Words & Photography by Florentyna Leow and Luiz Hara
Chef Michael Wignall from the 2-Michelin starred restaurant The Latymer at the Penny Hill Park Hotel, took
center stage in the final installment of the #MeetTheMichelins dinner series at
Selfridges’ The Corner Restaurant. The #MeetTheMichelin series was designed to
promote some of the UK’s finest British chefs operating outside of London. Chef
Wignall describes his cooking as “complex and carefully crafted,” and this meal
was no exception - his multi-course
extravaganza (priced at £95, with an additional £45 for the wine flight)
certainly ended the #MeetTheMichelin series on a high note.
The hors d'oeuvres were delicious and
displayed a strong sense of creativity and technical skill. These left us
wondering and wanting more: a small tube of seaweed-like paste on a toothpick,
innocuous but full of umami; and a crisp cigar-like wafer tube filled with a
buttery cream that tasted of the ocean, with bitter, chocolaty cocoa nibs to
bring it into focus.
Our meal opened with Cornish mackerel, the
humble fish tricked out with all manner of fanciful accents - an oily, salty
burst of Belgian Oscietra caviar, cool and crunchy compressed cucumber, sweet
shredded crab meat, subtle edamame and wasabi cream, mysterious light green
smoky bouncy spheres, little dots of intensely lemony confit. The flavours
generally worked well together, particularly with the crisp, lemony K5 Argiñano
Txakolina from the Basque region, and the presentation was stunning.
Tender salt-baked celeriac followed the
fish. Garnishes of compressed and nitro’d apple strips had the texture of black
fungus (often used in Chinese cooking), and the combination of chilled pea
juice, peas and homemade ricotta and feta brought summer to life on a plate.
This was good, accompanied by a crisp, fresh New Hall Bacchus Reserve.
Wignall’s poached loin of Loire valley
rabbit is much feted at his restaurant, but I found it a little too soft for my
liking, and the whole concoction of milky polenta, braised Scotch oats and soft
meat cried out in my opinion for a crisp or crunchy contrasting texture. The
mushrooms however were quite divine - fragrant and earthy, utterly delicious
with a glass of berry-laden 2011 Barda Patagonian Pinot Noir (Bodegas Chacra).
Olive oil-poached hake - one of my
favourites of the night - felt like a more substantial course, with an
accompanying cassoulet of summer beans, charcoal and scallop emulsion. Atop the
grilled scallop were strips of Iberico lard, which melted underneath the heat
of the grill, infusing the scallop with an extra salty-creamy dimension. Davies
served up a Cellers Anima Negra from Majorca, which complemented the smokiness
of the charcoal emulsion beautifully.
The ‘piglet’ course was another favourite,
with some great flavour combinations - for instance luscious sweet and sour
sweetbreads, or a ‘hen of the woods’ in a spicy BBQ sauce evoking summer time
outdoor grilling. The only fly in the amber in my opinion was the cep-scented
pork fillet - which I found underwhelming and under seasoned. The Portuguese
Pan Vinha however was delicious.
A ‘savoury’ is not a course you see often
these days, but Wignall reinterpreted the traditional British cheese course
with modern flourishes such as pickle spheres - think liquidised Branston
pickle bubbles - and atomised vinegar, which accounted for the bracingly sour
scent wafting around our plates. The cheeses were uniformly well chosen, and
Davies threw us yet another curve ball by pairing them with the Atlantic Pale
Ale from Brixton Brewery. This IPA-style drink worked well with cheese.
Drinks before dessert came in the form of
Pimms, ‘Our Way’ - a layered concoction involving foamed cubes of fruit, shaved
iced cucumber, strawberries and sweet cream. This was a clever take on the
quintessential British summer cocktail, and one all of us thoroughly enjoyed.
Our desserts featured ‘Cherry’ and ‘Raspberry’
respectively. 'Cherry' saw vanilla dough (essentially a large holed doughnut)
and a gorgeously dense and smooth rectangular tile of Tahitian vanilla custard,
with a few syrup-poached cherries, as well as almonds and crumble-crunch for
texture. That alone sent me into a mild swooning fit, but the divinely golden
sweet and floral Helmut Lang Gelber Muskateller Eiswein elevated this course to
heavenly heights. The choice of dessert wine here was faultless.
Unfortunately, ‘Raspberry’ felt a little
lacking in comparison - I have lukewarm feelings at best about berries and
chocolate in the same dish, and this did little to change my mind. The
individual components of raspberry namelaka/jelly, micro cocoa sponge and aero
chocolate were delicious, but I felt that together they were less than the sum
of their parts. Luckily, the accompanying wine - Alta Alella Mataro Dolce, a
sweet and rich but not too heavy Spanish vin doux naturelle - helped end the
meal on a good note.
As with the previous dinners, we were well
taken care of by the superb waiting staff at The Corner Restaurant,
particularly the knowledgeable and lovely Mino, who attended us week after
week. Service was, as usual, impeccable and unobtrusive. Selfridges’ sommelier
Dawn Davies also worked her magic again, mixing and matching wines to each
course with an inventive flair.
I was impressed that Chef Michael Wignall does not seem to belong to the breed of chefs who are more interested in PR
than cooking; it certainly felt like he was giving his food the attention it
deserved. This was a multi-course, carefully crafted extravaganza, and I
really hope to have the opportunity to visit The Latymer before too long.
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