Mackerel pasty and Gusbourne Blanc de Blancs 2006

This actually wasn't the dish with which I drank this brilliant new sparkling wine at Rocksalt in Folkestone last week - I'd unfortunately finished my glass by then - but it would certainly have been a knockout wine pairing.

You can see my full account of the meal on my Food & Wine Finds blog here. The mackerel pasty - a combination of mackerel and pork sausage meat - might sound weird but was surprisingly light, savoury and absolutely delicious.

By then we'd moved on to a carafe of Birgit Eichinger Hasel Grüner Veltliner but to tell the truth the Gusbourne, a new sparkling wine which comes from a vineyard just five miles away from the restaurant in Kent, would have been a better match. (Fizz is generally a good call with pastry and fish.)

It was an interesting wine - softer and richer than a comparable Champagne. It won a silver medal in this year's IWSC competition - a considerable coup from a new wine producer. You can buy it direct off their website for £24.99 a bottle.

Other good matches would have been a best bitter or a medium dry cider. Or even a perry.

 

 

Hawksmoor hot dog and Seven Barrels Red Rye IPA

I know I said I was going to make a Riesling my match of the week but given that I've already written about it and that it's the Great British Beer Festival this week I'm going for this great combo at my son's restaurant, Hawksmoor. (Blatantly nepotistic, I know. Apologies)

The boys have been planning to introduce a hot dog for a while but couldn't find a British-sourced sausage that was up to scratch so this has been a year in development. I have to say it's a great one - light and smokey, just lightly grilled and served with melted onions, sweet mustard, homemade ketchup and, rather bizarrely - kimchi which also appears in one of their burgers.

I'm not so sure about the kimchi but the basic 'dog' is absolutely fantastic with their new Seven Barrels Red Rye IPA which has been brewed for them by the Kernel Brewery in London. It's a serious 6.5% bottle conditioned ale made from malted barley (85%) and rye (15%) with Amarillo and Mt. Hood hops, according to this review on the beer website ratebeer. I was going to order a lager but this was absolutely delicious - really rich and fruity. (The Spitalfields branch has its own ale, The Devil's Architect, made by Camden Brewery, which I've yet to try.)

 

Olive oil vanilla and pistachio cake with Muscat de Rivesaltes

It was a tough call to single out the best pairing from my meal at Galoupet in Knightsbridge last week but as I haven't featured a dessert for a while this just shaded it.

The USP of the restaurant which I'll review more fully in a day or so is that it offers a wine pairing with each course - still comparatively unusual in London, surprisingly. That wouldn't be remarkable if the food wasn't above average - but it is.

This dessert was a lovely moist, but light-as-air polenta cake with a vivid pistachio flavour, similar to one that David Everitt-Mathias serves at Le Champignon Sauvage and which featured in his first book Essence. (You can also find the recipe on the Riverford blog here.)

It was well matchedl with a light citrussy 2007 Muscat de Rivesaltes from Domaine Cazes which picked up on the citrus in the cake. A lovely way to end a summer meal.

 

Brown shrimps and cucumber with Corail Ros 2010

I could have made almost any of the pairings in the Restaurants in Residence pop-up supper in Docklands last Tuesday my match of the week but I think this one just inches it, mainly because I absolutely loved the wine, Corail Rosé.

It came from an organic and biodynamically run estate Chateau de Roquefort in Provence but was darker than the average Provencal rosé with a more intense but not at all confected fruit flavour - "soft red fruits with a hint of garrigue spice on the finish" as Jade Koch the head buyer for HG Wines (the wine arm of St John) put it.

She paired it with an equally seasonal dish of Morecombe Bay brown shrimps, cucumbers and chervil. Morecombe Bay shrimps are small and sweet and that chimed in beautifully with the fruitiness of the wine.

Two other great pairings at the dinner, which was cooked by Jonathan Woolway, sous-chef at St John bar and restaurant were:

Cante Gau 2009, a rare 100% white Carignan from another Provencal estate Domaine la Realtire, with a salad of slow-roasted tomatoes, bobby beans and Berkswell sheeps cheese

Slow cooked Herwick lamb with Sarments de Mars 2006 from Chateau la Colombiere in Fronton in south-west France which was made from old parcels of Negrette and Cabernet Sauvignon. A slightly rustic red that suited the gamey quality of the meat perfectly.

The only match I didn't think quite worked was a 2007 Jurancon Chateau du Jurque which was too powerful for a summer fruit pavlova.

Many people will be unaware you can buy many of the wines on the St John wine list from HG Wines - either on-line or by the bottle from their restaurants. They're all French, mostly from small producers and pretty reasonably priced. The Corail Rosé, for instance, is £10.70.

You can keep track of Shacklewell Nights events which nomally take place in a former clothing factory in Dalston on their blog. Restaurants in Residence was part of a month-long event in which they participated along with 3 of London's other pop-up restaurants.

I attended the dinner as a guest of Shacklewell Nights.