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This piece of culinary art, my friends, is a morsel of almond-battered cod cheek with salted grapes, darjeeling tea gel and wild sorrel. I loved it so much that I ended up dreaming about it.
We are in the midst of Cornwall Spring Feast, a county-wide foodie shindig celebrating the joys of the local larder. The main shtuck is the one-price-fits-all special menus (£14 for two courses) in all participating restaurants – even the Outlaw’s Grill. But the county’s headlining chefs are also hosting a few special events – opportunities to perform culinary cartwheels outside the parameters of the daily menu.
When the opportunity arises to see young Australian chef Mick Smith of the Porthminster Beach Cafe perform culinary cartwheels, it’s one you Read the rest of this entry »
What can I say? This pasty speaks for itself. It is a standard ‘large’ pasty from Lavender‘s, which measures in at 30cm long. Twice the length of my hand. Look no further for a recession-busting family meal.
….new bar-restaurant Untitled – the work of chef Robert Wright of Gurnard’s Head fame – is surely the most exciting thing that has opened in west Cornwall for ages.
In the interests of hype limitation, I hadn’t dared to get too excited about it beforehand but I went last night and it was all pretty fabulous. Saloon-bar chic downstairs (the sort of low-lit ambiance that makes you involuntarily order a Disaronno on the rocks – ok maybe that was just me). Terry Frosts and fresh white linen upstairs. Prices feasible. Steak gorgeous. Full of locals. The stuff of PZ dreams!
More, and better, pics here.
I have been woefully lacking in blog material recently due to six crushingly dull weeks on crutches – and I didn’t think micro-analysis of the Tash-Summer storyline on Neighbours would pass muster.
Anyway, I am now in possession of a perfectly healed greater trochanter (hello world!), which called for a celebration: a mid-week outing to the King’s Arms in St Just for midday pints of Tribute, and a steak and ale pie.
The old granite-fronted pub, on the square in St Just, has won a plethora of awards since new owners Brad and Molly took it over a year ago. We found a warm welcome, spick and span bar, and some pretty exceptional pie (£9.95, served with parmesan mushy peas and mustard mash), so I think I’ll award it the Read the rest of this entry »
Restaurants have been ‘popping up’ for a while in London and other metropolitan centres but I believe I attended Cornwall’s very first pop-up restaurant at the weekend – a collaboration between Gallery Latitude 50 on the Penwith moors near Cripplesease and Lime Tree catering, the people behind the much-loved Lime Tree restaurant that once occupied Trevelyan House on Chapel Street in Penzance.
In my (female) party there was a flurry of excitement on arrival: our prettily dressed table Read the rest of this entry »
Anyone else clocked how Penzance stalwarts keep getting posh Truro outposts? First herbal PZ institution Archie Browns, which is now looking very dapper on Kenwyn Street in Truro. And now Lavenders!
I am a walking advert for Lavender’s, a tiny traditional deli and cafe on Alverton St with solid, old-fashioned service (when I left my filofax – AKA my life – Read the rest of this entry »
I have to admit my other incentive to go fish-shopping in Newlyn, beyond an attempt to be worthy, was to use my sparkling new fish app by seafood supremo Mitch Tonks – the world’s first comprehensive fish and seafood cookery app.
At £2.99, this is the most expensive app I’ve bought (ahem, actually it’s the only one I’ve ever paid for, so you could say I’m more of a Fat Booth Lite kind of girl) but for your money you get a slick app, giving you vital fishy stats, yield, fat content, seasonality, tons of crystal-clear how-to videos on scary things like filleting, descaling etc, and access to a growing bank of Tonks recipes.
I interviewed Mitch Tonks last week Read the rest of this entry »
Like hundreds of thousands of others, judging by the rocketing sales of sustainable fish species this week, I found the points made in Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Fish Fight programme very compelling.
So compelling, in fact, that I didn’t even mind him repeating them a billion times in the space of half an hour (sign of bloody good point)! In the notoriously complicated territory of fish and seafood – where ‘the right thing to do’ is an elusive concept to anyone who isn’t personally monitoring fish stocks – keeping it clear, simple and repetitive seems crucial to the campaign’s success.
So for this cause, I didn’t mind being a cliche and trotting off to sunny Newlyn this morning in search of an ‘alternative’ species of fish for dinner. I came home with a fillet of coley for £2 – an alternative to the over-fished cod to which the Brits are so attached.
(Oh and if you’re looking for Read the rest of this entry »
… make it the twice-baked cheese soufflé with fig, chicory and caramelised pecan salad at Ben’s Cornish Kitchen in Marazion. OMG it was nice.
It was my first visit, but I’d been hearing good things (from some stringent sources) about Ben Prior’s newish restaurant for a while. As with most things in life, attention to detail is a good predictor of quality – so I settled in for a comfortable ride when the perfectly spongy homemade bread came out with a dipping dish of super-smooth olive oil and balsamic. The menu could be described as creative modern British.
Talking of new restaurants, I’m looking forward to the opening of the unusually named “untitled by Robert Wright“, which will occupy the premises of the old Abbey Restaurant, previously decorated with a Michelin star. It’s opening in Feb with a tapas-y bar downstairs (and carafes of wine – joy!) and more formal dining upstairs.
I made it through the sheets of rain to the opening of a rather charming new studio-cum-shop up some old granite steps off the front in St Ives called the Vintage Storeroom, brainchild of freelance knitwear designer Rosie Savidge.
It’s a pot pourri of vintage pieces, illustrated cards, textile designs (lavender mice, above, and soon to include the pasty teddy – the prototype by Emily Fishpool looked like a proper job), and also – in a random but useful twist – a selection of Asian and Italian specialist foodstuffs like fish sauce, coconut milk, and good spaghetti.
Follow their progress at http://twitter.com/#!/thevintagesroom
It’s been a lean week at p&c this week, due to work deadlines, unbloggably boring admin tasks and having wisdom teeth pulled. I did nearly blog about St Michael’s Hospital in Hayle, which must be the only NHS hospital to have jazz music playing in reception, but then I decided that the misplacement of the dental drill kind of cancelled it out.
Since I’m on a cheesy vibe this month, what with the Newlyn Cheese opening the other day, I thought I’d spread the news that Cornish Blue has just won the top prize at the World Cheese Awards – the first British cheese to win for ten years, beating 2,600 entries from 26 countries. Nice one. Full Guardian story here.
Contrary to first appearances, Cornish Blue isn’t like Stilton – it’s certainly veiny and mouldy but it’s younger and not so overpowering.
I wonder what the acceptance speeches are like at an event like that: ‘I’d just like to thank Daisy and Bessie for producing such thoroughly creamy milk…’
The good thing and the bad thing about blogs is the freedom they give you to trill on about your own little obsessions and gripes, blissfully undeterred by the eye of an objective editor.
I try and hold back from blogging repeatedly about places and venues in west Cornwall I have a crush on but… sometimes it’s just not possible. So today, newly enthused after their Spanish wine tasting last night, I’d like to reiterate how much I still love bar-resto-deli Scarlet Wines‘ wine nights in Lelant!
They really are getting everything right on the night – and how often can you say that about somewhere? Owner Jon Keast is an enthusiastic and charming host, managing to deliver high-level wine chat without a hint of pretension or dryness. There’s a well-stoked wood-burner; an amazing selection of beers; cool decor; creative tapas (standouts: baked figs with sherry and goat’s cheese, and chestnuts dipped in brandy sauce and oven-crisped serrano ham).
AND better yet, the bus from Penzance stops right outside – last one at 12.29, which I think you’ll all agree is pretty wild. The bus took such an indirect route on the way home that at one point it took a worrying turn towards Helston, and it cost £9.50 return for two (!?), but you know, you can’t have it all…
The wine tasting nights happen once a month, except in January it’s… whisky-tasting night instead for Burn’s Night. Could be messy.
Click here for my last enthusiastic blog post about Scarlet wine tastings.
Scarlet Wines – The Old Forge, Lelant, Hayle, TR27 6JG. www.scarlet-wines.co.uk. Wine tasting nights usually £25 including six wines (non-stingy servings) and tapas.
Oh and here’s 8 seconds of uselessly dark video footage for your viewing pleasure!
‘I just love cheese,’ said Helen Venning, the owner of a new cheese shop in Newlyn, to the Cornishman last week. I liked the simplicity of that statement. And, seeing as I just love cheese too, I went down for the opening night on Friday to check out their wares.
Newlyn Cheese – a few doors down from Jelberts – is aiming to have the largest selection of British cheeses in Cornwall, including the phenomenal Rachel from Somerset and all the Cornish crew.
Cornwall has some excellent cheeses – Manallack Farmhouse, yarg, Cornish Blue, Cornish Camembert – but when it comes to stinkiness you Read the rest of this entry »
Nice book alert. Just got my mitts on this cloth-bound, hardback book co-authored by Sara Paston-Williams, who lives in St Neot on Bodmin Moor.
Loving the eccentric English vibe of tipples such as parsley wine, peapod wine, gorse wine, blackberry wine and ‘Nursemaid Milk Stout’.
‘Home Brew’ – £12.49 on Amazon here.
More pics of the book:
Gourmet salt is in – it’s official. And at the forefront of this trend is Cornish Sea Salt, which everyone seems to be obsessing about. Stein, Hugh FW and Gordo all use it; it’s on every restaurant table in Cornwall; and I interviewed a chocolatier in St Ives the other week who said she simply cannot make enough Cornish Sea Salted chocolate to meet demand!
There is part of me that wants to mutter ‘it’s just salt, for chrissakes’, but I have to say, after a thorough and thirsty investigation, that it really is very good salt (& it is certainly reassuringly expensive).
Anyway that much is old news. What’s new is that Cornish Sea Salt have now brought out a range of aromatic ‘pinch pots’ in flavours such as chilli, caramelised onion, roasted garlic and… APPLE AND CHERRY WOOD-SMOKED. I just took the lid off and it smells so good I’ve actually been sticking my nose in there every five minutes since 9am. It smells like a cross between smoked cheese and the embers of a big beach bonfire.
I was walking through a run-of-the-mill shopping centre in Oxford this week and spotted – or, rather, was accosted by – this weirdly worded, 10ft tall advert for the next-door pasty stall, picturing a giant pasty semi-submerged in the turquoise sea off the Cornish coast.
Not all pasties are created equal, it tells us. Indeed: the pasty shop in question was selling FETA AND SPINACH pasties with HERBS ON TOP, can you believe? You wouldn’t get away with that sort of unorthodox behaviour round here. I’m not against some modification of the pasty within reason – a beef and stilton pasty from the Chough bakery in Padstow last Obby Oss can be credited for my newly liberal views – but herbs on top?! That’s the pasty economy for you.
I keep reading about the spectacular worth of the Cornish pasty industry but you know for sure that something’s hit the big time when the Economist dedicates an article to it, as it did yesterday. It’s titled ‘The gentrification of the Cornish pasty’ and explores the pasty’s ‘unlikely conquest’.
Course, the very last thing I want when I pass through Waterloo station is a pasty, much as I love them – when I cross the Tamar, my mind is fixated on sushi, noodles, curry…
You can read the full article here and may I remind you while I’m at it of the worth of this droll Redruth-based pasty blog: http://theonlinepastyguide.blogspot.com/ I was shocked to read his damning report on Lavenders’ pasties the other week but I defend to the death his right to… er, analyse pasties.
Writing about incredible food you’ve eaten is a difficult thing to do without sounding insufferably smug. ‘The organic, free-to-roam, hand-reared, home-matured beef with foam of expensive stuff and sprinkled with more expensive stuff, was quite simply divine!’. But with that caveat out of the way, I’m going to do it anyway.
I got an invite to last night’s Magnificent Seven, the opening night of the Cornwall Food & Drink Festival – a many-coursed meal prepared and presented by Cornwall’s seven top chefs. Was I free to attend? Oh, I think so.
There were endless courses and canapes so I’ll just do highlights (pics above):
• In at number one, seabass caught that morning served with delicate vanilla butter prepared by Breton chef Stephane Delourme, head chef at Stein’s Seafood Restaurant
• Nathan Outlaw‘s tender circles of sirloin – gorgeous
• Chris Eden of the Driftwood‘s posh mini doughnuts dipped in cinnamon sugar with creme caramel
I chatted to he-of-superb-surname Nathan Outlaw afterwards and he seemed every bit as laid-back as he comes across on telly, despite awaiting January 2011 with baited breath to find out if he has managed to secure two Michelin stars for his new restaurant in Rock. He told me the restaurant has had five anonymous Michelin visits in the last few months, and knew there were more to come any day. God, pressure! Oh and he’s working on his first cookery book for next season – you heard it at p&c first :-)
And finally a video of Paul Ripley and Nathan Outlaw bantering about food in Cornwall. OK, in the cold light of day it turns out this is very out of focus – sorry about that, it was shot during the port course.
When you review restaurants, as I have done on and off for ten years for Time Out in London and recently Cornwall, it is always slightly scary to sing high praises about a place or dish out a damning report on the basis of one trip.
So, even though a chef is only as good as his last meal and all that, I was pleased to see that Observer restaurant critic Jay Rayner had made it all the way to “a gnarly old building at the skinniest end of Cornwall” to write about Kota in Porthleven, as a year ago I stuck a red star on it in the Time Out Guide to Devon & Cornwall.
“I’d be happy to declare this the best Asian food in Cornwall but the distinct lack of competitors renders it a rather hollow statement; instead, I’ll just say that Kota is quietly superb,” is what I wrote. So what did Mr Rayner make of it?
Despite expecting “the fishing-village shtick: food that went from surf to plate with little interference” (fair), Rayner found that: “There is an awful lot happening on the plates here. Ingredients from a lot more than 810 miles away are chucked at the dishes, culinary traditions co-opted with enthusiasm. There is a kitchen here which has yet to meet an ingredient it doesn’t like, and for the most part it works.”
Now I want to go again, you know, just to double-check that review. Read Rayner’s full review of Kota here.
Kota restaurant, Harbour Head, Porthleven, Helston Cornwall TR13 9JA. 01326 562 407. www.kotarestaurant.co.uk
It’s changed hands a few times in recent years, so it’s hard to know exactly when to get excited about Sandsifter. The fact the old 2009 website is still up doesn’t help. I liked what the last people were doing in terms of club nights (including the Trojan Sound System, which I was sorry to miss), gourmet burgers, serious spirits, cool design etc etc. I don’t know enough to gossip in any depth about what prompted their quick departure but the sands have shifted again and the white box in the towans at Godrevy is under newish management.
I finally got over there yesterday for a quick drink on the new sea-facing terrace at the back – and it seemed to be a triumph. People were mellowing about reading the Sunday papers, listening to the band, drinking Betty Stogs and gazing out over the dunes in the fading September sun.
So in my post-surgery survey of places in West Cornwall that I can get to with minimum walking and maximum outdoorsy effect, Sandsifter has gone straight in at number one (can’t comment on food yet, only had a hot chocolate).
Plus, the outdoor chairs have GREAT lumbar support (below)! As fellow haters of bench seating will know, this is a rare find indeed.
I saw this article about Cornish farmer Robert Hocking of Buttervilla in the Telegraph yesterday and it reminded me to post on something.
If it’s possible to be the rock star of, erm, organic small-holders, then Robert of Buttervilla Farm might just be one. He has been mellowly championing small-scale, highest-taste farming for many years before such things became fashionable. For him it’s clearly just a way of life: makes sense, tastes good.
But since the chef from Fifteen picked up on his passion for taste (over large-scale production) at a Soil Association meeting a few years back, his microgreens and heirloom strawberries and tomatoes have been in heavy demand with the likes of Jamie, Heston et al.
I interviewed him for food magazine earlier this year and found him utterly inspiring, so I called in to see him the other day while I was staying in the Rame area. He showed me around his small farm and, clocking my curiosity, or at least my appetite for strawberries, he encouraged me to start growing some bits and bobs in my yard.
But I don’t have the patience, I mumbled. I need instant results or I’ll get frustrated. ‘That’, he said, ‘is exactly why you should do it – it’ll be good for you.’
So, he sent me off with a pot of his special ‘vintage manure’, a strawberry plant, a tomato plant and some salad leaves – and told me to get stuck in.
Weeellll, my first foray into gardening has been an emotional rollercoaster. The excitement of the first strawberries was too much (there were only three, so the eating of them was a ceremonial affair), then the thrill at the first yellow flowers appearing on the tomato plant… and THEN came the double-pronged heartbreak of slugs and weeds.
It turned out I had been tending lovingly to a bunch of poxy weeds for weeks thinking it was the first fragile shoots of parsley (sense of humour gradually returning). And I hate slugs sooo much.
But I pulled through the slug/weed crisis and it made me more determined to succeed. Rewards really do come to those who wait. So genuine thanks, Robert, for starting me off – there’s no stopping me now. And there’s clearly no stopping you.
Pics of my first shambolic kitchen garden below.
http://www.buttervilla.com/funky
I’d like to share with you the “interesting” results of a fishing and sushi-making escapade on the coast of South Devon at the weekend. When it comes to sushi, pollock and wrasse aren’t the first fish that spring to mind – nor for that matter are crudely cut pieces of fish served on plastic plates on a distinctly unminimalist camping table but that’s by the by. When the fish has come straight out of the water, anything is fair game. Very fresh fish is almost odour-free (the fishy smell comes as it decomposes) and fine to eat raw.
So, with a few wrasse and pollock duly reeled in off the rocks, we filleted it and sliced it up, and served it ceremoniously with wasabi, pickled ginger and soy sauce.
Here’s how it unfolded in pictures. In words, the verdicts were variously: ‘mmm… lovely’, ‘a little mushy in texture’, ‘oooh much nicer than I expected’, ‘I prefer salmon’, ‘the presentation needs work’, ‘you can’t just chop up a fish, serve it up and call it sushi’.
Where oh where would we be without the Penzance Arts Club?
A little while back, the lovely Emily Evans and Harry Gordon-Smith took over the Club (after rumours of a boutique hotel) – located in the instantly memorable old mansion, once the Portuguese embassy, at the bottom of Chapel Street.
I say instantly memorable because, although I only visited Penzance maybe once as a child (for a Kneehigh Theatre production at the Acorn – we have to save it!), the extravagant seaside mansion and its intriguing side entrance etched themselves on my memory.
Let’s be honest, the restaurant situation in Penzance is pretty dire at the moment – I really love a chilli and chorizo pizza and a pint of Otter in the Crown, occasionally get a Curry Corner or Sukothai takeout (both good & friendly) and I stop for a Corona and some tapas at Mackerel Sky now and again but there’s really not much else cooking.
Or at least there wasn’t until the Dining Room at the Penzance Arts Club opened a few weeks back. I made it over last weekend to try it out and it’s brilliant – and *very big cheer* it’s priced with locals in mind. The room is pure shabby chic, with sweet French perfume bottles as mini vases, simple rustic furniture and white tablecloths, and Breon O’Casey paintings on the walls.
Check out the colours in the food – it looks like an abstract art canvas! The chef makes extensive use of Dan the Potager’s salad boxes, which are stuffed with bright, wild greens, and lots of edible flowers.
Bruschetta, giant prawns with aoili and fishcakes were all fantastic – oh, and we met a nicely sticky end with limoncello cake and cream topped with roasted almonds. There are worse ways to go.
Penzance Arts Club, Chapel Street, 01736 363 761/www.penzanceartsclub.co.uk
The first St Ives Food & Drink Festival seemed to be going with a swing yesterday when I swung by – though it’s hard to imagine what wouldn’t go with a swing when the skies are blue and St Ives looks, as it does on sunny days, like it’s been dropped in from the Bounty advert.
The Guild Hall food fair was a bit of who’s who of cool new Cornish food & drink companies (and there really are TONS). With everyone enthusiastically handing out tasters and being generally friendly and chatty, it was a convivial scene.
Polgoon was there with its new River Cottage-endorsed elderflower fizz in champagne bottles (tasty stuff but £17 – ouch!), then there was the Rev Berriman’s fiery chilli cola (which I enthused about the other day), Cornish Stingers nettle beer, Cornish Blue cheese, amazing Helford River cheeses, real ale, St Ives beef….
Down on the harbour wall, a small crowd had gathered for the chef demos. I listened for a while to the chef from the Greenbank in Falmouth demonstrating how to cook fish to perfection (in brief: score the fish, high heat, skin first, shake the pan, then don’t be tempted to keep moving it away from the hob…).
Oh, and I took the park & (train) ride from Lelant for the first time – it’s the only way to go. (10% off tickets the Cornish rail card btw – yay).
More pics of the festival care of the Clotted Cream Diaries blog here.
http://www.stivesfoodanddrinkfestival.co.uk
I’ve been to the Exchange gallery café for lunch about a dozen times (it’s central, quick and all lunches are around the £5 mark – oh and I get to gaze longingly at the hand-made vases, jewellery and books). And every time I’ve been, I’ve found a strawberry part-dipped in black pepper tucked artistically in my salad.
I *love* this touch – particularly good with the Cornish yarg in my ploughman’s this week. I’ve got pretty expectant of this strawberry now – they’d better not go changing the chef.
The Exchange, Princes Street, Penzance, TR18 2NL (www.newlynartgallery.co.uk)
More photos after the hop… Read the rest of this entry »
I think Scarlet Wines & tapas bar in Lelant might just be my new favourite place in west Cornwall. I had suspected it might indeed be rather cool when I stopped by Beaten Green next door the other day, but after attending their South American wine & food tasting on Tuesday night, I am now officially Read the rest of this entry »
I LOVE this new cookery book called ‘Teaching Dad To Cook Flapjack‘. Drawing casually on her great-grandmother’s old Cornish recipes, Read the rest of this entry »
In other liquid news: after 120 years in the dairy business, legendary clotted cream makers Rodda’s have started making milk.
I suppose market pressures dictate that they had to produce a semi-skimmed version but I can only imagine the removal of cream must have met with serious resistance in the factory. It has, after all, spent the last hundred years dedicated to churning out the thickest, creamiest cream known to man. They stopped short of skimmed, mind…
In Cornwall’s steady move towards food & drink domination, three new bottled drinks hailing from these parts are hitting the shelves this summer. (Domination is a slight exaggeration, but we do now have 100% Cornish ‘champagne’ from Camel Valley, tea from Tregothnan, ‘aval’ from Polgoon, all manner of Very Expensive premium juices, such as Helford Creek and Cornish Orchards, not to mention the ridiculousness that is bottled Cornish spring water.)
Two of the new brews are alcoholic, but the third is no shrinking violet. I’ve been sipping away selflessly to bring you some tasting notes:
Berry Rattler
Cornwall’s favourite cider, Cornish Rattler, has given birth to a fruity new Rattler infused with red berries.
The look: cloudy, red, girly, new surfy label. The taste: fruity but not Read the rest of this entry »
A bit like the paladares of Cuba or the puertas cerradas (meaning literally ‘closed door’) of Buenos Aires, ‘home-restaurants’ are taking off in the UK, particularly in London. I was holidaying in the distant capital at the weekend and I had the good fortune to be invited to Secret Kitchen, a monthly restaurant run by North London mega-foodie (and author of Eat Slow Britain) Anna Colquhoun.
It was all flawlessly prepared and presented, and endlessly creative and surprising. There was pecorino cheese with unforgettable truffle honey, wild garlic pesto lasagne, home-cured salami, zesty homemade limoncello…
In short, it was all the things you always hope a meal at a fancy restaurant will be, but so very rarely is – because the chef’s got 100 other covers to deal with, the waitress has a hangover, the sous-chef only started yesterday…
As with almost everything Read the rest of this entry »
ismay atkins
pasties & cream cornwall blog 