Match of the week
Txakoli and practically everything on the Palomar menu
I think Txakoli may be my new favourite restaurant wine - or at least it is this summer. It’s a unique, sharp, very slightly fizzy white wine from the Basque region of Spain. The one we were drinking - at the Palomar in Soho - was the Agerra Txakoli which comes from the designated origin of Getariako
It went quite brilliantly with The Palomar’s food which I guess can best be described as modern Israeli but to which they give their own unique twist. It’s full of vivid and delicious flavours but the element that I think went best was the dairy one - dishes like the burnt courgette tzatziki, and beetroot carpaccio with burnt goat’s cheese (needless to say, fashionably singed not burnt to a cinder).
It was also great with the Kubaneh (Yemeni pot baked bread served with tahini & ‘velvet tomatoes’ a luxuriant fresh tomato dip that tasted a bit like gazpacho. Oh and the mysteriously but seductively spiced fish felafel
You can buy the Agerra for £13.95 from Whitmore and White in the Wirral, Cheshire. I also very much like the Flysch txacoli I recommended in my Guardian column this week.
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