We’re celebrating our column’s first anniversary! To mark the occasion, as well as the new year, we’ve looked back on our favourite food moments of 2011 including our best dining experience, the best use of vegetables and our cook books of choice...
We’re celebrating our column’s first anniversary! To mark the occasion, as well as the new year, we’ve looked back on our favourite food moments of 2011.
Favourite overall dining experience
Osteria Francescana: Not surprisingly, this restaurant in Modena, Italy, received its third Michelin star at the end of last year. Warm, luxurious, playful and particular, all the details – from the food to the décor to the staff to the flower design – work holistically to create a total dining experience. We love the Philip Starck chandelier, the jolly sommerlier, and the personalised art collection. Which is to say nothing of the menu: an absolute joy combining the best of Emilia–Romagnan regional cooking with creativity and innovative techniques, brought together with anarchic flair by chef-patron Massimo Bottura.
Our best of London
North Road: Chef-patron Chistoffer Hruskova brings all the fire and ice of Danish cooking to this singular restaurant in Clerkenwell. Carefully sourced and exquisitely prepared UK-only ingredients fill a constantly changing menu with light and fresh flavours. Hruskova doesn’t just incorporate seasonality and wild food as gimmicks; they are the cornerstones of his cuisine. Well-deserving of his first Michelin star not even a year after launch.
The Corner Room: Chef Nuno Mendes proves with this addition to the Town Hall Hotel in Bethnal Green that casual dining is best done with top ingredients, a well-edited menu and wine list, and a great deal of charm. The sister restaurant to his one star Michelin Viajante in the same building, The Corner Room is the ultimate nouveau bistro.
The Long Table: Not to be found resting, Mendes also helped launch last year’s best low cost dining experience. A new concept in London, you could get everything from Japanese octopus balls to Mexican tamales at this night market in Dalston, where endless queues of people kept coming back for more. We only hope the organisers make it a regular fixture in 2012.
Favourite producers
Mr Olive Oil: Making exceptional olive oil in small batches to sell at his electrical shop in Clerkenwell, Mehmet Murat is a real food hero.
Richard Vine: Micro vegetables, big heart. Horticulturalist Vine’s mini veggies and salads bring big flavours to top chefs’ menus.
Fattoria La Vialla: The Italian biodynamic farm whose olive oil, wine and pecorino cheese we simply cannot get enough of: mail order Tuscan magic.
"Warm, luxurious, playful and particular, all the details at Osteria Francescana – from the food to the décor to the staff to the flower design – work holistically to create a total dining experience."
Best use of vegetables
Relae: Former Noma sous chef Christian Puglisi has taken vegetables out from the side lines and put them under the spotlight at his new venture in Copenhagen.
Favourite breakfast
Hawksmoor Guildhall: Breakfast cocktails, grilled bone marrow and a smoked haddock omelette designed by novelist Arnold Bennett for the Savoy. What more can we say? (Except to mention the Hawksmoor lobster roll, which isn’t on the breakfast menu, but was also one of our indulgent highlights of 2011.)
Best art/food crossover
Pied à Terre: Launching their first Artist-in-Restaurant prize last year, the two star Michelin favourite on Charlotte Street saw artist Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva get up close and personal with its kitchen’s refuse for her exhibition The Wish of the Witness. A one-of-a-kind initiative to promote emerging artists and site-specific art.
Most innovative approach
The Young Turks: Staying true to their vision of offering creativity, seasonality and affordability, this roving cooperative of young chefs has done stints everywhere from a disused office building in Canary Wharf, to a parking lot in Peckham, to a restaurant called Bastard in Sweden, and are now holding a residency at The Ten Bells near Spitalfields market. They bring guts and soul to the much-done temporary/pop-up restaurant concept.
La Lanterna di Diogene: An organic farm, restaurant and producer of small batch balsamic vinegar outside of Modena, Italy, run by adults with learning disabilities along with their therapists and a head chef. A magical place off the beaten track.
Favourite cookbooks
Hawksmoor at Home: Simple, meaty, well-designed; offering a good mix of recipes, including one for hamburger buns. Not only a nice insight into the Hawksmoor kitchen, but also a primer on the history of meat in Britain. All profits go to charity.
Penguin Great Food series: Includes titles such as Pellegrino Artusi’s Exciting Food for Southern Types, Alice B. Toklas’ Murder in the Kitchen, and Charles Lamb’s A Dissertation on Roast Pig and Other Essays. A stylish series of small volumes by big food personalities from over the past 400 years.
Text by Ananda Pellerin and Neil Wissink
Ananda Pellerin is a London-based writer and Neil Wissink is a visual artist also based in London. More from The Hunger here, and contact The Hunger here.
