It’s been a while since I’ve updated In Pursuit of Food. I haven’t been nearly as motivated or inspired over the last four years, mainly because I’ve been working full time in editing jobs that demanded long hours and a lot of mental capacity.

In 2020, I started a new project, Money Talk, that reignited my interest in writing for myself and building a website as a business. And in 2021, I went freelance full time for the first time in about five years, which meant I finally had time to give it a shot.

Except 2021 turned out to be quite hectic, with a few big, time-consuming projects, including contributing to a new guide book for Lonely Planet.

So now we’re in 2022, and I’m finally making a start.

Where to shop for your kitchen appliances and accessories

I wanted to start this new chapter with a guide to shopping for kitchen gadgets, appliances and accessories because I’ve spent a lot of time in the past year testing different products for The Independent and The Sun as part of my “day job” as a journalist. There’s a lot of background information that doesn’t filter into those articles, which I think will work well here.

So, without further ado, here are the best places to shop for your kitchen appliances and accessories.

Kitchen accessories

For any small kitchen accessories, whether it’s rolling pins or garlic presses, my go-to is Lakeland*. I love that they stock so many different kitchen products and I’ve found they’re particularly strong on things like baking wares.

Many of the products that I’ve tested from them worked wonderfully and they’re competitively priced too. Plus, they offer free delivery for spends of £45 or more, or you can opt for free click and collect.

The runner up for me is Dunelm*. They stock a huge range of brands at competitive prices, although admittedly their own-brand products can sometimes be a bit hit or miss.

The bigger downside is that not everything is available for delivery. Although they offer free click and collect, they don’t have as many outlets as say Argos.

Knives

One of the surprises for me was Judge’s knives, which are co-branded with Sabatier. I have a set of Sabatier knives from my Leiths days so I already know the brand well – they sharpen up nicely, although they can dull quickly.

The benefit of the partnership with Judge is that they’re extremely affordable, and the brand often has unbeatable offers on the parent company’s website, Horwood*.

On the pricier end, it’s between Robert Welch and Zwilling*. Some of their knives go into the hundreds but they’re extremely sharp and keep their edge well. I personally prefer the handles on Robert Welch’s knives, but the blade shape of Zwilling knives are much closer to what I’m used to.

Pots and pans

For me, ProCook* wins hands down when it comes to pots and pans. They have a huge selection available and like Ikea furniture, they mix and match really well.

All of the ones I’ve tested have performed extremely well. And as well as being very durable – many come with long or lifetime guarantees – they’re extremely competitively priced, too.

Plus, delivery is free for orders of £50 or more.

Kitchen gadgets and appliances

There are plenty of places where you can shop for kitchen gadgets and appliances but one of the best around is AO.com*. They offer free delivery for just about everything but I particularly like the fact that they’ll price match and they have a great returns policy.

The only downside is that they don’t stock as big a selection of products as some of the other retailers. If it’s choice you’re looking for, Argos or Currys are your best options and they tend to be very competitively priced, too.

Miscellaneous kitchen stuff

Of course, it’s hard to beat Amazon for sheer volume and choice but I find it a bit of a nightmare to navigate. An easy way to see what’s popular is by checking the bestseller list*.

Otherwise I tick five star reviews (obviously the more ratings the better) and hope for the best…!

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The country’s Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forestry Policies’ National Wine Committee unanimously approved the new DOC category for Prosecco – Prosecco DOC Rosé.

There are slightly different rules in place to ensure quality control.

In order to label Prosecco DOC as Rosé, producers will have to:

• Use specified grape varieties: Glera (the original Prosecco grape) and between 10% and 15% Pinot Nero
• Control the yields in their vineyards (to maintain quality of the grapes, and in turn the intensity of the flavour of wine): 18 tons/hectare for Glera and 13.5 tons/hectare for Pinot Nero
• It needs to be produced using the second fermentation aka Martinotti/Charmat Method: taking a minimum of 60 days
• It needs to fall into a colour spectrum: pink more or less intense, shining, and with a persistent foam
• There are several available styles depending on residual sugar, like normal Prosecco: from Brut Nature to Extra Dry
• The label will have to state the word “Millesimato” and the vintage (the wine will have to be made up of a minimum of 85% of the grapes from that year)

Sales will be allowed from the 1st of January after the harvest, which is potentially next year, and they think up to 30 million bottles of the new pink variation will be produced a year. In context, last year (2019), around 616 million bottles of Prosecco was produced in Italy.

I think it will be much more – there’s huge interest in pink Champagne and if pink Prosecco is pegged at the right price, with the right flavour profiles, demand will grow very quickly.

(BTW, the featured picture is not the grape varieties in question.)

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Elyse is the co-founder of Japan Gourmet, a company that supplies premium sake to some of the best restaurants in London and around the UK.

In this episode, she explains some of the basics of sake – including what it is, how it’s made and the best way to drink it.

We also delve into the different styles of sake, including cloudy and sparkling varieties, as well as sake made with the help of a centrifuge.

Finally, we talk about matching sake with food and whether it makes for a better pairing than wine.

Join us now as we explore a small part of the world of sake.

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Photos c/o Japan Gourmet.

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To be quite honest, it got pretty boring. Some of the books were so tedious, that I had to splice trashy novels, sometimes several, in between them just to get through. On occasions, I did the sane thing and just gave up.

Then things got busy and I soon dropped the charade.

But at the end of last year, when I moved into my new home and had months without internet, I started to read again. Looking through the books I had on my tablet, I saw Dominique Ansel’s book, Dominique Ansel: Secret Recipes from the World Famous New York Bakery.

I had, evidently, downloaded it at some point and then proceeded to forget about it.

Now, I’m not much of a cookbook reader – I like to flip through one now and then (Phaidon’s Coco is my favourite), look at the stunning photographs and try to inspire myself to cook something fancy. I almost never follow a recipe but I might steal an idea here and there to liven up my repertoire, usually because I’ve become so bored of eating the food I’m cooking on a day-to-day basis.

Having just finished another novel, Ansel’s book, a representative of a different genre, looked pretty good.

Unlike your average cookbook, which starts with a couple of pages of introduction before launching into a hundred or so recipes, Ansel’s book has chapters and chapters of text before running onto a handful of recipes (I didn’t count them but there aren’t that many).

But what I liked about it is that it wasn’t just some authoritative drivel about how you should prep your baking tray or why organic stone-milled heritage flour is the only kind you should be using. Instead, it explained the best way to do things through a series of stories.

These were stories about failing to make the perfect macaron, emigrating to the US and discovering the cookie and creating the iconic cronut. Yes, a version of the cronut recipe is in the book.

It was a realistic, and well-written, account of life as a pastry chef. And even though I generally shun fads, I suddenly found myself wishing I had a cronut at 3am. In any case, I gained a whole lot of respect for Ansel through the writing in his book.

As for whether I’ll be making the cronut at home, the answer is in all likelihood no. Having made croissants at Leiths, I don’t need to look through the cronut recipe to recognise how time-consuming and technically challenging it is. I would much rather travel to New York to have the real deal, made by professionals who really care about and know what they’re doing.

Still, it was a nice interlude between light and heavy reading.

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Make of it what you will.

In the morning, I posted a solitary photo of one of the dishes from my dream – one that I had enjoyed in real life also – to Instagram. It’s recognisable enough if you know the chef but it was inconspicuous in all other respects. And like all dreams, this one soon fluttered out of my mind.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BDXptN9lqke/

I received an invitation in the post a few weeks later in a surreal dream-come-true scenario to discover the Fronteras menu at Restaurante Quique Dacosta in Denia – the very same restaurant that I had been dreaming about. And by July, I was back in Valencia and ready to take up on the surprise offer.

El Poblet, Valencia

There was a prelude to my visit – a dinner at El Poblet, Quique Dacosta’s one Michelin-starred restaurant in the heart of Valencia.

Situated above one of his other restaurants in the city, Vuelve Carolina, El Poblet was in a flamboyant bubble of pink embossed wallpaper. There were just a handful of tables where dishes from Restaurante Quique Dacosta’s past menus were served alongside head chef Luis Valls Rozalén’s creations.

For eighty odd euros, you get a tasting of around 12 courses – a steal compared to any offering you might find in London.

But it’s hard to judge El Poblet on its own merits given that so many of the dishes were in essence recycled but if you don’t get an opportunity to travel out to Denia for the three-star experience, El Poblet comes pretty close. Certainly, it is deserving of at least two Michelin stars.

It’s impossible to miss Dacosta’s signature dish, the petals of rose – the very one that I had dreamt about. On my visit, there were also revisited recipes like the red king prawn from Denia and Cuba Libre de Foie Gras. Crowd-pleasers if you will.

Perhaps one of the most visually appealing dishes was the head chef’s creation – The Haze.

It’s not a complicated dish – a small platter prettied up with peas, mushrooms, peashoot, lardon and crumbs. But it’s made theatrical with the addition of a bubbling mist from the dry ice.

In an instant, I was transported back a moment in the Basque Country when winter was approaching. Biting frost was as much on the grass as it was in the crisp air and the sun’s rays struggled to penetrate through the atmosphere. As the car I was in emerged from a tumble of fog, a flock of birds flew past overhead, breaking with the sun. A simple but glorious moment.

I very much enjoyed El Poblet. It was easy to get acquainted with but offered a few twists and turns too.

Restaurante Quique Dacosta, Denia

While El Poblet was a cocoon of red hues, Restaurante Quique Dacosta was a vision in white.

The amuse bouche were taken outside the main restaurant with a choice between an air-conditioned room or the white garden.

It’s impossible to imagine devotees to summer picking anything but the exterior where white wicker furniture sat under the shelter of floaty white canopies. With each passing breeze, the fronds of the canopy waved and danced without a care in the world. It’s chic and joyful at the same time.

Delicate little dishes came out in no time at all and brought with them an assault of citrus and smoke flavours that danced with the cava that was served. I would have happily stayed in this state long into the night.

Inside the restaurant, more tiny dishes followed in quick succession.

Some of these focused on ingredients in minute detail, like the spoonful of fish roe and paper-thin slices of octopus tentacles. Others, like the tomato skin creation, broke the mould of what an ingredient ‘should’ look like. Others still, crossed the line of how many flavours or colours should be on a single plate.

Dish after dish arrived to assault my palate with hardly any time to savour the experience – it was overwhelming to say the least. But even more confusing for the mind, there didn’t seem to be a thread connecting the dishes, except perhaps this single idea of Fronteras, or borders.

By the end, I felt dishevelled and ravaged and was glad to be out in the sun to enjoy the Petit Fours. It was a return to normality after the delivery of a focused and intense symphony.

I’ve held this piece for the best part of a year while ruminating over what I thought of my experience at Restaurante Quique Dacosta.

The impeccable style, from the well-chosen ties of the wait staff to the precise choice of the décor were all so Quique Dacosta. The food, bold, challenging and thrust upon its diner, reflects that. Honestly, I still don’t know if I liked it.

But one thing is for sure – it’s an experience you won’t forget.

Inspirations

Much later, I was researching an article in earnest when I stumbled upon something that I thought was very interesting.

During my visit to Restaurante Quique Dacosta, I was told about how the theme of the restaurant changes every year and has done for the past decade or so. And with the closing of this year, I suppose Fronteras will come to an end and give way to something else.

New for this year was also a chef’s kitchen, one created in partnership with Porcelanosa, where Dacosta could invite selected guests to dine.

Like other development kitchens, this one boasted a workspace filled with hidden equipment. But it’s also a space where Dacosta has started to experiment with lights and sounds akin to what’s happening at Paul Pairet’s Ultraviolet. I can only pretend to imagine what might come out of these experiments for the menu for next year.

But the thing that I later discovered, which impressed upon me a new appreciation, was the fact that Dacosta started working at Restaurante Quique Dacosta in his mid-teens. Of course, it wasn’t his restaurant then and it was known as El Poblet. Eventually, Dacosta took over the restaurant and made it his, gaining Michelin stars and a whole host of other accolades in the process. But he has only ever worked in one restaurant, a feat that’s matched by few.

In Pursuit of Food travelled to Valencia with flight support from the Spanish Tourism Board and was a guest at El Poblet and Restaurante Quique Dacosta. For more information on what this means, read our Editorial Policy.

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What’s your view of the Asian market right now?

In general, Asia is growing and willing to drink more and better wines. We have been in the market for almost two decades; our name is known among those consumers willing to pay more for quality.

However, Asia is very big and there are different market realities. China is very different from Japan, Korea, Vietnam, etc. China in the year 2013 was difficult but improved a bit in 2014. Japan has been booming for Montes and Korea is growing at a slower speed. I would say the more open markets for Chilean wines are between Japan and Korea. Our wines have been there for a long time and with very good reputation for quality.

How would you compare this with the European or American market?

Chilean wines in the USA have been part of the scenario for a long time. In many Asian markets Chilean wines are still being introduced. This is not the case for Japan and Korea but in many other markets, including China where, in T2 and T3 cities, Chilean wines are just starting to be known.

What’s Montes’ strategy in Asia?

We have been following the same strategy for many years – quality, quality, quality. Not only in the wines but also in the service to our importers as well as a relationship with them that includes trips to each market from Chile. In China we do have a Brand Manager that lives in Shanghai; we also visit two or three times a year from Chile.

What’s your biggest challenge?

Our biggest challenge is wine education. With today’s wine supply it is common to see a lot of wines at very low prices. We produce quality wines and cannot offer cheap prices. It is vital for a winery like us that people can identify between a good and an “easy drinking” wine and then be willing to pay more for the better one. We work with both importers and consumers on this.

There’s a pressure for winemakers to make wines for food. Are Montes’ wines geared for the Asian market in the same way?

We do not have special wines for a specific market. All our wines, from the same range, have the same philosophy, wine making, etc. What is real is that in Asia, consumers prefer some grape varieties more than others depending on the market – again, Asia is not homogeneous. Merlot and Chardonnay are more popular in China than in Korea where Cabernet Sauvignon is more popular.

In our range, several wines match very well with many Asian foods. As a matter of fact we have participated two or three times in a seminar that Ch’ng Poh Tiong (Singapore wine writer) organised a few years back. The results were amazingly positive. A lot of Asian food matched wine, not only Montes, to be fair.

Montes opened the South Korean market for quality Chilean wines, how has the market changed since you first started working there?

The change has been dramatic. Montes wines were the very first quality Chilean wine in Korea. This was a result of Douglas Murray’s efforts in years when not a lot of people took the time to travel, offer and establish relationships in the market. I’m not afraid to say that many Korean wine lovers learned to drink with a bottle of Montes Alpha.

Today, there is a plethora of Chilean wine brands that are offering low prices, and consequently lower quality levels, that consumers are very much willing to drink. In a way it disturbs our market since some consumers move to cheaper kind of wines. This phenomena not only happens in Korea but in all markets.

What about the grey market for Montes wines?

This is the price we have to pay for having “emblematic” wines in China. Grey marketers take advantage of today’s global economy and they buy Purple Angel, Montes Folly, Montes Alpha M and, lately, Montes Taita in other markets then they ship them to China.

How they profit is still a big question. We do not know how they are able to offer our wines in China at the same, or even lower prices, than our importer considering that they have to pay a lot more freight if they buy from Europe, plus the mark ups of a longer trade channel. This situation is very disturbing to our official importers. It is not a fair way to work and we repudiate all grey market and copying activity.

This Q&A was originally destined for a magazine but sadly it never made it to print. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed it here.

You can also read about my vinous travels to Chile on Daily Mail Online, which was one of the articles submitted for consideration for the 2016 Louis Roederer International Wine Writers Awards. I was shortlisted in the Food and Wine category.

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Francois represents the fifth generation of the Lurton family, who are well known in the world of Bordeaux wines. But as a bit of a maverick, Francois has ventured out to establish his own brand and his own wine identity after more than a decade of working for the family business.

We recently met at a tasting at Lima Floral Restaurant in London to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his estate in Argentina, Bodegas Piedra Negra in the Uco Valley. There, I tried a selection of his wines from Chile and Argentina.

Reading back on my notes almost two months later, I realised just how diverse the selection of 15 or so wines were.

Some were young and robust while others were gentle and fruity. There were even notes mentioning dark and moody alongside smoke and spice. I was surprised by how remarkably well they coped with the very challenging flavours of Peruvian food. Granted, the selection matched with the punchy dishes had a bit more age to them.

Although we tasted a sizeable collection of wines, it’s less than a quarter of the labels in Francois’ portfolio across the two continents.

Well, I’ll let Francois tell his own story in this little taster:

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Photos c/o Francois Lurton Wines.

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1st Act

Rice liquor quinine and emulsion of yuzu

Chinese orange

Cocktail of cockles

Carbon of pericana

Raim de pastor and kalanchoe

Piadina of fermented corn, red tuna and dashi vinegar

Moruno pig nose

Almond nougat

2nd Act

Dry octopus

Roe of mullet

Torta of ling roe

Red tuna belly rested between sugared kombu and mechoui

Onion in vinegar and cumin popadom

3rd Act

Crushed and dried tomato

Fish lemon and half lemon

Langoustine on the grill, green curry, avocado and corn

4th Act

Coca of peas and onions in apple vinegar

Green grapes and mezcal

Cold soup of cucumber with marbles of vegetable water

J. Sendra rice with wild chards and red crabs

Flamed eel from Albufera and ginger emulsion

5th Act

Preparation of old hen, its egg, crunchy cockscomb and grilled meat

6th Act

Strange flowers 2015

Moss 2008

Cinnamon branch and prunes

Petals of roses

Apple gin and tonic

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[Sweet corn leaf, mushrooms leaf, herb leaf, beetroot root and tomatoes with vinaigrette]

Petals of rose

Apple gin and tonic

Rompepiedra leaf with mackerel

Stone of parmesan cheese

Light beignet of codfish

[Cuba Libre de Foie Gras]

The haze

Cherries gazpacho

Red king prawn from Denia with tea of prawns and chard

Red mullet with pearls of its head

Cod tripe stew

Rice ashes

Black Angus churrasco

Vineyard peach

Petit fours (cinnamon sticks and prunes)

This is the menu from my visit to El Poblet, Quique Dacosta’s restaurant in Valencia. It’s named after the restaurant he originally worked at, El Poblet, which is where his current three Michelin-starred Restaurante Quique Dacosta is situated in Denia.

At this Valencia restaurant, the dishes are a mixture of new creations and dishes from Dacosta’s past exploits.

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Jidori was Plan C. Not in earnest, as it was always the plan to visit after Lyle’s and The Clove Club, though there was a Plan D.

I’m not sure there’s anyone who found it on the first go. This Dalston restaurant lives in the stripped down shell of another establishment, the tell-tale sign of which is still over the entrance. The only thing that advertises Jidori is a simple branded print out of the menu, stuck on the window.

It feels like I’ve been there before though. Perhaps in it’s previous incarnation as a Vietnamese restaurant. Now it’s a yakitori joint with tiny tables that make the cavernous room look huge.

There’s enough of us to try just about everything on the tight menu, with just eight yakitori options, a set of sides, a smattering of small plates and one dessert.

A couple of things weren’t available. Like the liver for example, which was replaced by the much more delightful oyster. They were kumamoto oysters, and I really ought to have had them without the dressing, but shallot and vinegar is just so god damn good.

I also rather enjoyed it’s vegetarian options of king oyster mushroom and aubergine and miso butter. The onsen egg was gracious, as was the koji fried chicken, though I think I preferred the wings. You’d be spoilt for choice if you loved chicken or rather sick of it by the end if you’re not.

There’s only one dessert on the menu, a ginger ice cream. It came loaded with sweet potato crisps, miso caramel and black sesame. It’s unusual, but not necessarily in a bad way. I think the Jidori pickleback, a shot of whisky followed by a shot of pickled ginger juice, was made for it.

And after that solitary dessert, it was onto Plan D. A different Plan D.

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