Of all the restaurants where I have sat beneath a canopy of Maple leaves, Le Perron in Geneva is undoubtedly the best, or come to think of it, actually the only one. Having said that, I suppose I should be grateful to be sitting outside at all in October in Europe.
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My last (and first) visit to Fortnum & Mason 1707 Wine Bar was such a success, the very next time I was in London I revisited.
This time my flight comprised three Pinot Noirs and I also added a plate of charcuterie to nibble on. At £13 an American would starve on this dish, but the quality soared. The meat was, interestingly, not Italian, the most notable of a good bunch being Gloucester Old Spot Prosciutto which stood up to any Italian prosciutto I have ever tasted.
The Pinot Noirs were all worthy of drinking, for the record:
Fortnum & Mason Bourgogne Rouge Drouhin 2004 – soft and supple, the most subtle of the three with redcurrants and a creamy finish.
Merricks Creek Pinot Noir Victoria 2004 – a powerful strawberry flavour wine, jammy and louder than Ian Paisley in full rhetorical flow.
Pegasus Bay Pinot Noir Waipara 2004 – the most interesting of the bunch. Cherries and some mineral. A bit like the French one but with a bit of kiwi intensity and sharpness.
I couldn’t resist trying one more wine and was pleased to see the Fortnum & Mason Pomerol Clos Rene 2003 served in a Riedel Bordeaux glass from the Vinum range. Black fruits prevailed in contrast to the red fruited Pinots. A bit of cooked cabbage, quite tannic with a long finish. Quite a serious wine as you might expect
I tolerated some rude treatment from the staff because of the excellent pricing policy, £10 corkage being added to the shop price no matter the value of the wine. Clearly the place to go if you fancy a 1961 Latour.
So I award F & M my top prize for least rip-off wine drinking prices in London wine bars or restaurants.
I also enjoy trying the flights of three wines linked by grape and comparing the different treatments. But next time I think up an award, I really must construct a snappier name.
Finally, you don’t have to drink wine, coffee and tea is available. It is also very quiet, so I use it for meetings when I am in Piccadilly/Mayfair. I used to frequent The Wolseley for this purpose but it is nowadays too busy. Oh well, my secret is out. I’ll have to find somewhere new, now. Ciao.
I am thinking of nominating Lausanne as the most boring city in Europe. Before you ask, yes, I have been to Brussels, but I think Lausanne is to European city life, what Accrington Stanley is to the English Premier League. Lausanne was so boring that our two night stay necessitated a lot of public transport – a train to Morges for the afternoon, a day trip on the ferry to Evian, an evening train to Montreux before waking on the final day and taking the early train to Geneva.
So why stay in Lausanne then? It’s a fair question, thanks for asking. On a previous holiday we had stayed in Evian and done the ferry trip the other way. In doing so, we found a resto in Lausanne which did the most fabulous rosti ever tasted. As I was not running this blog in those days, I had no record of the name or location of this establishment.
So we asked around for the best rosti shop in town and a random camera retailer recommended Brasserie Bavaria.
Our last day in Haute-Nendaz involved a lot of walking. After a lot of walking, refreshment is essential. On the way back to Le Déserteur hotel, I wanted to put in a lost property report at the Police Municipale. Richard had lost a camera and, whilst he didn’t care too much for the money, he was sweating lead bullets over the contents of the digital flash card. For a man who has recently given up biathlons, still goes bull fighting barefoot, and is rumoured to be The Stig you will understand that he doesn’t sweat – ever.
The somewhat entertaining, but supercilious and frequently AWOL Sunday Times restaurant critic, AA Gill, rarely extends his gastronomic tentacles beyond central London. So I was surprised to see that he had, according to a poster at Piccadilly rail station, nominated San Carlo in MANCHESTER as the best Italian restaurant outside the capital. Surprised not only because he had ventured so far north as to get the apocryphal nosebleed, but also because San Carlo is far from the best resto of any type anywhere.
One of the aims of this blog, when I started it, was to keep my own personal record of tastings. I set out to write this post having tasted a bottle of Susana Balbo 2005 Malbec and just realised that I have tried it before. However, I didn’t really capture any proper notes so I thought I better do so this time.
I have never been to the Ritz. This maybe because I can’t afford it, or it could equally be because, to enjoy the Ritz fayre, I would have to bypass The Wolseley, right next door at 160 Piccadilly. This is something I have not yet achieved.
Just time for a quick review of a very funky little Albanian owned place in London’s West end. Hidden behind Wyndham’s Theatre on an alley opposite famous fish resto, J Sheekey, it is a wine focussed place with a short but interesting and not over expensive wine list. It also has a decent looking bistro menu. We stopped for a quick glass on the way to buy show tickets.
I used to live in Bingley, West Yorkshire and frequented Valentino’s many a Friday night. One of my favourite places for friendly and rustic, if slightly over garlicked and over-buttered fayre.
So when invited back for a birthday party recently, I was interested to see if the old fella was still there. The welcome was as warm as ever and Valentino remembered me (that’s the thing about an Italian welcome – they are great at pretending they know you, I’m sure he must have wondered who the hell I was.)
Valentino’s was founded in MCMXCV which sounds like a long time ago, but by my reckoning is 1995. I double checked my Roman maths by going to Google and typing “MCMXCV in Arabic” and the answer was duly computed. Isn’t Google totally awesome (say this out loud in a nasal teenage American twang).
La Bocana is a great waterfront bar just at the entrance to the harbour so you can watch all the idiots powerboating in and out, in what Jeffo calls their “penis extensions”.
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