Two-Michelin Starred Chef Michael Wignall Ends the #MeetTheMichelins Series at Selfridges

Words & Photography by Florentyna Leow and Luiz Hara

Chef Michael Wignall from the 2-Michelin starred restaurant The Latymer at the Penny Hill Park Hotel, took center stage in the final installment of the #MeetTheMichelins dinner series at Selfridges’ The Corner Restaurant. The #MeetTheMichelin series was designed to promote some of the UK’s finest British chefs operating outside of London. Chef Wignall describes his cooking as “complex and carefully crafted,” and this meal was no exception -  his multi-course extravaganza (priced at £95, with an additional £45 for the wine flight) certainly ended the #MeetTheMichelin series on a high note.

The hors d'oeuvres were delicious and displayed a strong sense of creativity and technical skill. These left us wondering and wanting more: a small tube of seaweed-like paste on a toothpick, innocuous but full of umami; and a crisp cigar-like wafer tube filled with a buttery cream that tasted of the ocean, with bitter, chocolaty cocoa nibs to bring it into focus.

Our meal opened with Cornish mackerel, the humble fish tricked out with all manner of fanciful accents - an oily, salty burst of Belgian Oscietra caviar, cool and crunchy compressed cucumber, sweet shredded crab meat, subtle edamame and wasabi cream, mysterious light green smoky bouncy spheres, little dots of intensely lemony confit. The flavours generally worked well together, particularly with the crisp, lemony K5 Argiñano Txakolina from the Basque region, and the presentation was stunning.

Tender salt-baked celeriac followed the fish. Garnishes of compressed and nitro’d apple strips had the texture of black fungus (often used in Chinese cooking), and the combination of chilled pea juice, peas and homemade ricotta and feta brought summer to life on a plate. This was good, accompanied by a crisp, fresh New Hall Bacchus Reserve.

Wignall’s poached loin of Loire valley rabbit is much feted at his restaurant, but I found it a little too soft for my liking, and the whole concoction of milky polenta, braised Scotch oats and soft meat cried out in my opinion for a crisp or crunchy contrasting texture. The mushrooms however were quite divine - fragrant and earthy, utterly delicious with a glass of berry-laden 2011 Barda Patagonian Pinot Noir (Bodegas Chacra).

Olive oil-poached hake - one of my favourites of the night - felt like a more substantial course, with an accompanying cassoulet of summer beans, charcoal and scallop emulsion. Atop the grilled scallop were strips of Iberico lard, which melted underneath the heat of the grill, infusing the scallop with an extra salty-creamy dimension. Davies served up a Cellers Anima Negra from Majorca, which complemented the smokiness of the charcoal emulsion beautifully.

The ‘piglet’ course was another favourite, with some great flavour combinations - for instance luscious sweet and sour sweetbreads, or a ‘hen of the woods’ in a spicy BBQ sauce evoking summer time outdoor grilling. The only fly in the amber in my opinion was the cep-scented pork fillet - which I found underwhelming and under seasoned. The Portuguese Pan Vinha however was delicious.

A ‘savoury’ is not a course you see often these days, but Wignall reinterpreted the traditional British cheese course with modern flourishes such as pickle spheres - think liquidised Branston pickle bubbles - and atomised vinegar, which accounted for the bracingly sour scent wafting around our plates. The cheeses were uniformly well chosen, and Davies threw us yet another curve ball by pairing them with the Atlantic Pale Ale from Brixton Brewery. This IPA-style drink worked well with cheese.

Drinks before dessert came in the form of Pimms, ‘Our Way’ - a layered concoction involving foamed cubes of fruit, shaved iced cucumber, strawberries and sweet cream. This was a clever take on the quintessential British summer cocktail, and one all of us thoroughly enjoyed.

Our desserts featured ‘Cherry’ and ‘Raspberry’ respectively. 'Cherry' saw vanilla dough (essentially a large holed doughnut) and a gorgeously dense and smooth rectangular tile of Tahitian vanilla custard, with a few syrup-poached cherries, as well as almonds and crumble-crunch for texture. That alone sent me into a mild swooning fit, but the divinely golden sweet and floral Helmut Lang Gelber Muskateller Eiswein elevated this course to heavenly heights. The choice of dessert wine here was faultless.

Unfortunately, ‘Raspberry’ felt a little lacking in comparison - I have lukewarm feelings at best about berries and chocolate in the same dish, and this did little to change my mind. The individual components of raspberry namelaka/jelly, micro cocoa sponge and aero chocolate were delicious, but I felt that together they were less than the sum of their parts. Luckily, the accompanying wine - Alta Alella Mataro Dolce, a sweet and rich but not too heavy Spanish vin doux naturelle - helped end the meal on a good note.

As with the previous dinners, we were well taken care of by the superb waiting staff at The Corner Restaurant, particularly the knowledgeable and lovely Mino, who attended us week after week. Service was, as usual, impeccable and unobtrusive. Selfridges’ sommelier Dawn Davies also worked her magic again, mixing and matching wines to each course with an inventive flair.

I was impressed that Chef Michael Wignall does not seem to belong to the breed of chefs who are more interested in PR than cooking; it certainly felt like he was giving his food the attention it deserved. This was a multi-course, carefully crafted extravaganza, and I really hope to have the opportunity to visit The Latymer before too long.

Seeking the Best Dim Sum in London - Royal China Baker Street

Words & Photography by Florentyna Leow and Luiz Hara

Name: Royal China Baker Street

Where: 24-26 Baker St, Marylebone, London W1U 7AB, http://royalchina.rcguk.co.uk/rcg.html

About: The Royal China Group, founded in 1996, has 6 restaurants in and around London with branches in Queensway, the flagship restaurant (reviewed here), Harrow, Docklands, and Fulham. On Baker Street, there are two Royal China restaurants including the Royal China Club, the premier restaurant of the group and one of my favourite dim sum places in London (reviewed here).

Dim sum at the Royal China Club will cost on average 50% more than you would normally pay anywhere else, but the quality is outstanding and worth the price tag in my opinion. Its poorer sister, the Royal China Baker Street is only a block or so away, and on a recent weekday afternoon with a serious dimsum craving and a little less cash to spare we decided to pay it a visit – even at 3pm, we were impressed to see that it had a steady stream of customers.

Royal China Baker Street looks like a slightly luxe Chinese restaurant, or one that would have been a decade and a half ago - one doesn’t get much carpeting in restaurants these days. It’s clean and large, but the decor is a little faded, and the whole place is a little too dimly lit for my liking.

We ordered a mix of familiar favourites and special items, along with Iron Goddess tea (Tie Guan Yin) to wash it all down. Royal China has a wine list, but Chinese tea is a far more appropriate accompaniment to a dim sum lunch in my opinion. Be sure to prod your waiter/waitress for the various kinds of tea such as Tie Guan Yin and Bo Lei that they will most definitely have, as the menu doesn’t list anything beyond ‘jasmine’ or ‘Chinese’ tea.

What We Ate: Service is fairly fast and efficient. Our plates of dim sum arrived in quick succession - no sooner had we begun on one than a second, third, fourth arrived. Most were good, some utterly delicious and worth repeating. Nothing was below average. One of the highlights of the meal was the pork and radish dumplings (£3.50) - a partially translucent, glutinous skin encasing a pork, chestnut, carrot and coriander filling. It was a crisp-crunchy, delightful excursion in textures, one that the home cook would be hard-pressed to replicate.

Another favourite was the prawn and chive dumpling (£3.80) - fresh and sweet, it was perfect with a dab of chilli sauce. I would have happily ordered a portion just for myself.

The crab meat dumpling soup (£4.80) - which will take around 30 minutes to arrive, so plan accordingly - was also quite lovely, each dumpling stuffed to the brim with crab. Even more enjoyable than the dumpling was the soup it came bobbing in - a sweet and delicate double-boiled broth with the faintest hint of Chinese herbs.

My personal favourite was the deep fried garlic prawn beancurd skin rolls (£5.20). I would recommend this only if you enjoy eating garlic by the mouthful, which I do. It is exactly as its name suggests: sweet, juicy minced prawn and garlic in almost equal measure, wrapped in beancurd skins and deep fried. My mouth waters just thinking about it.

Royal China doesn’t stint on the garlic, particularly on their specials menu. Boiled pork dumplings with chilli oil (£4.90) were also wonderfully garlicky, sweet and a little spicy, and doused in a vinegary sauce which reminded me of the Japanese Nanban style of cooking.

Any good dim sum place should serve up steamed turnip cake (£3.50), and Royal China’s version was a fine one – it had clean flavours and a smooth texture, with lovely crispy fried edges.

The glutinous rice in lotus leaves (£4.20), was a very pretty example, the lotus leaves infusing the surf n’ turf combination of dried shrimp and pork with a subtle earthiness.

If you’re craving a hearty, dry noodle dish, you could order the sliced beef Ho Fun with soya sauce (£8.50), it had decent wok hei (breath of the wok) and was delicious.

The other dishes were good, if not life-changing. Prawn cheong fun (£4.80), for instance, was quite tasty, even if the house-made skin was a little thick for my liking.

The crabmeat XO dumplings (£4.80) were delectable, but could have used more XO sauce for that extra kick.

Spare ribs in black bean sauce (£3.50) - another dim sum classic - were adequate, but not terribly memorable.

There’s usually not much in the way of dessert at Chinese restaurants, but their almond beancurd with fruit cocktail (£3.50) made for a smooth and refreshing end to a meat-heavy dim sum meal.

Royal China’s egg tarts (£3.60 for 4) were well made but compared poorly with the very same tarts served at a few doors down at the Royal China Club.

To celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, we ordered custard mooncakes, these were baked in-house, were served warm and were rich and scrumptious.

Likes: the pork and radish dumplings, prawn and chive dumpling and crab meat dumpling soup are very good, but the deep fried garlic prawn beancurd skin rolls were exceptional. There are some excellent teas if you ask for them.

Dislikes: their selection of fine Chinese teas available should be readily available in English. Service was efficient but patchy and could have been friendlier at times.

Verdict: The Royal China Baker Street is a good place to enjoy freshly made dim sum in Marylebone, as well as being a more affordable option than the swanky Royal China Club further up the road. Recommended.

Furo-chan, my partner in crime for many London dinners, dim sum lunches and Japanese Super Clubs, you are missed! X

Meeting the Michelin Olly Rouse at Selfridges

Words & Photography by Florentyna Leow and Luiz Hara

Week 2 of Meet the Michelins – a Selfridges project featuring culinary stars from the Home Counties – saw Olly Rouse take the stage at The Corner Restaurant on Monday evening to whip up a dazzling 7-course menu. All of the Meet the Michelins experiences feature a tasting menu with optional wine flight, prices for each evening varying slightly. This week’s 7-course menu was priced at £75 with matching wines by Selfridges' head sommelier Dawn Davies for an additional £45 – decent value, especially considering the top-notch drinks accompanying the food.

Rouse is the head chef at The Avenue at Lainston House in Winchester. Describing himself as ‘extremely hands-on', he would emerge from the kitchen between courses to introduce each dish, chatting with the diners, all the while sending out tasty and meticulously plated dishes.

His eye for detail was evident in little flourishes such as the feather used in presenting the menu, the beautiful cast-iron teacups used for serving the house-fermented kombucha (yeast enzyme tea), and even the dry ice in the teapots of kombucha, which lent a lovely theatrical touch during service.

The onion cracker was a stellar example of his attention to detail – his take on pork crackling contained not a whiff of pork, but was instead made of dehydrated and deep-fried tapioca sheets infused with onion stock and liberally salted. Crunchy and utterly moreish, it went down a treat with the Selfridges' own Prosecco label, and was a highly promising start to the evening.

Selfridges sommelier Dawn Davies worked her magic again this evening – her choices were often bold and unusual, but generally spot on and occasionally even sublime. Her expertise particularly shone through with her choice of the Gaia Estate ‘Thalassitis’ Wild Ferment Assyrtiko for the first starter. Tasted alone, it was brash and almost too assertive for my taste, but acquired a beautiful roundness and minerality when sampled with the crab.

Our first starter and one of the highlights of the evening, the soft shell crab, was a gorgeous medley of textures and flavours. The crab was juicy and succulent within and satisfyingly crunchy without; with the mildly bitter grapefruit, tender artichoke and radish, rocket, tomato and pea salad, it came together as a dish greater than the sum of its parts. It was a tremendously enjoyable starter.

Herring, the second starter, was served alongside pickled purple carrots, roasted shallots and mooli, and blobs of apple-vanilla and parsley purée. The young German Kabinett Riesling (Oberhauser Leistenberg) chosen to accompany this starter, undercut the oily richness of the fish with much-needed freshness and acidity.

Our third and final starter featured a surf n’ turf combination of Pig & Prawn. The confit pork belly was a little dry and not fatty enough for my liking; the raw Sicilian prawns and smoky aubergine purée were, however, phenomenal. Together with the light, juicy chilled Portuguese red (Pardusco Vinho Verde Tinto), the prawn half of the equation shone.

Onwards to the two mains: Rouse’s take on roast chicken and lamb. The roast chicken was served with a medley of accompaniments including pine nut crumbs, smoked corn stuffing, a horseradish and lemon cream and red-wine pickled mooli; individually, they were novel and interesting but when tasted together, rather confusing. The Pinot Noir (Massale, Kooyong) accompanying the chicken, however, was deliciously fresh and juicy, with cherry notes – a testament to the talented Australian producers of the wine.

Similarly, the accompaniments for the lamb tasted nice individually, but puzzling altogether. The marinated tomatoes accompanying the lamb, for instance, were flavourful, but would have been much  better chilled. The gently robust Le Soula Rouge, however, was a good pair with the lamb.

Thankfully, Rouse’s menu ended on a splendid note with the puddings. ‘Lemon’ consisted of moist, dense and intensely lemony squares of cake with basil-infused white chocolate, honey jelly and lemon sorbet.

It went down a treat with a Japanese yuzu sake (Ume No Yado Yuzu Sake), an intensely citric liqueur which stood up perfectly to the vibrant lemon dessert.

‘Raw Jersey Dairy’ showcased locally made raw cream in an indulgent crème brulée, with strawberry tarragon consommé, sabayon biscuits, meringue and strawberry salad – art on a plate, and a masterpiece on the palate.

Overall, dinner was a delightful experience. While Rouse’s approach to meats was to my taste rather conservative, he is clearly a talented chef who is willing to experiment, and who can work wonders with seafood and produce from the garden. The Avenue in Winchester should be well worth the trek out of London!

Come and Meet the Michelins at Selfridges - Olly Rouse

With two more Meet the Michelins evenings – all Mondays – left on the 28 July and 18 August (although the 18 August event, with Chef Michael Wignall, is currently sold out), don’t miss this opportunity to try some of the best cooking in England at Selfridges. For more information or to book, visit their website here.