Review of the reviews
Before anything arrives from the four-course £40 menu, [I’m brought] a little warm croustade of sublime pastry, containing tiny shrimp of wonderful pep and meatiness, with a mild, tom yammy, lime leaf scent and a dou- ble-decked cracker of mackerel and beetroot that they’ve dehy- drated to store over winter, then rehydrated with beetroot juice. There’s a beautiful piece of
grilled Houghton Springs trout with a crisp, burnt treacle crust on it and warm potato salad and puréed watercress with what the menu calls “house bread”, which is a little warm, golden brioche. There’s a thing like a Viet- namese raw spring roll of tuna, except the casing is one long shaved leaf of Granny Smith apple from their orchard, the sharpness somehow milded out to give a celeriac-y serious- ness to the immaculate mouth- ful, a little salmon roe on top for colour and salt. Dreamy. The “Poached day boat fish”
Giles Coren lands himself a superlative dinner at Catch in Weymouth
is gurnard, that ugly, hammy, delicious, red-skinned fish. Mike has barbecued it, then piled flakes of it with sliced, earthy morels into a case of the lightest, crispest, warm cheesy pastry, with wafers of raw apple, that looks so beautiful I hesitate to smash it down to eat – but
William Sitwell sits down to a divine meal at Climat, Manchester The menu is divided into snacks, plates, sides, sweets and cheese, and one quickly realises that this place is mak- ing a very cogent argument that God invented food so that man could drink wine. You’re encouraged to bring it on with endless plates so that they can then shower you with glasses and carafes of wine, and leave the place grateful that the miracle of wine makes the world not just a better place but one worth living in. We were wholly on board, cheerleaders from the outset, driving them mad even to bring us endless glasses to sniff, swirl, sip, contrast, ponder upon,
10 | The Caterer | 22 March 2024
discuss and then pour again. There was fine grub to match, no mere tapas but signs of nimble thinking in the kitchen. We began with oeuf mayo and Exmoor cav- iar, a nice little breakfasty dish of eggy, creamy saltiness and perfect with their homemade, crusty sourdough. Then a dish of fabulous indulgence: what they call hash browns but was really a slice of layered confit potato with a piping of creamy white taramasalata. A respectable raviolo with
brown butter and crisp sage fol- lowed, and then a novel plate of beef tartare with a hint of keema served with a poppadom; a sub- tle and clever way of experienc- ing a curry without needing to actually have a curry. On a glorious day, with
rooftop views to boot, the confi- dent and civilised Climat made us feel like we were the lords not just of hundreds but of all creation.
when I do, it looks even better. Then out comes “the catch”
as the menu calls it, a good tranche of “freshly landed” turbot, beautifully grilled or possibly roasted, with the clev- erest sort of “pesto” of smoked almonds, garlic and broccoli that brings all the right crunch and tang and salt to the wob- bling, perfect flesh, and a pangritata for crunch. “How do you do this for
£40?” I ask Mike [Naidoo, exec- utive chef and co-owner]. But
he shrugs it away, saying that having their own boats knocks out the soaring price of fish (“That turbot is probably £40 a kilo to anyone else”). [The] dessert, after all that,
was frankly a bit of a disap- pointment. Ha ha ha. Not really. It was astounding, obviously. A soft, slim ginger cake base supporting a light mascarpone mousse under a super-frangi- ble ginger crisp blobbed with a pink peppercorn gel plus a lovely creamy lemon compote.
First up, good, mustardy dev-
Grace Dent embraces garlic breath at Camille in London Expect snail butter, boudin noir, trotter in the terrine and poached ox tongue. If you’re the sort of person who went on a school French exchange, avoided the pig’s jowl, chicory and mysterious lumpy sau- sages and survived on smug- gled Penguin biscuits, you may find Camille a little testing. Lately they’ve had atriaux on the menu, or, as I call them, “mys- tery sausagemeat meatballs”, because you never get the same answer twice from any French or Swiss chef as to what, exactly, they contain, although pig’s liver and parsley seem key; at Camille, they’re served on a soft, rich slick of puy lentils.
illed eggs with vibrant orange innards topped with pungent, smoky eel to eat alongside a bas- ket of fresh baguette slathered in salty butter. Next, an unwisely generous portion of buttery roast Jerusalem artichokes piled high with a feathery, light mountain of grated Lincolnshire Poacher: so delicious. The quantity of gar- lic in the sauce with the langous- tines off the specials board and the punchy yeast dressing on the grilled Tenderstem broccoli were similarly antisocial. Thankfully, I have nothing on this week. As a main, we shared a Here-
ford onglet, served rare-ish with Cafe de Paris butter and a side of potato pavé with hay mayo. Pavé is a bit like a taller, more thinly sliced, drier dauphinois, [served] in thick blocks that resemble custard mille-feuille, to scrape through lamb’s liver with crisp bacon or charred calçots with anchovy hollandaise.
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