Match of the week
A full English breakfast with Lambrusco
It’s not often you go somewhere for breakfast and they hand you a comprehensive wine list. Let alone a wine list tempting enough to make you drink at that time of day.
But a full English isn’t far short of a main meal anyway so the opportunity to order a glass of Lambrusco with it - yes, Lambrusco - was too good to resist.
This may come as less of a surprise when you discover the establishment is owned by Heath Ball of the award winning Red Lion and Sun. This is his newly opened pub The Angel in Highgate Village which in addition to offering all day breakfasts has an equally interesting wine list which includes, at the time of writing, three different lambruscos.
Real lambrusco, for those of you who have not come across it, is a dry, semi-sparkling wine from Emilia Romagna in Italy. Mainly red and dry with a taste of bitter cherries.
I ordered the Tenuta Pederzana ‘Spiriti Folleti’ Lambrusco Grasparossa di Casteleviro from the list which was a modest breakfast friendly 11%. It went incredibly well with the meatier elements of the dish including the (absolutely excellent) bacon, sausage and Conakilty black pudding. (I’d discovered on a previous occasion how well lambrusco goes with pork.)
If you fancy giving it a go the Angel is open from 8am though you can’t order alcohol until 10am. Which might be a little early for Lambrusco even for me. (We didn’t eat until 12.30.)
For other thoughts on wine with breakfast see What Wine to Drink with a Scottish (or English) breakfast
And for other Lambrusco matches The best food pairings for Lambrusco
Sweetcorn, feta and green chilli waffles and pink grapefruit juice
Soft drinks don’t often feature in my weekly pairings but this combination of an inventive savoury breakfast waffle and some lovely fresh pink grapefruit juice at The Modern Pantry last week was spot on.
The waffle, which contained sweetcorn, feta, green chilli and curry leaf and was topped with crisp maple-cured (I think) bacon had that sweet/sour/spicy character that features in so many of chef Anna Hansen’s dishes and the pink grapefruit juice with its own sweet/sharp notes was the ideal match.
I think pink grapefruit juice is perhaps the easiest citrus to pair without the tartness of lemon and lime which frequently needs a correcting dose of sugar but fresher and less filling than orange juice. (Incidentally it was interesting that they’d filtered out the ‘bits’ or shreds of fruit pulp that so many people dislike)
It was also great with the sugar prawn omelette that my breakfast companion Signe Johansen ordered, one of the signature dishes at the restaurant.
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