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SUMMER NEWSLETTERApart from the fact that we are gorgeously air conditioned, the coolest place in the town and the most comfortable place to chill out, Le Café Anglais also has the perfect menu for summer grazing. Amongst the many delights, expect to see Peach and Tomato Salad, Gazpacho Andaluz, Pappa Pomodoro, Spaghetti with Cherry Tomatoes and Langoustines, Poached Sea Bass with Saussoun, Monkfish Bourride, Jellied Tarragon Chicken, Boeuf a la Mode with Aioli Potatoes, Aubergines ‘Imam Biyaldi’, Mirabelles, Greengage and Almond Tart, Raspberry Gratin and, needless to say, the only spit roast Grouse with Bread Sauce and Gravy in town, beginning on August 12th. Please also remember that our weekday set lunch at £16.50 for two courses has been described as London’s greatest gastronomic bargain.
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | HIDDEN JEWELS | | |  | | | Two new wines that might escape attention – they are not, I fear, especially cheap – are the Sancerre Mont Damnes from Gerard Boulay and the St Aubin 1er Cru Les Champlots 2006 from Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey. Of the Sancerre, Nick Brooks has written “This outstanding wine comes from 35-40 year old vines located on the central, finest plot of this famous hillside. Partly vinified in cuve and partly in 3-4 year old barrels (good Troncais oak) then rotated between the two during an elevage on fine lees, it was bottled in May 2007. Restrained on the nose, it has much more evident weight on the attack, then becomes really quite racy with salty, iodiney notes on the finish, that seem to last forever. Rated the best sauvignon in the world in a major tasting held last year in Germany, this is a wine that can be enjoyed now but will enormously repay keeping for at least another 3 years or so. The Saint Aubin is comparable in many ways, having similar racy minerality and enough elegance and finesse that it could easily be taken for premier cru Chassagne Montrachet. | | |
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| | | | | | | | | | THAT CUSTARD: THE STORY IN FULL | | | |  I have mentioned before in the FT my dislike of the term ‘signature dish’. It is an egotistical notion and we chefs have a bad enough reputation for egotistical behavior without needing to exacerbate it. It suggests that the deplorable idea that food is there to express the ‘signature’ of the chef rather than the chef there to express the flavour of the food. Besides there is a deeper, truly egotistical reason for my dislike of the term: if a particular dish is a ‘signature’ dish, is the rest of the repertoire anonymous or unworthy of its perpetrator? Nobody likes to be considered a one trick pony.
That said, some dishes are more popular than others and some seem to express a chef or a restaurant’s personality more than others. When I opened Le Café Anglais, I wrote about the pike boudin, naively imagining that I was going to turn a sausage made out of a bony coarse fish into a cult. Whereas that dish has proved popular, sales of the Parmesan Custard with Anchovy Toast have outstripped those of the delicious Pike by a factor of ten.
I had great success with a chicken and goats’ cheese mousse with olives at Kensington Place and wanted to do something similarly savoury but sufficiently different not to be accused of reworking an old seam. Inspiration came from watching Rick Stein on television, creating a banquet for the Japanese ambassador. One of the dishes, borrowed and adapted from something that Stein ate in Tokyo, was a jasmine scented crab custard, very wobbly and delicate, and baked in a little porcelain pot. It looked beautiful with the crab but I was looking for something both more robust and more everyday but presented in the same rather aesthetic fashion. The idea of a cheesy custard baked in a little pot accompanied by little anchovy toasts gradually formed and I got my head chef, Colin Westal, to experiment with the recipe whilst we got ready to open the restaurant.
When we opened, this little custard proved incredibly popular. “Oh it’s just a little quiche without the pastry”, I would say in my most self deprecatory manner. But I knew Colin and I had stumbled on a hit. What pleases me most is that the toasts are a reminder of the ‘Gentleman’s Relish’ or Patum Pepericum that would very occasionally grace the tea table in its very own little porcelain - or porcelain looking, at any rate - pot, much as we have found a dinky little pot in which to bake our little custards.
ROWLEY LEIGH - CHEF PROPRIETOR | | |
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | THE SURVIVAL PACK
| | |  | | | We know some of you will be deserting us for the Scottish islands, the foothills of the Var and the gentle slopes of Tuscany over the next few weeks. But we worry. Will you be able to survive in a bothy where the nearest anchovy is a hundred miles away in Inverness; the nearest risotto rice means sweating it out in a traffic jam in Grasse and the nearest grocery to your Tuscan villa is thirty kilometers down an unmetalled road and closes on Saturday afternoon until Monday? Well, fret not, we have thought of everything.
Indispensable! In one compact box, Le Café Anglais provides the perfect mobile kitchen. Each box contains the essential store cupboard, including: sea salt, coarsely ground pepper, chilli flakes, various spices, thyme, bayleaves, anchovy paste, Parmesan cheese, olive oil, red wine vinegar, 1 kg bucatini, 1 kg carnaroli rice, chopped tinned tomatoes, olives, capers, brown caster sugar, Ortiz tuna, pancetta, stock cubes, garlic, lemons, one potato peeler, 1 corkscrew, 1 paring knife and a bottle of champagne. A perfect house gift to someone going away or indeed to yourself, eliminating desperate trips to the supermarket as soon as you arrive. Priced at £95.00 and available at 24 hours notice, the Survival Pack can be booked by calling Le Café Anglais direct on 020-7221 1415, or by emailing info@lecafeanglais.co.uk. A festive Christmas-themed Survival Pack will be available in Autumn. Details to follow. | | |
| | | | | | WINE DINNERS AT LE CAFÉ ANGLAIS | | | | | | The evening of 8th September sees the first of a series of wine evenings in the private room at Le Café Anglais. Giovanni Manetti, the genius behind the revival of the great Fontodi vineyard in Chiantiand creator of one of the great ‘supertuscans’, Flaccianello, della Pieve, will introduce his wines, including older vintages of Flaccianello and Chianti Riserva whilst we chomp through an exciting early Autumnal menu. Expect funghi porcini, game and other seasonal delights and great wine in the first of a series of unmissable dinners. Priced at £85 per person, we expect to fill up very quickly. Please book with Nicky Lynskey, atnicky@lecafeanglais.co.uk as soon as possible. Subsequent dinners include Paolo de Marchi in October, a look at Barolo 2004 and older vintages to the scent of white truffles in early November and an evening of Hermitage La Chapelle with Nicholas Jaboulet in late November. Further details will appear in our next newsletter. | | |
| | | | | | GAZPACHO ROJA | | |  | | | Texture is everything in a gazpacho. Just as a vichyssoise or a potage germiny should be silky smooth, gazpacho must be coarse and textured. I like to pass mine through the coarsest mesh of a mouli-legumes and leave it at that. It is possible to use a blender or a food processor but on pulse only: care must be taken not to produce a smooth puree. A serious gazpacho should be accompanied by a number of garnishes such as some diced croutons, freshly fried in olive oil; some finely diced red and green pepper; hard boiled eggs, peeled and chopped; a few spring onions, finely sliced and a bowl of green and black olives, stoned and chopped. Authentic as this may be, the only garnish to the gazpacho at my family lunch this weekend will be a bowl of ice cubes.
1/2 loaf white bread, crusts removed
1.5 kg over-ripe tomatoes
2 cucumbers
2 large onions
2 green peppers
4 cloves of garlic
2 red peppers
100 ml red wine vinegar
1-2 red Chillies, sliced
Salt, pepper
Olive oil
Cut the bread into large cubes and roughly chop the tomatoes and cucumber. Peel and slice the onions and garlic. Remove stalks and seeds from the peppers and chillies and slice roughly. Mix together all the ingredients and leave to macerate in the fridge overnight with the vinegar, oil and a generous amount of salt and pepper. In the morning, push the ingredients through a medium mesh of a mouli-legumes, removing the trapped skins and seeds, and chill. Serve the soup in a big tureen, with ice cubes to dilute, and surrounded with bowls of the various garnishes. | | |
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LE CAFÉ ANGLAIS is open seven days a week, 364 days a year, closing only on Boxing Day.
We serve lunch and dinner in the restaurant 12-3.30, 6.30-11.30 and the bar is open 12.00-11.30.
The private room seats up to 26 people and is available for hire for breakfast meetings, lunches, teas, drinks receptions and dinners.
Please see our website www.lecafeanglais.co.uk for further information or ask info@lecafeanglais.co.uk or telephone 020 7221 1415. We are at 8 Porchester Gardens, W2 4DB.
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