Nopi: a model modern winelist

How often do you go to restaurants and groan at the length of the winelist? Or end up simply skimming the recommended ‘sommelier’s choice’ or wines by the glass? Well, the wine list at Yotam Ottolenghi's new restaurant Nopi is a model of what the time-poor, harassed diner wants - simple and intriguing sections, each of which tells a story.

It was put together by wine consultant Gal Zohar who used to be the sommelier at L’Anima - hence the large proportion of Italian wines on the list. He’s also been seduced - as sommeliers increasingly are these days - by natural wines although they’re not flagged up as such.

The wines come largely in groups of three or four. Whites, for example, include The Outsiders (“off the beaten track wines from unusual places packed with intriguing and unusual flavours”), Tour de France (self explanatory but some off-beat choices) and Mountain Wine ("high altitude and marginal growing conditions produce crisp, clean and unapologetically fresh wines").

Reds include Lesser Known Varietals, Gamay for All ("much more than the old Beaujolais Nouveau, Gamay produces stunning wines") and Volcanic Wine ("extra fertile, enigmatically powerful volcanic soils have a way with wine. They’re like a multi-vitamin creating wines packed with minerality and fresh acidity.") It made you want to try them all.

Zohar has deliberately gone for clean, mineral wines that are modest in alcohol to go with Ottolenghi’s food which is light, mainly fish and vegetable-based and designed to be shared. I tried five wines of which the only one I thought was slightly out of place was a fine Barbaresco 2005 from the Produttori dei Barbaresco though all credit to Zohar for putting it on by the glass.

A light, lush 2009 Versus Riesling from Stajerska in Slovenia was lovely with a plate of burrata, blood orange and coriander seeds while the earthy Etna Bianco ‘Biancodicaselle’ matched better with a plate of grilled hake kebabs with lemon pickle and yoghurt. The best match though was a light fragrant Austrian blend of Pinot Noir and Zweigelt, Wien 2 from R & A Pfaffl which was just knockout with some spicy beef brisket croquettes and Asian Slaw. Oh, and I forgot the 2004 Vin Santo del Chianti Rufina from Fattoria di Basciano which sommelier Honami Matsumoto brought with the cardamom rice pudding with rose syrup and pistachio. The wine tasted like having a compote of dried apricots with the dish. An inspired pairing.

The only downside to this adventurous way of eating and drinking (and obviously not a downside for the restaurant) is that it would be easy to run up a hefty bill if you got over-enthusiastic. (A tip - I think you probably only need two plates per person instead of the recommended three so go with a friend/friends so you can taste as much as possible) But it’s unusual to find somewhere offering such original and delicious food and wine right in the heart of London (just off Picadilly Circus). If you're already an Ottolenghi fan you'll love it. If you don't know his food add it to your list.

Nopi is at 21-22 Warwick Street, London W1B 5NE. Tel: 020 7494 9584. Email: contact@nopi-restaurant.com

I ate at Nopi as a guest of the restaurant

What to drink at Noma

If you go to the world’s best restaurant* you may think in terms of downing an expensive bottle of Champagne. Think again! The best match for Nordic food is a Nordic drink . . .

We didn’t actually plan to drink beer, admittedly but I remembered from my previous visit 3 years ago that chef Ren Redzepi was really into it and when we found that the restaurant now had its own pilsner, brewed with birch sap and nettles it was a no-brainer.

It was so refreshing and went so well with the onslaught of little dishes with which we were bombarded at the beginning of the meal that we decided to carry on with beer - despite the fact that we were a group of girls (satisfyingly demolishing the stereotypical prejudice that women wouldn’t dream of downing such a blokey drink!)

Stand-out pairings with the Noma beer were with crunchy fresh bullrushes with a dip of yoghurt and hazelnuts, an ‘amuse’ of smoked quails eggs pickled in apple vinegar and a spread of pork fat and aquavit which came with delicious homemade bread. It would have been hard to have found a wine that would have worked as well.

Other beers we tried were Herslev Pilsner, a fresh hoppy pilsner made by the Herslev Bryghus or brewery (good with a dishes of beets and sorrel, dried scallops and fresh grains with a wild watercress pure, a tartare of beef and sorrel) and oysters and beach plants and flowers; a beer brewed with asparagus (yes, really) from the same brewery which was fantastic with a dish of roast white asparagus in a green asparagus and pine sauce served with young spruce shoots; a big hoppy IPA called Indian Tribute from the Oppigards brewery in Sweden which went really well with a dish called the Hen and the Egg (in fact a duck’s egg fried at table with hay oil, thyme butter and wild garlic and other foraged leaves) and a fascinating rare porter called Bgedol no 117 from a brewer who only makes limited edition beers and never repeats them. Smooth dark and malty it was the perfect match for a dish of roast summer deer with woodruff sauce, snails and girolles.

The only combinations that didn’t quite work for me were a steam beer called Fur from Jutland which too powerful for the delicate dish of langoustines and fresh oysters it was paired with and a strong dry cider - the 2010 Klster Cider No. 2 - too dry for one of the Noma classics, a dessert of sheeps milk mousse with sorrel granita and fennel seeds

We also had a homemade elderflower juice from the juice menu with a dessert of strawberries with hay-infused parfait, camomile and elderflowers which was just perfect. (I’ll come back to Noma’s juices another time)

All this is not to say that wine isn’t a good option at Noma. They have a strong wine list, the majority of which are ‘natural’, organic and biodynamic. They also have a champagne menu - for the sound reason that it’s a versatile match with so many different dishes and flavours but at 895 krner (just over £100) it’s not a cheap option - though cheaper than it would be in many 3 star Michelin restaurants.

More to the point, I don’t think it would go as well as beer. Most champagnes have a touch of sweetness that would I think be intrusive with Redzepi’s clean flavours although it would work well with his umami-rich dishes. But his use of wild plants introduces bitter and woody flavours that are particularly well suited to beer as is his use of beer-friendly pickled and smoked ingredients.

More importantly it fits in with his overall sourcing philosophy. It is the local drink.

To read in more detail what we ate at Noma check out this post on my blog Food and Wine Finds.

* Noma was voted the World’s Best Restaurant in this year’s S. Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurant awards.

Does St John deserve the hype?

When the World’s top 50 restaurants are published each year St John is always near the top of the list. This year it’s number 14 but is it really the fourteenth best restaurant in the world?

The idea of course is as absurd as the idea that the River Caf is the world's best Italian restaurant as was proclaimed a few years ago. But the list is drawn up, so far as I understand, by chefs and critics who naturally want to be seen endorsing places their peers respect. Like Ferran Adria and Heston Blumenthal, St John's chef-patron Fergus Henderson has become an icon - and is also a very good bloke. The judges know their judgement won’t be questioned if they nominate it so it always gets a huge number of votes.

I hadn’t been for a couple of years but my past experiences have been mixed. I remember having some of the best roast pork I’ve ever tasted and also some of the toughest, bloodiest, most undercooked partridge.

On this occasion I took my son, a restaurateur himself, who’d never been before. It has to be said we’re a picky pair always analysing every aspect of a meal but if you judge St John from the more normal point of view of someone eating there for the very first time - perhaps for a special occasion on account of its reputation - you can’t help but feel they might be asking themselves what the fuss is about.

Two dishes exemplified that particularly: a mismatched starter salad of brown shrimps and shredded cabbage in which the flavour of the cabbage totally overwhelmed the delicate flavour of the shrimps and a slightly leaden dessert of parsnip cake and sliced oranges (note to self: parsnip doesn't work as well as carrot or beetroot in cake). My boy's main of snails, sausage and chickpeas looked like a student supper and was just a bit dull.

On the credit side I had a warm salad of mussels, leeks and celeriac (above) which was absolutely lovely - fresh and seasonal - followed by a perfectly cooked slab of roast beef, with beetroot and horseradish (though both it and the plate it was served on could have been warmer) accompanied by - sheer genius - a side order of perfectly seasoned Welsh rarebit, the highlight of our meal. And even with the boom in artisanal baking over the last few years the sourdough bread is still the best in London.

The all-French wine list is also very much to my taste though we drank modestly (a couple of glasses ofchampagne, and a glass of Domaine Olivier Pithon,'Mon P'tit Pithon' Vin de Pays des Cotes Catalanes 2008 which rubbed along fine with the beef).

The unevenness in the cooking, it strikes me, stems from St John’s - maybe Henderson’s - constant desire to create new dishes which sometimes overwhelms basic good sense. You always see dishes on the menu you don’t find elsewhere and that’s a virtue but sometimes they strive too much for effect. In the 15 years since it opened St John has always been an innovator - from its pared down, white-painted warehouse decor, the bone marrow, the offal, the homely nursery puddings, the feasting menus - all trends picked up by other restaurants (as I suspect the rarebit will be).

The problem is that the accolade of being 14th best restaurant in the world creates expectations that it’s almost impossible for any restaurant to fulfil so don’t go with the idea that you’ll have one of the technically dazzling meals you’ve ever had in your life and you won't be disappointed. What you will unfailingly have is a fascinating experience that pushes the boundaries of what restaurants can offer. Everyone who's interested in food should eat here at least once.

St John is at 26 St John Street, London EC1M 4AY. Tel: 020 7251 0848 (email: reservations@stjohnrestaurant.com)

Alle Testiere - best restaurant in Venice or most over-hyped?

Of all the restaurants we had lined up to visit on our current trip to Venice Alle Testiere was the one I was most looking forward to. The guides praise it lavishly. One of my colleagues said we must on no account miss it, that the kitchen would send out a succession of wonderful dishes, that the food was the best in Venice by far.

Well, it may have been at one stage - and may still be for the favoured regulars who frequent this tiny 20 seater - but if you walk in as a ordinary member of the public I’m afraid it’s a different story.

The evening started on a bad note when we arrived, 10 minutes late admittedly, (it’s hard to find) but we had confirmed our reservation earlier in the day. ‘Wait here’ our waiter said casually, leaving us by the door despite the fact that a table for two was free. We waited for about 7 or 8 minutes while they completely ignored us then finally a couple left and we were seated.

The menu is short and fairly expensive. A couple of dishes were off but, fair enough, it was the second sitting on a Saturday evening. Our starters - a dish of scallops and a shrimp and asparagus salad arrived within minutes (no more than four) of our ordering them. The scallops which appeared to have been baked in the shell with white wine and dill tasted as if they had been reheated. They were soft and flabby, overwhelmed by the taste of dill and an accompanying cherry tomato. And three small scallops for 17€ is mean even by London standards. The shrimp salad was just plain dull. It could have been served by any halfway competent restaurant.

My husband who wasn’t feeling particularly hungry had the spaghetti with tellines (little clams) which again was bland - we had better for less than half the price in a cheap trat the other day. But my main course of scampi in a sweet and sour tomato and cinnamon sauce (25€) was a disgrace, again overcooked (the consistency of the scampi was soft and woolly), the clumsily seasoned sauce completely overwhelming their characteristic sweetness.

If this had been any other restaurant we’d have left at that point but I was just so dumbfounded I had to see if they could do any better with the contorni and ordered a side dish of grilled vegetables (aubergine, courgettes, treviso and artichoke). This at least came freshly cooked though scattered lavishly with seasalt crystals which made it unpleasantly salty. Then we shared (hallelujah!) an exemplary tiramisu.

The well-priced wine list was also great with several interesting choices by the glass although the Drius Pinot Bianco (from Friuli) they poured was corked. Our charmless waitress replaced it with ill grace, eyes heavenwards as if we hadn’t the faintest idea what we were talking about. The second glass and the intriguingly complex Milleuve Bianco 2005 from Nicola Manferrari (also a Friuli wine) were excellent - as was the house Soave from Vincentini, a real bargain at 12€ a 50cl bottle.

I have no doubt we’d have had a better experience if we’d dropped the name of our friends or had told them I was a journalist. (Regulars were getting Rolls Royce treatment from the sommelier, I noticed) but thought it was better to replicate the experience of an ordinary diner.Maybe we encountered an off night but I suspect not. Alle Testiere has an attitude problem it needs to fix before it can be classified in my book as a good restaurant, let alone a great one. There are many better places to eat in Venice where you’ll get a much warmer and more hospitable welcome.

Alle Testiere is in the Calle de Mondo Nuovo, Castello 5801 Tel: 041-5227 220