Lunch at the InterContinental, London
20-Nov-08 - Well, Theo Randall's restaurant inside the Intercontinental, anyway: he is 'in partnership' with the hotel and opened his own restaurant there in 2006 after 17 years at the River Café. He has a reputation for excellent but unpretentious rural Italian cooking, so when I was invited by the Grana Padano cheese campaign to go to a cookery demonstration and lunch, there was no hesitation.
I don't know quite why it is, but all too often reception desks in these grand hotels don't seem to know what's going on. I told the (very pretty) girl behind the desk that I was "here for the cheese seminar", which might have been the wrong terminology, but she should have known. She asked me to wait, and another very smart young woman approached and asked me if I was in the right hotel. "Theo Randall cooks here, doesn't he?" I asked. "Ah, yes" - she waved me toward the restaurant which was plainly visible and which, of course, I should have seen the moment I walked in.
Inside, I was plied with ice cold Prosecco Ca' Morlin, and met the hosts from Webber Shandwick, an impossibly large public relations corporation which is handling the generic account for Grana Padano. Generous wedges of the riserva cheese (12-16 months maturity) had been chopped up to go with the wine and went down very well. The style is similar to Parmyjarmy (as we call it the Eversley) but, according to Theo, it has only half the fat, so it's easier to cook with. More of that in a moment, but the guests began to arrive and they all seemed to be fabulously-attractive young women. I did spot a fat old git with a beard, but then realised that I was looking into a mirror. Eventually apart from me, the chef, the waiter, and one other gentleman, it was an all-girl affair. What does this tell us about cookery journalism in London?
Grana Panado is, apparently, the best-selling cheese in Italy. It's made mostly in Lombardy but also in neighbouring regione Emilia-Romagna, Piedmont, Trentino, and Veneto and, unlike Parmyjarmy it has a creaminess which makes it very nibblable, even with sparkling wine (did I ever tell you about the disastrous dinner with Elizabeth Morrison at Julian's in Nottingham in 1965? Don't ever order blue cheese with Champagne!).
Anyway, Theo took us through a couple of demonstrations using the cheese. First up was a risotto with onion squash and marjoram. He is insistent on quality ingredients and generally buys Italian - the rice was pure white, clean, and uncracked and Theo added chicken stock along with the other ingredients. Risotto is all about constant stirring, of course, and he was patently struggling with an inadequate portable electric ring in the private dining room off the main restaurant. The result was delicious, however, and troughed enthusiastically by those present. The next demo was a frittata - an omelette made with organic eggs with cima di rapa (turnip tops) and ricotta cheese. The ingredients were, as before, all Italian. "I used to buy my eggs from a free-range farm in Surrey, until I saw these", he says. They're big, individually stamped, and come from a farm in Genoa where the chickens run free and are fed on corn and carrots. The result is an egg with a thick, viscous white and an almost luminous golden yolk. The ricotta was amazingly creamy and the resulting omelette absolutely delicious.
For the third demo we got to sit down with a glass of 2005 Pietra Nera, Marco Bartoli (IGT Sicilia - dry-fermented Muscat, or Zibibbo as they call it on the island of Pantelleria - excellent, fresh, delicious) and enjoy ravioli with potato and shavings of white truffle. Theo told me that the going rate for white truffles at the moment is £2,300 a kilo, but at least it's better than last June, when it was £4,000. On that basis I calculated that I had about a tenner's worth on my plate: fab.
Then it was lunch in earnest: chargrilled Aberdeen Angus beef fillet crusted with thyme, with potato and fennel al forno with cream, Grana Padano and salsa verde. I passed on the salsa verde (mustard allergy) but got stuck into the steak with gusto. With this dish they served 2005 Pignolo 'Arbis Ròs', Borgo San Daniele (Friuli-Venezia-Giulia) - a wine with lovely structure but a good deal of tannin. I thought it needed another year in bottle, but everyone else seemed to enjoy it greatly. Pudding was ricotta cheesecake with William pears marinated with vanilla and, of course, Grana Padano - lovely stuff. We drank the 2005 Moscato d'Asti, G.D. Vajra (Piemonte, and a house better known for Barolo - but at 5.5% abv a very good, light way to finish a meal).
This was, altogether, an excellent demonstration of the capabilities of the cheeses, as well as being a splendid lunch in good company. I hope to be interviewing Theo for YES CHEF! In due course.
I don't know quite why it is, but all too often reception desks in these grand hotels don't seem to know what's going on. I told the (very pretty) girl behind the desk that I was "here for the cheese seminar", which might have been the wrong terminology, but she should have known. She asked me to wait, and another very smart young woman approached and asked me if I was in the right hotel. "Theo Randall cooks here, doesn't he?" I asked. "Ah, yes" - she waved me toward the restaurant which was plainly visible and which, of course, I should have seen the moment I walked in.
Inside, I was plied with ice cold Prosecco Ca' Morlin, and met the hosts from Webber Shandwick, an impossibly large public relations corporation which is handling the generic account for Grana Padano. Generous wedges of the riserva cheese (12-16 months maturity) had been chopped up to go with the wine and went down very well. The style is similar to Parmyjarmy (as we call it the Eversley) but, according to Theo, it has only half the fat, so it's easier to cook with. More of that in a moment, but the guests began to arrive and they all seemed to be fabulously-attractive young women. I did spot a fat old git with a beard, but then realised that I was looking into a mirror. Eventually apart from me, the chef, the waiter, and one other gentleman, it was an all-girl affair. What does this tell us about cookery journalism in London?
Grana Panado is, apparently, the best-selling cheese in Italy. It's made mostly in Lombardy but also in neighbouring regione Emilia-Romagna, Piedmont, Trentino, and Veneto and, unlike Parmyjarmy it has a creaminess which makes it very nibblable, even with sparkling wine (did I ever tell you about the disastrous dinner with Elizabeth Morrison at Julian's in Nottingham in 1965? Don't ever order blue cheese with Champagne!).
Anyway, Theo took us through a couple of demonstrations using the cheese. First up was a risotto with onion squash and marjoram. He is insistent on quality ingredients and generally buys Italian - the rice was pure white, clean, and uncracked and Theo added chicken stock along with the other ingredients. Risotto is all about constant stirring, of course, and he was patently struggling with an inadequate portable electric ring in the private dining room off the main restaurant. The result was delicious, however, and troughed enthusiastically by those present. The next demo was a frittata - an omelette made with organic eggs with cima di rapa (turnip tops) and ricotta cheese. The ingredients were, as before, all Italian. "I used to buy my eggs from a free-range farm in Surrey, until I saw these", he says. They're big, individually stamped, and come from a farm in Genoa where the chickens run free and are fed on corn and carrots. The result is an egg with a thick, viscous white and an almost luminous golden yolk. The ricotta was amazingly creamy and the resulting omelette absolutely delicious.
For the third demo we got to sit down with a glass of 2005 Pietra Nera, Marco Bartoli (IGT Sicilia - dry-fermented Muscat, or Zibibbo as they call it on the island of Pantelleria - excellent, fresh, delicious) and enjoy ravioli with potato and shavings of white truffle. Theo told me that the going rate for white truffles at the moment is £2,300 a kilo, but at least it's better than last June, when it was £4,000. On that basis I calculated that I had about a tenner's worth on my plate: fab.
Then it was lunch in earnest: chargrilled Aberdeen Angus beef fillet crusted with thyme, with potato and fennel al forno with cream, Grana Padano and salsa verde. I passed on the salsa verde (mustard allergy) but got stuck into the steak with gusto. With this dish they served 2005 Pignolo 'Arbis Ròs', Borgo San Daniele (Friuli-Venezia-Giulia) - a wine with lovely structure but a good deal of tannin. I thought it needed another year in bottle, but everyone else seemed to enjoy it greatly. Pudding was ricotta cheesecake with William pears marinated with vanilla and, of course, Grana Padano - lovely stuff. We drank the 2005 Moscato d'Asti, G.D. Vajra (Piemonte, and a house better known for Barolo - but at 5.5% abv a very good, light way to finish a meal).
This was, altogether, an excellent demonstration of the capabilities of the cheeses, as well as being a splendid lunch in good company. I hope to be interviewing Theo for YES CHEF! In due course.
posted by John Radford at
08:16
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