Steak tartare and Provence rosé

It’s back to the usual drizzly grey grot this Monday morning but the past week has been glorious.

Definitely rosé weather which prompted my friend Andy Clarke* and I to crack open a bottle of Provence rosé at one of my favourite Bristol restaurants, Little French, the other day.

You might think that was odd as we’d both opted for steak. Andy, an onglet, in my case a steak tartare. But actually the wine - the By.Ott from Domaine Ott worked with both

In my previous post on steak tartare I wrote “Not the very pale Provence type but a Bandol rosé would be lovely.” I take that back - a good quality pale Provence rose is spot on too, especially with a fresh crunchy salad on the side. (And chips, obviously!)

You can buy By.Ott from various Indies in the UK, normally for around £25 but a wine merchant called De Burgh has the 2022 for £19.99 though I'm guessing they'll move on to the 2023 if that sells through quickly

* BTW Andy has a new book on gin coming out if you’re keen on cocktails and although I’m not much of a mixologist myself I’ve had great success with his recipes.

Seabream carpaccio with blood orange and Hugel Gentil

If you’re pairing a wine with a raw starter like carpaccio you might think your choice needs to be dictated by the fish but as with other ingredients it depends what else is on the plate.

As part of a tasting menu at Caper and Cure in Bristol it came with oyster, mayonnaise, smoked caviar, mooli and blood orange but it was the orange in particular that kicked it into touch with the 2021 Hugel Gentil we had ordered.

‘Gentil’ is an unusual wine from Alsace - a officially recognised category of wine  which has to be at least 50% Riesling, Muscat, Pinot Gris and/or Gewurztraminer (this version from Hugel also contains a significant amount of Sylvaner).

It’s not as heavily scented as gewürztraminer or as sweet as muscat but definitely aromatic yet it worked really well with the dish. It also matches, as you might expect, with many Chinese, Indian and Thai dishes.

You can buy the 2022 vintage from Tanners for £15.20 or from Taurus for £15.49.

I was invited to Caper and Cure for the launch of their new menu but contributed towards the cost of the meal and the wine.

Sake and truffle fries

As I discovered when I visited Akashi Tai in Japan last autumn* sake is coming out of its shell, no longer a niche product to drink in Japanese restaurants but a versatile beverage to pair with food.

Last week I had it with several umami-rich dishes at a fancy restaurant called Dalloway Terrace in Bloomsbury - a preview of their forthcoming sake menu which included a mushroom soup and a dish of chicken breast with mushroom and truffle sauce.

I went full truffle by also ordering their Twineham Grange and truffle fries which actually proved an even better match with the full-flavoured Heavensake Junmai 12 sake I was drinking and a combination you could easily replicate at home (less expensively than at Dalloway Terrace where the chips are £8 though that isn’t out of the way for London these days.) Twineham Grange is a vegetarian parmesan-style cheese which is made in Sussex.

You can buy the sake, which is made in collaboration with Regis Camus, the cellarmaster at Piper Heidsieck champagne for £29.99 from simplywinesdirect  or from Laithwaites for £33

* See also 8 foods you might be surprised to find pair brilliantly with sake

I ate at the restaurant as a guest of Heavensake

Quenelle de brochet, sauce Nantua and Mondeuse blanche

Quenelle de brochet is one of the classic dishes of French haute cuisine so it was amazing to find it the other day on the set lunch menu at Joséphine, an excellent new bistro on the Fulham Road

It has been opened by Michelin-starred chef Claude Bosi and his wife Lucy in homage to the ‘bouchons’ (homely restaurants) of his home city of Lyons

Technique apart it’s a relatively straightforward dish. - a hot fish (pike) mousse with a shellfish - in this case langoustine - sauce but the mousse is so airy and the sauce so rich that it’s hard to find a wine that will flatter both.

Chablis would have probably done the trick but tends to be overpriced on restaurant wine lists so I settled for a glass of Domaine les Bruyères Mondeuse blanche, Cuvée L’Avarice. (Mondeuse blanche is a rare grape variety from Savoie though this was classified as a Vin de France.) It was a delicately creamy white which was surprisingly intense for its 11% ABV and was perfect with the dish. It’s imported into the UK by Dynamic Vines who are selling it for £26 a bottle.

I suspect a blanc de blancs champagne would also work.