The Ledbury, Notting Hill

Roast cod, truffle puree, cauliflower, parmesan gnocchi & sea vegetables

Within a few weeks after we first moved to London 4 years ago, The Peanut Gallery was researching London restaurants for my birthday dinner. The man does not hold back when it comes to restaurant research, and he hit on a place in Notting Hill that sounded like the goods. And so it was that The Ledbury set my benchmark for London fine dining.

It's still my favourite place for a posh lunch or dinner. I've been back twice since - once with friends for the great value set price lunch (at £33.50 for 3 courses) - a terrific way to experience the brilliance while the sun flirts in through the huge surrounding windows. The second revisit was just last week to catch up over dinner with Aussie food blogging friends, Gourmet Chick, Catty and Vintage Macaroon as well as the lovely Claire from Australian wine maker, d'Arenberg. What better place to meet than over the fine food of Australian head chef, Brett Graham, drinking terrific Australian wines kindly contributed by D'Arenberg (thanks Claire) and Katnook Estate (thanks Jo).

Jo (who couldn't join us in the end) made contact with Brett Graham, who put together a special tasting menu for us, tweaked to match our wines.

Deep fried quail egg

Over a bottle of champagne well chosen by the sommelier to meet our request for something reasonably light and crisp, we start with the pretty, mousse-like foie gras canape followed by the amuse bouche - a deep fried quail egg with Jerusalem artichoke puree and shaved truffles.

Our waiter called it "broccoli on toast"

Firm broccoli stem with natural yoghurt and tiny, sweet Falmouth Bay prawns in brown butter and vadouvan (a mixture of onions, shallots and garlic with Indian spices) is one of my favourite courses. This dish highlights the kitchen's dexterity for textures and combining vivid flavours in well balanced harmony. Basically, it's clever, and it tastes brilliant. Who knew broccoli could be this good?

We drink the 2009 Katnook Estate Sauvignon Blanc from Coonawarra - a Sauv with body and lots of zesty citrus and apple.

Hampshire buffalo milk curd, Saint-Nectaire & grilled onion broth
(Truffle toast not pictured)

A shallow soup bowl is presented next. Across the base is a thin layer of Hampshire buffalo milk curd with uncooked French cheese, Saint-Nectaire. Small clusters of grilled onions and mushrooms are dotted around the plate. At the table, an aromatic, delicate broth of grilled onions is poured over the top and, on the side, waits a toasted brioche topped with large thin disks of earthy black truffle and puree. Again, there are delightfully balanced layers of flavour at work - just gorgeous.

With this, we drink d'Arenberg's 2008 "The Last Ditch" Viognier from McLaren Vale. It's exactly the type of wine I love. It's been aged for 6 months in French and American oak, and has a lovely, big honey and cream character.

Root vegetables

Next up, a colourful arrangement of root vegetables, a nutty, sweet and earthy mix, baked in salt and clay with roasting juices, hazelnuts and Lardo di Colonnata (the silky pork fat from pigs having spent their lives feasting on acorns and chestnuts in Tuscany). Oh my. What better way to turn vegetables into pure, indulgent gluttony? Our accompanying 2005 Katnook Estate Cabernet Sauvignon has rich fruit and tannin, but is light enough so as not to overpower this dish.

A plump, moist fillet of roast cod glistens beside a mellow truffle puree, cauliflower, parmesan gnocchi and, for some extra umami, sea vegetables. Again, it looks pretty and it's a perfectly executed delight to eat.

Roe deer

Finally, the loin of roe deer is baked in Douglas fir (coniferous tree) with beetroot and malt. There's an accompanying venison sausage, which is rich and gamey. The loin is tender and, although I think it lacks some flavour, it's topped with an oozy blob of rich marrow which adds depth.

We accompany it with the 2002 d'Arenberg "The Dead Arm" Shiraz. This is a big, gutsy Aussie Shiraz, with intense fruit, chocolate and spice. It's a gorgeous match for our rich, autumnal game dish.

Brown sugar tart

Before dessert, we cleanse the palate (ok, any excuse) with a tart passion fruit concoction in a shot glass, before finishing with a fantastic, sweet brown sugar tart. It looks like a long slab of foie gras and, praise the lord, is almost as rich. It comes with muscat grapes and a stem ginger ice-cream.

Coffees and teas at the end are matched with our choice from a delicious selection of jellies, merigues, macaroons and chocolates.

Although we didn't try it, the cheese trolley - or, more accurately, the smell of the cheese trolley - deserves a mention. Fantastic. When it moves about the room, it's like you just wandered into the cheese room at La Fromagerie with your nostrils fully flared. Save room.

Service was, as always, professional, knowledgeable and friendly without a shred of stuffiness or irritating fuss. Brett Graham wasn't in the kitchen on the night we ate (he was shooting in Scotland), and so our fantastic meal only goes to show what an all round strong team this is. Even the loos are good - mainly for featuring my favourite (Melbourne based) Aesop geranium leaf hand wash. It seems I'm bound to love this place right down to the finest detail.

Together, with service, water and corkage of £50 (which amounted to £12.50 per bottle) our bill came to £102 per head. The standard dinner tasting menu (6 courses plus amuse bouche and pre-dessert) costs £85 per head (or £130 per head with matching wines) and there's also a vegetarian tasting menu for £75. The set lunch menu is £27.50 for 2 courses or £33.50 for 3 courses. And, of course, the a la carte options are always available.

At just 30 years of age, Brett Graham has obtained 2 Michelin stars at The Ledbury and is part of the collaboration behind the 1 Michelin starred pub, The Harwood Arms in Fulham. That alone is enough to make you sick. But even more impressively, at The Ledbury, he has created a consistently excellent restaurant, brimming with easy going confidence, originality, finesse and food which is a joy to eat. It deserves all the praise it gets.

The Ledbury, 127 Ledbury Road, Notting Hill, London W11 2AQ (Tel: 020 7792 9090)

STOLEN: London Supper Club, Notting Hill

Ok, so you all know what a supper club is by now. I have previously penned some thoughts on the concept here. The idea behind the Stolen Supper Club is this: its creators are inspired by some of the world's best chefs, they eat at the restaurant, they rummage through the cookbook. Then, they create an evening at a funky pad in Notting Hill, inspired by the experience, for the likes of you and me to sample at reasonable prices in relaxed and fun surrounds. They even offer BYO.

I was intrigued.

Stolen's supper clubs are held on Monday evenings, for up to 15 guests. Mia brings her bubbly personality and over 10 years of hospitality experience to the service part of the venture. Leandro cooks, and cooks well. I attended the "Oyster and Chop House" event this month, which was inspired by Mark Hix's restaurant and cook book - right down to the Hix napkins and wine. The suggested contribution was £30 (but this varies depending on the menu, as advertised in advance on Stolen's website).

We started in the garden, chatting to our fellow diners from around the world over a lovely glass or three of Hix Tonnix Quinta de la Rosa wine (Douro, Portugal, 2007) - a wine created by the winery in collaboration with Mark Hix and Mitch Tonks (and Tracy Emin for the label artwork).

Moving inside, we sat next to the modern kitchen under high ceilings with exposed beams, surrounded by white walls and brickwork with a trendy but casual feel.

Fresh from Billingsgate market, platters of oysters on ice and shredded seaweed (6 oysters each) were brought out to start - both natural and "Oyster Mary" style with a light Bloody Mary granita topping.

The main event was a gigantic ribeye with Chop House butter, bearnaise or green (mixed herb) sauce. Sourced from Jack O'Shea (as is Hix's steak), you can't say Stolen don't do their research. Cooked to a perfect medium rare, the steak was certainly generous and flavourful, but lacked some caramelisation given it was finished off in the oven. The steaks were accompanied by crunchy, fine straw potatoes and a mixed leaf salad.

We finished up with some potent sloe gin jelly shots, sorbet and cream.

This was a fun spirited, good value evening, particularly given the BYO policy, and wine sharing around the table. At Hix's Oyster & Chop House, the equivalent meal would have cost around £48.50 plus £27.50 for the bottle of Hix Tonnix wine, plus service.

The next Stolen Supper Club will be held on 13th of September - a "Game Evening". It's a particularly good option for West Londoners wishing to try their local supper club scene.

Stolen Supper Club, a leafy part of Notting Hill.... London

Teanamu: Tea appreciation and zen in Notting Hill - Who knew tea could be so fascinating to a die hard coffee lover?

If I learned 1 thing at the Teanamu tea appreciation workshop last weekend, it's that I should probably throw out the entirety of my existing stash of tea and start again.

Tea should, apparently, be drunk in the same year that it's harvested. And while the vintage 1998 ripened Emperor Pu Erh tea I sipped at Teanamu last week was quite divine, I'm not sure my old Earl Grey bags which have been gathering dust behind a crusty jar of Nescafe are going to qualify as "vintage".

So who knew there was so much fascinating stuff to know about tea?

Well, the delightful Pei of Teanamu for one. He treated me to a tea appreciation workshop at his premises in the leafy streets of Notting Hill last weekend.

Tea properly means beverages made from the Camellia sinensis plant, which is native to South East Asia. (Roobos "tea" is not made from this plant and so isn't really a tea, afterall. Imposter!)

Green, white, oolong and black teas all originate from this plant - the difference is the sliding scale of oxidation from green (unoxidised) to black (oxidised), which depends on how they are picked and stored prior to ending up in your cup. In between, white is the easiest to make since its partly oxidised. So, that's why we hear about the potential health benefits of green and (now) white teas which are high in anti-oxidants. All types of tea contain loads of healthy nutrients.

Generally, tea has a higher caffeine content per gram than coffee, but you need less of it per cuppa. To counteract the caffeine, which is rocketted into your bloodstream when you sip your espresso, tea contains another chemical, theofylline, which acts as a relaxant - keeping you chilled like a Buddist monk as the caffeine calmly works its way into your system. It's no surprise then that tea, and tea ceremonies, are a central part of many Eastern religions.

The rituals of Chinese tea drinking are quite different to those of the British and Japanese. While the latter brew their tea in big pots, the Chinese use small porcelain pots and tiny shot sized cups to keep the tea at a stable strength and temperature. Porcelain pots and lower temperatures (70-80 degrees - listen to the kettle, or look out for when the bubbles look like "crab eyes" - or, go on then, be boring and use a thermometer) are used for unoxidised teas which are delicate - so green and white teas. Small traditional clay tea pots are used for oxidised, or black teas, requiring hot, boiled water since a good quality clay pot will retain the hot temperatures. Don't even think about treating them all the same way.

If you're as serious as Pei, you'll even buy pure water from the healthfood shop and you certainly won't boil London tap water over and over, increasing the minerality. What were you thinking??

Pei scouts around China, climbing mountains and traipsing through fields, to find reliable sources of top notch tea. He also has trusted suppliers in Japan, and he assures me that most of the stuff you buy in Chinatown would not stand up to the discerning palate of the tea connoisseur. The tea you see in most shops contains only chopped up bits of leaves. In contrast, Pei's tea contains the whole bud and is cut further down the stem past the top leaf shoots. This is better for maintaining nutrients and taste. Pei compared green tea to asparagus (we're back on to food to bring things back to my level) - you should break the tea leaf where it breaks naturally; the lower bits get disgarded for cheaper tea. The test of good tea is that the taste should not disappear too quickly - you should experience the whole taste down the back of your mouth.

Our tasting session contained many teapot downing sessions of interesting tea facts and cultural and historical lessons about tea. But best of all, you get to taste them over Pei's delicious, home cooked yuzu macarons and green tea madeleines. (He even conducts classes about cooking with tea, in a kitchen so big and shiny, mine is currently blushing.)

Among the ten types of gourmet tea we sampled, were the Silver Needle (a tannic white tea), Maofeng green tea (with a sweet corn quality), Lychee black tea (best drunk from a traditional clay pot - although my ears pricked up hearing it can also be used with success to flavour vodka), a Meng Ding Huang Ya yellow tea (difficult to buy, with an unusual fermented flavour), the Silky Oolong (a half fermented oolong with a creamy, citrussy flavour) and a the Big Snow Mountain Pu Erh 2010 (raw, red tea - to which I attributed a big, fat smoky bacon punch).

The Phoenix Eye Jasmine is a hand rolled, white jasmine tea scented with flowers over 7 nights. Cheaper scented teas (or cheaper teas with bergamot) are flavoured with oils. True tea connoisseurs apparently look down their noses a bit at these scented teas as being in the lowly ranks - yes, there's even a class system among tea, apparently. I like to think of it as comparing Cadbury Milk Tray to, say, a Pierre Herme ganache. Each has a place in my heart.

The tasting class lasted for around 2.5 hours, but Pei is so passionate and unhurried that I'm sure he would happily sit down and sip away with you for as long as you wanted to indulge your passion for tea talk. His tea appreciation classes cost £35 and will introduce you to a whole new world of calming tea zen. He's hosting a Spring Tea Open House at Teanamu on 22 May from 12-4pm, and Pei also plans to open a cafe at the current premises where you can sip teas the Chinese way and eat delicious pastries and Japanese snacks - all the while Pei will be on hand to talk you through the ropes as you like.

Pei's teas are prices at around £4.50 - £6 for 20-30 grams, and many are harvested from trees which are over 200 years old. Some some are taken from trees which are over 2000 years old on Big Snow Mountain - Pei trekked up there himself. The workshops are eye opening, and have certainly inspired me to think more about tea. Who knows, I might even forgo the occasional cup of coffee - although I'm not sure how the whole tea ceremony thing is going to go down at the office.

Teanamu, The Coach House, 14 A St Luke's Road, London, W11 1DP (but see the website for directions as it's tricky - the entrance is on Lancaster Road)

I attended the Teanamu Tea Appreciation workshop as a guest of Teanamu with The Wine Sleuth and The London Foodie.