Matthew Grant

Unfortunately I think that Laundry bills in London add up to huge sums of money and you would find the food going up in price to compensate if you want tablecloths I think the lack of them lends a nice casual feel to the room personally and that is what is so appealing about the place.

I think it was probably a bit of bad luck, which ones did you get? IMO you should avoid the "Special reserve" and go for the leaner bird. Accurate cooking with a LA is essential as they have don't have much fat, a long resting time helps as well. I also find that the larger birds around 2.0kg tend to have a better flavour.

Great meal at Arbutus last night the highlight of which was a freebie from the kitchen of smoked duck white beans and girolles - beautiful. I also had a very good meal at Wild Honey recently on a busy Saturday Lunchtime, the Limousin veal dish is very good and has been on the menu the last couple of times I've been, I'm not sure if it is a permanant feature now Anthony has a book coming out soon called Today's Special - details HERE

Great review

The stars are normally the chefs, my guess is that he will keep them unless it is closed for a prolonged period.

I'd hazard a guess that he may have had some budgetry constraints or may have had to use exisiting suppliers, I imagine there might also have been some pressure to produce food of a certain style?

Aside from there size, is there any reason why the ducks couldn't be roasted in another type of oven, the temperature isn't excessively high?

I ate at the Guggenheim as well - I thought it a massive disappointment. Dishes like the Pasta really were undercooked which was interesting but for me served little or no purpose and the joselito broth that accompanied would have been nice if it had managed to display any of the flavours that Joselito has, a complete waste of time. Nothing form that meal sticks in my mind at all, well overrated IMO.

Jan Moir reviews here

Ate here a couple of weeks ago and the staff are very accomodating, not blinking when we stuck with beer through our meal, steering us away from too many hot dishes, being very apologetic about the crappy table we were given and moving us as soon as a better one came available. Unfortuantely the restaurant still looks like the breakfast room at a cheap chain hotel. I forget everything we ate now and while everything was very well cooked nothing really blew me away aside from a beautiful smoked crispy fish soup that had beautiful balance. The rest of the meal was very good as well but too much eating in Thailand left me a little miffed at £170 for two of us including 4 beers and two glasses of Champagne.

Surely Spam is food related (only just admittedly)?

It got a pretty all around Foxtrot Oscar in the reviews

For addresses try this fantastic site: Todos Pintxos I'm not sure which are open on a Sunday night, you might want to book a table at Rekondo, the food is OK and the winelist/prices are incredible. La Mejillonera, Gandarias, Tamboril , Le cepa, La Cuchara de san telmo and Ganbara are all in the Old town. The others are across the bridge in Gros. I have a list of approximately 60 Tapas places including the apparent specialities in English along with the name in Castellano (it was cribbed from the site posted above), it was invaluable in helping us to order things that we would otherwise never have seen. If you would like a copy drop me your email address.

That's better than the Thermomix, I'm surprised it can't be manufactured for less, I think the Thermomix lack of support in this country is its price, if they could get it below £500 it might stand a chance. Maybe theywill reduce to compete with the Mycook?

How do you know its cheaper, I can't see the price?

Nice Tip!

As far as I'm aware there is no perfect measurement, potatoes vary too much to be able to do that. I do have a couple of tips though and I make the best mashed potato in the world Put your potato through a ricer, twice (or if you have one a drum sieve). If using some milk (or cream though this tastes completely different as you might imagine) make sure it is warm before you put it in, add it gradually. My preference is to use butter, lots of it, beat it in with a fork and keep adding and tasting as you go, you'll be amazed how much you can get incorporated. Remember to season well as you go.

I'm going to be controversial here and say that most chefs in this country don't have a clue (or don't care) about serving "uber quality meat". Chefs want meat that a) is consistent in its quality and b) meets the price they are willing to pay. For that reason alone I wouldn't be swayed by a supplier that has page long lists of chef recommendations (note that I don't say that the meat is no good). Consistency is another problem in this country,I'm suspicious that it is possibly a problem in most countries. The best meat I have eaten in this country has been cooked by myself, I would say that not one of the top ten pieces of meat I have had in this country have been served to me in a restaurant. For what its worth I go for Dexter anytime I see it especially if it has been hung for 5 weeks or perhaps even 6 but a lot of people find that too long with Dexter. For Uber Quality meat I think you need to find a small supplier that understands what you want, of course that is difficult if you aren't ordering from them regularly or in large quantities. If any supplier, farmer, producer, butcher, chef here thinks that they have the best quality meat in the country please let me know because I want to try it

I specifically asked for a vegetable dish when I was there last weekend and aside from peppers and a a green salad served with the steak there were none available. The tasting menu was also lacking a vegetable course.

After reading other reviews we decided not to go for a tasting menu (€150, pre-printed in English and left on all the tourists tables) We ordered a plate of Chorizo which was very good but I wouldn't rate it any higher than the Joselito Chorizo I had eaten earlier in the trip (which itself was beter than other joselito chorizo I had eaten). A single Cigala to share was exceptional and beautifully cooked. Without doubt the best Langoustine I have tasted. But so it should be, at €200/kg this single specimen came to an almighty €80. The Prawns again were good but I can't say that they were that much better than others I have tried. The head juice ran stright out onto the plate so sucking the heads became a fruitless exercise. The Beef was beautiful, great texture, good well hung flavour. The Accompanying salad was erratically salted, quite literally large clumps of salt, maybe 1/2 tsp at a time. Had the flan so raved about above, nice but not exactly mindblowing. Overall, interesting but not worth a special trip unless you are in the region IMO, I certainly wouldn't train and taxi it. As for difficult to find I'm not sure what the difficulty is? The instructions on the website are clear and tapping it into a GPS takes you straight there exactly as described on the website

Once again I'm not sure if this is the appropriate thread for this but here goes (maybe it would make more sense to have a San Sebastian tapas thread and then threads on the individual restaurants rather than the jumble we currently have?) We set out with a few places in mind and stopped at (quite) a few more just because we could. For anybody that hasn’t been to the old town before it is packed with bars, each piled high with pintxos but from what I’d read the best stuff is prepared freshly. Now not speaking Spanish is somewhat of a hindrance here especially as you can see plenty of stuff coming out that doesn’t appear to be written on the board. However, I was the culinary tourist equivalent of Rambo, my pockets stuffed with the weapons required for me to have a good time. I came armed in one pocket with my Spanish food translation sheet which I have managed to trim down to fit on a single piece of A4 paper, not perfect but it helps. In another pocket I was armed with a list of approximately 80 tapas bars with a description of what was supposedly their “speciality” in English and also the Castellano version so that I could make a fool of myself to the Spanish barman. Other pockets contained Tapas maps, threads from Eg, articles from newspapers and pages from guidebooks. This was all well and good to start with but after a few Canas and glasses of wine (one of those pieces of paper had the word for one of those tiny beers, Zurrito, somewhere but I couldn’t find it) my pockets were a mass of scrawled notes and crumpled torn pieces of information, spread over half a dozen pockets and I could barely find my way back to the hotel. So here goes with what I remember: 1) La Mejillonera – bright and packed with people ordering the excellent patatas bravas, not sure what makes them quite so good here but without doubt the best we tasted with an excellent fiery sauce. Also funny to watch young American backpacker girls with huge beers, at least a litre looking at them wishing that they too knew the word Zurrito 2) Gandarias – We started with a very average croquetas de Jamon almost devoid of béchamel described by Rachel as terrible. However the Solomillo here was superb, nicely grilled, topped with a pepper and flakes of salt, really rare beautifully flavoured meat and all for something like €3. Fantastic 3) Tamboril – I tried to order a stuffed pepper here but only partially succeeded, instead of the fish I was expecting we ended up with meat instead which was fine but under seasoned 4) La Cepa – decent Gavilla with what would appear to have been pork loin, jamon, cheese and béchamel, again it lacked a little salt but as bar snacks go it beat the socks of a pack of Walkers. 5) La Cuchara de san telmo – the first of the new wave tapas places that we tried. Foie with apple jelly was excellent, a large piece of foie wchih had been cooked beautifully, dark and crisp on the outside perfect in the middle, topped with a little salt and served with an apple jelly. The only fault I could find with this would have been that the foie wasn’t trimmed too well, otherwise this wouldn’t have been out of place in a decent (London) restaurant. I’m sure I ate something else here as well… 6) Ganbara – Hojaldre de Txistorra – not so good as it looked, the pastry had a reheated feel to it, you might expect this but a lot of the pastry based dishes in this little bar were coming out freshly baked. A Plate of long green peppers appeared when I ordered Padron peppers, not sure of the name of these but very good all the same, simply fried in Olive oil and topped with salt. They also had great Gambas Rebozadas (spelling?). The Gambas Rebozadas were really good here. Great Prawns in batter here. I think we had had too much to drink by this time, that coupled with the great Prawns meant that we possibly ordered too many of them. There were others as well but it all became a bit of a blur after a while, I remember plates of Joselito and glasses of Fugas back at Gandarias but it was only two days later as we walked past a dark bar playing loud rock music that we both looked at each other and realised that we had at some point, presumably the end of the evening, been drinking there as well. That was day one, fortunately armed with the word Zurrito things became a little easier on the hangover front in the coming days. I haven’t got any notes on our second crawl but included some great crab tarts fresh out of the oven at Ganbara (which incidentally had a fantastic display of mushrooms including some enormous cepes (?) . The third, almost had me weeping with joy, I had a sequence of dishes that would easily have earned a star in London. In no particular order these are some of the other dishes I tried, its by no means all of them but each of these dishes is definitely worth a try if you want “nuevo tapas”. Some of this stuff was so brilliant I was compelled to take some photos, remember this is bar food! 1) Back to La Cuchara de San Telmo which had a menu that was deserved more than just a brief glance, a Black pudding Cannelloni was filled with a black pudding pure which would have been improved if it had remained coarse. Pato Confitado was exceptionally pale but did taste of duck, I’m not sure if this was because it was chicken cooked in duck fat or due to an albino duck, either way this was decent enough but not on a par with their foie gras of the first night 2) El Patio de Ramuntxo in Gros was our next stop and what a stop it proved to be. An outstanding Taco de Solomillo, again wonderful beef extremely rare, this time served with a green piquillo pepper sauce. Black pudding came served wrapped in a thin slice of pumpkin, it was broken up and there were a few pine nuts in the morcilla, a sweet apple sauce accompanied. Absolutely fantastic, you have to pinch yourself every now and again to remind yourself that you are in a bar. Beef cheeks came in a meaty sauce that had been slightly over reduced however a portion of croquetas proved that they could also do the more traditional things very well. Then a Risotto of mushrooms with foie gras. Really great, they even kept the rice al dente., I wonder how the restaurant at the back weighs up? IMO if Tapas bars can win stars this place would definitely be in with a shout especially compared to London starred restaurants. All the dishes are around €3 - €3.50. 3) Alona Berri – I saw this described somewhere else (it was quite old) as a “neighbourhood restaurant”. Well it is, in the sense that it is in a neighbourhood and that the locals are popping in for a small bite and a quick drink. However the tapas here are more than that. Firstly the display is beautiful, each plate of tapas on the bar adorned with small flowers, a little chintzy but beautiful all the same and the owner obviously takes pride in the food. Awards cover the walls and a couple of their most famous creations are laid on display but actually prepared fresh out back should you order them. The first was a complex dish and one that I can’t really do justice, for presentation alone it should get a star (the plate at the front in the picture below). We were enthusiastically instructed on how to eat it, first the strip holding the salmon eggs and some powders that I wasn’t able to completely decipher, olive and orange and one other if I remember correctly to be quickly followed by the cube of fish, peppers, aubergine, there may even have been a little foie in there? I was unable to work out the fish, I’m sure I could taste anchovy in the cube but the fish on top seemed to thick for that. The Combo really doesn’t sound that great but there was a pleasant richness to the dish which balanced well with the salty eggs and sweet peppers. An amazingly complex dish. Another dish (the plate in the rear) consisted of a cube of seafood rice to be eaten first, followed by leek shoots, then a chiperones stuffed with peppers and apple followed by a shot glass of liquid which at first I thought was going to be a seafood stock but tasted more of a spiced onion broth. Again, excellent thought and presentation. A millefeuille of potato mushroom and foie gras, the top crispy with caramel served again with apple sauce A ceramic spoonful of confit duck came with an orange and vanilla sauce rich with butter. Baztela of pigeon was so good that we had to order it again straight away, a simple take on pastille, pigeon delicately spiced with cinnamon and turmeric, the plate simply decorated with a rose petals and a gravy with north African spicing. Quite wonderful. Additionally we ate Tuna which came topped with honey. Another bric wrapped dish consisting of a leek sauce, the pastry contained a mix consisting of a great prawn, shredded onion, avocado and carrot. Brandade was presented in a pastry scallop shell, topped with bechemal and a quails egg. It was all quite brilliant. 4) Narru – this was a modern bar with a tiny raised kitchen on show and an enthusiastic owner Just one person worked the kitchen and turned out all the dishes on the left hand board, some really nice crockery in here as well. They had a good selection of wine by the glass and he then recommended dishes to go with our wine – he looked quite thrilled to have some tourists in there. A potato ravioli with pork and leak was a surprise, the ravioli itself made with thin strips of potato an stuffed with the pork and leak. Oxtail stew came atop a layer of apple, A single prawn grilled in its shell came with a nicely flavoured and cooked seafood rice. As you might imagine we were feeling a little full by this time so headed back into the old town, the walk obviously did us good as we managed to eat more at Ganbara before finishing with a plate of mixed Joselito products (the Chorizo was the best Joselito Chorizo I have tried). A stunning days eating, unlike anything you could get in the UK.

As there doesn't appear to be a specific Mugaritz thread this would seem to be as good a place as any. We had a good to exceptional meal at Murgaritz and reading back through this thread it is interesting to see that some of the criticism matched our own but the highs outweighed those so all can be forgiven. The Amuse of potatoes was great fun, I was pleased to see Rachel laughing her socks of at them as her attitude towards high-end meals has turned less than complimentary after some relatively poor meals costing large sums of money. An essay on Salads; warm Lettuce hearts soaked in Vanilla Brine, a dressing of Balsamic vinegar and country milk skins. I thought at this point that the meal might go downhill. The Vanilla brine was noticeable but the balsamic dressing was so slight that it didn’t provide the acidity that the dish needed, it was as though the cut side of the lettuce heart had merely been shown the dressing. I think it could have been better with better seasoning. We were right back on track with a ravioli filling of Crab and Spring peas in a bluefish consommé and pearls of vegetables. Stunning broth, delicately flavoured with a hint of fish poured over two little rectangles of crab and spring peas. Beautiful Sheep Milks Curd, seasoned with hay and toasted fern. Pumpkin glazed in savoury syrup. This dish was pretty awful, it was completely devoid of seasoning, my notes describe the dish as completely flat. Maybe with some salt or acidity this would have changed, if they were trying to provoke I have no idea but in the kitchen at the end of my meal we were asked whether there was anything we didn’t like. We both replied the curd and before even explaining why the executive chef (I forget his name) asked “not enough salt?” before describing their “philosophy” of salting things lightly. It was as though they knew that dish was a) incorrectly seasoned or they are trying to get a reaction. If the latter why? Heart of baby leeks roasted over vine cutting and bathed in a stock infused with molluscs, crushed citrus fruit. Another great clear broth, with razor clams and leeks. Both of us thought that the broth had juniper (or a hefty slug of gin) in it but were advised that it was something else which bore no relation to its flavour. This shouldn’t detract though. Another lovely dish. Sauteed red mullet fillets were served over vegetables and liver stew. A really nice piece of mullet, I forgotten the complete construction of this dish now but there was also botarga, lovely spring onions and a hint of ginger. Escalope of Duck Foie Gras, chargrilled, accompanied by the slight bitterness of fresh broad beans. Mastiha resin and red cedar leaves. As described! The foie was beautiful, both in texture and flavour, using broad beans for the bitter element was a nice idea. A Piece of beef, roasted and Perfumed with Vine Cutting Embers, fragments of thyme and natural anthocyans. Cinders salts and crisp radishes. Firstly our beef was actually Veal from a farmer close to the French border. Described in the kitchen as having been fed “on its mother’s milk for three months and then one month of eating just eggs”. It was stunning, the best veal I have tasted. Visually it was pretty stunning, completely black and white, the “burnt” vegetables coating the veal which was so evenly cooked I thought it must have been done sous-vide but I was assured that it was grilled. The radishes added the only white element to the dish and along with the black bread "cinders" it bought a nice crunch. The radishes themselves were excellent. Looking at it you would have sworn that at least one element was going to taste burnt or caramelised but none of this occurred, it should have been dry, there were “burnt” things everywhere and not a drop of jus or sauce. A real 10/10 dish for both of us. Superb. We were lost for words for a few minutes afterwards. Tradition, Ocean and land: braised Iberian pork tails and pan fried Langoustines, reduced braising juices infused with Iberian Jamon. This was another good dish though after the veal it suffered in comparison. I thought the langoustine decent enough and the gelatinous and crunchy texture of the tail was lovely though it was stuck in my teeth for a few minutes afterwards prompting Rachel to return form the bathroom and hand me one of the toothbrushes. At this point we were asked if we were still hungry or if we wanted more dishes, this was unexpected as we had come to the end of the savoury portion of the menu, in hindsight I should have said yes and gone with the flow or taken a look at the menu. Rachel was finished at this point and instead I asked if I could perhaps sample some cheese. A beautifully plated cheese course with 6 cheeses and six accompaniments followed. Beautiful to look at, decent but not mind blowing cheeses. Violet ice cream, hot almond marzipan, shavings of spiced bread and green tea. Beautiful ice cream, and the textural and temperature contrasts were interesting and most importantly tasted good. Crunchy milk sheets with confit kidney beans, Citrus peel sherbet, orange blossom and cumin water. The least impressive of the desserts the kidney beans came as a puree which was grainy. (When I say least impressive we still bth gave it 7/10) Rachel subbed in the Interpretation of Chocolate, once again , visually this was fabulous and I was assured by Rachel that it was a good chocolate dessert. For myself Frozen white chocolate sphere over broken nut brittle and distilled cocoa. The clear cocoa was poured into my spectacular white chocolate spehere at the table. Great white chocolate, lovely slightly burnt brittle. Beautiful. Overall a very good meal, some good ingredients (some great), some seasoning issues but as an overall experience one of the best. A mention to the service as well which was wonderfully elegant, at times it seemed like it had been choreographed, silently gliding across the floor, moving at pace without seeming hurried. Wonderful to watch.

I didn't say they wouldn't be able to tell the difference, merely that they would enjoy just as much a lesser restaurant, simply because they wouldn't know any better. Most people of limited dining experience tend to be impressed by the surroundings, service and pretty plating of dishes, as well as the food (IMO), things that you can get at places less expensive than RHR for instance. As you point out yourself your first experience was le Manoir and it was a world apart but where had you been eating prior to that? How do you know that you wouldn't have been as impressed eating the £35 lunch at the Connaught for instance? I racked up £500 at the Waterside Inn once, it was a fabulous meal and lives long in the memory however, impressive as it was, in hindsight and with more experience I reckon that foodwise it probably falls outside my top ten meals.

If you think most head chefs are in the kitchen on a Friday and Saturday I think you may be disappointed. Put another way, if you were the boss and were setting up the rota, what would be your preferred days off

As time has gone on I find myself less willing to fork out substantial sums only to end up with sub standard food, having said that if somebody could guarantee me the best meal of my life I wouldn't have too many problems paying £500 a head. £50 a head is easily achievable in London these days, when I started eating out I gradually edged my way upwards price wise and found that the best meals roughly correlated with the increase in price. Non-foodie friends often ask me about particular restaurants for celebratory meals (notably GR@RHR and The Fat Duck) and whether they are worth the money, these are people who are normally happy spending £25 a head in their local Italian. Without hesitation my advice to them is that they won't enjoy them any more than if they spent £50 on a meal, this isn't a snob thing, I just don't believe that diving in at the deep end can enhance your enjoyment. Gradually working your way up the different levels of restaurants and gaining an understanding of ingredients and techniques will mean that you will probably enjoy your meal costing £125 per head far more, not only that, you will understand why you enjoy it so much more.