Match of the week
Vietnamese chicken salad and ginger and lemongrass cordial
One of the encouraging things going on in restaurants now is the increasing number of interesting alcohol-free drinks on offer which I find particularly welcome at lunchtime when I don’t particularly want to drink.
10 top food pairings for South African wines
If you’ve visited the Cape Winelands you’ll know what an amazing food and drink scene it has but you may still wonder what sort of dishes to order in a restaurant or to pair with South African wines at home.
Beef stew and Bordeaux
Coming home to the UK after 10 days in the Caribbean was a bit of a shock to the system especially when we were snowed in on Friday so I leapt at a neighbour’s invitation to come round for a hearty beef stew.
Bread pudding with Mount Gay XO Rum
As I remarked last week it’s been rum with practically everything since we’ve been in Barbados - or if not rum, Banks beer - so I nearly went for a rare wine pairing - Provencal rosé with tuna poke - as my match of the week.
Cheese and cassava croquettes and rum punch
This week's match of the week is a bit random, admittedly, because everything goes with rum punch in Barbados but I wanted to single out these delicious croquettes we bought in the Holders Hill farmer's market.
Spicy paneer pancakes and a ginger-turmeric soda
Although I’m not doing Dry January I am trying to take a break from booze on at least a couple of days a week so when I went to Romy Gill’s pop-up at Carousel last week I opted for the alcohol free options.
Treacle tart with Ledaig 10 year old malt whisky
Occasionally you come across a pairing so brilliant, so simple that you wonder why you’ve never thought of it before and so it was on Saturday evening.
Roast turkey and zinfandel
This last fortnight, you won’t be surprised to hear, has been all about festive food particularly The Bird which we’ve finally despatched but before we move on to healthier fare I wanted to give a shout out to my top pairing for turkey this year which wasn’t even on my hitlist.
Chambolle-Musigny and game
No earth-shattering revelations this week, just a reminder that mature red burgundy is a brilliant match for game.
Salt cod, oxtail and Ferñao Pires
It’s not often you have a wine flight with a tasting menu in which every pairing is so perfectly constructed that it’s almost impossible to say which was the best. Every match at Restaurant Nathan Outlaw deserved to be a match of the week but if pushed I’m going to go for this one because it was so unexpected.
Oaked white rioja and rabbit terrine
This time of year is full of pre-Christmas get-togethers which means a higher than usual number of meals out and an above average number of interesting wine pairings.
Ceviche and sauvignon blanc
It’s rare that you keep on coming across a wine pairing that impresses you but my 10 days in Chile over the past couple of weeks have finally convinced me that sauvignon blanc is the perfect match for ceviche which seems to have become Chile’s national dish.
Spicy Sichuan noodles and sour plum tea
Although I think the difficulty of matching troublesome ingredients with wine is overrated that’s not true in the case of chilli which is an integral part of many Szechuan dishes. The tofu noodle hotpot I had at my local Chilli Daddy in Bristol at the weekend was definitely a case in point.
Scallops, nduja and Frappato
Last week I went to a wine dinner hosted by the Sicilian wine producer Donnafugata at Luca in London. They’re best known for their fabulous passito di Pantelleria dessert wine, Ben Ryé, but in fact it was the cleverly partnered dry wines that stole the show.
Sticky toffee pudding and 20 year old tawny port
One of the most exciting projects I’ve worked on this year is to collaborate on the wine list at Gridiron, a new restaurant from my pal Richard Turner of Hawksmoor, Meatopia and Pitt Cue fame.
Octopus and albarino
Octopus is a bit of a cult ingredient on restaurant menus at the moment. I’ve already noted two good wine pairings for it - with Baga and orange wine but this weekend I found another at the Sabor pop-up Polperia at the Dartmouth Food Festival.
Oxtail and oloroso
As last week was Sherry Week and I’m a MASSIVE fan my match of the week clearly had to involve sherry. But which to choose? It was hard given the number of standout pairings at the sherry dinner my local tapas bar, Bar 44 in Clifton put on but I’m going for the sherry by which I was most blown away - a limited edition of Gonzalez Byass Alfonso oloroso, one of six rare casks that are being bottled by the bodega under the name ‘Vinos Finitos’ (finite wines)
Singaporean food and cocktails
Last week’s standout pairings were all about cocktails - first at a dinner at Avenue to celebrate the World’s 50 Best awards taking place in Singapore next year and then a meal at the newly launched Kym’s the latest restaurant from the much-fêted Andrew Wong about which more in due course.
Pumpkin gnocchi and gewurztraminer
I’ve always thought of gewürztraminer as a bit of an inflexible wine - brilliant with spicy food. rich patés and pongy cheese but not much else. However it went brilliantly with several dishes at my local, Bellita in Bristol the other day including a classic Italian dish of pumpkin gnocchi with sage and brown butter.
Game consommé with a Croatian red
Given that wine dinners are all about combining food and wine it’s not that often that the resulting pairings blow you away but I was hard pushed to pick just one out of the four brilliant matches at last week’s Autumn Delights dinner at Adelina Yard in Bristol.
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