Prosecco and burrata

I wonder how many people think about food when they’re drinking prosecco. Not many, I suspect. Given the comparative sweetness of most bottles I certainly tend to think in terms of sweet dishes as much as savoury ones as you can see from this post. Teatime seems to me the perfect occasion to drink it.

But prosecco is getting drier as I discovered at a recent tasting and lunch at Eataly hosted by the Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG and therefore rather more versatile

We sipped the producers’ proseccos with octopus, risotto and tiramisu but the pairing that stood out for me with the drier proseccos was a Caprese salad of burrata with tomatoes and basil. Most prosecco I think would struggles with tomato but it was the creamy burrata that really kicked the pairing into touch. (Mozzarella would work too though isn't quite as luxuriantly creamy.)

Confusingly the description Extra Dry on a bottle doesn’t actually mean that, in fact it indicates the wine is on the sweeter side. You need to look out for the designation extra brut which applies to proseccos that have less than 6g of added sugar. Three that worked particularly well were the Biancavigna Rive di Soligo Extra Brut 2021 (1.5g), the La Tordera ‘Otreval’ Rive di Guia Brut 2021 (0g) and the Sorelle Brona ‘Particella 68’ Rive di Colbertaldo Brut 2021 (6g). (Rive are the equivalent of crus - specific areas which are designated as higher quality.)

By the way, note the recent vintages. Prosecco is released quite young which adds to its freshness.

What sort of food to pair with prosecco?

I attended the lunch as a guest of the Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG

Crab with kombucha

It’s hard to pick out just one pairing from the alcohol-free menu I had at La Dame de Pic in London the other night - the 2 Michelin starred restaurant run by Anne-Sophie Pic. I can honestly say I didn’t miss alcohol during the meal. The pairings, which were devised by head sommelier Elise Merigaud, were perfectly suited to Pic’s light, supremely elegant food.

I’m going for the crab with kombucha because it’s a combination you could replicate if not to her standard. The crab dish was a couple of incredibly fine discs of pastry sandwiching a creamy slightly spicy filling with Vietnamese coriandere and a touch of burnt lemon which was echoed by the refreshingly tart LA Citrus Hop Kombucha.

The great thing is that it’s a product you can easily buy (online from the Suffolk-based producer) for £30 for a case of 12 bottles) I reckon it would go well with other seafood too.

The other combination that stood out was Pic's signature dish of wild seabass and caviar with the Eins Zwei Zero riesling an alcohol-free wine that’s never really appealed to me until now but which worked really well.

Again the dish, which involves a light-as-air blanket of foam, would be way beyond most of us but you could try the drink with other fish dishes (I reckon it would work with smoked salmon). You can buy it in Waitrose for £6.99.

Obviously the meal was not a cheap experience - the menu we were offered was £140 with pairings on top of that but if you didn’t drink and wanted to splash out for a special occasion it would be perfect. (Note that some of the dishes are made with alcohol though you might be able to get the kitchen to tweak them.

I ate at the restaurant as a guest of La Dame de Pic

Monkfish and Meursault - and Muscadet, come to that

One of the best restaurants to enjoy well thought out food and drink pairings is Trivet in London which comes as no great surprise when you learn that the two partners - Jonny Lake and Isa Bal - worked at one of the UK’s most famous restaurants, The Fat Duck.

The other day I was interviewing them for a feature and got a run-through of their menu into the bargain including a dish of monkfish, girolles and roast chicken beurre blanc which was described as ‘the best friend of white burgundy’. As indeed it was, paired with a glass of Domaine Buisson Battault’s 2018 Meursault 1er cru Les Gouttes d’Or (which you can buy from Four Walls Wine for £57.50.) A sumptuously rich dish with a sumptuously rich wine.

Interestingly I’d also had monkfish a couple of days previously at The French House where it had been served in a lighter, more summery style with a mussel vinaigrette which went perfectly with the simple but delicious muscadet I was drinking.

You can of course also pair monkfish with red wine as you can see here.

It underlines, yet again, that it’s not so much a question of the base ingredient you're dealing with as the way you cook it and in this case, the sauce you serve with it. Always pay attention to that!

I ate at Trivet as a guest of the restaurant

Roast pork with an alcohol-free IPA

One of the hardest things if you’re not drinking for any reason is finding a grown-up drink that will work in a restaurant without leaving you feeling that you’re not having as good a time as everyone else. And as I’ve said before beer is much better in this respect than wine.

When I went for Sunday lunch at The Blaise Inn in Bristol yesterday I would normally have had a glass or two of wine but as I was driving I was happy to find that they had a choice of alcohol-free beers on their list including the excellent Clear Head from the Bristol Beer Factory which I’ve recommended before on this site

It tastes very much like a conventional IPA so was the perfect partner for my main dish of roast pork belly with apple sauce. I really didn’t feel I had missed out at all. (And the lunch was excellent by the way. A great place for a Sunday roast.)

And if you can drink there are some other good choices for pork belly here