Andy Lynes

I'm sure if you re-read the policy, FAQ and user guide you'll understand that future events will be able to be planned on the forum, as long as they meet the criteria of the policy. Please refer to this thread for the (now closed) discussion of the events policy. Thanks.

Can someone talk me through this event. As far as I can tell, eGullet members occupied the whole or most of the restaurant, got to choose from a selection of dishes and what they wanted from the wine list, were served additional courses and special dietry requirements were also catered for. And you paid $35 for the food? I assume not everyone got their food at the same time, surely?

I wouldn't want to get your hopes up unnecessarily, but that sounds like a very good sign to me, especially having seen your pictures of the food. Thanks for the recipes, perhaps we can get these in the recipe database when its relaunched?

I believe that to be true. Given that I have eaten Ramsay's food and that of his proteges a number of times and greatly enjoyed it, it follows that he must fundamentally be a good man and that the temper he is renowned for is for the sake of expediency in the kitchen alone.

Although we might remember that Ramsay is a graduate of the school of Roux as well so he can't be all bad.

Here's what UK member The Greek had to say about the subject.

Why would you not want to work for arguably the most successful chef in London at the moment? You'd get top class training and the possibilites for advancement within his organisation are huge. Better still, you'd get to work with the likes of Mark Askew, marcus Wareing, Angela Hartnet and Jason Atherton and not have to suffer the "Boiling Point" antics of the man himself. If I was young, dumb and full of...ambition, I'd be knocking on Ramsay's doors.

What would be the situation if a chef said to an inspector that he wanted to know what he would need to do to improve his rating, say from 1 to 2 stars?

Derek, just bringing this question to your attention in case you missed it.

What, I asked myself the other day, do I want from a restaurant review? The answer, I realised after reading this weeks Independent on Sunday, is for Terry Durack to have written it. An excellent piece that treated the subject and the reader with respect. Durack plainly knows what he's talking about (despite not liking Rasoi Vineet Bhatia, the exception that proves the rule) and that is the food, the service and the surroundings. It was a balanced review; positive, but not a rave and critical without being personal or gratuitously unpleasant. Good on ya Tel.

The Cinnamon Club will be running a series of regional Indian food festivals again this year between February and Ma, starting with a menu dedicated to the Royal Food of Marwar. Executive Chef Vivek Singh says: “Not only do the festivals encourage my 20 strong team of chef's inherent creativity, but they also broaden our customers’ knowledge of Indian food in a way that many London restaurants cannot. While London has many very good Indian restaurants, the leaning has always been towards Punjabi cuisine.” The restaurant has provided the following information about the festival menus: FEBRUARY: MARWAR The food of Rajasthani Marwar is traditionally lavish, thanks to the royalty who settled there centuries ago. Well established estates still provide ample game, which when accompanied by pulses (the region lacks fertility required to grow wheat successfully) and exotic spices, produces a cuisine that is earthy and rich. Surendra Singh Nathawat previously cooked at the Ram Bagh Palace Hotel, in Jaipur which is owned by the Royal Family of Jaipur. . Hunter’s style lamb escalopes cooked with garlic and chilli £7.50 Perch in yoghurt and chickpea soup with cumin £6.50 *** Pheasant jungle curry with leg, breast cooked in tandoor £17.00 Slow braised lamb shoulder with green chillies and mustard, served with dried fruit pilau £17.00 *** Haandi Kheer - Rice and Lotus seed pudding finished with cashew and raisin, served hot £6.50 Apple jalebi - apple fritter in saffron syrup served with apple sorbet £6.50 MARCH: TAMIL NADU Chennai (formerly Madras) is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, but as Madhur Jaffrey points out the region is not a living endorsement of Madras curry powder! On the contrary, the region’s food is typical of Southern Indian cooking - aromatic and very slightly sweet. Raju Ramachandran comes from a small town Tiruchirapalli, close to the temple town of Madurai and worked previously for the Taj Hotel Group in Madurai. His family have relatives in Sri Lanka (like many Tamil people) and the cross over of cuisines from Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka are quite evident in Raju’s cooking. King Prawn pepper fry with seafood ‘rasam’ £8.00 Green moong lentil pancake with spiced vegetable £6.50 *** Kozha Urundai Kozhambu – Lamb koftas spiced with garlic and star anise simmered in coconut, red chilli and coriander sauce £18.00 Meen Porichatu - Tawa fried mackerel with fennel and coriander sauce £16.00 *** Moong lentil ‘kheer’ brulée £7.00 Tender coconut and jaggery in pancake £7.00 APRIL – NORTH WEST FRONTIER While the tandoor is considered the quintessential medium for Indian cookery, it was the mogul rulers who brought the tandoor with them from the Middle East. It was also the moguls who encouraged the eating of meat in a society that had previously only eaten vegetables. Their path through India began at the North-west frontier, which remains where evidence of a middle-eastern influence on Indian cookery is strongest. Awanish Kumar-Roy joined the Cinnamon Club from Oberoi Hotels, where he was stationed in a number of the regions hotels in Delhi and Bombay. Banjara Tikka – Guinea fowl marinated with peanuts, spices and dried mango, chargrilled in the tandoor and served with masala naan £7.50 Peshawari kebab- Diced lamb kebab with red chillies and pineapple juice £7.50 *** Baloochi Raan - Leg of Pyrenean milk fed lamb marinated in spices with malt vinegar, slow braised and then finished in the tandoor £22.00 Turra Kebab - Boneless leg of corn fed chicken marinated with green chillies, coriander and caramelised onions, then cooked in the tandoor. Served with dried fruit naan £16.00 Kabargah - Lamb chops simmered in milk with whole spices, fennel and dried ginger, then batter fried £20.00 *** Lucknow style pancake with saffron ’rabri’ £7.50 MAY – KERALAN SEAFOOD Keralan cuisine is dominated by seafood, unsurprising given its long coastline. Often considered as ‘God’s own country’, Kerala’s soils are fertile, and produce endless coconuts as well as peppers and cardamom. The regional cuisine is light and fragrant, simultaneously hot and sweet. Rakesh Ravindran Nair joined the Cinnamon Club in 2002 having trained in Trivandrum, Kerala. Sardine Pickle £6.00 Stir fry of squid with garlic, shallots, coconut and chilli £8.00 *** Alleppy style curry of king prawns with green mango and coconut served with ‘appam’ bread £22.00 Red spiced bream with hot masala crust £17.00 *** Plantain and coconut fritters with jackfruit ice cream £6.50 Moong lentil and rice ‘payasam’ with sweet spices £6.00 I went along to a special preview dinner, held in the book-lined ground floor bar. The menu was as follows: Celebration of Keralan seafood by Rakesh Ravindran Nair Sardine Pickle and Stir fry of squid with garlic, shallots, coconut and chilli Muscat / Parellada, Terrasola, Jean Leon, Penedes, Spain, 2003 *** Royal food of Marwar by Himmat Singh Nathawat Jungle style Pheasant curry with leg, breast cooked in tandoor Pinot Gris, Lerchenberg, Les Alouettes, M Kredenweiss, Alsace, France, 2002 *** North-west frontier cooking by Awanish Kumar Roy Baloochi Raan - Leg of Milk Fed Lamb marinated in spices with malt vinegar, slow braised and then finished in the tandoor Pinot Noir, Barrel Selection, Bannockbrae Estate, Central Otago, New Zealand, 2002 *** Tamil Food promotion by Ramachandran Raju Moong lentil ‘kheer’ brulée with tender coconut and jaggery in pancake Riesling, Cordon Cut, Mt Horrocks, Clare Valley, Australia, 2003 Highlights of the meal for me were the seafood (the sardine and stir fry of squid will be served as two seperate dishes on the actual menu), which was beautifully and delicately spiced, the pheasant curry and the nan served with the lamb. Less successful was the breast of pheasant; it was just too late in the season to be roasted and the result was a little dry. The lentil brulee lacked a cripsy top and had a slightly mealy texture. It was perhaps unfortunate that I had recently had the opportunity to remind myself of how wonderful the slow braised lamb finished in the tandoor at Bukhara restaurant in Delhi is (and I didn't even have to go to India; the executive chef gave a demonstration at the Restaurant Show late last year). There is nothing at all wrong with the Cinnamon Club version which is served with a delicious sauce, but I prefer the dry style of the "original." The wine pairings were very successful, especially the knock out pinot noir which was so good I joined in a demand for more, and the Mount Horrocks dessert wine which was beautifully balanced with good acidity and not too high in alcohol, which is more than could be said of me by the end of the evening.

Thai salad sounds like a winner to me. Have fun and keep us posted of your progress.

The 2005 Time Out guide to London lists 34 Spanish restaurants, including Moro and Fino. It also singles out Cambio de Tercio in the Old Brompton Road and Navarro's in Charlotte Street as "deservedly popular."

Gary, at the rate you visit the place it looks like you've got another 50 or so to go before that happens. As you know, I have not yet been to Anthony's (although I am positive that will change soon) but it seemed a done deal that they would get a star this year. Have you spoken to Anthony about his reactions to the news, or more accurately, lack of it?

Seems that we're still waiting for that picture from Suzi, so in the meantime I thought I'd share with you all the Marcus Wareing tarte tatin tip (which I've already posted somewhere else, but it won't hurt to record it on this thread as well). Wareing cooks a seriously good tatin and he peels his apples the day before he wants to use them in order to dry them out, which prevents too much moisture leaking into the caramel and produces a better result. "Ah", you might say, "but won't the apples oxidise and go all brown and horrible" to which Wareing would reply, "Who cares, they're going to be cooked in caramel so their raw appearance is irrelevant and the flavour will be improved."

In your interview with Simon Carter you say that "At the Two and Three star level we expect originality and innovation – a personal signature if you like." Would you be able to elaborate in general terms on the criteria Michelin uses in order to assess the originality and innovation of a restaurant and its chef.

Signing Off A very enjoyable week, although I imagine rather like dropping your trousers in the high street. Its been an odd feeling to parade my cooking on eGullet in front of such an informed and capable audience. I haven't really kept track of my mood during the week as I intende but I can say that I felt most inspired on Saturday and most tired on Sunday. I cut my finger preparing the roast dinner and made an error with the sauce/gravy, deciding to return it to the pan to heat up again and ending up over reducing it, both incidents I'm sure down to feeling less than fully alert. I felt that my cooking began to flow better as the week progressed, with the smoked haddock dish being the most pleasureable to eat of the whole seven days. I got into a state where the ideas came quickly and I was able to execute them quite efficiently. I had planned to take a week off work and get into some really time consuming stuff like potting meats, making terrines and breads, but it wasn't to be this time at least. I hope the blog was of interest and some use and thanks for your comments. I'm looking forward to the next one.

Thursday 20 January As this was the day of the UK Forum Winter Feast at In the Park in London, I didn't eat a great deal during the day. Breakfast was coffee, granola and some toast and orange juice while lunch was an unremarkable cheese sandwich. I've noticed this week that I haven't been eating much between meals, I'm usually terrible for eating biscuits or chocolate bars. I've also eaten very little fruit which I will have to rectify. Dinner was a far more interesting affair. I started with smoked mackeral with beetroot and horseradish: while others had the other choice of potato dumplings with wild mushrooms: Then came the main event, whole roast suckling pig (or as I'm told, more properly "sucking pig". The mother pig is the one doing the suckling, not the piglet): This was carved by the chef and served with braised red cabbage, kale, roast potatoes and gravy: Dessert was a fabulous sherry trifle: .

At the restaurant we would empty the bottle of wine and then fill it half way up with the vinegar so its 750mls of wine and 375mls of vinegar. I don't know the exact volume of the sauce when you make the full amount but it was usually enough to last a very busy 80 cover restaurant for one service, which is about as long as it will keep for. Too much for a domesic situation anyway.

Wednesday 19 January An early start was made even earlier by Alice waking up at 4.30am asking if it was OK to turn the TV on. We of course said no and sent her back to bed, but it seemed only moments later that the alarm went off and I had to get up. Breakfast was the usual and then I was out the door and on my way to a 9.30am meeting with 3 michelin Star chef Heston Blumenthal. he showed me around his new pub, the Hinds Head in Bray, just across the road from his legendary Fat Duck restaurant. I was there to speak to him about his collaboration with the food historians at nearby Hampton Court Palace on updating Tudor period dishes for the pub menu. I'm writing an article for History Today magazine so I can't say too much about it here, but suffice to say that it was a very interesting 90 minutes. I was sort of hoping that he would suggest I stick around for an early lunch but nothing doing. I had some time to kill before my PM meeting at Hampton Court, so grabbed a coffee and a chocolate shortcake at Starbucks in the nearby Sainsbury superstore and typed up some ideas for the article. I bought some chanterelle mushrooms, wine, tarragon, pecorino, papardelle pasta and cream for the evening meal and then drove over to Hampton. Another interesting couple of hours and then I wass just in time to join the queue on the M25 motorway home to Brighton. For the pasta, I sweated two finely chopped shallots in some oil and butter and added a a thrid of a bottle of white wine and let it reduce. Meanwhile I diced the butternut squash (leftover from Sunday's roast dinner) and sauted it in oil. I sauted the mushrooms with a clove of choped garlic. I added some cream to the wine reduction and let it reduce again, then added the squash, mushrooms and some tarragon. I cooked the pasta in plenty of boiling water for a few minutes until just cooked (although past the al dente stage. I don't care what anyone says, chalky pasta is not good) then tossed it in the sauce. I served it with some pecorino grated over the top. It was a nice bowl of food:

Tueday 18 January Breakfast was - does anyone want to guess. A busy day at the office meant I just had time to grab a goat cheese and roasted veg baguette from the deli up the road. My office is just off St James Street, which is rammed full of cafes, restaruants, take aways and delis. (And violent drunks bit that's another story). This was a bit disappointing actually, and relatively expensive at 3.20: I think Gary must have been reading my mind, as I decided to use up the left over creamed cabbage from Saturday's meal to make bubble and squeak. I just boiled and mashed some maris piper potatos, stirred in the cabbage mixture, formed it into large patties which I fried off and then heated through in the oven. I served them with haddock poached in milk flavoured with bay and thyme, a perfectly poached egg and home made hollandaise sauce: I make hollandaise according to a recipe I picked up from chef Graham Ball when I worked with him at the Hotel Du Vin in Brighton. Reduce a bottle of white wine and half a bottle of white wine vinegar with 10 sliced shallots and a bouquet garni until it reaches a syrupy consistancy. Add the reduction to 16 egg yolks and whisk over a pan of hot water until the whisk leaves trails in the mixture. Off the heat, slowly pour in 1 kilo of still warm clarified butter, whisking all the time. Produces perfect sauce everytime. Reduce the quantites according to your needs (I made an eighth of the recipe this time and it still worked perfectly).

I wrote a letter to Terence Conran saying I was interested in becoming a chef and had no idea hwo to go about it and Tim Powell, then the head chef of Pont De La Tour rang me and said come down and have a look around the kitchens. He then rang back again and said "we're short staffed this Saturday, can you work for the day" and I did. I then wrote to 10 London restaurants and 2 responded. I spent a week in JC Novelli's kitchen at The Four Seasons, working mostly with Richard Guest who was the sauce chef at the time, and spent about 8 days at The Fifth Floor with Henry Harris over the period of about 18 months. From then on it was just a matter of ringing up the chefs and asking. I even worked a day in a restaurant in Atlanta when I was over there on business.

Just curious, Andy, how did you learn to cook? Culinary school? Self-taught? ← Self taught. I lived in a bed sit when I left home at 17 and subsisted on cheap ready meals. I was dating Gill (now my wife) and decided I really ought to be able to cook her something a little bit better when she came round to see me. I tried a dish of pasta with salami, peas and cream which I saw on a cookery item on breakfast tv and went from there. I bought some recipe books and progressed to things like chicken in cider and beef in beer. I used to cook Robert Carriers Coq au Vin recipe quite a bit I seem to remember. I started working stages in professional kitchens about 10 years ago and that really bought my cooking on. I met people like Shaun Hill, Henry Harris, Richard Guest and eventually Bruce Poole who have all significantly influenced how I cook and the way I think about food. I use a lot of techniques and recipes I've seen in professional kitchens at home, although I've pretty much stopped trying to replicate restaurant food. When I read recipes these days I'm looking for ideas and approaches, not necessarily to copy the dish exactly. I'll adapt them to suit my budget and my abilities. I'm far happier making something really tasty from cheaper ingredients, like the bream or the chicken, than using turbot or fillet of beef. I don't tend to use a lot of spices in my cooking, although I do have a fair amount of them, and I don't go over board with piles of herbs at the last moment. I want to taste the main ingredients and not have to plough through a field of greenery to get to them. I'm more likely to extract the flavours from thyme, rosemary, bay etc during the cooking process and sprinkle a little parsley or tarragon or other soft herbs at the last moment to accentuate flavours, especially in sauces. The thyme petals on the scallops are a good example. But it all depends on the dish. You need lots of tarragon in bearnasie for instance. So to answer the question, its been a process of learning from books and tv shows and spending days in professional kitchens, watching and talking to chefs and carrying out basic tasks (and even helping to run a section on a few occasions) and then taking all that information and putting into practive at home in a way that suits me.

I wish I could take the responsibility for this, but it's really all down to Simon Carter. I'm just doing the donkey work for the event now.

The good news is that Jenni has agreed to the recipe being reproduced here. The bad news is that she doesn't have a copy on file, so I'll need to type it in from the book which I should be able to do by Thursday (broadband at home still not fixed so I can only post at the office at the moment).