‘snow.’ This was a clever dish that acted like a palate cleanser with its cool refreshing acidity. I would never have guessed I was eating crickets, yet they brought a pleasing bitter nuttiness to the dish.

Course 1: Potato and Snails. The end to the snack section brought the arrival of the cutlery. Everything we had consumed beforehand (apart from our cheating with the prawn) was eaten with the hands. However, the first course proper was eaten not with metal fork and knife, but with twigs adorned with leaves of sorrel, ground elder and rocket flowers. We spiked the sticks into small waxy potatoes cooked in fermented butter and dusted with rosehip salt, and marvelled at the depth of flavour of the seemingly humblest of tubers.

The potatoes were accompanied by a plate of Swedish snails served with parsley and watercress, that we dragged across the creamy parsley purée as though they were reanimated and sliding across the lawn. They had a meaty richness to them that was balanced by intermittent nibbles we took from the fresh leaves at the end of our twigs.

Drink pairing: IDUN Spontangæret Øl from Den Gale Brygger in Jerslev is a spontaneously fermented beer brewed from crabapples made according to old Nordic methods. A fresh and acidic beer with a complex yeasty note.

Bread: Warm bread made from grains milled at the restaurant was served with some heavenly “virgin” butter made by Patrick “Butter Viking” Johansson and pork fat sprinkled with crisp pork skin and onion.

Course 2: Fresh Milk Curd and Blueberry Preserves was served with lemon thyme and, as I later found out, featured a paste made with forest ants that added a sour lemony tang. Noma used to serve live ants, but apparently this was a step too far for many and they have since removed it from the menu. Soft fresh curd, sweet preserve, sour acidity and herbal freshness were a great combination of flavours, although the dish could do with greater textural contrast.

Drink pairing: A 2011 Schilcher from Wein & Sektmanufaktur Strohmeier, which is a type of rosé unique to Austria made from Blauer Wildbacher grapes. This sparkling rosé had intense acidity with lots of red berry aromas that were a good match for the acidity in this dish.

Course 3: Brown Crab, Egg Yolk, and Herbs. A dish of Danish brown crab was served with crab roe, seaweed sauce, lemon verbena tea, and egg yolk, which had a wonderfully smooth, almost fondant like consistency. This was a light and vibrant dish, with a fresh taste of the sea. If someone were to distil the essence of a rock pool, then I'm pretty sure this is how it would taste.

Drink pairing: A 2011 Nature from Domaine Julien Meyer in Alsace .

Course 4: Beets and Plums was a dish of grilled beetroot, fermented plums with a fennel and verbena sauce. Although small, this dish packed a huge punch of flavour. The beetroot had been roasted for three hours, giving it a dense, meaty texture with a mild hint of liquorice. Each bite exploded with complex flavours and my brain struggled to take them all in – caraway, chamomile, aniseed, sweetness, earthiness. It was really quite extraordinary.

Drink pairing: Quite possibly the greatest name for a wine. Ever. A 2009 'In A Gadda Da Vida' Rosé Extra Brut from Austrian winemaker Christian Tschida, named after the seminal 1968 17-minute long psychedelic rock song by Iron Butterfly.

Course 5: Oysters from Limfjorden, Gooseberry, and Buttermilk arrived on plates of damp smooth rocks, as though just lifted from their home in North Jutland. Once kept exclusively for the royal table, these oysters are some of the best around; the low salinity and cold waters of Limfjord concentrate their flavours giving them a slightly nutty taste. They were served with seaweed, a smooth, cooling buttermilk sauce, and lacto-fermented gooseberries, giving the dish a little acidic lift.

Drink pairing: A 2010 Bourgogne Aligote from Alice & Olivier de Moor was a real showcase for natural wine – mineralic, fruity and wonderful. With Aligote this good, who needs Chablis?

Course 6: Cauliflower and Pine, Cream and Truffle arrived looking beautiful, yet restrained. Roast cauliflower was served with pine oil and horseradish cream. "One of the things Thomas Keller used to say to me was 'you can never have too much truffle'," proclaims head chef Matt Orlando, as he presents a basket brimming with Gotland's finest black truffles. "Just tell me when to stop," he says smiling, as he slices a never ending cascade of beautifully marbled slices of pungent black gold over our plates, elevating the dish to the realms of unbridled luxury.

I loved this dish, not least for the heady aromas of truffle, instantly activated by the warmth of the food, but for the great combination of sweet, soothing cauliflower, pungent horseradish and refreshing pine.

Drink pairing: A 2010 Côtillon des dames from Jean-Yves Péron, a vibrant orange natural wine made from Jacquère and Altesse grapes with notes of apples and yeast.

Course 7: Pike Perch and Cabbages, Verbena and Dill. A beautifully plated dish of soft, silky pike perch gently cooked in a cabbage leaf and served with a creamy sauce made from the fish's bones and a vibrantly green verbena and dill sauce.

Drink pairing: A 2010 Chardonnay Les Boutonniers from Les Dolomies.

Course 8: Beef Cheeks and Bitter Greens, Hazelnuts and Mushrooms marked yet another high point of the meal. Beef cheeks had been cooked very slowly at 72°C and served with grilled bitter greens chanterelles and crisp fresh hazelnuts. A complex mix of textures and rich deep flavours, this dish was a total joy to eat.

Drink pairing: A silky and powerful 2008 Grange des Pères made from a blend Mourvèdre, Syrah, and Cabernet Sauvignon grapes was full of flavours of ripe dark fruit and spice.

Course 9: Potatoes and Plums. That's right, potatoes and plums for dessert. And who am I to argue with that logic as it was simply one of the best desserts I've had all year. Angular strips of potato purée and plum gel were served with a dollop of plum seed cream. Sharp, intense sourness from the plum, comforting earthy stodginess from the potato, and the utter surprise of marzipan sweetness from the plum seed cream. I'm going to be having warm fuzzy dreams about this dessert for a while I think.

Course 10: Øllebrød. A take on a traditional Danish breakfast dish was this dessert of rye bread soaked in beer and served with skyr sorbet, milk foam and rye crumbs. A great combination of sweet, sour, fresh, malty all in one bite.

Course 11: Yeast and Sea Buckthorn. Our final dessert was an unusual bite of aerated caramel made with sourdough starter and sea buckthorn berries served with elderflower salt and whipped skyr. The idea was to spread some skyr on the caramel and sprinkle a bit of the salt over it. The caramel had a texture just like a Soreen malt loaf (this is a great thing in my book) and the mix of flavours was so complex with all six taste senses working overtime to register everything.

Drink pairing: Desserts were paired with a 2009 Coteaux du Layon Vieilles Vignes from Bruno Rochard.

Petit Fours: We then moved to the cosiness of the adjoining lounge to finish our meal with little treats, coffee and digestifs.

And then, almost as quickly as it begun, it's over. Matt Orlando comes across to give us a tour of the kitchen and the test kitchen upstairs. I got a real sense for the sheer complexity and effort that is needed for a restaurant like Noma to exist. Some 40 or so chefs from around the world, half of whom are stagiaires, are needed for a dining room that seats 42. But you never get a sense of the restaurant's size, it always feels familial and the levels of energy and creativity are positively palpable.

The front-of-house and kitchen seem seamlessly integrated, and the service, with each chef presenting his or her dish to the table, is a model that most high-end restaurants should aspire to. It's warm, generous, totally unpretentious and a joy to behold.

But what's immediately obvious is that the food at Noma has really stepped up several gears since I was last here two and a bit years ago. While the food is still presented simply and beautifully, and the focus on produce is just as obsessive, the flavours now seem truly turbo-charged. The frequent use of fermentation lends such a deep complexity to many dishes, bringing out new and unusual flavours from seemingly familiar ingredients. Whereas before there might have three or four main flavours on the plate, now there seems to be many more layers working together, all perfectly balanced.

Noma has stayed true to its guiding principles first laid out almost 10 years ago. But what is so impressive is how this relatively dogmatic approach has yielded such stunning results. By limiting their palette to produce from the Nordics, Noma has succeeded in pushing the boundaries of our understanding and relationship with food in these northern climes. For by limiting your resources, you're forced to imagine and invent; two fundamental traits of our very human condition.

As I left the restaurant that night with that strange yet familiar feeling of walking on air (no, it wasn't the aquavit's fault), I realised how complete an experience a meal at Noma is. It's truly up there with the greats, and the restaurant world will be feeling its effects and influence for a long time to come. Far from being a summer fling, I think this one might just be a keeper.

Food: 10 / 10
Service: 10 / 10
Ambiance: 10 / 10

Noma
Strandgade 93
DK-1401 Copenhagen K
Denmark
Tel: +45 32 96 32 97

Food Studio x Maaemo x Tim Wendelboe

noreply@blogger.com (Nordic Nibbler) — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 10:02:00 +0000

“The river flows in the rear of the towns, and we see all things from a new and wilder side.
The fields and gardens come down to it with a frankness, and freedom from pretension, which they do not wear on the highway.”

― Henry David Thoreau

There's the whisper of a chill in the Oslo air these days. The nights are drawing in and the leaves on the trees are just starting to give up their chlorophyll green. Autumn's here, and with it will soon come the bracing cold and frost. It's not quite here yet, but you know it's in the post, that's for sure. So I thought I'd take a fond look back at a unique event, held when the nights were longer and the air was warmer and long lazy dinners under the sky were the order of the day. For on that July night, in the middle of urban Oslo, a small secluded spot on the banks of Oslo's meandering Akerselva river played host to a very special evening indeed.

Food Studio is a wonderful and relatively recent addition to the Oslo food scene. Founded by the ever-smiling Cecilie Dawes, Food Studio unites an eclectic mix of designers, photographers, and food professionals to create experiences around natural Nordic cuisine. For this, their third event, Food Studio teamed up with Maaemo, Oslo's stunning two-Michelin starred restaurant (a place you may have heard me mention once or maybe twice) and Norway's 'King of Coffee', Tim Wendelboe, to create the enchanting experience of dining al fresco on the banks of the Akerselva River.

The fun began a few weeks before the event itself, when it was announced that there'd be just 20 tickets available. The tickets would be sold via a roving cyclist who'd be wandering around Oslo on a particular day. Rather cryptically we were told to keep an eye on Food Studio's Twitter feed for clues about where this mysterious cyclist would be. As it turned out, the cyclist only made it to two destinations before all the tickets sold out. I was lucky enough to bag two tickets (cue much stressing as I raced across Oslo to rendezvous with the elusive bicyclist) and, with tickets in hand, a growing sense of excitement started to build. I'm pretty sure this was how Charlie Bucket felt knowing he'd get the chance to experience that magical chocolate factory. I couldn't wait!

Two 'golden tickets' (and a rather delicious iced Anisetta coffee from Tim Wendelboe)

Finally, the day arrived and we headed over to Food Studio HQ in Lilleborg. We were welcomed with refreshing cocktails containing tiny wild strawberries and got a chance to meet the other lucky diners. As the sun started its descent to the horizon, we walked the short distance to our table for the night and were greeted with a magical scene.

A long table had been set up on a pontoon right on the edge of the river. Great orbs of light hung from neighbouring trees and a large sail overhead provided shelter against any unkind weather gods (which thankfully never materialised). Next to us was an open fire where most of the cooking would be done, flickering and crackling and giving off that smell so evocative of open-air cooking.

Presiding over the menu for the night would be the team from Maaemo. Head chef Esben Holmboe Bang had put together a six-course menu from local organic produce, while sommelier Pontus Dahlström selected the matching drinks. This would be the first time they cook outside of their restaurant in Bjørvika.

Esben – Head Chef, Restaurant Maaemo

Pontus – Sommelier at Restaurant Maaemo. This was the wine fridge for the night.

The menu

We began our meal with aperitifs made by Anders Bakke from Oslo's Bar Boca. A drink of aquavit, rhubarb, birch and apple was delicious and quintessentially Scandinavian.

Course 1: "Østers" (Oysters). The first course was a Maaemo classic and it feels like it's become a dear old friend. Oysters from Bømlo were served as a silky smooth emulsion covered by a thin disc of oyster jelly with a light sauce of mussel and dill spooned over the top. Heavenly!

Drink pairing: A 1999 Château du Coing de Saint-Fiarce Comte de St. Hubert – a round and full muscadet with hints of minerals and passion fruit.

Course 2: "Sjøkreps med Gran Fra i Fjor" (Langoustine with last year's spruce). Another classic Maaemo dish of pristine langoustine from Frøya that had been gently cooked by the fire in pine butter and brushed with a sweet rapeseed oil, pine and vinegar emulsion. A pine infusion was poured over dry ice releasing clouds of pine-scented smoke across the table.

Drink pairing: A 2011 Brauneberger Juffer Riesling Kabinett Feinherb from Fritz Haag, an off-dry Riesling with a light and fresh mineral taste.

Pete preparing the langoustines

Course 3: "Makerell Med Den Siste Ramsløk" (Mackerel with the last ramsons). Fresh mackerel fillets from Hvaler were cured quickly in a cool sugar/vinegar/brine solution and served with dollops of apple-ramson gel and wild herbs and flowers, while a balsamic-apple vinegar & ramson oil sauce cut through the natural oiliness of the fish.

Drink pairing: An elegant and mineralic 2010 Domaine Vacheron Sancerre.

Course 4: "Hvete og Glemte Kornsorter" (Wheat and forgotten grains). Rolls of bread made from wheat, spelt and emmer flours from Holli Mill in Spydeberg were served on warm millstones. The bread is served on squares of traditional Norwegian matpapir (food wrapping paper) with individual pots of whipped salted butter from Røros.

Drink pairing: A refreshing light beer from the fantastic Bøgedal microbrewery in Denmark, which had notes of flowers, honey and almonds. As a special treat Gitte Holmboe and Casper Vorting, the husband and wife team behind Bøgedal, were present to tell us a little bit about the beer and their brewery, where everything is made by hand in the traditional method.

Course 5: "Kylling Fra Holte Gård Med Urtestilker" (Chicken from Holte Farm with Herb Stalks). Chicken breast had been cooked en sous vide in milk and was served with a stalk of chargrilled marinated spring onion, a plethora of wild herbs and a glossy sauce made from chicken stock and Røros cream. The chicken was so soft and juicy and bursting with flavour, the sauce was plate-lickingly good, while the wild herbs gave a delightful fragrant freshness. This dish was such a joy to eat.

Drink pairing: A white 2006 Chorey-les-Beune from French producer Sylvain Loichet.

Course 6: "Smør Fra Røros" (Butter from Røros). No meal at Maaemo is complete without this stunning dessert. Smooth, light ice cream made from Røros butter was spooned onto a mound of butter crumble and coffee-infused molasses. Over this was drizzled a warm brown butter caramel. Jaw-droppingly good.

Drink pairing: A sweet and light 1995 Vin Santo from Tuscan wine producer Castello di Monsanto that was full of aromas of tropical fruits, raisins, and vanilla.

We were then served coffee. But this wasn't your average cup of Joe. Former world barista champion Tim Wendelboe, who runs his own micro roastery and coffee bar in Oslo, was joined by his head roaster Tim ('the other Tim') Varney to create a truly unique coffee experience.

Wendelboe had selected a Kenyan coffee from the Kapsokisio Cooperative. It's unusual in that it comes from the west of the country, rather than the more common central region. The coffee was prepared by grinding the beans and then sifting out the finer particles to create a more uniformly sized grain. The coffee was brewed simply the old fashioned way with hot water and left to steep in a coffee pot. It was served black and needed no sugar or cream, just a little time to let it cool slightly and allow the flavours to really shine through.

If you've never tasted a lightly roasted single-origin Kenyan coffee before, be prepared to be amazed. The taste of it is so vibrant and crisp, almost juice-like. It's full of aromas of red berries and flowers, with not even a hint of the acrid bitterness that is sadly so often associated with black coffee. I'm not exaggerating when I say that this truly is world-class coffee.

Tim Wendelboe sifting away the finer grains of coffee to create a cleaner brew.

Kapsokisio by the river

Boiling water the old fashioned way

Although all the dishes were familiar to me from my previous meals at Maaemo, what really stood out was how the surroundings seemed to act as the perfect backdrop to the food. The leaves rustling in the gentle summer breeze, the sound of the babbling river an arms stretch away, and the warm smell of smoke from the open fire pit all seemed to awaken the senses and magnified the sense of vibrancy that was reflected in the beautiful plates of food. It really was a very special experience indeed, and one that I hope the Maaemo team will repeat soon.

But the night was still young! After our meal we made the short walk back to Food Studio HQ to join some 100 or so other guests that had been invited for a little celebration. Of course, this would mean more food for the hungry new arrivals. During the course of our meal we had been looking on curiously as 90kg of wild boar was buried in a cooking pit with hot stones and roasted to succulent perfection. This ancient method of cooking in Norway dates back to the Viking times; what a spectacular and primal sight it was.

You can read more about how the boar was prepared on Food Studio's website, but suffice it say that even after six courses of Maaemo's finest I couldn't resist a little taste – it was delicious. It was served to the newly arrived guests with a salad of chanterelles and smoked nuts and cumin & carrot bread.

Baking cumin & carrot bread over the cooking pit

Burying the boar with the hot stones

Stick a fork in me, I'm done!

For dessert, Tim Wendelboe and Tim Varney dished up some homemade coffee ice cream made with a rich and nutty Brazilian Sitio Canaa espresso. It was served in a light and crumbly Norwegian krumkake cone. The recipes can be found here and I urge you to have a go. This is ice cream for grown-ups, not too sweet and full of heady coffee aromas – it was gorgeous.

Tim Varney dishing up the ice cream

We spent the rest of the night chatting away to the other revellers and dancing away barefoot in the Food Studio HQ, whose floor had been covered in lush wall-to-wall grass turf. The outdoors had literally been brought inside. Of course, Anders from Bar Boca was also on hand to make some more of his divine Scandinavian inspired cocktails.

Anders Bakke mixing it up

As a parting gift, we received a goody bag full of some very unusual Norwegian treats indeed. A small vial of pine schnapps, a Polar birch drink, a bag of the excellent Kapsokisio coffee we had been served, heather honey drops, crisp bread and, perhaps most unusually, a piece of dried reindeer heart from Røros.

And so we eventually headed home, with the sound of the ongoing party getting ever fainter until we were alone in the quiet Oslo night. What a wonderful and inspiring evening it had been. It was a chance to reconnect with food in its natural surroundings, a chance to reflect on the remarkable natural bounty that Norway has to offer, and perhaps a chance to lament that this sort of produce is not more readily available. It's certainly a night I'll remember for a long time to come.

Keep an eye out for more Food Studio projects – they really are a welcome and exciting addition to the Oslo food scene and will open your eyes to new ways of looking at Norwegian food.

Sushi Tetsu, London – Restaurant Review

noreply@blogger.com (Nordic Nibbler) — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 10:04:00 +0000

I could save you some time and just say that if you're after the best sushi experience in London then go to Sushi Tetsu and be done with it. But where would be the fun in that? This tiny restaurant in an obscure Clerkenwell alleyway is serving up some of the most authentic sushi I've had outside of Japan.

Sushi Tetsu quietly opened in June 2012 and is the creation of Toru Takahashi and his wife Harumi. In just a couple of short months the restaurant has received near reverent praise from many quarters. Such is the minuscule size of Sushi Tetsu (just seven stools surround its blonde wooden counter) that many dare not even speak its name for fear that the restaurant will be fully booked in perpetuity. But it would be a shame to keep such a wonderful place a closely guarded secret. If you love the precision, theatre and ritual of authentic Japanese sushi then a pilgrimage to Sushi Tetsu is a must.

Toru Takahashi himself hails from the Yamagata prefecture of Japan, an area known for its natural beauty – a feature that seems to be reflected in the food that Toru-san serves. After spending some time training as a sushi chef in Kobe, Takahashi moved to London where he spent seven years working at Nobu. Turning his back on the famous restaurant's modern Japanese dishes such as yellowtail sashimi with jalapeño and its iconic black cod with miso, Toru-san and his wife decided to create a simpler restaurant that is more reflective of the traditional minimalist sushi bars you'd find in Japan.

And it's certainly been a labour of love for the couple. With so few seats, the restaurant is always busy for its lunch and dinner services. And what's even more incredible is that Takahashi and his wife are currently the only employees – Toru skilfully wielding his knife behind the counter, while Harumi is the ever-graceful hostess. In fact, on finishing our dinner sometime around midnight, Toru remarked that they'd be washing the dishes later as well as the prep for the next day, probably finishing sometime in the early morning. It's a gruelling workload for the couple, and Toru's even been known to set up a camp bed in the kitchen! I hope for their sakes they get some help quick and allow Takahashi to focus on what he clearly does best, which is dishing up the most sublime sushi I've had in London.

There is a menu at Sushi Tetsu, but you're best advised to leave yourself in the capable hands of the itamae and opt for the omakase menu. But be warned, the bill can add up fairly quickly. Especially if you, like me, decide that one or two pieces of the heavenly o-toro tuna is simply not enough. On both my recent visits to the restaurant the bill came to around £150 per person, but there may have been more than a bit of daiginjo sake and cold beer involved too.

We begin by watching as Toru-san elegantly prepares some impeccable cuts of sashimi: sweet scallop slicked with a mystery soy-based sauce is lightly singed with a blowtorch; soft pieces of chu-toro (medium-fatty tuna); gleaming ama ebi (sweet prawns); a quick flash of the knife creates vibrant slices of hamachi (yellowtail); and suzuki (sea bass) is coated with a refreshing ponzu sauce.

On another occasion we were again served chu-toro, yet this time we watched as Toru-san carved wafer thin slices of hirame (halibut) and arranged them in a precise fan shape, the tip of each end folded over to give it some height. The hirame had a wonderful bite to it and was dressed with the same ponzu sauce as before. Toru-san explained that he makes the sauce himself from sun-dried kombu, bitter mirin, soy sauce, yuzu, and bonito flakes. It was much lighter and more fragrant than ponzu sauces I've had before, and I could easily have drunk it on its own. My only niggle, though, was the mass-produced wasabi paste on the side. It would have been a really nice touch to use freshly grated wasabi, which has an infinitely better taste.

A damp bamboo leaf is placed in front of us, which acts as our plate for the procession of nigiri sushi that is to follow, and a small, constantly replenished mound of gari (pickled ginger) is placed on it. With a cold glass of Asahi beer in hand, we watch as Toru-san deftly crafts each piece of sushi in front of us.

Chopsticks are available, but you're encouraged to eat your nigiri in the traditional way with your fingers; a folded wet napkin is handily provided for you to clean your hands. A soy sauce dish is also provided, although this proved redundant for the nigiri sushi as they come perfectly seasoned after being brushed with soy sauce.

We began with tai (sea bream), which had a sliver of shiso leaf tucked underneath the fish. The effect was to give the whole thing a zesty peppery freshness. The first thing I noticed though was the rice. Always the mark of good sushi, the rice Toru-san makes is served at body temperature and its seasoning is well-balanced, perhaps being a tiny bit sweeter than is typical. It's perfectly formed too, having just the right stickiness and density.

Next was sake (salmon), which had a surprisingly denser texture to it than I was expecting. I probably eat salmon three times a week here in Norway, but this example was very special indeed.

This was followed by ebi (prawn), which had been boiled and lightly grilled on the underside. I usually find ebi to be the least interesting kind of nigiri, but that's probably because I've never had one as fastidiously prepared as this.

Akami (lean tuna) seemed just as succulent as its more revered fatty sibling, o-toro, but had a subtler and more complex flavour.

This was followed by o-toro, one of the highlights of the meal. And such was our love for the fatty cut of tuna belly we ended up ordering a few more pieces later in the meal, much to our credit cards' chagrin.

We watched as Toru-san picked a cut of o-toro from a wooden box containing various pieces of tuna gleaming like rubies in a jewellery box. He then sliced the fish and lightly scored each piece to increase its surface area, before brushing it with soy sauce and quickly grilling with a blowtorch, giving the o-toro a gentle hint of smokiness and released some of the fatty oils in the fish.

This was nothing short of stunning! 'Melt-in-the-mouth' is such an overused phrase, but I can't think of anything more appropriate to describe the way the tuna just seemed to disappear on the tongue.

Even better, though, was o-toro served, at our request, without being grilled. I preferred the perfect simplicity of this preparation and the absence of any char-grilling let the pure flavour of the tuna shine through.

Aji (horse mackerel) was spankingly fresh and was served with a few curls of spring onion underneath, all the better to cut through the oily richness of the fish.

Mategai (razor clam) was sweet and tender and was served lightly flame grilled with a few drops of sudachi squeezed over the top, giving it a wonderful citrus freshness.

Next, a strip of cucumber, instead of the traditional nori, was skilfully carved to create a gunkan-maki of uni. Unfortunately the sea urchin – sourced from Canada – was a little past its prime and had a bitter metallic taste to it. I've definitely had better quality uni before and this was to be the one fault in an otherwise impeccable meal.

Matsubagani (snow crab) gunkan-maki was made from delicate flakes of sweet snow crab meat.

An o-toro hand roll was made by painstakingly scraping a piece of the fatty tuna with a knife to mince the flesh and remove any small sinews, resulting in a texture that could easily have been spread with a knife.

Ika (squid) was precisely scored with a knife and then wrapped with a strip of nori. It still retained a little bite to it with absolutely no hint of rubberiness.

Tako (octopus) had been massaged by Toru-san to tenderise it (cue flashbacks to that delightful octopus massaging scene in 'Jiro Dreams of Sushi') and was served with a little umeboshi (pickled plums) giving a tangy acidic balance to the sweet tender octopus.

Ikura (salmon roe) gunkan-maki was full of gleaming pearls of salmon roe – I just love the way they burst in the mouth. A couple of slivers of sudachi zest gave a fresh burst of citrus to balance the oiliness of the roe.

Next was a dish not for the faint-hearted. My dining companion was speaking with Toru-san about the surprising joys of eating fish guts when he used to live in Japan. With a little glint in his eye Toru-san placed a bowl in front of us containing a mysterious, as yet unidentified, morsel. It had a musty pungent smell, not unlike a really ripe cheese. It had a chewy texture with a slight creaminess to it and it tasted much milder than it smelt, with a complex savoury umami taste. It was really rather delicious.

This was in fact ika no shiokara, or fermented squid guts. Toru-san occasionally makes it himself by salting raw squid viscera and letting it ferment in a closed container.

I live in Norway and here there is a strong tradition of fermenting fish, so the flavour of the shiokara was not alien to me. In fact it was a little bit like a milder, but much tastier, version of the infamous Norwegian rakfisk, which is fermented for much longer. It's an acquired taste, but I can easily see its complex savouriness becoming quite addictive.

This was followed by something more familiar. Tara (cod) had been marinated in kombu and was served with (I think) an oil-dipped shiso leaf underneath. Following the richness of the shiokara, this was a light and fragrant bite.

We ended our meal with a piece of tamagoyaki (grilled egg). This is a real test of skill for an itamae, and Toru-san's example was simply stunning. It's made with beaten egg to which (among other things I'm sure) sugar and prawn paste were added. It had such a light cake-like texture with a wonderful sweet/savoury taste. In fact, for all but the most hardened of sugar addicts, it was probably sweet enough to pass as a dessert proper and was a fantastic way to end the meal.

It's difficult to sum up a meal at Sushi Tetsu. The tiny dining room with just seven stools surrounding the chef lends the place a real intimacy. Toru Takahashi and his wife Harumi play the role of extremely gracious hosts and the small room quickly fills with laughter and playful banter.

But the real joy is the food, which is made with such precision and elegance by Toru-san and the almost balletic movements of his razor sharp knife. It really is some of the best sushi I've had outside of Japan, and for a few moments during your meal you'll feel transported back to some tiny Ginza sushi bar. But forget the comparisons with Japan, we're in London after all, and Sushi Tetsu is quite simply one of the best restaurants in town. So go and make a reservation, you'll love it.

Food: 9 / 10
Service: 9 / 10
Ambiance: 9 / 10

Viajante, London – Restaurant Review

noreply@blogger.com (Nordic Nibbler) — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 10:01:00 +0000

I was recently in London to embark on what can only be described as an epic week of eating. Over five days my fellow travelling companions and I ate at eight different restaurants with eight Michelin stars between them (reviews to follow, eventually). The damage to my waistline (and wallet) notwithstanding, it was a fantastic and truly memorable trip and confirmed to me just how exciting the food scene in London is right now. One of the highlights of the trip has to have been a monumentally good lunch at Viajante.

Viajante (the name means 'traveller' in Portuguese) opened in March 2010 and quickly established itself as one of the highlights of the London dining scene, gaining a Michelin star just 10 months after opening. It's located away from the glitz of the more established fine dining areas of Mayfair and the West End in the grand grade II listed Bethnal Green Town Hall.

The man behind Viajante is Portuguese-born chef Nuno Mendes, whose brand of avant-garde cooking first came to prominence when he opened Hoxton gastropub Bacchus in 2006. Mendes brought with him to London considerable experience gained from working with chefs such as Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Wolfgang Puck, and Ferran Adrià. I never got the chance to eat at Bacchus, but at a time when most gastropubs were serving staples such as lamb shanks and fishcakes, its dishes of scallops with "green apple air" and sardines with rosemary-sake spray (dispensed from an atomiser) must have seemed to come from another planet. By and large it received it mixed reviews. Perhaps it was a little too avant-garde for what used to be an old Victorian pub in Hackney?

Bacchus closed its doors in 2008 and Mendes focused on establishing The Loft Project, a temporary supper club that has turned into a platform for the next generation of talented chefs to showcase their food. Viajante therefore marks Mendes' permanent return to the London dining scene and my lunch here would be my first long overdue taste of Nuno's food.

The interior of the restaurant is calm and restrained. The furniture seems classically Scandinavian at first glance, their fluid aesthetic reminiscent of tree branches sprouting skywards. Next to us was an open kitchen where tweezer-wielding chefs spoke in hushed tones as they methodically and calmly assembled each dish.

Mendes himself greeted us with a warm smile and in a soft mid-Atlantic lilt (Mendes spent over 10 years working in the States) he explained that at Viajante there is no menu, you simply decide how many courses you'd like (your choice ranges from a 3-course lunch at priced at £35 to a 12-course dinner at £95). Mendes and his team had kindly offered to create a special menu for us and our only task was to say how hungry we were. "Very!" was our succinct reply. And the resulting 22-course lunch – with each dish presented by Nuno and his team – was one of the most memorable I've ever had.

Amuse Bouche 1: "Thai Explosion III." As its name suggests this is the third iteration of what has now become a classic little Viajante dish. Also as its name suggests, it packs quite a wallop of flavour. Soft Thai-spiced chicken confit and quail egg was sandwiched between crisp layers of chicken skin and coconut. I loved the way the fragrant notes of lemongrass, coriander and lime came through at different times, with the gentle kick of chilli heat only being detectable right at the end. This was a bold and lively way to wake up the taste buds.

Amuse Bouche 2: "Amaranth with Sorrel." Hay-smoked grains of amaranth (a staple grain of the Aztecs) had been toasted and served with sorrel purée. This was the first time I tried amaranth and its malty, nutty flavour was a good match with the lemony freshness of the sorrel.

Amuse Bouche 3: "Squid with Daikon." Thin strands of squid had been charred and were succulent yet still with a little bite to them, almost like udon noodles. The squid was wrapped with a thin sheet of daikon radish and served with squid ink and dill oil.

Amuse Bouche 4: "Potato with Yeast and Olive." Warm potato was wrapped with Ibérico ham and served with a yeast purée and dried black olives. Yeast isn't usually a flavour you see on its own so this dish was quite an unusual, yet delicious combination. The fragrant yeast wasn't as strong in flavour as its aroma suggested and the whole ensemble packed an intense umami punch.

Bread: Beautiful thin potato flutes and rustic chunks of bacon & walnut sourdough bread were served with two different kinds of butter: smoked butter with walnut and brown butter with chicken skin.

Course 1: "Scallop with Juice and Moss." Raw scallops were served at room temperature with frozen sea herbs and a shellfish reduction. This was a gentle and light dish. The sweet scallops were really lifted by the fresh grassiness of the sea herbs. I also really liked the contrast in temperatures and textures – a fantastic opening dish.

Course 2: "Leek Hearts with Pine Shoots and Frozen Milk." Lightly grilled leek hearts were served cool and were refreshing and crisp. They came with spruce shoots, spruce oil and granules of frozen pine milk. This dish had a fresh, clean taste of pine.

Course 3: "Oyster with Borlotti Beans." An enormous oyster had been lightly poached and deftly sliced. It was served with a cool borlotti bean soup and Alsace bacon oil. This was another light dish yet the oysters lent it a slight meatiness.

Course 4: "White Asparagus with Crème Fraîche Butter and Spiced Bread." I was focussing so much on the food that I completely forgot to take a picture of this next dish, but you can see a photo someone else took here. White asparagus was lightly grilled and served with crème fraîche butter, crisp spiced bread, leaves of wood sorrel and wood sorrel oil.

Course 5: "Cured Bream with Fennel Caramel and Toasted Oats" was a dish of gently cured sea bream belly that had been charred on the skin side. It was served with caramelised fennel purée, lightly charred chicory pressed in dill oil, slow roasted oats, lemon peel confit, celery and anise salt, and was finished with drops of dill oil. This was a light, multi-textured dish with the lemon peel, chicory and aniseed of the fennel giving it an aromatic and light flavour. One of my favourite dishes of the meal.

Course 6: "Razor Clam with Frozen Pinenut and Demi-Glace." A razor clam was cooked for just a few seconds before being served with frozen pinenut milk, and a chilled cognac-spiked shellfish demi-glace that was almost chocolatey in its intensity. This was another cold dish and was fresh-tasting as a result, although it was slightly richer than the previous dishes marking the progression toward the 'main' courses.

Course 7: "Brill with Spring Vegetables and Mussels." Brill skirt was served with crisp, lightly cured spring vegetables, mussel purée and a dollop of surprisingly yeasty and savoury cider foam.

Course 8: "Bacalhau dos Mundos – Collar with Bacalhau Dashi." The next two dishes would see us served two different preparations of bacalhau (dried salted cod). The first part was the bacalhau collar, which was has been grilled in nori. The nori is then powdered and sprinkled over the fish. It is served with a warm bacalhau dashi made with roasted garlic. What an amazing flavour this dish had – rich, intense and soothing, full of umami and fragrant garlic!

Course 9: "Bacalhau dos Mundos – Tripe with Onions, Parsley and Potatoes." The second part of the bacalhau course was cod tripe served with crisp shards of onion and potato and a light parsley-infused cod stock. Cod tripe was a first for me, but I loved its mild taste and dense gelatinous texture.

Course 10: "Smoked Bone Marrow with Beef Broth" was a small, but hearty dish. Smoked bone marrow was served in a beef broth with walnuts, delicate little mushrooms and onions.

Course 11: "Pig Tail with Pecan Molé, Bay Leaf Yoghurt and Sweet Cornbread." Confit pork tail was rich and flavoursome, the flesh being succulent while the skin was perfectly crisp. It was served with a thick, complex mole sauce, cornbread and yoghurt dusted with dried bay leaf.

Course 12: "Ibérico Pluma with Goat's Curd and Toasted Black Quinoa" was another standout dish. The soft flavoursome acorn-fed pork was cooked medium rare and was a real joy to eat.

Course 13: "Pickled and Raw Cucumber with Lemon" was a reviving dish and served to focus our palates again after experiencing such a multitude of flavours. Raw and pickled cucumber was served with reduced milk sorbet, cucumber jelly, cucumber granita, and mint oil. It tasted supremely fresh and crisp, with a great contrast of textures. It was stunning.

Course 14: "Caramel, Parfait, Flowers and Chocolate," like all of our desserts, was presented by the pastry chef himself, Meng, and despite his soft-spoken nature it's clear that he's such a creative talent. This, our first dessert proper, was an abstract work of art consisting of a smear of thick, intense caramel, dehydrated chocolate sponge cake, chocolate parfait, wild herbs and flowers and microwaved sponge cake. It was full of notes of chocolate, spice and caramel with a wonderful floral hint to it. It was served with a semi-sweet sake that brought a nice touch of freshness to the dish.

Course 15: "Milk" was the straightforward title of our next dessert and as it's name suggests it was simply different preparations of milk. Similar in taste to sweetened condensed milk, the real highlight was the interplay of the different textures and temperatures of milk. This dish was served with a milky looking unfiltered sake that added a delicate floral aroma. I adored this dish.

Course 16: "Duck and Wheatgrass" was a dessert that takes you so far outside your comfort zone, yet it was delicious and a work of utter creative brilliance. A puck of thick foie gras custard had a soft skin that yielded to a thick creamy centre, almost like an Époisses cheese in texture. It was served with sweet wheatgrass ice cream, while caramelised toasted grains and fried wheatgrass added a bit of crunch. The interplay of sweet milky richness from the ice cream and foie gras with the fresh bitterness of wheatgrass was extraordinary. I still can't stop thinking about this dessert – completely bonkers, yet completely amazing.

Course 17: "Jerusalem Artichokes, Chocolate Soil and Blood Orange." For our final course we were served crisp caramelised shards of Jerusalem artichoke with chocolate 'soil,' rosemary ice cream, blood orange, and Jerusalem artichoke syrup. This dish had a rich fragrant taste with great contrast in textures. Again, another superlative dessert.

As the restaurant's name suggests, this is food without a geographic locus. The cuisine seems influenced by a variety of regions: from Latin America to Southern Europe and Scandinavia, and eastwards to Japan and Southeast Asia. Ultimately though, these are mostly familiar ingredients that have been prepared and combined in new exciting ways such that you are able to see them in a new light – the foie gras and wheatgrass dessert, and potato with yeast amuse being prime examples of this.

Mendes' innovative cooking borders just on the right side of eccentric and in the end comes across as being more playful than overly conceptual. But this is not food you can casually eat; it demands every bit of your attention, however in return you're richly rewarded for your efforts.

In all my years in London I think this was quite possibly one of the most epic lunches I've had, which surprised and delighted in equal measure. It's clear Mendes is a fierce talent and Viajante should be on every food-lovers list of restaurants to visit in London. Bring a healthy appetite and an open mind and prepare to be a traveller on one of the most remarkable culinary voyages in town.

Food: 9 / 10
Service: 10 / 10
Ambiance: 9 / 10

Maaemo, Oslo – Restaurant Review (Jun '12)

noreply@blogger.com (Nordic Nibbler) — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 10:50:00 +0000

That's right folks, this is a look at another meal at Oslo's magnificent Maaemo. I've already written plenty about this restaurant so I'll try and keep this one fairly brief and let the photos do most of the talking. If you want to know more about this ground-breaking two Michelin-starred restaurant that uses only organic/bio-dynamic produce, then pour yourself a glass or three of something nice and read my previous reviews from Feb '11, May '11, Aug '11, Oct '11, Mar '12, and Apr '12.

Amuse Bouche 1: Nýr (a fresh acidic cream cheese) and salty orange pearls of løyrom (Kalix bleak roe). The bottom layer of nýr is frozen while the top is still soft, giving a nice contrast in texture and temperature.

Amuse Bouche 2: Salad leaves from Korsvold farm dotted with a sweet elderflower gel. This was a light and playful bite of food; the clear floral gel looking like giant dewdrops on the soft feathery leaves.

Amuse Bouche 3: Potato crisps dusted with seaweed powder served with a warm velvety egg emulsion. Very moreish.

Amuse Bouche 4: Fresh raw radishes from Korsvold farm served with sour cream and pickled birch shoots.

Amuse Bouche 5: Lightly smoked, virtually raw scallops from the island of Frøya topped with scallop coral purée and a blade of fresh tarragon. These were served under a glass cloche that is theatrically removed to release wafts of wood smoke so evocative of the Norwegian hytte (cabin).

Amuse Bouche 6: Fenalår from Vik in Sogn on the stunningly picturesque West Coast of Norway. Fenalår is a traditional Norwegian speciality of salted and cured leg of mutton. It has a soft, silky texture and a rich lamb flavour. Think of it as Norway's answer to Jamón Ibérico. It goes really well with a glass of champagne.

Amuse Bouche 7: A crisp and cooling dish of cucumber with frozen yoghurt granules served with a light herb vinegar sauce.

Amuse Bouche 8: One of the many highlights of a meal at Maaemo is this stunning dish – oysters from Bømlo served as a soft emulsion covered by a thin disc of oyster jelly with a light sauce of mussel and dill. As always, simply divine! I also liked the way the waitress's dress was colour-coordinated with the sauce.

Course 1: "Gran Fra i Fjor & Sjøkreps" (Last Year's Spruce & Langoustine). Another highlight of a meal at Maaemo is this jaw-droppingly good dish. An enormous langoustine tail from Frøya has been lightly sautéed in pine butter and brushed with a sweet rapeseed oil, pine and vinegar emulsion. A pine infusion was poured over dry ice hidden around the dish releasing clouds of pine-scented smoke across the table. If you've never tried a Norwegian langoustine in its prime before, then biting into the sweet, fresh tail will be one of those life-affirming moments. Incredible!

Drink pairing: A vibrant and acidic 2010 Riesling Kabinett from the Schätzel winery that was a good foil to the sweetness of the shellfish.

Course 2: "Ramsløk" (Ramson). The next dish was one I first tried the previous spring. However, it's been refined since then and version 2.0 improves on what was already a great dish. Here, impeccably fresh mackerel fillets from Hvaler were cured quickly in a cool sugar/vinegar/brine solution and served with pretty dollops of apple-ramson gel and ramson flowers, while a balsamic-apple vinegar & ramson oil sauce cut through the natural oiliness of the fish.

Drink Pairing: An elegant and mineralic 2011 Domaine Vacheron Sancerre.

Sommelier and co-owner Pontus Dahlström pouring the beer for the next course:

Course 3: "Hvete" (Wheat) – warm rolls of bread made from wheat, spelt and emmer flours from Holli Mill in Spydeberg. The bread is served on squares of traditional Norwegian matpapir (food wrapping paper) with individual pots of whipped salted butter from Røros.

Drink pairing: A refreshing wheat beer from the tiny Bøgedal microbrewery in Vejle, Denmark, which had spicy notes of orange and coriander seed.

Next was a little presentation of an upcoming course. Inside a porcelain dish was a crown of organic chicken from Holte Farm in Drangedal. We're told that this crown comes from an 80-day old bird, whereas intensively farmed chickens would have a maximum permitted age of 30 days, as after this time their legs would start to buckle from the amount of weight they have been made to gain. Yikes!

Course 4: "Brent Kveite" (Burnt Halibut) was another dish that has been tweaked since my last visit. Halibut from Tromsø had been lightly salted to firm its flesh and then singed with a blowtorch. It was served with burnt onion purée, grilled onions, wild flowers and a thin acidic aquavit sauce.

Drink pairing: A light Poiré Granit pear cider from Eric Bordelet packed with aromas of fruit and herbs.

Course 5: A surprise extra course was next and this is a brand new dish. Geitrams (Rosebay Willowherb) were lightly grilled and served with a wheatgrass sauce, pea flowers, and a potato-cheese purée made with grotteost cheese from Hitra in Sør-Trøndelag. This award-winning cows' milk cheese has been aged in caves for two years, giving it a distinctly unique taste. The willowherb had a smoky bitterness to it that was offset by the slight sweetness of the sauce and the creamy aligot-like potato-cheese purée.

Drink pairing: A playfully named 2009 biodynamic Gamay Sans Tra-la-la from Domaine de la Garrelière was light yet spicy and full of the flavours of cherry and woodland fruits.

Course 6: "Skogens Flora Akkurat Nå" ("The Flora of the Woods Right Now") was another refinement of a course I had on my last visit. The chicken breast we were presented with earlier had been cooked en sous vide in milk then sautéed in butter to crisp its skin. It was served with a plethora of wild herbs and flowers and a glossy sauce made from chicken stock and Røros cream. This was just as stunning as before – the chicken being so soft and juicy and bursting with flavour, while the wild herbs and flower gave the dish a wonderfully fragrant freshness. This dish was such a joy to eat.

Drink pairing: A 2010 Grüner Veltliner from Veyder-Malberg.

Course 7: "Rødbete & Lavendel" (Beetroot & Lavender) was a new addition to the Maaemo menu. Lightly sautéed chicken hearts from Drangedal were served with beetroot that had been prepared in different ways – long thin raw strands, small pucks of cooked beetroot, beetroot gel and sauce. This was garnished with wispy fronds of bronze fennel, dark purple leaves of oxalis and lavender flowers.

Drink pairing: A floral 2009 André Perret Condrieu Chery from the northern Rhône made exclusively with Viognier grapes and with virtually no acidity.

Course 8: "Bjørk" (Birch) is an ingenious little dessert. Birch wood is roast in the oven for a couple of hours and then left to infuse into some milk. This milk is then made into an ice cream and is served with fresh birch shoots and ground toasted birch bark. The last time I tried this dish it had a very subtle flavour that you really had to think about. It's been refined since then and is now much more focussed as a result. It's a little sweeter for one and now has a more pronounced taste of cool misty forest leaves. The addition of toasted birch bark was a masterstroke as it is full of notes of chocolate, so much so that I initially thought it was chocolate crumble!

Drink pairing: Instead of birch sap, this course is now paired with a sweetened tea made from small-leaved linden.

Course 9: "Rabarbra & Geitmelk" (Rhubarb & Goat Milk) was an achingly pretty dish of rhubarb served with lilac flowers and goat milk ice and mousse. The tartness of rhubarb was tempered by the sweet freshness of the goat cheese-like ice.

Drink pairing: A 2011 Schilcher Spätlese from Austrian producer Langmann. This was an unusual yet deliciously light rosé with lots of sweet raspberry aroma.

Course 10: A surprise treat was next in the form of wild strawberries. These berries had been picked just a few hours earlier and were served with a sweet floral rosehip cream. Wild strawberries are one of nature's true luxuries. They taste very different to their larger relatives and have a much more pronounced floral taste. I know how time-consuming it is to pick them and to be served so many of them was a very special privilege indeed. This was the simplicity of nature at its best and was one of the highlights of the meal.

Course 11: "Smør Fra Røros" (Butter from Røros) is now firmly one of my all time favourite desserts. A smooth, light butter ice cream is served with hazelnut-butter crumble, coffee molasses and brown butter caramel. My God, it's indescribably good!

Drink pairing: A sweet 1995 La Chimera Vin Santo from Tuscan wine producer Castello di Monsanto that was full of aromas of tropical fruits, raisins, and vanilla.

We finish our meal with coffee and petit fours. At Maaemo, coffee from one of Norway's leading roasters, Tim Wendelboe, is served in the traditional kokekaffe (literally "boiled coffee") style over a gas camping stove so redolent of a trip in the mountains.

To go with the coffee, a liquid brunost-filled truffle dusted with granules of coffee.

Finally, in a clever visual trick, we finish the meal in seemingly the exact way we started it. Echoing the first amuse bouche we were again served frozen nýr except this time it was sweetened with maple syrup and filled with a sweet and sour sea buckthorn gel. A cool and cleansing final bite to end yet another sublime meal at Maaemo.

Food: 10 / 10
Service: 10 / 10
Ambiance: 10 / 10

Maaemo
Schweigaardsgate 15
0191 Oslo
Norway
Tel: +47 91 99 48 05

Mirazur, Menton – Restaurant Review

noreply@blogger.com (Nordic Nibbler) — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 11:56:00 +0000

Perched on a sun-drenched hillside almost straddling the French/Italian border is Mirazur, a jewel of a restaurant with achingly gorgeous views over the azure blue waters of the Mediterranean. It's not often I have a deep, genuine longing to return to a restaurant – there always seems to be somewhere new to try – yet after one incredible lunch at Mirazur, which bordered on perfection, I find myself physically pining for another visit to this remarkable place.

Mirazur is located in an impressive 1950's building, which has been beautifully remodelled by award-winning architects Rick Mather, giving it clean lines, open spaces and uninterrupted views. It nestles in the steep terraces, just below the restaurant's extensive organic vegetable garden, which is home to a huge variety of produce that flourishes in this climate, including almost 40 varieties of tomatoes. It is, in others words, located in a chef's paradise.

The man behind Mirazur is chef Mauro Colagreco and he brings with him an impressive pedigree. He moved to France from his native Argentina in 2001 to study its great gastronomic traditions. A year working under the late great Bernard Loiseau at his 3 Michelin-starred Côte d'Or in Seaulieu gave Mauro his first experience of haute cuisine. Following Loiseau's tragic death in 2003, Colagreco spent a couple of years with Alain Passard at his legendary Parisian restaurant L'Arpège. It's Passard's influence that most defines Mauro's cooking style today and he cites this time as being key in teaching him that the vegetable garden can play just as great a role on the plate as meat or fish. Following stints with Alain Ducasse and Guy Martin, Colagreco finally opened his own restaurant, Mirazur, in 2006.

Just 10 months after opening Mirazur, the restaurant was awarded its first Michelin star. In 2009 Colagreco was named "Chef of the Year" by the prestigious Gault Millau guide and he remains the only non-French chef to have achieved this accolade. A second Michelin star followed in 2012. Also in 2012 the restaurant re-entered the influential World's 50 Best Restaurants list at number 24 (in 2009 it was ranked 35th). This is clearly a chef and a restaurant in the ascendancy.

The menu at Mirazur is not one for control freaks. It depends entirely on what produce is fresh and available that day and hence the kitchen decides what to serve. Your choice is simply one of how much you want to eat – from a 3-course set menu priced at a very reasonable €29 to a 10-course "Carte Blanche" menu that costs €120. Needless to say, it was this latter option we chose. After advising the waiter of any allergies (none) and dislikes (none), we left the choice of dishes in chef Colagreco's capable hands.

We start the meal with glasses of cold, crisp Dom Ruinart Blanc de Blancs. Is there anything better than commencing a long lazy lunch with a glass of Champagne? We're then served a series of three amuse bouches. A 'langoustine bonbon' was a crisp shell filled with warm langoustine broth. It's to be eaten in one go, unless you wanted it all down your shirt, and while it was tasty, it lacked that sweet shellfish intensity you usually associate with langoustine. Better was a polenta crisp filled with mascarpone and lemon, while fresh anchovies on toast was superb.

Next came a wooden board with a loaf of freshly baked sourdough pain du partage (bread that easily pulls apart). Into a plate was drizzled the most intensely perfumed ginger and lemon olive oil, a fruit that Menton is famous for. The bread broke away into thick segments, revealing a fluffy warm interior – perfect for dipping into that heady oil, which was fragrant and light with a nice peppery kick to it.

Our first course was a shockingly beautiful dish of oysters served with seaweed and cucumber. This was a dish bursting with the fresh clean iodine taste of the sea and was simply incredible.

This was followed by jelly-wrapped king crab served with grapefruit meringues and avocado mousse, the latter being quite appropriate given the restaurant sits next to one of France's oldest (allegedly) avocado trees. This was another light, clean and fresh tasting dish and the sweet meringues were an unusual but delicious addition.

We were offered bread next, and I opted for a cinnamon and almond roll, which was surprisingly sweet and not unlike the traditional Norwegian kanelbolle that I'm so fond of.

Next came another visually stunning dish (a theme that seems to be a key feature of Colagreco's cuisine). Spears of very lightly blanched asparagus were served at room temperature with slivers of green apple, raw asparagus, grapefruit segments, chickweed, mint and spring onion and was dressed with yoghurt and vanilla-infused honey. The sour fresh tang of apple and grapefruit along with the nutty asparagus, sweet honey and fresh yoghurt was such an exquisite combination of flavours that seemed to tingle the tongue with their vibrancy. This dish was the very epitome of cool, clean freshness and was utterly delicious.

A dish of clams served with rice stock and radishes had a warming heartiness to it and a deep fragrance of the ocean, of which we had a spectacular view.

A langoustine tail was served with its shell still attached and lifted at a jaunty angle. It was served with orange purée and a vegetable ragoût of peas, broad beans and carrots. The citrus roast langoustine tail was good, but to be honest I'm totally spoiled by the stunning quality of shellfish here in Norway so I didn't think it was anything that special. The addition of orange was unusual, but its sweet citrus taste worked really well with the shellfish.

The next course was genius in its inventiveness and flavours. In a nod to Colagreco's Latin American roots, a warm dish of quinoa risotto was served with morels, parsley brioche, different preparations of potatoes (roast, fried, crisp), parsley foam, peas, potato-parmesan cream and wild herbs. The flavours of this dish were incredible, it being earthy and intense and full of umami goodness. The mushrooms were almost meat-like in their richness. This was one of the real highlights of the meal and was as comforting as a great big hug.

For the fish course, we were served roast turbot with cucumber and peas. I love turbot – for me it's the Rolls Royce of fish with its pristine firm white flesh. However, the star of this dish was actually the onion-butter sauce, which was utterly intoxicating, leaving a wonderful sweet onion aftertaste in the mouth that left you craving for more.

The main course arrived next looking like a work of modern art. Duck breast had been roasted and was served with roast beetroot and summer vegetables, toasted sesame seeds, a carrot and orange purée and a reduction from the roast duck. This was quite possibly the best piece of roast duck I've had, being tender, yet with a crisp skin and bursting with flavour. The vegetables gave it an earthy kick while the purée added some sweetness and acidity. The sauce was the stuff of dreams too, I've no idea how you can get that much flavour into a sauce.

We also chose to have an optional cheese course (€15 supplement), and as well as local specialities I was delighted to see two English cheeses present, a cheddar and a blue cheese whose names escape me. The cheeses were served simply with a little honey and a few cumin seeds.

A little pre-dessert/palate cleanser was next and this was coriander 'frost', yoghurt ice cream, green apple slices, a thin caramelised tuile filled with coriander mousse, and a green apple sauce. This was a great little dish and was very refreshing. I love the use of coriander in this dessert, its crisp metallic grassiness working really well with sugar.

To finish, a dessert of saffron cream, almond foam, fresh almonds, orange flower brioche and orange sorbet. This was a brilliant end to the meal – sweet nutty pungency of almonds, honey-like bitterness of saffron and refreshing cold citrus sorbet. The best bit was eating the brioche after letting it soak up all that orange and almond goodness. Fantastic.

We finished our lunch with strong coffee and petit fours of lemon macarons, citrus jellies, and chocolates.

Chef Mauro Colagreco's cooking style is truly unique and is difficult to describe – this isn't French, Italian or Argentine cuisine, in fact it's virtually devoid of any national links. Key tenets are almost a complete absence of sauces. Colagreco prefers to use herbs and flowers to add flavour and extra dimension to a dish. Citrus also plays a key part, a fruit synonymous with the Menton area, and it's often combined to great effect with the slight bitterness of garden plants. The food is accessible, without the intellectual abstractions that often appear at modern fine dining restaurants.

However, there is an overriding philosophy of staying true to the complex simplicity of the wild nature of the surrounding area. Colagreco's dishes are light, clean, fresh and bursting with flavour. The inventive food seems to mirror the vibrancy of the surrounding landscape; the earth and sea being beautifully represented.

Another thing that stands out is Colagreco's sheer passion for cooking. During the meal I passed by the open kitchen on the lower floor and was promptly ushered in by Mauro. With a beaming grin, intense dark eyes and huge amount of enthusiasm he showed me round, introducing me to members of his brigade while at the same time controlling orders and dispatching dishes from the pass. You cannot help but be moved by someone taking such pride and joy in their work.

Just over four hours after we sat down to eat, our lunch came to end. Four wonderful hours of sublime food, genuinely warm service, and much laughter with friends had passed seemingly in an instant. I really didn't want to leave; Mirazur is the sort of place you'd like to hang around until dinner service starts and then do it all over again. And then, of course, there's that view!

For me, lunch at Mirazur was a moving experience, allowing me to see the sheer beauty and complexity of the nature that surrounds us. It's such a magical place and one that I can't wait to come back to.

Food: 9 / 10
Service: 10 / 10
Ambiance: 10 / 10

Mirazur
30 Avenue Aristide Briand
06500 Menton, France
Tel: +33 4 92 41 86 86

Le Louis XV, Monte-Carlo – Restaurant Review

noreply@blogger.com (Nordic Nibbler) — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 11:37:00 +0000

I was recently in Monaco to indulge in one of my favourite things, namely watching insanely fast cars drive round a track. And when the Formula 1 circus comes to town, there's no better place to watch it than in Monte-Carlo, where the absurd speed and noise of these machines is in stark contrast to the perilously narrow and usually genteel streets of the Principality.

I'd taken an early morning flight from Oslo and was due to meet up with some friends travelling from London on a later flight. So, I landed at Nice airport at noon without a clue as to what I'd do to pass the five hours until the rest of the gang arrived. Of course, with my other passion being food I found myself in the baggage hall hesitantly telephoning the three Michelin-starred Le Louis XV restaurant in Monte-Carlo's Hôtel de Paris to enquire if they possibly, maybe, pretty please had a table for one available for lunch in an hour. The answer, to my amazement, was yes.

So after a pleasant bus journey from the airport (maybe not the most glamorous way to travel to Monaco, but it's cheap, scenic, and is often empty) I was dropped off, luggage and all, at Monte-Carlo's iconic Casino Square. As it was Grand Prix weekend, the main square was closed off, so I arrived at the Hôtel de Paris' back door where I was handed a laminated hotel day pass attached to one of those lanyards that seem to be the height of fashion in Monaco during the Grand Prix weekend. Navigating the back hallways of the hotel, I found myself in the main lobby where the entrance to the restaurant can be found.

Although it feels ancient, the restaurant is, surprisingly, 'only' 25 years old. In 1987 Alain Ducasse was tasked by Prince Rainier II of Monaco to turn Le Louis XV into the world's first hotel restaurant to be awarded three Michelin stars. Ducasse was given just four years to realise the prince's ambition and, remarkably, it was a feat he achieved just 33 months after opening the restaurant's doors. It has held this accolade ever since.

However, it's fair to say there are 3-Michelin-starred restaurants and then there's Le Louis XV. On entering the restaurant via the relatively unassuming reception area I challenge anyone not to be stunned into silence by the sight that beholds them; Ducasse's flagship restaurant is nothing short of a jaw-dropping marvel. A dining room of such lavishness and grandeur that it appears to have been transported straight from the Palace of Versailles itself.

A room some 10m high stood before me. I struggled to take it all in as I gazed up at the vast chandeliers, crystal candelabras, marble columns, intricately carved cherubs and ornate frescoes. Everything, but everything was splashed with a liberal layer of gold (even the cutlery and plates would turn out to be gold plated). The centrepiece of the room was an arrangement of fresh flowers that towered above my 1.86m frame. Below, my shoes rested on the thickest and plushest of carpets. The hands of the intricate clocks in the room were all set at the same position, and what's more they didn't move. At Louis XV time literally stands still. Anywhere else this overt ostentatiousness would be ridiculous, but in Monte-Carlo it seemed to make perfect sense. It was simply amazing.

Gold-plated plates and cutlery and a mystery utensil

Overseeing the kitchens at Le Louis XV is Nice-born Executive Chef Franck Cerutti, a Ducasse lieutenant described by the maestro as "having olive oil running through his veins." He was the man tasked by Ducasse 25 years ago to create his vision of "middle class Provençal cooking." Working alongside Cerutti is Head Chef Dominique Lory, another Ducasse protégé, who moved to Le Louis XV from Ducasse's Plaza Athénée in October 2011.

The menu at Louis XV is described as "Riviera Cuisine" and features French/Italian Mediterranean dishes made with predominantly local ingredients. The menu is split into sections titled "The Vegetable Garden," "The Sea," "The Woods, The Rivers," and "The Farm." There's no distinction between starters and main courses, but a few dishes are offered in half portions, although you won't get much change out of €100 per dish.

My dining companion

I didn't realise it at the time, but my lunch would coincide with the Formula 1 practice session. As the restaurant overlooks the track, I would have a ringside view of one of the greatest modern sporting spectacles. To say I was excited would have been more than an understatement. I think the exact words I used rhymed with "duck" and "bee."

And those quaint little words were repeated when the first Formula 1 car screamed past. I cannot possibly describe the noise; it's a visceral thing that shakes every fibre in your body and makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and the fillings in your teeth rattle, and as I was without earplugs my ears were going to feel the full force of a Formula 1 engine at 18,000rpm. The food was going to have a tough time competing with this.

How thoughtful – there was even a large screen to follow the on-track action

I didn't want anything too heavy for lunch but I did want to try a few different dishes, so I decided to go for the "Les Jardins de Provence" menu, a six-course menu comprising solely of local vegetables priced at €210. I had chosen to sit inside the main restaurant, as this after all is one of the main reasons one comes to Louis XV, however the terrace just outside was open and I was free to wander out between courses and watch the carbon fibre chariots roar past. The cars got so close I could have touched them were it not for the wire fence separating me and my lunch from an errant flying tyre. Given that the best grandstand tickets at the Monaco Grand Prix cost around €450, it dawned on me that lunch here might actually represent good value of sorts.

Noise

The waiters were clearly well practiced at competing with the roaring machines outside and timed their visits to the table with remarkable precision. Orders were taken and dishes brought out just as there was a lull in the noise. It was really quite remarkable how well orchestrated it was. Perhaps not too dissimilar to the balletic organisation of the teams competing just outside. Also, given the formality of the room (jackets required at all times, gents) the service was surprisingly warm and friendly.

To begin the meal some crisp flatbreads pressed with vegetables and black olives were brought to the table. Simple, yet elegant and tasty to boot.

Next came the impressive show that is the bread service. A huge cart was wheeled over creaking under the strain of ten different kinds of bread. In addition to this, another cart arrived bearing a bell jar filled with what is probably the EU's fabled butter mountain. A quenelle of unsalted Normandy butter as big as an orange was expertly formed and placed in front of me. For good measure a separate thick ingot of salted butter was placed next to it.

My choice of semolina bread looked more dramatic than it tasted, its evenly baked leaves fanned out with military precision. Better, though, was the borage bread – a soft green doughy roll with a gentle cucumber-like aroma.

An amuse of Provençal vegetables and goats' cheese arrived next. Perfect specimens of tomatoes, peppers, olives and salad leaves had been individually dressed with oil and vinegar and sat on a disc of crisp bread. It looked quite mundane, but packed a colossal punch of flavour. Each component was damn near flawless.

To follow was a warm soup of peas, served with a soft ricotta gnocchi and a garnish of lightly simmered vegetables. It tasted like you'd expect an intensely flavoured pea soup to taste, but again, the devil is in the details, and I marvelled as I discovered each pea to have been skinned and cooked perfectly à point – tender but with a toothsome bite.

The next course was presented with great fanfare that seemed to contradict the dish's simplicity. A tray arrived (again with the gold) bearing a napkin concealing the contents of the dish. The tray was presented to me and the napkin lifted to reveal three fat pristine spears of asparagus. The waiter then proceeded to plate up the dish, dressing the asparagus with a fluffy sauce of soft-boiled egg, shallots, vinegar, and olive oil.

The quality of the asparagus was quite possibly the best I've encountered. The acidic sauce was thick and voluptuous and perfectly matched with the sweet, grassy and tender stems. The mystery utensil that had been placed on my table in preparation for this course turned out to be none other than asparagus tongs (gold-plated, naturally) – only in Monaco.

To follow came a dish of Provence garden vegetables and black truffles that were dressed with balsamic vinegar, "top quality" salt and Terre Bormane olive oil produced with handpicked olives from certified Taggiasca groves. This was another simple and perfectly executed dish, the truffles adding more of an earthy bass note rather than their typical pungency.

The next course was asparagus, morels, ricotta and morel ravioli and "velvety sauce." The sommelier enquired if I'd like a red wine to go with this dish, but I declined. I can see his point though, and given this was a vegetarian dish it had such richness to it. The morels in particular had a texture and meatiness not dissimilar to that of wagyu beef. The ravioli were light with the pasta rolled impossibly thin, and the asparagus was served both steamed and in thin raw slices for texture. This was probably the best dish of the meal.

The cheese course came next and again another mammoth cart bearing local and regional cheeses arrived. I can't remember the names of the ones I tried, but I think there was an Époisses and a local goats' cheese. These were eaten the French way, on their own with knife and fork.

As part of the tasting menu, I was free to select any dessert from the à la carte menu. However, I didn't even need to see the menu to know that I would be having the Baba au Rhum, quite possibly Ducasse's defining dish. An elaborate golden dome arrives housing a sweet yeasty cake that has been glazed in orange, lemon and vanilla syrup and split down the middle to reveal its fluffy interior. You're then offered a choice of rum from over half a dozen bottles, which is then liberally poured over the cake. The waiter recommended an Angostura 1919, an 8-yr old rum from Trinidad & Tobago that had a very smooth finish with notes of honey, nougat and spice.

To go with the cake was a pot of fluffy whipped vanilla cream. This was a good dessert, but perhaps not as mind-blowing as I expected (that's the problem with lofty expectations), but the main fun comes from the sheer drama of how it is served.

Finally, to go with the coffee was a beautiful parade of mignardises. A basket of warm fragrant madeleines was offered, then pieces of marshmallow were cut from longer ribbons, a caramel or two, chocolates, macarons, and little lemon tarts. My idea of a light(ish) lunch just went out of the window.

And if you wanted to make a night of it, there's a cognac trolley that looks like this:

Technically this is as close to flawlessly executed food as you're likely to get. Each individual element of a dish has been honed to perfection – take another look at how those asparagus spears have been trimmed for example. Yet for my tastes, the food seemed a little dated and underwhelmed as a result. Yes they may be as perfect an example of asparagus as you're likely to find, but they're still just spears of asparagus, is it too much to expect more in a 3 Michelin-star restaurant? Lunch at Louis XV is certainly not cheap. My solo lunch came to €385 including service and half a bottle of a rather delicious and complex 2007 Jacques Prieur Puligny-Montrachet Les Combettes (taken, incidentally, from the incredible onsite wine cellar of over half a million bottles of some the finest vintages).

However, with or without the Formula 1 circus in town, a meal at Louis XV is an exercise in absolute unadulterated luxury. At its core Ducasse's food stays true to its simple Provençal origins, yet here it's elevated to a level of execution beyond the comprehension of us mere mortals. However, the real star of Le Louis XV is the sheer scale and grandeur of the setting. If there were a Seven Wonders of the restaurant world, then Louis XV would certainly be near the top, and that alone is reason enough to make a pilgrimage to this anachronistic temple of pure opulence.

Food: 9 / 10
Service: 9 / 10
Ambiance: 10 / 10

Le Louis XV
Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo
Place du Casino
MC 98000
Principality of Monaco
Tel: +377 98 06 30 00

Where to Buy Food in Oslo

noreply@blogger.com (Nordic Nibbler) — Thu, 10 May 2012 12:51:00 +0000

A while ago I wrote a little guide about where I like to eat out in Oslo, and I thought it might be worthwhile to write a similar little guide about where to go food shopping. I've recently had a few questions (mainly from expats who have recently moved here) about where to buy decent food in Oslo.

I've added a new permanent tab at the top of the website which will contains a little list of some of Oslo's better food shops. If you've just moved to Oslo, are thinking about moving to Oslo, just visiting or simply want to have a look for the hell of it, you can see the list here: Where to Buy Food in Oslo.

It's by no means a definitive list; it's just some of the Oslo food shops that I like to go to. I'll try and update the list every now and then and I'm always happy to hear others' recommendations, so let me know if there are any other places I should check out.

Koffmann's, London – Restaurant Review

noreply@blogger.com (Nordic Nibbler) — Tue, 08 May 2012 12:07:00 +0000

It's not often you get the chance to eat at the restaurant of a genuine culinary legend, but chef Pierre Koffmann is just that. His first restaurant, La Tante Claire, opened in Chelsea in 1977 and went on to gain three Michelin stars, which it held for 15 years until it moved location to the Berkeley Hotel in Knightsbridge. There the restaurant continued until 2003 when Koffmann retired from cooking (or so he thought). The chefs that have trained under Koffmann read like a who's who of Britain's Michelin hall of fame: Marco Pierre White, Gordon Ramsay, Marcus Wareing, Eric Chavot, and Tom Kitchin. So it was with a huge amount of anticipation that Mrs. Nibbler and I went for dinner at Pierre Koffmann's eponymously titled restaurant.

Located in the very same Berkeley Hotel that Koffmann once cooked in, his latest restaurant opened in 2010 following the tremendous success of a two-month pop-up venture the chef ran in Selfridges department store. However, gone are the three Michelin stars Koffmann once held at his legendary La Tante Claire restaurant and gone is the clinical intensity that this level of cooking brings. Instead, at an age when many of us might be thinking of a well-earned retirement, Koffmann is back to offer us the Gascon style comfort food of his youth.

The main restaurant is in the basement of the hotel and is accessed by a sweeping set of stairs. It's a soft, muted affair that could be described as bland if you were feeling unkind. I'm not really a fan of dining in hotels but the room manages to feel distinctly separate from the main building. However, tables of kids (admittedly impeccably behaved ones) eating tomato ketchup-laden fries as well as an overheard enquiry from an adjoining table about room service were a reminder that we were very much eating dinner in a large London hotel.

The menu at Koffmann's reads like a greatest hits of French cuisine and it's a real struggle trying to decide what to order. We began with an amuse of chicken liver parfait served on melba toast, which was a decent, if somewhat heavy, start to the meal.

Mrs. Nibbler's starter of Provençale fish soup (£9) was a wonderfully rich and heady elixir, full of sweet shellfish aroma. It came served with croutons, which were spread with garlicky aïoli and floated on the top of the soup.

My starter of shellfish broth (£12) was a light, fragrant and creamy soup packed with tender pieces of langoustine, scallop and clams.

Mrs. Nibbler's main course was Sole Pôelée, Grenobloise (£40). A pristine whole pan-roasted Dover sole was expertly removed from the bone and served simply with a brown butter and tomato concassé sauce (minus the capers as Mrs. N's not a fan), boiled potatoes and broccoli. Simple, yet immensely effective when the raw ingredients are this good.

For my main course I had perhaps Pierre Koffmann's defining dish. For me, coming here without trying Koffmann's Pied de Cochon would have been a travesty but, fortunately, I've been told it's never off the menu. This seemingly simple, yet utterly genius dish of braised pig's trotter stuffed with sweetbreads, morels, and chicken mousseline (£28) has been described by none other than Marco Pierre White as the cleverest dish he's ever seen, perhaps even his favourite dish of all time. Indeed, such is this dish's infamy that during Koffmann's two-month stint at his pop-up at Selfridges, over 3,200 pig's trotters were eaten. Considering that only the hind trotters are used, that's an awful lot of pigs they got through.

A pig's trotter is boned then braised in stock with mirepoix until golden brown and quiveringly soft. It's then stuffed with roast veal sweetbreads, morel mushrooms, onions, and chicken mousseline before being poached quickly. It's then served with a glossy and thick madeira sauce and buttery pommes purée speared with pork crackling.

It's not for the faint hearted, being sooo rich it seemed fit for a Regency duke. It was such a throwback to a different era of dining and isn't so much a dish as a time machine. It had such contrast of textures with the gelatinous pig's trotter encasing soft chicken mousseline and dense pieces of sweetbread and morel. What a glorious dish this was!

Of course, no visit to Koffmann's would be complete without another of his signature dishes. Mrs. Nibbler's pistachio soufflé (£14) was about as perfect an expression of the airy dessert as you're likely to find. The voluminous and intensely green soufflé was pierced by the waiter's spoon and a scoop of pistachio ice cream was added, whereupon it melted slowly and seductively into the hot folds of the soufflé. I managed to sneak a little taste and found it to be ethereally light in texture with a fragrant pistachio aroma, almost marzipan like in its intensity. No wonder this is a classic; it was stunning.

For my dessert I asked the waiter what he'd recommend. "Tarte tatin" was the answer that came back without even a nanosecond's hesitation, "it's my favourite." With such a glowing endorsement I can report that it was indeed delicious. Buttery, sweet pastry and golden caramelised apples are one of those perfect food pairings that I don't think I'd ever tire of eating, and Koffmann's tarte tatin (£10) was faultless.

After some cups of soothing fresh peppermint tea, we're sent on our way with a parting memento of paper bags brimming with all sorts of goodies including meringues, marshmallows and caramel popcorn.

I adored dinner at Koffmann's. It's fantastic to see one of the great culinary maestros cooking food like this – no nonsense, just simple comforting dishes. This is food meant for eating and it's as reassuring and cosseting as a great big hug. Service throughout was relaxed and efficient and you're made to feel very welcome indeed. Koffmann's is unashamedly French, unfashionably classic, and a complete triumph. I can't wait to return.

Food: 9 / 10
Service: 8 / 10
Ambiance: 6 / 10

Maaemo, Oslo – Restaurant Review (Apr '12)

noreply@blogger.com (Nordic Nibbler) — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 11:57:00 +0000

(You can read a more recent review of Maaemo here)

If you've just discovered my blog, then let me bring you up to speed by saying that over the last year or so I may have developed a teeny-tiny addiction to a certain restaurant in Oslo. Maaemo opened its doors just over a year ago, and in that short space of time its unique brand of food made from organic ingredients sourced predominantly from less than 100km away has revolutionised the Norwegian dining scene. If you've got a spare hour or five, then pour yourself a glass of something nice and read up on the background and philosophy of Maaemo from the 14,000 or so words I've written (yikes!) about my previous meals at the restaurant, which can be found here, here, here, here, and here. If you're a regular reader then you'll probably be thinking it's déjà vu all over again. Again.

The big news for Maaemo was last month's announcement that Michelin had awarded the restaurant not one, but two of their coveted stars. In doing so Maaemo became the only Nordic restaurant in history to enter the guide with two stars. It's a thoroughly deserved accolade and is a feat usually reserved for the hallowed dining rooms of Paris, New York and London. Of course, along with the popping of champagne corks, the Michelin stars mean that the Maaemo team are now treated to the sound of the non-stop ringing and pinging of their telephone and email reservation lines. The word is out and it seems everyone in Norway wants a taste of this ground-breaking restaurant. So if you're thinking of eating here then plan early; I guarantee you the wait will be worth it and you'll be rewarded with one of the most extraordinary meals of your life.

It was my father-in-law's birthday recently, and when he very generously offered to take the family out for dinner there was no question about where we would eat. I'll try and let the pictures do most of the talking, but suffice it to say that over the course of a few hours, as we watched the sun set over the Oslo skyline, we experienced over 20 dishes that took us an incredible culinary tour of Norway.

Our meal at Maaemo saw us smile at the pure beauty of the dishes, sit slacked-jawed with eyes agog at the flavours, and it even caused some misty-eyed reminiscing from my parents-in-law. This really is a special place indeed.

Amuse Bouche 1: Potato crisps served with a warm and velvety soft egg emulsion. Translucent slices of fried potatoes were dusted with umami-rich seaweed powder that gave them a real savoury kick.

Amuse Bouche 2: An incredibly simple, yet effective dish of small leaves of smørbukk (I forget the English name), a perennial wild plant whose crisp succulent leaves had a refreshingly bitter and sour tang. Nature at its simplest and finest.

Amuse Bouche 3: Lightly pickled onions filled with a sharp rhubarb gel were tiny one-bite morsels that packed an intense punch of flavour.

Amuse Bouche 4: Next was a familiar dish from my previous meals here. Discs of nýr – a fresh acidic cream cheese made in Nes, some 50km from Oslo – sandwiched a filling of salty orange pearls of løyrom (Kalix bleak roe). The bottom layer of nýr is frozen while the top is still soft, giving a nice contrast in texture and temperature.

Amuse Bouche 5: Another familiar dish was lightly smoked scallops from the island of Frøya topped with a thick scallop coral sauce and a sliver of fresh tarragon. This was a beautiful dish that really showcases the sheer quality of Norwegian shellfish. The dish is served under a glass cloche that is removed at the table releasing wafts of wood smoke, instantly transporting me to the hytte (cabin) and its comforting fireplace.

Amuse Bouche 6: Small rounds of hibiscus-infused apple had been hollowed out and filled with chicken liver parfait and dotted with leaves of lemon thyme. This was a really well balanced bite of food – the richness of the parfait was balanced perfectly by the sweet aromatic apple.

Amuse Bouche 7: A seemingly simple dish of red cabbage and horseradish was astonishing in the clarity of its flavours. A tube of red cabbage jelly was filled with a sharp and fresh horseradish cream and the whole thing was garnished with discs of lightly pickled red cabbage – as refreshing as a blast of cool mountain air.

Amuse Bouche 8: Pearls of cucumbers and goat milk was a new dish for me and looked achingly pretty on the plate. A herb sauce was poured over the top, which added grassy fragrance to the cooling cucumber and freshness of the goats' milk – from goats milked that very morning. It's testament to Maaemo's incessant obsession with sourcing the very best Norwegian ingredients that the restaurant had to wait for over a year to get their hands on goats' milk of this quality.

Amuse Bouche 9: For the final amuse bouche we were served a Maaemo classic that remains one of the best things I have ever eaten. The day this dish comes off the Maaemo menu I think I will genuinely weep hot tears of sadness. Here, oysters from Bømlo are served as an emulsion blanketed by a thin sheet of oyster jelly, and a light sauce of mussel and dill is spooned over the top tableside.

Course 1: "Gran Fra i Fjor & Sjøkreps" (Last Year's Spruce & Langoustine). This was the fifth time I've had this dish and its ability to stun me into silence never ceases. Atop a warm stone sat a huge langoustine tail from the island of Frøya that had been lightly sautéed in butter and brushed with a sweet and acidic rapeseed oil and vinegar emulsion. A pine infusion is poured over dry ice hidden under the stone releasing clouds of pine-scented smoke across the table. I cannot possibly do justice in describing just how fresh and sweet this langoustine is – it's shockingly good.

Drink pairing: A vibrant and acidic 2010 Riesling Kabinett from the Schätzel winery.

Course 2: "Sellerirot & Kjørvel" (Celeriac & Chervil) Pucks of celeriac had been cooked in birch sap and were served with a warm fluffy celeriac purée, apple slices, chervil stalks and a chervil sauce. It was a fresh tasting dish that was really enhanced by the herbal notes of the matching wine.

Drink pairing: A grassy 2010 Verdicchio Tralivio from Italian producer Sartarelli.

Course 3: "Hvete" (Wheat). Bread at Maaemo is served as a separate course – all the better to fully appreciate these warm rolls made from wheat, spelt and emmer flours. The bread is served on squares of traditional Norwegian matpapir (food wrapping paper) with individual pots of whipped salted butter from Røros.

Drink pairing: A rich, full-bodied wheat beer from the tiny Bøgedal microbrewery in Vejle, Denmark.

Course 4: "Brent Kveite fra Tromsø" (Burnt Halibut from Tromsø) was almost identical to a dish I had on my last visit. However, instead of Arctic char, we were served halibut that had been lightly scorched and covered with a clear strip of onion jelly. It was garnished with crisp rings of onion and onion purée. At the table a thin aquavit sauce was poured onto one side of the plate. I loved this dish last time and it works just as well with halibut.

Drink pairing: A light Poiré Granit pear cider from Eric Bordelet was bursting with aromas of fruit and herbs.

A little pause was next and a large porcelain dish was placed on the table. The next few dishes would feature spring chicken from Holte Gård in Drangedal. Inside the dish atop some herbs were two surprisingly small organic free-range chicken crowns. We're told that these are from 28-day old birds, which weigh around 400g. This is in stark contrast to intensively farmed chickens, which would weigh almost three times as much at this age – quite a sobering thought.

Course 5: "Kål & Karamelisert Løksaft" (Cabbage & Caramelised Onion) is a dish of sautéed chicken hearts served with cabbage purée, burnt onion syrup and smoked cream. The hearts were tender with a rich meaty taste and the smoky cream and bittersweet syrup complemented them really well.

Drink pairing: A white 2010 Châteauneuf-du-Pape from Château de Beaucastel, served at room temperature to really bring out its honeyed floral notes.

Course 6: Next, some bowls of pullet eggs (eggs from hens less than a year old) were placed on the table to set the scene. The next course would feature them in the form of a poached egg served with toasted oats, chicken skin and smoked butter. Cutting into the egg released the remarkably rich yolk of the pullet egg, coating the toasted grains and crisp skin.

Course 7: "Vårtegn" (First Signs of Spring). I'll be honest; it's rare that I get excited about being served chicken breast in a restaurant. It's not that I don't like chicken; it's just that there always seems to be another dish that tempts me away. However, I was left gobsmacked at the utter joy of this next dish. Here chicken breast from Holte Gård was gently poached in milk then sautéed in butter. It was served nestled among a plethora of wild herbs and flowers and a vibrant green ramson cream sauce was poured over the top. Obviously the chicken was the star of this show, soft and bursting with juice, but each bite gave a different riff of herbs, and the ramson sauce was the mild garlicky bassline bringing everything together. Genius.

Drink pairing: An unusual, but gorgeous, off-dry 2004 Riesling Anarchie from Weingut Weingart with spicy notes.

Course 8: "Syltet Rødbet og Fryst Dill" (Pickled Beetroot and Frozen Dill). This semi-sweet course was a great transition to desserts proper. Lightly pickled beetroot sorbet was served with dill granita and a sauce made from seaweed-infused raw milk. An unusual, yet excellent dish.

Drink pairing: This was served with a sweet sparkling red 2011 Birbet Brachetto from Piedmontese producer Malvira, which was packed with flavours of berries.

Course 9: "Bjørk" (Birch). This was a dish born of serendipity. When a large birch log the restaurant was drying for the purpose of turning into plates started to crack, rather than consign it to firewood, head chef Esben Holmboe Bang's first response was "can we eat it?" The answer, it turns out, is a resounding "yes!" The birch wood is roast in the oven for a couple of hours and then left to infuse into some milk. This milk is then made into an ice cream and is served with nitrogen-frozen sweetened cream and fresh birch shoots.

This was a dish you really had to think about, such was the subtlety of its flavours. Its gentle woody taste was fleeting and at times seemed more like an aroma than an actual taste (although I know the two senses are linked). Someone had described it (quite accurately I thought) as the smell you get when you first enter a hytte (wooden cabin).

Drink pairing: This dish was very cleverly paired with fresh birch sap, which was cool and cleansing with a taste redolent of the smell of the woods in springtime just after a downpour. On tasting this, my father-in-law's face lit up with recognition and he recounted how he used to drain the sap from birch branches to drink when he was a young boy. It never ceases to amaze me how certain tastes have the ability to instantly transport us back to a particular moment in time.

Course 10: "Smør Fra Røros" (Butter from Røros) is another Maaemo classic comprising essentially of butter, sugar and cream – what's not to like?! A smooth, light butter ice cream (made to order) is served with hazelnut-butter crumble, coffee molasses and brown butter caramel. Yup, it tastes every bit as good as you think it does.

Drink pairing: A sweet and light 1995 Vin Santo from Tuscan wine producer Castello di Monsanto that was full of aromas of tropical fruits, raisins, and vanilla.

We finished our meal with coffee from one of Norway's leading coffee experts and former World Barista Champion, Tim Wendelboe, which is brewed like the traditional kokekaffe over a gas camping stove, so redolent of a trip in the mountains. We were also served wooden mugs of warm blueberry toddy and petit fours of dried brunost (Norwegian brown cheese) from Røldal, topped with plum gel and a coffee covered caramel truffle (not pictured).

Sommelier and co-owner Pontus Dahlström always seems to have a magic stash of unusual booze tucked away somewhere. So when he asked if we wanted any digestifs, I left the choice in his capable hands. "Birkir" from the Foss Distillery in Iceland is a 38% ABV schnapps made from Icelandic birch. It's unusual, yet delicious taste was like the spicy aroma of warm wood resin and it was a fitting end to this Nordic odyssey – the more traditional cognac would have just felt wrong. We also tried a drop of intensely fragrant and crystal clear Framboise Sauvage Eau de Vie from Alsatian wine producer Josmeyer.

It's no exaggeration to say our meal at Maaemo was (yet again) up there with the best. Head chef Esben Holmboe Bang's cooking is characterised by its pure, light and precisely balanced flavours. The breathtaking standard of cooking as well as the warmth, generosity and enthusiasm of the whole Maaemo team will leave you thinking about your experience here for a long time to come.

But, perhaps more importantly, Maaemo is not just a stellar newcomer to the rarefied world of fine dining; it has ushered in a new era for food in Norway. Already in the 16 months they've been open I feel the restaurant's legacy will be felt for a long time to come. Maaemo has helped open a nation's eyes to the wonderful bounty of produce that Norway has to offer. It seems for the first time since I moved here four years ago that people are now taking a much greater interest in the provenance and quality of the food they put on their plates. I really feel we're on the cusp of a major (and long overdue) food revolution in Norway, and in a large part we have Maaemo to thank for that.

Food: 10 / 10
Service: 10 / 10
Ambiance: 10 / 10

Maaemo
Schweigaardsgate 15
0191 Oslo
Norway
Tel: +47 91 99 48 05

Roganic, London – Restaurant Review

noreply@blogger.com (Nordic Nibbler) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 10:29:00 +0000

Of course, by now you probably all know about Roganic, the London restaurant of Simon Rogan, head chef and owner of the Michelin-starred L'Enclume in Cumbria. Since its opening last summer, Roganic has quickly become one of the darlings of the London restaurant scene. The reviews of the restaurant's particular brand of modern British cuisine have been glowing, and following a recent dinner there, the praise is totally deserved – Roganic dished up one of the best meals I've had in London.

However, it's all change at Roganic now. Head chef Ben Spalding recently made the surprising announcement that he was leaving less than a year into the restaurant's 2-year "pop-up" run. In addition to Spalding's departure, Roganic's front of house team lead by Jon Cannon and Sandia Chang is also changing, with Jon moving to the L'Enclume flagship up north and Sandia starting a new London venture involving hot dogs and champagne.

To have not one, but three high profile members of staff leave a restaurant would probably cause lesser places to falter but, with sous-chef Andrew Tomlinson stepping up to run the kitchen, it's a reflection of how well the Roganic staff work as a team that on the night I was there (mere days after Spalding announced his departure), the food was simply fantastic and service never missed a beat.

The restaurant itself is tiny and fairly cramped and of the cool, clean Scandinavian design that is all the rage these days. Unadorned dark wood tables matched the wooden flooring, while bare painted walls added to the minimalist vibe. It's not the most inviting dining room by any means, but its starkness serves to direct your attention to the food which, let's face it, is what we're really here for. And what food it is!

Although Spalding had left by the time we ate there, the majority of the menu was still his creation. So this was somewhat of a last hurrah for Spalding's food at Roganic. The menu here is simple: there's a 6-course or 10-course dinner menu priced at £55 and £80 respectively, as well as a 3-course lunch menu for £29. There's also the option of having vegetarian versions of each menu. Of course, being the glutton that I am, the lure of the 10-course menu was too much to resist, and it went something like this:

Amuse Bouche: Corned beef croquette with apple, pickled carrot and mustard mayonnaise was a full-flavoured opening punch. It was delicious, but too heavy for an amuse bouche I thought.

The bread was glorious. I think there were spelt, pumpernickel, potato and buttermilk rolls. They were served with rich creamy homemade butter that was extravagantly smeared onto a stone placed on our table.

Course 1: Millet pudding with grains, burnt pear, Devon blue and rope greens was a really well-balanced dish. Millet grains were al dente with the sharp notes of creamy blue cheese tempered by the sweetness of the pear. The rope greens added a nice salty and bitter tang to the dish, while a splash of marjoram oil gave colourful fragrance.

Mrs. Nibbler is not a fan of blue cheese, and her substituted dish of spring king leek looked fantastic. Here, Darwin leeks had been baked in clay and served with rosemary, shallot and truffle sauce.

Course 2: Portland razor clams flavoured with fennel, squid toast and brown butter was a clever little dish. Tender razor clams were served in a rich smoky broth. Squid ink infused bread 'soldiers' were provided to dunk into the moreish soup. I loved this dish.

Course 3: Jerusalem artichokes had been cooked in soil overnight and were served with red watercress and Crown Prince juice, which despite the odd sounding name is, I think, some form of gourd.

Course 4: "Grown up yolk from the Golden Egg," bok choi, warm mayonnaise and barley milk is a classic L'Enclume dish. The "golden egg" is actually made from jellified vegetable stock, which surrounds a 'yolk' of chicken emulsion that oozes pleasingly when cut just like a real egg. The dish was served with deep fried chicken skin. Bok choi brought some welcome lightness to the dish, while grains of crisp rice brought a nice contrast in texture. This was a fun and delicious dish.

Course 5: Caramelised cauliflower, sour cream, roasted lettuce and spruce was a surprising highlight, and how many times can you say that about cauliflower? It really shows the quality of produce being used here. In addition to the roast cauliflower, a tiny floret of pickled cauliflower added a bit of zing to the dish.

Course 6: Poached and grilled King Oyster, endive, beetroot and lichen was just superb. The king oyster mushroom was almost meat-like in its richness, packing a powerful and utterly intoxicating umami hit. This was further intensified by the addition of mushroom purée and mushroom granules.

Course 7: Lemon sole cooked expertly in chicken fat was served with British Queen potatoes, celeriac, and shrimp butter. This was gorgeous.

Course 8: 52-hour braised Longhorn shortrib was every bit as tender and unctuous as its cooking description would lead you to believe. It was served with roast parsnip and scurvy grass (a coastal herb), while smoked rhubarb added some acidity to cut through the richness. This dish was one of the real stars of the meal, a complete triumph.

Course 9: Warm Bramley cake, liquorice curd, walnut and pink lady sorbet – a warm, gently spiced apple cake was lifted by the fizzy acidity of fresh apple.

Course 10: Whipped brown cheese, bran flakes, lemon balm and roasted carrot sorbet. This was a fascinating dish; it's the first time I've seen brown cheese (brunost) served in a restaurant outside of Norway and was an ingenious use of the country's national cheese. Brown cheese and sour cream were whipped and dolloped over some baked carrot sorbet. Lemon balm granita, lemon balm and bran flakes were sprinkled over the top. The dish had a cheesecake-like texture with a nice contrast in temperatures between the sorbet and cream. The taste was amazing – a gentle sweetness from the earthy carrots, sweet fudgy/salty cream and light perfume of lemon balm.

To finish, some petit fours of sponge cake "cooked in the microwave" and a refreshing shot of rhubarb with rhubarb crisp served with a teaspoon of savoury custard and ginger. And because we did this the English way we finished with a plate of cheese that included a rather remarkable Nuns of Caen, a washed rind soft cheese made by the same people that brought you the formidable Stinking Bishop, as well as Stichelton, one of my favourite English cheeses.

Dinner at Roganic was a real joy. The creativity of the dishes was extraordinary and the flavours just sublime and perfectly balanced. However, my meal here coincided with the end of an era, albeit a short one. With head chef Spalding leaving Roganic, Simon Rogan plans to spend more time down south and the menu has now been revamped to include only his dishes. The kitchen will continue to be run by Andrew Tomlinson, the previous sous-chef, with oversight from Rogan and Daniel Cox, who runs L'Enclume's development kitchen, Aulis.

And what of Roganic's former head chef? Well, Spalding is a young, obviously talented and no doubt ambitious chef, so it's completely understandable for him to want to forge a path on his own without the constraints of running someone else's kitchen. I can't wait to see what new venture he finally comes up with and wish him luck for the future. In the meantime, though, Spalding will be doing a series of three events called Roast Sunday which, as its name suggests, will focus on providing the traditional British Sunday roast lunch with, of course, the obligatory puddings. In addition, Spalding will help launch a development kitchen with Brett Graham, head chef at London's two Michelin-starred Ledbury.

As for what's in store for the restaurant going forward, well I think we can expect the 'new' Roganic to offer a menu that is more closely aligned to that at L'Enclume. The Cumbrian restaurant is upping production at their own farm and have employed a full time forager, which should ensure a steady supply of wonderful British produce for Roganic. The idea seems to be to create a mini L'Enclume in London – a Lake District-on-Thames – which sounds like a pretty enticing prospect.

If my meal at Roganic was anything to go by, it's full steam ahead for Rogan and his London outpost, and having seen the new "100% Simon Rogan" menu the signs are that we can expect more impressive cooking from this wonderful little gem of a London restaurant.

Food: 9 / 10
Service: 9 / 10
Ambiance: 7 / 10

Moo, Barcelona – Restaurant Review

noreply@blogger.com (Nordic Nibbler) — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 09:34:00 +0000

A recent weekend trip to Barcelona saw Mrs. Nibber and me have dinner at Restaurant Moo located in the über-sleek Hotel Omm, just off the city's glitzy Passeig de Gràcia. I'm not usually a fan of restaurants in hotels, often finding their atmosphere to be sterile and the food a bit of an afterthought, but I was intrigued by Moo. On paper at least, it's certainly got the credentials for a good meal – it has held a Michelin star since 2006 and the restaurant is overseen by the legendary Roca brothers, whose own 3-Michelin starred restaurant (and S.Pellegrino's second best restaurant in the world), El Celler de Can Roca, is about an hour up the road in Girona.

Restaurant Moo is located at the far end of the Hotel Omm's large lobby. With 'Euro-beats' playing over the speakers and an array of far too attractive people propping up the minimalist bar, this felt like one of those 'see-and-be-seen' places I usually avoid, and I was a little worried that our meal would prove to be an exercise in style over substance. Fortunately though, a mesh-like partition does a decent job of separating the restaurant itself from the main lobby, and with ample space between tables the atmosphere manages to feel intimate enough.

Although the kitchen at Moo is overseen by the three Roca brothers, it is Menorcan chef Felip Llufriu that has been running the restaurant since it opened in 2004. The menu at Moo isn't a replica of its bigger brother further north. Instead, chef Llufriu is tasked with executing the Roca brothers' vision of modern Catalan cuisine. Seasonal and local ingredients feature heavily, some of which come from the hotel's own onsite vegetable garden. For dinner there's an à la carte option as well as three tasting menus, one of which is exclusively vegetarian. We opt for the "Joan Roca Tasting Menu," which offers eight courses for €100. Matching Spanish wines can be added for a very reasonable €40.

We start with some amuse bouches, which were OK enough, but not the opening fireworks I was hoping for. Black olive biscuits were light and crumbly, with a good black olive punch to them, although morsels of fried prawns were chewy and soggy. The best of these were crisp potato skins filled with mayonnaise, although stuffed potato skins feels a bit TGI Friday to me and it seemed a little out of place.

Gossamer thin vermouth crisps were fine, although I couldn't detect any vermouth flavour.

The next set of amuse bouches arrived on individual plates. I didn't catch their exact description, but one was described as a 'juniper carpaccio'. The other two were soups of corn with vanilla oil and herring caviar, and a creamy potato soup. Both tasted fine but were lukewarm and had more than a hint of baby food about them.

Much better were tiny sandwiches (called 'bikinis' for some strange reason) of tender pigs trotter and cheese – very moreish.

Course 1: "Bombó de colomí" (Pigeon Candy). This first course proper was a technical, yet challenging dish that divided our opinion. It's a nod to a dish of the same name that appears on the menu at El Celler de Can Roca, and for a moment it seemed we were starting our meal in reverse with a dessert. Here, pigeon liver parfait is encased in a crisp sweet shell and served on a base of foie gras mousse sprinkled with pieces of sweet hazelnut biscuit. It's a very unusual combination of gamey pigeon liver, dessert amounts of sugar, and intense rich foie gras. The sugar levels increased further by the dessert wine it was served with: a sweet grenache made by Spanish winemaker Masia Serra. I loved this dish; Mrs. Nibbler hated it.

Course 2: "Fideuà sense fideus" (Fideuà without noodles) was another Joan Roca dish and is a play on the traditional Valencian dish of fideuà, which is essentially paella made with vermicelli noodles instead of rice. Jelly 'noodles,' made from an intense prawn stock were served with various types of lightly cooked seafood. I adored this dish, it was full of sweet and vibrant flavours of the sea and the prawn 'noodles' were a really clever touch. This course was well matched with a crisp 2009 Tayaimgut Sauvignon Blanc from the Penedès region.

Course 3: "Macarrons de porro i bacallà" (Leek macaroni and cod) was a dish of bacalao served with potato stuffed tubes of leek and a leek soup. The fish was well cooked, breaking into larges flakes of translucent flesh, but I didn't really care too much for the dish as it had no discernible taste other than salt. A refreshing 2007 Albariño Nora de Neve from Bodegas Viña Nora slaked my resulting thirst.

Course 4: "Llobarro amb fonoll marí" (Sea bass with samphire) was one of my favourite dishes of the meal. A perfectly cooked fillet of sea bass was served with pickled samphire, cauliflower "couscous," and a samphire sauce. Little dots of the most intense lemon and samphire gels really brought an extra dimension to the dish. This course was simply delicious. It was paired with a perfumed and citrusy 2008 Albariño Pago de Xoan from producer Benito Santos.

Course 5: Next came the meat course and here we were presented a choice of two dishes. Mrs. Nibbler chose the "Espatlla de xai amb ruca a la crema" (lamb shoulder with rocket and cream), which was slow cooked shoulder of lamb served with cubes of curd cheese and rocket jelly and a cream and rocket sauce. I managed to sneak a bite and can report that the lamb really was stunning, having that melting tenderness that comes with cooking en sous vide while still managing to have a crisp oven-finished skin. Another great dish.

Meanwhile I had opted for the classic dish of "Llebre a la Royal" (Hare Royal). This is another dish that is similar to one served at El Celler de Can Roca. Here rare saddle of hare is served with jugged hare, beetroot and truffles. Hare is only in season here for another couple of weeks, so I was glad I got the chance to try this dish as it was wonderful – rich, earthy and unctuous. A 2004 Prado Enea Gran Reserva Rioja from Bodegas Muga was full of notes of strawberry and leather and was a great match.

Course 6: "Terrina de formatge amb fruita" (Cheese and fruit) sounded fairly tame on the menu, but what arrived was an intriguing looking little yoghurt pot. A light mousse of fresh tasting local Tou de Tilers cheese was topped with sour apple foam. This was a great combination that served as palate cleanser and cheese course at the same time.

To her detriment, Mrs. Nibbler is not much of a cheese fan, but even I admit she got the better deal here when her substitute dish of strawberries arrived. El Celler de Can Roca's pastry chef, Jordi Roca, is known for the artistic, almost abstract look of his desserts, and this beautiful looking dish of "Maduixes amb nata" (Strawberries and cream) was no exception. I wasn't allowed a bite of this, but judging from Mrs. Nibbler's smiles it was pretty good indeed.

Course 7: "Postre Làctic" (Lactic Dessert) is perhaps one of El Celler de Can Roca's most known dishes. An airy mousse of goat cheese was served with dulche de leche sauce, a cotton candy-like 'lactic cloud' and wafers of frozen guava sorbet. It was sublime; a wonderful mix of textures and temperatures.

Course 8: "Xocolates del món" (Chocolates of the World) was the final dish and it was a safe crowdpleaser. I mean how can you go wrong finishing a meal with nine different preparations of chocolate? Chocolates of different cocoa percentages from around the world were served as mousses, truffle, crumble, wafer, jelly, and a brownie-like cake. It tasted as decadent as you can imagine it did.

Finally, we finished with coffee and petit fours of blood orange jelly and white chocolate covered cashew nuts.

Although I was expecting more in the way of culinary fireworks, I really enjoyed dinner at Moo. Yes, there were a couple of dud dishes, and I think the hotel lobby setting leaves a lot to be desired in terms of atmosphere, but overall this really is excellent cooking. There's just so much culinary creativity coming from this part of the world.

With the Roca brothers overseeing the restaurant, it's inevitable that some dishes take their inspiration from their famous 3 Michelin-starred restaurant, which is no bad thing at all. However, it's clear that chef Felip Llufriu is a considerable talent in his own right, and it would be fascinating to see what he could do without the Roca brothers' influence. In the meantime, if you're in Barcelona and looking for modern inventive Catalan cuisine, then Moo is a great choice.

Food: 8 / 10

Service: 8 / 10

Ambiance: 6 / 10

Restaurant Moo

Carrer del Rosselló 265

08008 Barcelona

Spain
Tel: +34 93 445 40 00

Maaemo, Oslo – Restaurant Review (Mar '12)

noreply@blogger.com (Nordic Nibbler) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 12:07:00 +0000

(You can read a more recent review of Maaemo from me here and here)

This week’s release of the 2012 Michelin Guide brought with it what will surely be the story of the year for the usually quiet Oslo restaurant scene. The latest Guide Rouge for Europe came with the news that Oslo’s restaurant Maaemo had been awarded not one, but two of the French company’s coveted stars. In doing so, Maaemo becomes the only Nordic restaurant in history to have entered the famous guide directly at the two star level. In one fell swoop, a restaurant that has been in existence for just over a year joins a rare club that includes restaurant titans such as Noma, Le Gavroche, Mugaritz, and L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon.

It’s a fantastic achievement that is thoroughly deserved, and I couldn’t be more thrilled for the Maaemo team. I’ve eaten at Maaemo a few times since it opened, and you’re probably bored of me writing gushing prose about it (see earlier reviews here, here, here, and here), but I've been totally bowled over by the level of cooking here. My meals at Maaemo have been among the best I’ve had anywhere. It really is that good.

For the Michelin sceptics, I know that Michelin isn’t the ultimate arbiter or guarantor of a restaurant’s quality, and outside of its comfort zone of judging high-end ‘Modern European Cuisine,’ it becomes less relevant. However, if people doubt the importance of Michelin, they need only look at its motivational power among many of the world’s top chefs. If you want to see what winning two Michelin stars looks like then check out this video of the Maaemo team learning of the news for the very first time. That is what this accolade means to the professionals putting in the long hours on the front lines of fine dining.

I was lucky enough to be on one of only four tables being served on the same day as the Michelin announcement, so there was a festive mood in the air, although I don’t think the news had fully sunk in yet for the staff. Even though I’ve had the ‘Maaemo experience’ a few times now, our dinner that night at Maaemo was just as astonishing and just as beautiful as the previous times.

Maaemo offers a tasting menu of nine dishes made with organic or biodynamic produce sourced predominantly from Norway, the majority of which come from less than 100km away from the restaurant.

We begin our meal with a glass of a fresh-tasting Blanc de Blancs champagne from Veuve Fourny & Fils. This is then followed by a series of small snacks.

Amuse Bouche 1: Potato crisps were served with an emulsion made from pullet eggs (eggs from a young hen less than a year old). The crisp translucent slices of fried potatoes were turbocharged by the addition of umami-rich seaweed powder. The crisps were dipped in the velvety soft warm emulsion before being greedily devoured. This was a great start.

Amuse Bouche 2: Lightly pickled onions had been filled with a mousse made from soft-ripened cheese and sprinkled with crumbs of toasted rye. These little one-bite morsels packed quite a flavour punch and were delicious.

Amuse Bouche 3: Next was a snack I had at my last meal here. Discs of nýr – a type of tart cream cheese made at Grøndalen Farm in Nes – are frozen on an anti-griddle, a device that chills food instantly to a frosty -35 ºC. A layer of vibrant orange pearls of løyrom (Kalix bleak roe) is then added and the whole thing is topped not with more nýr, although this time the top layer wasn't frozen, its softness adding a nice textural contrast. The frozen nýr melted nicely on the tongue and it's a great companion to the mild salty tang of the roe.

Amuse Bouche 4: Next were lightly smoked scallops from the island of Frøya that had been topped with scallop roe emulsion and a sliver of fresh tarragon. This was another well-executed dish. Surely Norwegian scallops have to be among the best in the world? The cold, clear waters of these northern climes mean that shellfish grows more slowly and results in an extraordinarily sweet and pure flavour. I still find it incredible to think that until relatively recently scallops were not widely eaten in Norway, and for centuries they were considered only good for bait.

Amuse Bouche 5: A vibrant looking dish of hibiscus-infused apple was served next. Small pucks of apple had been hollowed out and filled with chicken liver parfait and dotted with leaves of lemon thyme. This was such a great combination – the earthy richness of the parfait was balanced perfectly by the sweet aromatic apple.

Amuse Bouche 6: Next was a seemingly simple dish of just two flavours: red cabbage and horseradish. However, nothing at Maaemo is simple. Here a tube of red cabbage jelly was filled with a sharp and fresh horseradish cream and the whole thing was garnished with crisp curls of lightly cured red cabbage. The genius of this dish was in its pure, focused flavours and the nice contrast of textures.

Amuse Bouche 7: For the final snack we were served a Maaemo classic. This dish has been on the menu since the start and it is simply astonishing. In fact, it was my number one choice in my 2011 'Dishes of the Year' list. Oysters from Bømlo are served as an emulsion and as a thin disc of jelly, while a light horseradish and dill cream sauce is spooned over the top tableside. The taste is the very quintessence of the sea and is as good as it gets in my book. I love this dish. Deeply.

Course 1: "Gran Fra i Fjor & Sjøkreps" (Pine From Last Year & Langoustine). This is another familiar dish that has been a regular feature of the Maaemo menu and it's another stunner. An enormous langoustine tail from Frøya was lightly sautéed in pine-infused butter and served warm on a stone. This dish used to be served with blobs of rapeseed oil and vinegar gel on the side, but now the langoustine itself is slicked with the same mixture, which ensures the balance of flavours in each bite is just right. Surrounding the langoustine island was a bubbling sea of pine infusion and dry ice that gently billowed clouds of pine-scented smoke across the table.

Drink pairing: A vibrant and acidic 2010 Riesling Kabinett from the Schätzel winery.

Course 2: "Sellerirot & Kjørvel" (Celeriac & Chervil) arrived looking like an abstract painting, it was achingly pretty. Here celeriac had been cooked in birch sap and was served with a soft celeriac purée, apple slices, chervil stalks and a chervil sauce. It was a wonderfully fresh tasting dish that was really enhanced by the herbal notes of the matching wine.

Drink pairing: A grassy 2010 Verdicchio Tralivio from Italian producer Sartarelli.

Course 3: "Hvete" (Wheat) is a course that's always been on the Maaemo menu. Warm sourdough rolls made from wheat, spelt and emmer flours from Holli Mill in Norway's Østfold region were served on squares of traditional Norwegian matpapir (food wrapping paper) with lashings of whipped salted butter from Røros. This dish was so impressive in its simplicity and depth of flavour. The fact that Maaemo is able to serve bread and butter as a separate course on the menu and pull it off with such skill speaks volumes about their confidence.

Drink pairing: Wheat beer from the tiny Bøgedal microbrewery in Vejle, Denmark. Each batch of beer is limited to just 500 litres. This was batch number 276 and was a rich golden wheat beer with higher residual sweetness and notes of orange and coriander seed that complemented the bread perfectly.

Course 4: "Aquavit & Brent Løk" (Aquavit & Burnt Onion) was another visually stunning dish, almost architectural in appearance. A strip of Arctic char from Finnmark had been lightly cooked on one side and blanketed with a crystal clear film of onion jelly. It was garnished with crisp rings of onion and soft onion purée. At the table a thin aquavit sauce was poured onto one side of the plate, the fish acting like a dam holding back the flood until you take a bite and release the sauce onto the rest of the plate. The interesting thing about this dish is, contrary to expectations, it's not really a fish course at all: it's an onion dish that's garnished with fish, and the predominant flavour is of aromatic caramelised onions. The combination of flavours works beautifully; the intensity of the onions is offset by the mild, moderately fatty fish and the crisp alcoholic kick of the sauce. Just sublime!

Drink pairing: A light Poiré Granit pear cider from Eric Bordelet (a former sommelier at L'Arpège) was a great match with the food. Made using pears from 300-year-old trees, the cider is low in alcohol but packed with herbal and fruit aromas.

Course 5: "Kålstilker & Hjerte" (Kale Stalks & Heart). In this dish, duck heart from Holte Farm in Drangedal had been cooked en sous vide and then lightly sautéed so they remained meltingly tender. They were served with kale purée, cabbage stems and a smoked cream foam was added tableside. Kale's bitterness can make it a tricky vegetable to work with, but it worked really well with the richness of the duck hearts, and the smoked cream sauce mellowing out the dish nicely.

Drink pairing: A white 2007 Châteauneuf-du-Pape from Château de Beaucastel, which was powerful and rich with notes of flowers and honey.

Course 6: "Ristet Havre & Valnøtter" (Toasted Oats & Walnuts) comprised of chicken (again from Holte Farm) cooked with walnut oil at 60°C. It was topped with crisp grains of toasted oats, walnuts and Jerusalem artichoke and was served with walnut purée and Jerusalem artichoke sauce. This was such a clever dish – texturally it worked really well and I loved the contrast between the soft chicken, crunchy topping and smooth sauce. The flavours were incredible too, full of nutty earthy notes.

Drink pairing: A white 2006 Chorey-les-Beune from French producer Sylvain Loichet.

Course 7: "Syltet Rødbet og Fryst Dill" (Pickled Beetroot and Frozen Dill). This was a very creative dish that was, as chef Holmboe Bang stated, "challenging." Having tasted it though, the challenge comes not from its flavours, which are heavenly, but from where it sits on the savoury/sweet spectrum. Lightly pickled beetroot sorbet was served with dill granita and a sauce made from seaweed-infused raw milk. It was really quite extraordinary, being sweet/savoury/umami all at the same time – sweet earthy beetroot, grassy freshness from the dill and creamy savouriness from the raw milk. What an innovative and excellent dish this was!

Drink pairing: A fresh 2010 Rosa del Rosa from Italian winery Proprietà Sperino, which had notes of flowers and strawberries.

Course 8: "Kald Fløte & Tindved" (Cold cream & Sea-buckthorn) was the first dessert course proper. Carrot sorbet was served on a crumble base with sea-buckthorn berries and cubes of caramel jelly. Granules of nitrogen-frozen cream sweetened with sugar beet were sprinkled over the top. The key was to eat this immediately to fully appreciate the mix of textures and temperatures. I particularly liked the way the frozen cream melted in the mouth and made you blow smoke from your nostrils like some fire-breathing dragon. Needless to say, it was also an amazing dish.

Drink pairing: A 2010 Regina di Felicità from Italian winery Baricchi. This sparkling ice-wine was packed with intense fruity aromas and had lots of residual sugar.

Course 9: "Urter Fra Lom" (Herbs from Lom). This was a very theatrical dish made at the table. A Hario Syphon, typically used for brewing coffee, is used to infuse a stock base of water, vingear and sugar with dried apple mint, raspberry leaves, and linden. The infusion is then poured into a saucepan and liquid nitrogen is stirred in to make a sorbet, which is then served with meringue and a gel of the same herbs. This was a refreshing and light dessert and a perfect way to end the menu.

Drink pairing: A 2010 Riesling Spätlese from the Geltz Zilliken winery in Saarburg.

Course 10: "Smør Fra Røros" (Butter from Røros). Like an encore from your favourite band, Maaemo offers the option of adding a final dessert to your meal. But this isn't just any dessert, it's a dish that has been on the menu since the start and has become a favourite among regulars. They tried to take it off the menu, but such was the outcry that it was reinstated as an optional extra dish. Smooth, light ice cream made from lashings of Røros butter was spooned onto a mound of butter crumble and coffee-infused molasses (yup, more butter in there too). Over this was drizzled a warm brown butter caramel. The taste and texture of this dish is just so sensual – soft, silky ice cream, warm butter sauce, sweet molasses, and a crumble that dissolves on the tongue.

Drink pairing: A sweet and light 1995 Vin Santo from Tuscan wine producer Castello di Monsanto that was full of aromas of tropical fruits, raisins, and vanilla.

To finish our tour of the great Norwegian outdoors, we were served some mugs of warm cherry toddy, a twist on the blackcurrant toddy that is traditional when out skiing.

We end with coffee from one of Norway's leading coffee experts and former World Barista Champion, Tim Wendelboe, as well as petit fours of brunost (Norwegian brown cheese) from Røldal, topped with cherry gel and a coffee covered caramel truffle.

And because I couldn't resist a little nightcap, some unusual but tasty sugar beet rum from Tjudö Vineyard in Finland, as well as a very balanced 8-year-old single malt whisky from Finnish distiller Teerenpeli.

Even though the restaurant team were still clearly running on adrenalin from the day’s events, our dinner was as faultless and precise as ever. Chef Holmboe Bang’s cooking is light of touch and bursting with clear, refined flavours. The matching wines are a real joy and service is of the telepathically good kind. You’ll be thinking about your meal at Maaemo for a long time to come, replaying each taste, sight and sensation in your mind like the recollection of a happy dream.

Looking forward though, what will two Michelin stars mean for Maaemo? Well for one, it pretty much guarantees they’ll be fully booked, which brings with it obvious economic benefits and the creative freedom this generates. But there are other, more important factors to consider; two stars put Maaemo firmly on the map as one of the best restaurants in the world, and chefs as well as diners will be looking to Maaemo to lead the way. The pressure to deliver, to maintain and exceed already lofty standards will be more intense than ever.

But perhaps the main benefit of Maaemo's newfound Michelin status is the publicity it has generated. This was big news in the Norwegian press. It has gotten many Norwegians talking about quality local produce and perhaps looking closer to home for their food inspiration rather than exclusively favouring price and convenience over quality and taste when shopping. For the everyday food scene in Norway to improve, it will take consumers to start demanding easier access to better produce, and this will come from greater awareness of the wonderful fresh produce Norway has to offer. The sort of produce that Maaemo uses every day.

Having seen the pace of the restaurant’s evolution over the last year or so, and from what I know of the team behind Maaemo, I know that they remain as grounded as ever and are laser-focused on providing the best dining experience they possibly can. In fact, I’ve no doubt that Maaemo has several more gears yet to come and we can expect even greater things from the restaurant going forward. Which gets me thinking, isn’t the title of “The Nordics’ First Three-Michelin Star Restaurant” still up for grabs?!

Food: 10 / 10
Service: 10 / 10
Ambiance: 10 / 10

Maaemo
Schweigaardsgate 15
0191 Oslo
Norway
Tel: +47 91 99 48 05

Mathallen, Oslo – A Taste of Things to Come?

noreply@blogger.com (Nordic Nibbler) — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 13:43:00 +0000

It's finally happening! In just a few months' time Oslo will boast its very own permanent food hall. Norway's capital has lagged behind its Nordic neighbours when it comes to indoor food markets. Stockholm has the wonderful Östermalms and Hötorgshallen food halls, Helsinki boasts the Kauppahalli food market, and Copenhagen now has the new gleaming Torvehallerne food hall. But until recently (and for a few more months yet) Oslo had nowhere permanent to buy speciality produce from local producers.

So it was that I found myself on one of the first bright sunny days of the year at Oslo's new Mathallen, located in the new Vulkan development between the St. Hanshaugen and Grünerløkka neighbourhoods. Mathallen won't open properly until October, but the official opening (heralded rather appropriately by the cutting of a link of sausages, rather than a ribbon) occurred at the beginning of March, and I was here on one of two preview days designed to give the public a taste of what's to come in the autumn.

My first impressions were that at over 3,500 square metres this is a big space to have a dedicated food hall in Oslo, which is great news. At one end of the large central hall, enticing aromas were wafting from an area cooking and selling gatemat (street food). There were areas set up for food demos and presentations. There's also an upper mezzanine level that looks out over the central hall, which I gather will eventually play host to bars and restaurants. Most of the main floor space, though, was dedicated to the roving Bondens Marked (Farmers’ Market), but hopefully this isn't totally representative of what the food hall will be like when it opens properly in October.

Lots of preserved/long-life food on offer, not so much the fresh stuff

The Bondens Marked is a great place to find speciality produce made by small-scale producers in Norway, but by its nature these transient farmers’ markets make it tricky to sell fresh produce, and as such they are dominated by long-life products such as cured meats, jams, honey and smoked fish. Delicious as these products may be, I really hope the new Mathallen will offer plenty of fresh meat, fish, game and vegetables – that is the sort of place Oslo is sorely lacking.

I've written about the Bondens Marked before (here and here), so I won't dwell on it too much. Suffice it to say there were 47 producers represented at the Mathallen preview, of which 15 were certified organic, which is really heartening to see. There's certainly some sticker shock when you look at some of the prices of these products, but I guess that's to be expected when you have labour intensive artisanal produce being sold to such a small market. However, if it serves to increase the overall level and appreciation of food in this country then, in my book at least, it's a price worth paying.

The 'street food' counter

The street food counter was a nice addition with various casual eateries having set up shop there. However, service was bit chaotic and no one seemed to be able to tell me anything about the food on offer. A question about a pork bun they were selling was met with an indifferent shrug and a half-hearted, but unsuccessful, attempt to find out. I hope the service aspect of this section gets sorted before the official opening, as it was virtually non-existent.

In the end, the pork bun in question (from Oslo blues bistro, The Crossroad Club) was really rather good. Big tender pieces of pork (no idea which cut) had been marinated (no idea in what) and cooked (no idea how) and served in a soft steamed bun, wrapped in lettuce and slicked with a coriander sauce. At Nkr 30 (€4) apiece, they also seemed like great value.

The mysterious, yet delicious, pork bun

Organic honey from Røisilien Bigård near lake Mjøsa

Cured meat from Norwegian chef, Arne Brimi, in Gudbrandsdalen

One of the few stands selling fresh produce was this fishmonger selling live langoustines from the island of Frøya. They were beautiful and were some of the largest specimens I've seen! Fortunately this fishmonger will have a permanent shop when the food hall opens properly and I hear he has plans to install a large boiling pot to cook crabs on site. Fantastic!

Stunning Norwegian seafood

An aquavit bar

Lots of demos and presentations were lined up over the two-day preview, including a huge coffee cupping session by Norwegian coffee suppliers Solberg & Hansen.

World's longest coffee cupping table

Newcomers to a culture often have the unique benefit of not being encumbered with that culture's dogmas, and can see things with a fresh perspective. In the food world this translates to new ideas that are not beholden to tradition. I found the stall of Swedish physiotherapist turned chocolatier, Bengt Dahlberg, who is making some rather unusual and uniquely Norwegian chocolates in his small workshop overlooking the famous Geiranger Fjord.

Bengt Dahlberg from Fjordnær Geiranger Sjokolade

Two particular chocolates really got my attention. One was made with brunost, the traditional Norwegian brown cheese, while the other was made with the gorgeous Kraftkar blue cheese, honey from Norddal, and aquavit. It sounds like a really odd combination that shouldn't work, but it was utterly delicious and is a great and innovative use of these Norwegian ingredients.

Blue cheese chocolate. Delicious!

Of course, no visit to a Norwegian farmers' market is complete without some of these wonderful sveler – thick, fluffy pancakes that originate from the West Coast of Norway. Hot off the griddle and served with lingonberry jam and sour cream they are so moreish.

Overall, I think the little preview of Mathallen was a success. It may not have featured much in the way of fresh produce, but it certainly got people talking about Norwegian food and that in itself is great. I gather by the official opening in October a total of 25 shops will be permanently based in Mathallen. Although the nature of most of these shops is yet to be determined I have heard that a baker, fishmonger, greengrocer, beer shop, and poultry shop are already signed up. And the really great news is that Mathallen should be open on Sundays too, which will surely turn it into a popular destination on a day when everything else is closed.

For now I'm cautiously optimistic, and I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that when Mathallen eventually opens in October, Oslo will finally get a permanent food market that can fully showcase and do justice to the wonderful produce this country can offer.

Café Laundromat, Oslo – Restaurant Review

noreply@blogger.com (Nordic Nibbler) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 11:23:00 +0000

As far as ideas go, putting together a laundry, restaurant, library, café, and bar under one roof isn't an obvious one, but Oslo's Café Laundromat does just that. It's an ingenious concept that first started in Copenhagen in 2004 and came to Oslo in 2010. I must admit I had high hopes for Café Laundromat – all-day dining places are as rare as hens' teeth in Norway, and there was something about the quirky style of this place that just felt right.

Located in Oslo's Bislett neighbourhood, Café Laundromat is perfectly positioned to take advantage of the nearby university campus. And with free Wi-Fi to boot, it seemed the large café was full of students tapping away on laptops while slowly nursing a solitary coffee. At either end of the long room were cosy alcoves filled with over 4,000 books to peruse, presumably while you're waiting for the spin cycle to finish on your smalls in the adjoining laundry room. The place has a pleasing casual vibe about it, just the sort of place you'd want to hunker down in with a newspaper or good book.

The menu here offers a huge selection of no-nonsense dishes for breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner. You can also sit with a morning coffee, enjoy a lunchtime pint of local beer, or while away the evening with a cocktail or two. Whatever the time of day, it seems Café Laundromat tries to offer something appropriate to eat or drink.

I seem to be on a never-ending quest to find a decent burger in Oslo, so naturally I wanted to try one of Laundromat's versions. I ordered a cheeseburger (NKr 146 / €19), but the second it arrived I regretted it. You just know when a cheeseburger looks right and in my book a burger should be always be served in a soft floury bun. So the sight of a slice of toasted sourdough skewered to the burger like the sail of some meaty boat told me all I needed to know.

The burger itself had a nice char on the outside, but the meat itself was disappointing. It was cooked all the way through and was very dense, a bit like a traditional Norwegian karbonader; it was also much too salty. If it had been billed as a karbonader then I don't think I would have been as disappointed, but this was no burger. It came with a side of soggy potato wedges, which just added to my misery.

Mrs. Nibbler chose a steak sandwich (NKr 132 / €17.50), which consisted of grilled entrecôte served on ciabatta bread with salad, grilled onions and mushrooms. It certainly look the part, but the meat had been cooked to a state of tough leathery greyness and wasn't pleasant at all.

Undeterred by my lunchtime experience I returned again another day to try Laundromat's breakfast offering. Things improved marginally, but not by much. Eggs Benedict (NKr 118 / €15.50) arrived on toasted bread and not on the traditional English muffin. It may seem like a small thing, but without the softness of the muffin this dish just becomes eggs on dry toast. The Hollandaise sauce was fine, if a bit muted, and the eggs were nicely poached with soft runny centres. This dish also came with a side of fries that probably works better for brunch or lunch than for breakfast.

Café Laundromat strives to cater to all occasions, from a quick coffee in the morning to a nightcap of whisky after dinner, but this I feel is to the restaurant's detriment. It's difficult to be all things to all people, and when the kitchen is open from 7am to 11pm and the menu lists some 50 separate dishes, the danger is that nothing is done well, and that's exactly what is happening here. In the end the food I had at Laundromat was woefully poor and felt like it hadn't been made with much care.

Ultimately, I feel Laundromat is a missed opportunity. The service is efficient and friendly, the atmosphere is casual and welcoming, but it's the food that falls short. It would be much better if they trimmed the menu down and focused on a few dishes that they could do really well. As it stands Café Laundromat is a great concept but with flawed execution.

Food: 4 / 10
Service: 8 / 10
Ambiance: 7 / 10

Café Laundromat
Underhaugsveien 2
0354 Oslo
Tel: +47 21 38 36 29

Goodman City, London – Restaurant Review

noreply@blogger.com (Nordic Nibbler) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:34:00 +0000

The debate about who holds the crown of 'London's best steakhouse' rages on. However, it's clear that there are two contenders streets ahead of the others: Goodman and Hawksmoor. Admitting a preference for one or the other can be as polarising as the Coke/Pepsi, PC/Mac, Stones/Beatles debate.

Like all great dichotomies, though, which camp you fall into is quite revealing. Goodman oozes old school charm, reminding me of the classic steak houses of the US, while Hawksmoor feels younger and edgier and much more 'London.' Then there are their different philosophies on steak with Goodman opting to offer a choice of grain or grass-fed beef from different breeds, while Hawksmoor sticks to meat from one breed of grass-fed cattle.

I've tried both places, having loved Goodman's flagship outpost in Mayfair as well as enjoying a stonkingly memorable meal at Hawksmoor Seven Dials. However, I've always thought of myself as a Goodman man, preferring the variety of beef they offer as well as their slightly better accoutrements. However, following a recent visit to Goodman's second London outpost in the City, I wasn't so sure any more.

Goodman City opened in London's financial district in the summer of 2010, perfectly located to take advantage of the nearby bankers seeking (quite literally this time) their pound of flesh. The room itself is dark and moody, filled with tables of serious-looking besuited men sitting on leather banquettes. There's a faint conspiratorial whiff of deal-making in the air, which I'm sure in bygone times would have been accompanied by the whiff of mellow cigar smoke. At the front of the restaurant is a large bar area, while at the back of the room is the kitchen and a glass-walled ageing room filled with Jurassic-sized hunks of hanging meat. It is, in other words, exactly like a steakhouse should be.

Soon after we were seated a tray of beautiful uncooked steaks was proudly presented to us and it was a real struggle to choose one. However, this early promise was not to last, and pretty soon we were experiencing the first of many slip-ups from the kitchen. We'd ordered a couple of starters to share but after a while the manager came over to let us know that they'd overcooked ("murdered" was his exact word) our wagyu ribeye and were in the process of cooking a new one (yes, I know, we had ordered steak for starters to go with our main course of more steak). Without us asking, we were offered a bottle of wine on the house and no charge for the starters. A generous gesture I thought, especially as I barely noticed the delay, but then maybe I'm too used to the more relaxed pace of service in restaurants here in Norway.

When the starters finally arrived they were pretty good indeed. The 250g Australian wagyu ribeye steak (£62.50) was served medium-rare and was delicious; full of intense beefy flavour and marbled with soft creamy fat. The menu states that the wagyu is between grades 7 and 9 (the scale goes up to 12, but 9 is generally thought of as being the best) but, although still tender, I was expecting a bit more of that 'melt-in-the-mouth' feeling that is the hallmark of wagyu beef.

A second shared starter of thick slices of Frank Henderman beech-smoked salmon from Clare Island in County Mayo (£12.50) was some of the best smoked salmon I've had – wonderfully delicate with a much milder flavour than most other smoked salmon. It was served with discs of pickled beetroot and dill cream cheese and a small brioche-style piece of bread that turned out to be somewhat redundant.

The main courses arrived next but with them came more errors from the kitchen. Three out of the four steaks we ordered were cooked incorrectly, not by a small margin mind, but by quite a bit indeed. A 600g medium-well Belted Galloway ribeye (£39.50) arrived rare, while a 700g steak of the same cut (£45.50) ordered medium-rare arrived blue with a cool, jelly-like centre. My friend's 650g USDA T-bone (£40.75) that was ordered medium-rare arrived medium-well. Only my 600g Belted Galloway ribeye was cooked accurately to the requested medium. A very apologetic waitress took the three offending steaks back, leaving me to eat my steak while my friends looked on and salivated.

Essentially the two main functions of a steakhouse are to source good beef and then cook it accurately. Anyone with a bit of cash and an internet connection can do the former, but it takes skill and concentration to do the later. With just one out of the four steaks we ordered cooked accurately, clearly something had gone very wrong in the kitchen that night.

My Belted Galloway bone-in ribeye

My Belted Galloway bone-in ribeye had a nice depth of beefy mineral flavour that only dry-aged grass-fed beef gives, although it was on the tough side. Maybe it could have been rested a bit more? It did have a wonderfully smoky crust to it, no doubt the result of it being cooked on a Josper grill over fiercely hot charcoal.

A side of truffle chips were crisp on the outside and pleasingly fluffy within, while a dish of creamed spinach, made with seemingly equal quantities of spinach and cream, was deliciously decadent. A salad of tomatoes and onions was our token gesture at being healthy (it was January detox month after all). Easily the best of the sides, though, was a dish of mac & cheese, which had a wonderful truffle aroma to it. The one letdown was the béarnaise sauce, which was much too thick – disappointing, as this was one of the highlights of my meal at Goodman Mayfair.

After a while my friends' three steaks arrived along with some fresh side dishes. However, one of the steaks was still very undercooked and was sent back for another session on the grill. Third time's the charm I guess and this time the steak returned accurately cooked with a very apologetic manager who gracefully took full responsibility for the kitchen's errors, and by way of apology (again, unprompted by us) assured us that we would see no bill at the end of the night.

Desserts were fine although nothing special. The topping of my apple and raisin crumble (£6.50) was a little hard and didn't have that melting buttery softness a good crumble should have, while the apples could have been cooked a bit longer as they were still quite firm. Much better was the bottle of 2007 Pelee Island Vidal Icewine (£80) we had ordered (well the manager did say "go to town gents, it's on me" as he handed us the dessert menus), which was smooth and luxurious with concentrated flavours of stone fruits.

Sometimes a restaurant just has a bad night. Sometimes the stars align so that a catalogue of errors can befall one table. At these prices it shouldn't happen, but it does, and unfortunately it happened to my table. The real test though is in how the restaurant attempts to makes right these mistakes. And it's a test Goodman passed admirably. However, I don't think having the bill waived is ever recompense for a subpar dining experience. One goes to a restaurant with the full expectation of paying and in return you expect a good experience, part of which is the kitchen getting it right the first time.

I do think our experience was an unfortunate blip at what is otherwise a great steak restaurant. But slip-ups aside I'd say I much preferred the experience at Goodman's Mayfair branch; the food there was better executed and the atmosphere was more intimate. However, the mark of good service and a good restaurant is that Goodman City managed to snatch a somewhat Pyrrhic victory from what was shaping up to be a crushing defeat, and it is for this reason I'll definitely be back to give it another chance.

Food: 6 / 10
Service: 9 / 10
Ambiance: 7 / 10

Trancher, Oslo – Restaurant Review

noreply@blogger.com (Nordic Nibbler) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:29:00 +0000

Trancher is a cosy little restaurant located in Oslo's fashionable Grünerløkka neighbourhood. It is predicated on a simple, but great idea. To paraphrase Henry Ford, at Trancher you can have anything you like as long as it's roast beef. In fact your choice is limited even further as only entrecôte (that's rib-eye for us rosbifs) is served. This is no bad thing at all in my book as entrecôte is perhaps the king of beef – it's a wonderfully marbled cut that has such a pleasing depth of flavour. I was sold and went along to see for myself if Trancher would live up to expectations.

The restaurant itself is quite a snug affair – soft lighting, candles and flock wallpaper give it a really nice 'local bistro' vibe and there's already a pleasant buzz of conversation in the room when we arrive for our early dinner reservation. We're seated and handed laminated menus, which are really to highlight the starters and desserts, as we all know what the main event is here. The meat comes in sizes of either 160g (kr 160 /€21) or 200g (kr 200 / €26), and comes with one of five sauces. You can also pick from a choice of five side dishes for kr 30 (€4) each.

First though we're served a complementary salad, which turned out to be a pretty lacklustre affair. Shredded iceberg lettuce and red cabbage was served with a couple of cashew nuts and halved grapes and had been doused with an overpowering mustard vinaigrette. It didn't look like it had been made with much care and seemed a little pointless to me.

My starter of scallop ceviche (kr 90 / €11.75) was much better though. Raw scallops were lightly marinated in lime juice and served with coriander dressing and a slick of mango coulis. The natural sweetness of the beautifully fresh scallops was intensified by the mango, while the citrus added some welcome acidity. A nice balance of flavours, although the liberal scattering of rather dry chopped parsley was completely redundant and detracted from the soft texture of the scallops.

Mrs. Nibbler had prawns and spring onions served in a spicy garlic and chilli broth that she reported to be delicious (and pretty fiery). It was served with some slices of bread that were tailor-made to be dunked into that wonderful broth.

And so we get to the main event. Bring on the beef! The meat itself comes from grass-fed cows reared in Vestnes in the heart of Western Norway. As the restaurant's name suggests the beef is not cooked individually to order, rather slices are cut from a large piece of entrecôte that has been briefly browned on the grill and cooked at a very low heat over a long period of time. The internal temperature of the beef is brought to 54°C over several hours and then it's left to rest, which results in a juicy piece of medium-rare meat.

However, the long and gentle cooking process, as well as the way the meat is served (sliced), means the mysterious but crucial Maillard reaction has barely had a chance to work its magic and as such there's hardly any crust to it. For me that intensely savoury crust is one of the singular joys of eating roast beef and here it was sorely missing.

The meat had decent enough flavour but, disappointingly, it had been wet-aged (aged in a vacuum sealed bag for a few days). And it showed. There was a real lack of beefy depth that makes dry-aged beef (aged in the open air for a few weeks) the joy that it is, and the meat looked very pale to boot. For a restaurant whose whole raison d'être is roast beef, it seems like a colossal disservice to offer wet-aged meat at all. Sure, it's a cheaper and quicker process, but dry-ageing results in infinitely better flavour and texture. I guess I'll have to come to one of Trancher's special "dry-aged days," which they hold every three weeks or so and offer dry-aged beef for kr 275 (€36).

The accompanying béarnaise sauce was perfect; fluffy and creamy with a nice acidic tarragon kick to it. However, Mrs. Nibbler's peppercorn sauce was quite tame and lacked much pepper bite. Of the sides the potato dauphinoise was by far the best, being creamy, garlicky and so soothing. A side of green beans was good too, and I like the crisp pieces of fennel it came with. The final side dish of balsamic marinated mushrooms and red onions, though, was verging on being sickly sweet and was not pleasant at all.

By now we were pretty full and nothing on the rather generic dessert menu (crème brûlée, tiramisu, or chocolate mousse) could tempt us. The total bill for the evening, including a glass of Ribera del Duero, came to a surprisingly reasonable kr 685 (€89.50) for the pair of us. Service was friendly and knowledgeable, although the food did seem to take quite a while to arrive.

For now, I think the jury's out on Trancher. I like the concept, I like the atmosphere, I like the price, but it falls short on the one thing it's supposed to do well – the meat. I'll definitely give the restaurant another chance, but next time I'll stick to one of their special "dry-aged days" instead, as the lure of dry-aged Norwegian entrecôte is just too much for this beef lover to resist.

Food: 6 / 10
Service: 7 / 10
Ambiance: 7 / 10

Trancher
Thorvald Meyers gate 78
0550 Oslo, Norway
Tel: +47 22 36 47 60

Reindeer Calzone – Recipe

noreply@blogger.com (Nordic Nibbler) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:06:00 +0000

Calzones are a great portable dish, but I prefer to eat mine while slumped in front of the TV, remote control in one hand and a cold beer in the other. I tend to save it for when I've had one of those days as there's something very comforting about the crisp, yet chewy dough, combined with the molten hot interior of tomatoes and mozzarella.

Italian tradition dictates that calzones are filled with leftover vegetables, but you can pretty much add anything you like. Here's a little Nordic twist on this classic dish that uses reindeer salami instead of the more popular pepperoni.

Reindeer meat is ubiquitous in the Nordics, having been a part of the region's cuisine for hundreds of years. It has a wonderful taste, akin to a gamier version of venison, and is tender, very lean, and packed with vitamin E and omega-3. Reindeer meat is free-range, sustainable, and very versatile – you can check out a winter-warmer recipe for reindeer stew as well as a bit about reindeers and their centuries-old link to the indigenous Sami people here.

For this recipe I use a salami that is made from reindeer meat mixed with some fattier beef and pork as well as some herbs and spices. It tastes like a gamier and less fatty version of pepperoni.

Ingredients (makes 2 large or 4 medium sized calzones)
For the dough:

500g plain flour (I use tipo '00 flour)
½ tsp salt
50g fresh yeast (or 1 sachet dried yeast)
2 tbsp milk
4 tbsp olive oil

For the sauce/filling:

1 tin of chopped tomatoes
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
2 tsp dried oregano
1 tbsp tomato ketchup
Reindeer salami (or pepperoni), sliced
A few mushrooms, sliced
A handful of basil leaves
2 balls of mozzarella, sliced
2 tbsp olive oil

Method
1. Add the milk to 200ml of warm water and dissolve the yeast in it

2. In a mixing bowl add the yeast mix and olive oil to the flour and salt and mix well (if necessary add more water or flour to get a dough that is soft but not too sticky)

3. Knead the dough for 10 minutes or use a mixer with a dough hook attachment

4. Cover with a damp cloth and leave the dough to rise in a warm place for 30 minutes

5. To make the sauce heat the olive oil in a saucepan and gently fry the garlic for a minute or two over a medium heat making sure the garlic does not burn

6. Add the tinned tomatoes, oregano, ketchup and simmer gently for 30 minutes (longer won't hurt) until reduced by around half so you have quite a thick sauce. Season to taste with salt and pepper. (You can make the sauce in advance and keep it in the fridge until needed)

7. Preheat oven to 220°C (fan)

8. Once the dough has risen turn it out onto a work surface and portion into 2-4 equal balls depending on how many calzones you're making

9. Roll out each ball into a disc and spread a layer of the sauce over half of the disc

10. Add the slices of reindeer, mozzarella, mushrooms and a few basil leaves

11. Brush the edges of the dough with water and fold over the dough to make a semi circle. Seal the edges by pressing firmly with your fingers, trimming any excess

12. Brush the tops of the calzones with olive oil and cook in the over for 10-15 minutes until golden

2011: My Ten Dishes of the Year

noreply@blogger.com (Nordic Nibbler) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 09:11:00 +0000

The year is rapidly drawing to a close and, as usual, I'm left scratching my head wondering where all the time has gone. One of my favourite things about writing a food blog is that you have a handy diary of memorable food experiences to look back on – something tangible like photos and words, something other than the ever rising numbers on the bathroom scales. Looking back at 2011 I've been lucky to have experienced some truly wonderful food, and it's good fun to look back and relive some of those memories.

Of course, what good would a year-end post be without that hackneyed favourite of work-shy journalists the world over? Yes folks, it's time for a top ten list! I did a similar post last year and really enjoyed the exercise of reminiscing over some fantastic meals, so I thought I'd repeat the process.

So, without further ado, in reverse order here is a list of the best things I ate in a restaurant in 2011:

10. Roast Lobster – Hanami, Oslo

I'm a sucker for lobster, and when it's prepared like this, it truly becomes the food of kings. A lobster is halved, doused with silky smooth and utterly decadent sea urchin and foie gras butter, before being roasted in the oven. Three of my favourite ingredients in one dish.

9. Butternut Squash Velouté – L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon, London

I always tend to overlook soup in a restaurant, believing it (wrongly) to play a mere supporting role to other, more substantial dishes on the menu. Here, at what has to be one of the most underrated 2 Michelin-star restaurants in London, a creamy butternut squash velouté is transformed by vibrant garnishes of citrus, coriander, cardamom, giving it fragrant notes of warming winter spices.

8. Pig Face – Girl & the Goat, Chicago

This fantastically named dish is the American Mid West on a plate – homely and inviting, but gutsy and direct. Meat from the pig's chin and jowls is pressed into neat discs and roasted in a wood oven so that the outside is crisp while the inside just falls apart into pieces of fatty porky goodness. Sitting on top is a fried egg, matchstick potatoes and a tamarind & coriander dressing. PIG ... FACE. Sort of like a cross between Patrick Bateman and manna from heaven. It was bloody gorgeous!

7. Foie Gras Fries – Big & Little's, Chicago

Perhaps the most outrageous dish I've ever had was at this Chicago hole-in-the-wall. Fresh, hand-cut fries are cooked to order before being crowned with two glistening pieces of seared foie gras. However, the pièce de résistance, the crowning glory, the dénouement comes when the pan juices from the foie gras are gently drizzled over the hot fries. A wicked juxtaposition of the luxurious and the everyday; I regularly have warm fuzzy dreams about this dish.

6. Pluma Ibérica – José, London

This tiny tapas bar in London's Bermondsey produced one of my favourite meals of 2011. At the heart of it was this dish of Ibérico pork fillet cooked on the plancha to an alarming shade of pink and served simply with piquillo peppers and a sprinkling of salt. Put your prejudices aside about eating rare pork; when the meat is this quality anything else would be doing it an injustice. Wonderfully juicy and packed with flavour, this dish would give the finest aged beef a run for its money.

5. Black Truffle Explosion – Alinea, Chicago

This is a dish that made my number one spot on last year's list. I was lucky enough to return to Grant Achatz's legendary 3 Michelin-starred restaurant in 2011 and this signature dish still tastes every bit as good as I remembered. A delicate ravioli was filled with the most intense warm black truffle broth. It was eaten in one bite, releasing a cascade of complex earthy truffle flavours that were totally intoxicating.

4. Coconut, Corn, Egg, Licorice – Next, Chicago

The penultimate dish of Next's 'Tour of Thailand' menu was this Alinea-esque dessert. It was a multi-layered sensory extravaganza containing no less than 12 separate components comprising of things like coconut and sweet egg yolk 'noodles,' powdered coconut, nitrogen-frozen corn parfait, liquorice-infused tapioca pearls, and coconut water ice. The idea behind the dish was to combine different sweet Thai street food bites in one dish. This many components in a dish shouldn't really work, but the flavours on display here were all perfectly in balance and created a dessert as stunning visually as it was on the taste buds.

3. Kantareller (Chanterelles) – Maaemo, Oslo

Regular readers will know that I've become totally smitten with restaurant Maaemo, and this dish is a classic example of why I love this place so much. What are basically two ingredients are transformed into a dish that is as amazing in its seeming simplicity as it is in taste. Duck heart from Holte Farm in Drangedal is served with pickled chanterelle mushrooms, small blobs of the most intense chanterelle purée, and a scattering of bright yellow winter cress flowers. The meatiness of the tender hearts is offset by the acidity of the pickled chanterelles, while a concentrated chanterelle purée and crisp peppery winter cress balance things nicely. I adore this dish. Profoundly.

2. Yoghurt, Beetroot, Apple & Sorrel – Young Turks at The Ten Bells, London

The roving culinary geniuses that are the Young Turks finally have a semi-permanent home in the Ten Bells, an old East End boozer I actually used to own. A dish of yoghurt, beetroot, apple and sorrel was the highlight of our meal there and was quite simply one of the best conceived and tasting desserts I've had. The humble red tuber was transformed into something very special indeed. Beetroot granita and beetroot meringues were paired with poached apples, fresh yoghurt and a sorrel sauce, the combination of which was revelatory. It was a perfect balance of sweetness, freshness, acidity, and earthiness. Simply heavenly!

And so, the best restaurant dish I ate in 2011 was... (drum roll please) ...

1. Oysters – Maaemo, Oslo

Another dish from Oslo's sublime restaurant Maaemo (in the interests of fairness and balance I limited myself to selecting just two dishes from this restaurant, which was no easy task as quite frankly most of this list could easily have comprised of Maaemo dishes). This dish has been on the menu since the start and it's served as an amuse bouche. It arrives at the table and just knocks you out with its sheer brilliance; a theme that is then repeated throughout your meal at Maaemo.

Atop a hollow seaweed-filled bowl is a dollop of velvety soft oyster emulsion blanketed by a thin disc of oyster jelly. At the table a mussel and dill sauce is spooned over the top. The star of this dish is the oysters, which come from Bømlo. The cold Norwegian waters result in a slow growing oyster, which intensifies their sweet mineral taste. And what a taste it is – this dish is the absolute quintessence of the sea. Imagine standing on a pebble beach with a cooling salty mist of sea water brushing your face, while fizzing waves lap against your feet. That's how this dish tastes! Sublime.

So that's my top ten restaurant dishes of 2011. The highlights of the year have definitely been my meals at Maaemo. This is a restaurant that is quite simply redefining the concept of Norwegian cuisine and I've no doubt we'll all be hearing a great deal more about it in the near future.

So, what about you, what have been your standout dishes of the year? What is your top-ten food list of 2011?

Here's wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!