27 September sees the launch of the menu devised by Fay Maschler, restaurant critic of The Evening Standard, and her sister, the chef Beth Coventry, for Great Taste at The Cadogan in Knightsbridge. The event also marks the imminent opening of The London Restaurant Festival (1-15 October 2012).
Fay Maschler has reviewed restaurants for The Evening Standard since 1972. Over 40 years she has explored and commented on London’s increasingly fascinating and, for the most part, vastly improving restaurant culture.
Beth Coventry worked with Peter Langan to set up the legendary Langan’s Brasserie and went on to be head chef at Green’s Restaurant Oyster Bar in St. James’s and thereafter chef of various gastropubs. She is now owner of The Wells Tavern in Hampstead.
Fay and Beth have worked with Oliver Lesnik, head chef at The Cadogan, and his team to devise a menu that incorporates and capitalises on the products that scored most highly in the Great Taste Awards this year. These Three-star Gold products – “the epicurean equivalent of the Booker prize” – are the cream of quality performance from small impassioned producers.
The menu, which runs until the end of February 2013, is priced at £18 for one course; £23 for two courses; and £28 for three courses, and will features such dishes as:
Cured and Smoked Fish
wild hot-smoked Albacore tuna, silver smoked eel fillet, roast smoked trout, salmon roe, buckwheat blinis and sour cream
Rhug Lamb Tagine
with couscous and Belazu preserved lemon
Jolly Nice Gooseberry and Elderflower Ice Cream
shortbread with rhubarb and ginger jam
Fay Maschler said:
“So often being just the recipient of someone else’s menu, it has been intriguing and rewarding for Beth and myself to work with Oliver Lesnik – where cooking talent runs in the family – and his impressive team, testing, tasting and adjusting. The Great Taste award-winning products are some of them – for example the guanciale from Hannan meats in Northern Ireland – a revelation and all of them an encouraging measure of progress and triumph among artisan producers.”
Great Taste at The Cadogan is an ongoing celebration of independent UK producers, involving different commentators from the food world, to give restaurant-goers a chance to taste the produce in action.
This year the Great Taste Awards, which were launched in 1994, received nearly 9,000 entries. Look out for the stickers on products in food halls, supermarkets and delicatessens all over the country.
Great Taste at The Cadogan, 21 Pont Street, Knightsbridge, London SW1X 9SG
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