Got Game? | Getty Images
(Picture: Got Game? | Getty Images)GOT GAME?
Okay, so perhaps not actually running around after them, but at the very least sitting down and delighting in one or two. That’s right, it’s well and truly feathered game season: grouse, partridge, pidgeon and duck are popping up on menus across the capital and won’t be going anywhere until mid-winter. London’s oldest restaurant, Rules, is always a strong place to start, offering up its famed grouse rubbed with bacon and garlic, and served with bread sauce and chips. Similarly, you’ll regularly find the pecker on Noble Rot’s specials board, at Quality Chop House, St John and dished up with lashings of bread sauce at all the Gladwin Brothers’ restaurants. At Corrigan’s, head chef Luke Ahearne’s take is served with salt-baked beetroot, fermented blackberry, manjimup truffle and bao buns bursting with cavolo nero, sautéed foie gras and a grouse jus. Plus, Jeremy Lee’s coveted Grouse & Co dish has returned to Quo Vadis, with the bird sat atop of a slice of bread basted in the cooking butter and grouse juices from the roasting pan until crisp and then spread with a paté made from the liver and heart. Don’t fancy grouse? Lee is also plating a duck salad and a deep, comforting pigeon pie. Mallard with tangy preserved blackberries is on the menu at Soho’s 10 Greek Street, and at Portuguese eatery Bar Douro, the perdiz en escabeche — that’s partridge marinated in vinegar, honey, marjoram, pink peppercorns and coriander seeds — makes for a tender treat.
THE BOOK
Huzzah! Chef and all-round London icon Jeremy Lee’s debut standalone book, ‘Cooking: Simply and Well, for One or Many’, has landed. Procure a copy to rustle up his go-to recipes, including his famed smoked eel sandwich and les profiteroles au chocolat. £30 (Fourth Estate)
CHEERS TO OMAKASE
Behind a secret door within The Aubrey in Knightsbridge is an appointment-only, six-seater cocktail bar offering up a wet-led omakase experience that begins with instructions to ‘join us on the journey of a hungry mind’. Inside, Pietro Rizzo promises a journey through cocktail culture with four pairings, starting with a Tuscan violet infused champagne concoction served with an oyster embellished by shiso and caviar. We continued with a shochu (a spirit not widely known outside Asia) highball, spiced with home-made wasabi liqueur and served with slides of hamachi belly. Next, a celebration of the humble tomato, where the fresh fruit and distilled essence starred within a limpid shochu Martini alongside a Japanese take on bruschetta. My journey concluded with Japanese rum combined with whisky and freshly torched oak-stave smoke, spritzed with larch essence and served with A5 Wagyu maki. A meditative opportunity to escape the world? Most definitely.
