HSMAI Europe » Food & Beverage

Aubergine, Marlow Bridge

HSMAI Newsdesk — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:35:57 +0000

I was with my best friend, which perhaps intensified the romantic atmosphere of the Compleat Angler, as there was no pesky real-life man to spoil it. The restaurant that now houses Aubergine has been here for donkey’s years, since its low-slung, vaulted, leaded interior was the height of the mode. (The panels in the cocktail lounge have been there for four centuries, apparently. The restaurant itself feels like English heritage via the 1930s. You can picture discreet affairs conducted in the dying days of the aristocracy. It’s all tremendously exciting.) The set menu (£45 for two courses, £55 for three) was preceded by a frankly horrid amuse-bouche – pickled anchovies that tasted of vinegar, on top of pickled carrots that tasted alarmingly of vinegar, drizzled in a saffron oil that was no match for the vinegar. I didn’t mind, to be honest. It seemed to be a new twist on the amuse concept – not a palate cleanser so much as a palate stripper. And it made us so grateful for our delicious starters.

Read more at Telegraph.co.uk

Whole Foods Market, Kensington

HSMAI Newsdesk — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:31:46 +0000

We grew tired of building monuments to God, so in the boom we took to constructing cathedrals to food. Great vaulted expanses sprung skywards around every town, where we were invited to worship not purity, but freshness. The spiritual foundations of supermarkets were always, in truth, a little shallow. Adverts might have described a raspberry fool as “heavenly”, but it could just as easily have used devil’s horns as decorative motifs.

The Lisbon earthquake of 1755 destroyed everything, including faith. The Cathedral of Santa Maria crumbled, crushing worshippers on a Catholic holiday. Voltaire asked how a disaster killing 100,000 innocents could be “for the best of all possible worlds”. The London economic quake of 2009 scored lower on the Richter scale, but left many citadels to capitalism in ruins. Supermarkets appeared particularly vulnerable, having elevated mere trifle to something almost worthy of worship. Just as the earthquake shattered belief, the economic tremors left many questioning the value of the food movement.

Read more at Telegraph.co.uk

Lutyens opens in Fleet St.

HSMAI Newsdesk — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 23:31:55 +0000

Terence Conran is hoping to lure journalists back to Fleet Street with the opening of his latest venture with Prescott & Partners – a French restaurant and bar called Lutyens.

The 130-cover restaurant in the former Reuters building in Fleet Street has been created by the same team behind Boundary & Albion in Shoreditch and includes a large bar with charcuterie counter, crustacea and sushi bar, members club and four private dining and meeting rooms.

Read more at Big Hospitality