Poached turbot with champagne

Of all the wine matches I enjoyed last week - and it was an unusually good week for food and drink pairings - I’m going for this dish of poached turbot with champagne - not because it was startlingly original but simply so brilliantly executed.

The dish, which was served at a Champagne Leclerc Briant lunch at London's quo vadis, was more than just turbot (although that would have been good enough).

It was cooked with fabulously plump mussels and clams and an absolutely classic white wine (or maybe champagne) sauce with butter and cream and sea-vegetables which provided an attractively saline counterpoint. Oh and some unctuous olive oil mash.

It was served - extravagantly - with three different cuvées, the Clos des Trois Clochers, blanc de blancs brut 2017 and two 2016s, the Les Basses Priéres 1er Cru, brut zéro which is 80% pinot noir and the Blanc de Meuniers 1er Cru brut zéro which as the name suggests is 100% pinot meunier.

Frankly any one of them would have been perfect but I personally preferred the 2017 blanc de blancs with the sauce. (All Leclerc Briant’s champagnes, which you can buy from Berry Bros & Rudd if you’re feeling particularly flush, are vintage)

Anyway it’s hard to think of a better champagne dish - or a better champagne to go with it tbh.

I attended the lunch as a guest of Berry Bros & Rudd.