Hey Garmanvsfoodfam, how we doing? It’s October folks! Autumn is upon us, but we still feel the love of summer in the air. Summer ’18 has been glorious! Your girl still has not had the need to put on her tights since end of March?! Come through sunshine! Apologies for my musings about the weather, it’s a Brit thing. Talking about the weather is what we do, we live for it lol!
Our visit to The Ledbury has been a long time coming! Getting a table here can be tricky, it is one of the top 50 restaurants in the WORLD! Yasss people, we don’t play when it comes to our food adventures, we hella serious with it! We arrived for the lunch service and when we were served 2 kinds of complimentary canapés as an introduction, I knew this food adventure was going to be pure genius!
We had 2 hors d’oeuvres, both of which were just unreal! The datterini tomatoes, crab, sorbet and shiso, was creamy with warm and cold sensations on your tongue from both the crab and the sorbet. This is even more magnified when you have a sip of the Banadol rosé wine. The fruitiness of the wine was the perfect pair for this shell fish dish. Our second hors d’oeuvres was white beetroot baked in clay, caviar salt and smoked eel. First off – white beetroot? I didn’t think beetroot came in another colour than well beetroot red you know? It looked like ice glacier folks, a block of marble (according to Neal). Not only did it look like the posh cousin to the normal beetroot, it tasted like a pimped-up version as well lol. It still had the same texture and taste of a beetroot, but the smoked eel and caviar salt just took it to a whole new level of BEETROOTNESS! I was not ready!
This is in addition to bread, and other small bites, I mean jeez! Tip, you need to be sure you ready for a feast folks!
Ok folks, I am an egg lover like – proteins and what not yeah? I have also had eggs in a variety of ways too – scrambled, fried, poached, boiled, omelette. However, Chef Matt served us some warm bantam’s[1] egg with celeriac, arbois, dried ham and cesar mushrooms, phew chile! This dish did not look any egg dish I have ever seen! Trust me, the Nigerian version of an omelette can be extra AF! We go IN with the fillings – tomatoes, peppers, onions, sardines, prawns, herbs, spices. We pretty much add whatever we fancy but the bottom line is you know it’s an omelette! This Bantam’s egg dish was fancy, real fancy. The actual egg was poached forming the base of the dish and all the fillings were sort of layered over it in a kind of wild disarray of textures. I couldn’t help but smile at the waiter when it was announced that the dish was an egg, I’m like huh? I immediately scan the dish trying to spot ‘the egg’. My smile got bigger, when I cut into the dish and found the elusive egg buried beneath all the yumminess of the celeriac, mushrooms, arbois and ham.
Each filling’s subtle texture and mirage of flavours just made a simple bantam egg incredible! As if the dish itself was not mind blowing enough, it was paired with Collard-Picard Cuvee Prestige Brut, Champagne NV, I mean come on!!!! The notes of melon and brioche, ripe apricot and sweet apple coupled with the egg was just divine! Eggs and champers? Who knew! It is totally decadent, and you best know I am all up for it.
I do love it when a cheese selection is a grand ol’ affair – the cheese monger rocks up with a cheese trolley packed with various blocks of cheeses and tells you that you get a selection of what is on the trolley. We tried 10, you read right, 10 different cheese slices paired with not 1, but 2 glasses of wine! Listen, go hard or Go HOME! Lol! The white wine was a Tupari from New Zealand which is a late harvest Riesling, – light, fresh and fruity! The red wine was a Fuedo Montino which has dark fruit, blueberry and plum notes! Fabulous choices for our cheese course.
Then chef Matt saved the best for last, the piers de résistance– raspberry tartlet with chamomile cream and vanilla. This tart with its biscuit base was layered with the raspberries, cream and vanilla; and served with an Italian brachetto d’acqui pudding wine. Pairing this dessert with this wine was literally the icing on the cake! We loved! Loved!! Loooveeeeddd!!! The brachetto d’acqui, a red wine, is very similar to a Muscat with its sweetness. However, it is not distilled in oak, has a shorter fermentation time with a fizzy texture like champagne – whaaaaatttttt???!!!! I mean take all my money right now.
I know I just said that the raspberry tartlet and brachetto d’acqui was the Piers de resistance, inferring, that there was nothing extra Head Chef Matt and his team could have done to top this food adventure, right? WRONG! We got invited to the KITCHEN! Yes folks! we were in the kitchen of The Ledbury and in conversation with Head Chef Matt! SURREAL or what? Neal even go to plate up our hen of the wood dish! Talk about stepping things up a notch, way, wayyy, wayyyyyyy to cool for words!
Eating here was an experience and a half! All the dishes were a VISION as much as they were a delight! I totally get why they are at the top of the list. The team here did not come to PLAY boi! They are as DOPE as they are BADASS!!!! I got the menu autographed by Matt too!
Cheers
Ndidi & Neal
[1] Bantam egg is the small eggs laid by a true bantam chicken