Lettuce with smoked fish and vermouth sauce paired with vermouth

I hesitated to make this astounding drink pairing which I had at Mauro Colagreco’s new restaurant at Raffles in London recently my match of the week because I it would be really hard to replicate but I’m sure would fascinate the chefs, sommeliers and other food and drink professionals among you.

The menu is led by vegetables which reflects the style of his three-Michelin-starred restaurant Mirazur in the south of France. The lettuce was a red oak lettuce served with smoked fish and a just-warm creamy vermouth sauce and some some delicious crunchy shards of what looked like puffed rice. In other words a reimagined caesar salad

With it the sommelier had paired a vermouth called Vinmouth, an organic white vermouth from Perpignan, which worked brilliantly with the warm, rich dressing and the smokey fish. There don’t appear to be any UK stockists but you can buy it from Le Grand Epicerie in Paris.

In fact all the pairings on the drinks pairing menu were outstanding and could easily have made the match of the week slot.

There was a refreshing rhubarb ‘amuse’ that wasn’t on the menu which was paired with a medium-dry French cider called Maley

The first course of seabass sashimi and sea buckthorn was matched with a Tatomer grüner veltliner from California

Then the lettuce

Followed by a spectacular dish of Jerusalem artichoke, monkfish, wild mushrooms and hazelnut which was paired with a Filipa Pato Nossa Calcario Bical 2021 from Bairrada in Portugal (a clever low cost alternative to white burgundy)

The main course was a more conventional pairing of radicchio with grilled loin of venison and mustard sauce with Guigal Chateau d’Ampuis Cote Rotie 2018. Glorious

And finally a show-stopping dessert of citrus, crispy ravioli shell black lemon ice cream and yoghurt fontainebleu which was paired with a Masumi yuzushu yuzu liqueur - an extravagant burst of creamy citrus.

Of course, bearing in mind that this is a top Michelin-standard restaurant albeit it hasn’t been rated yet the price isn’t cheap - £165 for a 5 course tasting menu and £125 for the ‘Exploration Route’ pairing though that’s not out of order for a restaurant of this quality.

However there is a 3 course à la carte ‘discovery’ menu for £110 and a lunch menu for £60 from Tuesday to Saturday apart from Christmas and other holidays. Certainly worth taking advantage of at that price.

For more conventional caesar salad pairings see here 

For other monkfish wine matches click this link

For venison pairings visit this page

I ate at Mauro Colagreco, Raffles as a guest of the restaurant.

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

Smoked eel and potato soup with dry Moscatel

I could have picked any number of pairings from the really inspiring wine dinner hosted by Bodegas Bentomiz at Gambas tapas bar in Bristol last week but this marginally inched it.

It was a dish called Gazpachuelo which comes from Malaga - the same region as the wine - and is a traditional fisherman’s soup made with mayonnaise. (You can see it being made here)

This version was served at room temperature with smoked eel potato and scallop roe and was unctuously creamy, and slightly smokey from the eel.

With it the restaurant paired a dry, almost sherry like 2019 moscatel called Ariyanas or Ariyanas Seco Sobre Lias Finos to give it its full name that handled all the flavours perfectly. The glass was topped by a tortita di camarones, a crisp wafer with tiny shrimps which again is one of the specialities of the region - and of the restaurant.

Another terrific pairing was a final course of avocado sorbet, yoghurt and olive oil with the bodega’s best known wine, Ariyanas Naturalmente Dulce, a sweet moscatel that tasted of gloriously ripe apricots with the almost savoury dessert.

You don’t often come across such carefully thought out and imaginative pairings which included dishes that are not normally on offer at the restaurant but it really pays dividends, presenting a satisfying challenge for the kitchen and a new experience for restaurant regulars as well as showing off the wines to best effect.

Gambas is at Unit 12 in Cargo 2, Wapping Wharf, Bristol. You can buy the wines from them direct if you live in Bristol or via Indigo Wines if you're in the UK wine trade. The Ariyanas Seco is £31.90 and the Naturalmente Dulce £5.90 a glass.

I attended the dinner as a guest of Gambas and Bodegas Bentomiz

Kedgeree and a crisp Portuguese white

Do you eat kedgeree - if at all - for brunch or supper? That's probably going to affect whether you have a glass of wine with it.

I must confess I hadn’t made it for a while but was sent some smoked haddock and kedgeree butter as part of a sample Rockfish fish box (the type we’re offering in our prize this month) and had forgotten how delicious it was.

I based it broadly on Delia’s recipe which is the one I used to make using the kedgeree butter rather the added curry powder to spice it up and adding a bit of fresh coriander at the end rather than parsley.

We had it for brunch so I just tried it with the wine we’d had open the night before which was a bottle of Quinta da Pedra Alta’s 2019 Branco. Although it’s made from local grape varieties (rabigato and gouveio since you’re asking) it’s unusually fresh and zippy for a Douro white and worked perfectly. Any fresh tasting crisp white wine like albarino (or Portugal’s alvarinho), picpoul or even a dry riesling would work equally well. And given we’re talking brunch, champagne or, more reasonably, cava too.

You can buy the Quinta da Pedra Alta online currently for £66.30 a case