Crab with kombucha

It’s hard to pick out just one pairing from the alcohol-free menu I had at La Dame de Pic in London the other night - the 2 Michelin starred restaurant run by Anne-Sophie Pic. I can honestly say I didn’t miss alcohol during the meal. The pairings, which were devised by head sommelier Elise Merigaud, were perfectly suited to Pic’s light, supremely elegant food.

I’m going for the crab with kombucha because it’s a combination you could replicate if not to her standard. The crab dish was a couple of incredibly fine discs of pastry sandwiching a creamy slightly spicy filling with Vietnamese coriandere and a touch of burnt lemon which was echoed by the refreshingly tart LA Citrus Hop Kombucha.

The great thing is that it’s a product you can easily buy (online from the Suffolk-based producer) for £30 for a case of 12 bottles) I reckon it would go well with other seafood too.

The other combination that stood out was Pic's signature dish of wild seabass and caviar with the Eins Zwei Zero riesling an alcohol-free wine that’s never really appealed to me until now but which worked really well.

Again the dish, which involves a light-as-air blanket of foam, would be way beyond most of us but you could try the drink with other fish dishes (I reckon it would work with smoked salmon). You can buy it in Waitrose for £6.99.

Obviously the meal was not a cheap experience - the menu we were offered was £140 with pairings on top of that but if you didn’t drink and wanted to splash out for a special occasion it would be perfect. (Note that some of the dishes are made with alcohol though you might be able to get the kitchen to tweak them.

I ate at the restaurant as a guest of La Dame de Pic

Roast pork with an alcohol-free IPA

One of the hardest things if you’re not drinking for any reason is finding a grown-up drink that will work in a restaurant without leaving you feeling that you’re not having as good a time as everyone else. And as I’ve said before beer is much better in this respect than wine.

When I went for Sunday lunch at The Blaise Inn in Bristol yesterday I would normally have had a glass or two of wine but as I was driving I was happy to find that they had a choice of alcohol-free beers on their list including the excellent Clear Head from the Bristol Beer Factory which I’ve recommended before on this site

It tastes very much like a conventional IPA so was the perfect partner for my main dish of roast pork belly with apple sauce. I really didn’t feel I had missed out at all. (And the lunch was excellent by the way. A great place for a Sunday roast.)

And if you can drink there are some other good choices for pork belly here

Smoked eel and alcohol-free lager

If you go to a Michelin-starred restaurant you probably don’t expect to drink alcohol-free beer but my meal at The Ninth last week which was hosted by the best-selling alcohol-free lager Lucky Saint demonstrated that it’s a surprisingly good option for anyone who’s not drinking

Alcohol-free wines still have a good way to go before they hit the mark and I for one wouldn’t really want to drink a fruity cocktail or even an AF ‘gin’ and tonic throughout a meal so a good lager, that tastes like a full-strength version is very welcome. Amazingly 55 Michelin starred restaurants now stock it so I’m obviously not alone.

We tried it with a range of dishes and it was particularly good with these smoked eel canapés and also a deliciously saline squid ink pasta dish (cuttlefish malloreddus with crispy squid and bottaraga). Like most lagers it would be good with smoked, preserved and pickled foods, and of course fried food like fish and chips.

How to pair beer and food

I’d tasted it before but had forgotten how good it was. It’s actually made in Germany and fermented and conditioned for six weeks - longer than most commercial lagers - and left unfiltered for flavour. You can buy it in most big supermarkets now or direct from their website.

I ate at The Ninth as a guest of Lucky Saint

Smashed potatoes and low alcohol IPA

You might not think that potatoes merited a pairing on their own account but then i guess you haven’t tried making Poppy O’Toole’s rosemary and garlic sharers.

Poppy is a young British chef who has amassed an incredible social media following for her immoderate love of potatoes and I don’t use the word incredible lightly. She has 1.8 MILLION followers on TikTok where she posts as poppycooks.

This is one of her recipes which if you’re not a subscriber to Tiktok you’ll find on Instagram (@poppy_cooks) and it’s basically super-crisp parmesan and rosemary crusted potatoes dunked in a parmesan, garlic and mayo dip. Which is as good as it sounds

I wouldn’t say I’d found the ultimate pairing for them (I’m leaning towards champagne though have yet to try out the combination) but can report that a well-chilled can of the impressively hoppy Green Light Quarter IPA - a 1.2% alcohol beer from Powderkeg - hit the spot nicely.

No and low-alcohol beers are getting so good these days.

And this may be the ultimate beer snack.

Photo © Nick Austin