William Smith and Anthony Demetre found a formula for success selling their winelist by the 250ml carafe at Arbutus. Now they have pulled the same trick at their latest opening Wild Honey, just off Bond Street. It has been received pretty well on the whole by the critics (including Giles Coren and A A Gill of the Times and The Sunday Times respectively who curiously went together then wrote about each other).

So what would you pick to go with Demetre’s - or rather the chef here, Colin Kelly’s menu? Here are six dishes to match. You can see my selections below:

1. Chilled cucumber soup, organic salmon gravadlax

2. New season’s white beans, Joselito gran reserva ham, pan amb tomaquet

3. Shin of Limousin veal, tomato and carrots, pomme purée

4. Roast young chicken, sweetcorn and summer savoury (sic) pancake, girolles

5. Monkfish, fresh borlotti beans, capers, red peppers and anchovy

6. Wild honey ice-cream, crushed honeycomb




1.  Chilled cucumber soup, organic salmon gravadlax
Soup is tricky with wine. Cold soup even more so. One’s instinct might be to be guided by the gravadlax part of the dish but you wouldn’t have found out till later that it didn’t have the typical elements of dill and mustard. It tasted more like salmon sashimi. It just about survived a Frederic Mochel Pinot Gris from Alsace but I think, having tasted it I’d have gone for the clean fresh flavours of a Picpoul de Pinet or an Albarino which would also have coped with . . .

2. New season’s white beans, Joselito gran reserva ham, pan amb tomaquet
A Spanish-inspired combination though the Spanish would never have served such a high quality ham hot. (The pan amb tomaquet is garlic rubbed bread with fresh tomatoes). No sherry on the wine list (black mark) so no manzanilla which would have been the obvious choice. If you didn’t fancy the Albarino you could go for a Rueda or a Bandol rosé (they didn’t have a Spanish rosado on the list)

3. Shin of Limousin veal, tomato and carrots, pomme purée
A light summer stew though the veal was splendidly full flavoured. The kind of dish you’d find in a French bistro which tends to steer one away from new world wines (of which there are a considerable number on the list) We tried a Foradori Teroldego from Trentino which was a bit austere. A Cotes du Rhone - they have one from Domaine de la Renjarde - would have been better. (Incidentally they put the ABV (percentage of alcohol by volume) on the list which is really helpful and would certainly steer you away from a 15% Minervois - the Hegarty Chamans - with this kind of dish.)

4. Roast young chicken, sweetcorn and summer savoury (sic) pancake, girolles
My favourite dish of the lunch - quite delicious. The description of the pancake should have referred to savory the herb rather than savoury as opposed to sweet. In fact there was an overall sweetness about the dish - from the chicken skin, from the sweetcorn and from the girolles that made it a natural match for a chardonnay. Especially the 2004 Au Bon Climat Chardonnay that is one of the bargains of the list at £12 a carafe.

5. Monkfish, fresh borlotti beans, capers, red peppers and anchovy
Monkfish generally suggests a red rather than a white, especially with this robust treatment. The capers and anchovies are a bit of a wine-killer so it needs to be a robust one rather than a pinot noir which is often a good choice with monkfish. If I’d ordered this dish I’d have ordered a carafe of Lealtanza Rioja Reserva to go with it or possibly even the Trinity Hill Syrah from Gimblett Gravels, Hawkes Bay they have on their list (a full-bodied wine but with a couple of years bottle age)

6. Wild honey ice-cream, crushed honeycomb
The signature dessert - and justly so. An ultra-smooth, velvety honey-scented ice cream with chunks of what tasted like a Crunchie bar filling. We had a sip of Anton Bauer Gruner Veltliner Eiswein from Austria with it but like most dessert wines, even one of this intense sweetness, it struggled to cope with ice cream. What the dish really needed, as I rather cheekily ventured to suggest to the Maitre D, was a well-chilled shot of mead! Let's see if they put it on the list!

Wild Honey is at 12 Saint George Street, London W1S 2FB. Tel: 020 7758 9160.