Tramontana: ‘Brindisa lite’

I’ve been a huge fan of Brindisa, the Spanish food importer who was probably more responsible than anyone for putting chorizo on our culinary map. They have a great shop in Borough Market and a number of convivial tapas bars so it seemed good news when they announced they were opening Tramontana, a restaurant based on 'speciality dishes from the Spanish Mediterranean'.

Sadly a recent visit proved a let down not least for the toppy prices they’re charging.

Take the (admittedly tasty) Hamburguesa Blanco y Negro, a ‘mini-burger’ of white butifarra sausage and morcilla (black pudding). Now I’ve no idea what the wholesale price of butifarra is - maybe it’s a fortune - but £5 for what is basically a slider is ridiculous.

Rice is supposed to be the big draw but even single estate bomba from a “family owned farm” doesn’t justify £14 per person (minimum 2 people - i.e. £28) for a paella dish of bomba rice with iberico pork ribs and black pudding so heavily crusted at the bottom that at least a quarter of the volume had been lost. And I’m sure the mangetout perched on the top weren’t particularly Spanish. The rice dish with lobster our neighbours were having cost £20 a head. £40! You can order a generous portion of risotto at the River Café for £16-18.

Other dishes were more in the conventional tapas mould - jamon, croquetas, grilled lamb cutlets - all fine but the patatas tramontana, a baked potato stuffed with sobrasada (soft spicy sausage, cheese and duck egg) could have come from Spud-u-like way back in the 80s. And a lurid pink beetroot and hake ensaladilla tasted like mushed-up leftovers.

Somewhat discouraged the four of us shared just one pudding - a perfectly nice arroz con leche (rice pudding) with a sprinkling of cinnamon, a really good match with a glass of orangey moscatel Castadiva ‘Cosecha Miel’ from Alicante. The wine list in fact is great with a good choice of cavas, sherries and lesser known Spanish wines like the crisp, citrussy Verdil our waiter suggested.

But you wonder quite who they’re aiming at. The atmosphere is very different from the standard Brindisa, with a large bar and pumping soundtrack which doesn’t sit easily with the ambitious and slightly obscure regional food.

Maybe they’re trying to roll-out a more popular high-street brand, envisaging Tramontana as a Brindisa Ibiza or Brindisa Lite? If so they need to sort out their pricing as I wouldn't have thought that clientele wants to pay upwards of £50 a head for a casual night out.

For the time being if you want a good Spanish restaurant in London you can’t beat Jose Pizarro’s eponymous Pizarro in Bermondsey Street (maybe an unfortunate comparison as I've just been reminded he used to be executive chef of Brindisa!). And Donostia has had some good reviews. Or even one of Brindisa's own tapas bars but this one needs a rethink.

Tramontana is at 152 Curtain Road, London EC2A 3AT. Tel: 020 7749 9961.

* We were offered the wine on a complimentary basis

 

 

28-50 Marylebone: a smart West End wine bar for weary shoppers

Marylebone has been regarded as a foodie mecca for a while but the action's been mainly at the northern end. Now posh wine bar 28-50 has conveniently established an outpost at the entry to Marylebone Lane, not far from Bond Street tube - a new haven for weary shoppers or workers in need of a restorative glass of wine.

The chain (there are only 2 but bound to be more, I’d have thought) was set up by sommelier Xavier Rousset (ex Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons) and his business partner Agnar Sverrisson who also run the excellent Michelin-starred Texture on the corner of Portman Square. (Another good bolthole from Oxford Street.)

Their first 28-50 - the name refers to the latitudes between which grape vines can be grown - in Fetter Lane, just off Fleet Street, is housed in a cosy wood-panelled basement and has more of a City vibe. The new branch is street level with big glass windows and feels much more West End.

The big draw is the wine list which is packed with interesting and unusual bottles - all available in 75ml, 125ml ad 250ml serves. That makes it possible to try a couple of wines at very modest expense (prices start at £2.20) or even create your own flight.

I picked two, a beautifully crisp, aromatic Mathis Bastian Rivaner from Luxembourg (that was a first!) and a softer, richer 2011 Malvasia from Giovanni Blason in the Venezia Giulia region, which was very similar to the wines I was tasting in northern Croatia earlier this year. It’s a fantastic place to improve your wine knowledge.

Food-wise there’s a range of salads and soups, starters like smoked Severn and Wye salmon and salt beef brisket which also double as bar snacks, more substantial mains (grilled lamb shoulder with borlotti beans, Icelandic fish stew), grills (mainly steaks) and tempting-sounding desserts (lemon tart with yoghurt sherbert and almond and cherry cake with almond milk ice cream). There’s also a set price lunch for £14.95 for 2 courses but to be honest if you're in the mood for a bigger meal I’d go up the road to Texture, whose lunch menu is only a fiver more.

Dropping by 28-50 for a quick meal on my own I ordered a starter of aubergine with grilled courgettes, marinated peppers and goats curd (above) - surprisingly, served warm and more than generous for a first course - and a slightly over-caramelized onion tart with a lot of salad piled on top which was on the small side for a main. (Probably a bad plan to order vegetarian from a restaurant owned by a Frenchman. They never totally get it.)

There was a bit too much balsamic vinegar on both for comfort with the wines which I did mention so there may well not be by the time you try it. The dishes I’ve had at the Fetter Lane branch have been better but these are early days.

If - or rather when - I go back with a friend, as I'm sure I will, I’ll probably opt for a sharing plate of cheese or charcuterie or just a single dish. 28-50 is more about drinking than eating. It is a wine bar after all.

28-50 is at 15-17 Marylebone Lane, London W1U 2NE. Tel: 020 7486 7922 (you'd be well advised to book. It was heaving the day I went)

If you like wine bars you should also check out Vinoteca which has a branch in Smithfield, one just near Marble Arch and one in Beak Street in Soho which I reviewed here.

 

Does La Tupina live up to the hype?

Talk to anyone about the food scene in Bordeaux - and they’ll say in reverential tones - ‘Aaah, but have you been to La Tupina’. I have, twice now, and while I can understand why it stands out in a city that curiously doesn’t have the quality of restaurants to match its wine I’ve never been quite as blown away as my fellow customers seem to be.

It’s not, of course new. It was opened back in 1968 by Jean-Pierre Xiradakis at the incredibly young age of 23. The former Times restaurant critic Jonathan Meades used to rave about it. Maybe still does for all I know. So does most of the UK wine trade: the list, I admit is magnificent, particularly for minor, more interesting Bordeaux.

The food is also totally to my taste, robust, generous, flavoursome and with more substance than style. A dish of squid ‘like elvers’ with garlic and chilli looks uninteresting but is tender and sharply seasoned, a fine match for the crisp Chateau Bauduc white I’m drinking with its amiable proprietor Gavin Quinney. Sweet plump little scallops are perfectly offset by fatty, flavoursome slices of bacon (though at 24€ they’re not cheap for a starter)

Large chunks of lamb - what better partner for Bordeaux especially the 2003 we’re drinking? - come, delicately rosy, with admirably fresh haricot beans, perfectly cooked so they hold their shape but have lost their bite. A roasted rib of black pig, a traditional local breed, comes with a hefty, tasty edge of fat. The duck fat chips are perhaps a touch soggier than you might wish for but you can’t fault the flavour.

Even the dessert - baked apricots stuffed with almonds served with vanilla ice cream - is good espcially with Bauduc’s delicious 2005 Monbazillac.

Oh, and the service is impeccable. They gave us two tables and unlimited glasses. So what’s the problem?

It’s hard to put my finger on it but I think it’s the slight sense of ennui I detect in Xiradakis who was courteous enough to come over to the table to greet us but showed no real animation or passion - understandable, perhaps, after 44 years.

The feeling, that you also get at Rick Stein’s in Padstow, that you’re part of a vast commercial enterprise (Xiradakis has five more restaurants in the street - Le Bar Cave, Le Comestible, Kuzina, Cafe Tupina and the recently opened Le Maison Fredon which also has rooms) He's always been popular with visiting celebs, including French presidents - as this recent picture of him posing with Johnny Hallyday shows.

The kitschness of the place - the old pot over the fire in which the chips are cooked. If Disney were to recreate south-west French food, it would look like La Tupina. And the loud American (and other) accents which boom over the tables - there are too many tourists. But then I’m a tourist, albeit a working one too.

The locals also have reservations - too expensive and not as good as it was were criticisms that were voiced on Twitter.

Still, Bordeaux and France, could do with more of this. At a time so many French chefs are stil doing silly things with dots, drizzles, foams and Asian ingredients they don’t understand, La Tupina is a welcome beacon of honest, regional French cooking sourced from impeccably good ingredients. For which you quite reasonably pay over the odds.

As I say, Bordeaux doesn’t have much else to offer, apart from high-end fine dining experiences and a good Chinese. La Tupina wouldn’t stand out the same way in Paris, or even in London. But if you haven’t been, and you find yourself in Bordeaux, you should go.

La Tupina is at 6 Rue de la Porte de la Monnaie, 33800 Bordeaux 05 56 91 56 37

I ate at La Tupina as a guest of Chateau Bauduc.

 

Brasserie Zédel: Paris comes to Piccadilly

If you’re the kind of sad, unreconstructed Francophile (like me) who thinks French food has gone to the dogs head not for Eurostar but the newly opened Brasserie Zédel in London’s West End. Housed in the late and not-much-lamented Atlantic Bar and Grill near Piccadilly Circus, it occupies a huge subterranean space which has been decked out at eye-watering expense in full fin de siècle style.

The guys who have deep enough pockets and the sheer chutzpah to pull off this feat are Chris Corbin and Jeremy King, founders of the Caprice and the Ivy and owners of the equally glam and celebrity-frequented Wolseley and Delaunay.

So reasonable are the prices - oeufs dur mayonnaise for £2.75! - that we assumed the portions must be minuscule and ordered way too much in the way of hors d’oeuvres - an heirloom tomato salad with shallots (£2.95), superbly garlicky paté with chopped jelly and cornichons (£5.75) and some nicely tangy céleri remoulade (£2.95) almost certainly made in house rather than bought-in as it would have been in Paris. Freshly cut baguette came from what looked like a boulangerie in the corner - a slightly kitsch but effective touch.

My carnivorous colleague and I decided to tackle the choucroute Zédel ‘pour deux’ (at £14.95 per person) which could easily have served six and which was presented with much ceremony by one of the servers - the choucroutier? - who dismembered the ham hock for us and reassembled it tastefully on top of our platter. He assured us we had enough boiled potatoes but given the amount of meat and cabbage (which was perfectly seasoned with a nice nip of cloves) I’d order a few extra as a side. (Since when did you see plain pommes vapeur on a menu, let alone at £2.50?)

Our 250ml pichet of fruity Alsace riesling (2010 vintage but unnamed) was the perfect accompaniment and not unreasonable at £12.10 though the wine list is almost certainly where they make their money.

Despite being unable to finish our choucroute we plunged into the puds - almost literally so in the case of a ‘bol de mousse au chocolat’ (£5.25) which came in what looked like a small mixing bowl. 'People like to share' we were told. The eclair ‘Paris-Brest’ - a choux puff filled with praline flavoured cream was perhaps the only dish that didn’t hit the mark - quite tasty but overchilled and a shade heavy. But who's complaining at £2.75?

The only other criticism (and I’m struggling) is that they didn't spell out that our Lillet aperitif was rouge rather than blanc (we should have asked but they still replaced it) and that they brought the starters and wine minutes after, leaving us little time to sip them. But they knocked one off the bill to compensate.

There’s a cheap prix fixe lunch for £8.75 for 2 courses and £11.75 for three and a plat du jour for £12.75 which I didn’t go for because I’m not mad about blanquette de veau which was on offer that day. Other specials like poitrine de porc farcie and lapin à la moutarde look more tempting.

If you’re not in the mood for food or it's too early to face choucroute there’s a little cafe upstairs where you can drink coffee and read the papers. (There's also a separate bar.)

Brasserie Zédel, in short, is a joy. Go before they put up the prices as they almost certainly will. (Apparently not, I'm told by Jeremy King on Twitter. But go anyway.)

(Our bill for 2 was £88.99 including an aperitif, 2 250ml pichets of wine (the other was a Picpoul) and 2 coffees. You could eat for a lot less than that.)

Brasserie Zédel is at 20 Sherwood Street. 020 7734 4888. Apparently they keep several tables for walk-ins.