This week we have been culturing different citrus fruits. We always get different citrus from our friends at Shrub in at this time of year when they are in season and abundant.
This week we have been culturing different citrus fruits. We always get different citrus from our friends at Shrub in at this time of year when they are in season and abundant.
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One of our new favourite products is Tidal Rum https://tidalrum.je/, a blend of four Caribbean Rums infused with Pepper Dulse seaweed from Jersey, home of the founder of Tidal Rum. Our restaurant manager and resident rum expert Anton says ”I really enjoy the slightly salty, smokey notes from the dulse seaweed, combined with a young pepper finish, with sweet fried banana and hints of earthy truffle in the finish.”
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It was a pleasure to welcome the exceptionally knowledgeable and, one might add, rather well dressed, Matteo from one of our specialist Italian suppliers to Fourth & Church a couple of weeks ago. They specialise in Italian wines from small, family owned artisan winemakers. Matteo brought us several new and unusual wines for us to taste, we were in for a treat.
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There’s little one can say about the last 14 months that hasn’t already been said, or more one can try and convey that hasn’t already been more eloquently conveyed… This is very much a personal note on re-opening the restaurant and returning to restaurant life. As the 19th of May fast approaches and the gears change a whole raft of things play on the mind and a multitude of contrasting feelings clamour. A sense of trepidation and nervousness about how the world will feel and be and respond this side of things, rests just below the surface. It’s manifested in dreams about the restaurant being upside down, a collapsing staircase, a till I can’t read and wine bottles that refuse to open. There’s a genuine fear that I don’t actually know what I do any more or how to do it. I laugh when I catch myself thinking like that and the doubts give way to excitement and curiosity. More than anything else I am excited.
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I had been waiting for an excuse to open a couple of bottles I had been saving, François Chidaine’s Montlouis Blanc 'Les Tuffeaux’ and the Mas L'Erme Avanti, and an afternoon in the garden with old friends, an ample French cheese board and glorious sunshine seemed to be the perfect opportunity.
While we waited for the Beaufort to come up to temperature and watched the silky Saint Marcellen attempt to escape over the edge of the cheese board, we poured the L’Erme. Golden in the glass and alive on the nose, aromas of elderflower, green apple, hints of jasmine and fennel pierced through the fragrance of ripe cheese.
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For at least the last five years lacto-fermentation seems to be on all the ‘new food trends’ lists that inevitably emerge around the new year. However, these techniques have been mainstays of cuisines around the world for many centuries, both preserving seasonal ingredients and adding layers of flavour.
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Opening up two bottles of something special from Pago wines on a chilly Friday afternoon with Sam and Paul. What more could I ask for? There was lots of discussion and some terrible jokes throughout the afternoon as we tasted the orange wine 'Malavara' and the red 'Vertixe' over the next few hours. Almost like normal times!
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I love a digestif. I also love an aperitif. The saline silkiness of a beautifully balanced Martini that is the perfect sharpener, or glass of cool, smoky en rama Palo Cortado. Needless to say, I love wine. The glasses in between that follow the aperitif and precede the digestif, hold their own distinct pleasure. I love the drinks that the food goes with as much as the food. The ceremony of a drink, whatever the casualness of the surroundings or situation, whether I’m skulking at home on a rainy Tuesday evening or out somewhere snazzy, always excites me.
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We cracked open a bottle of an intriguing new wine that came in the other day. I didn’t know quite what to expect: I knew it came from the sherry region, a wine made with the Pedro Ximinez grapes, usually made into sweet sherry. However I knew this was an unfortified off dry wine.
The nose opens up with aromas typical of PX sweet wine, raisins, figs and prunes and a hint of brown butter and honey. The palette is dryer that one expects but with a beautiful body and texture. There is a great interplay of the fruit, a savoury salinity, walnut and orange flower. The result is a wine that is on the one hand rich and concentrated but on the other subtle and elegant. (I obviously like it!)
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I am half way through my Wine & Spirits Education level 3 course and whilst I am enjoying it immensely, the intensity is ratcheting up. I am completely immersed in wine making techniques, soil types and grape varieties and have found myself dreaming of wine each night (not drinking, frustratingly).
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