Distanced dining in front of the Pantheon

After several months of enduring semi-isolation save for the diversions provided by a handful of country house gardens, we were itching to go abroad. Rome was the first thought for predictable reasons – the way you can turn a corner and suddenly be confronted with the ruined site where Caesar was assassinated or the seemingly modern soaring arches of the Diocletian baths opposite the Termini Railways station. This is what gives Rome the edge – the way evocative remains of a vanished empire are surrounded by a functioning world capital.

Despite the earlier havoc created by the spread of Coronavirus in Northern Italy, firm measures appeared to have worked for now. Rome was never the epicentre – in recent weeks, new cases here vary between zero and single numbers.

The Nile God, or the worst case of the DTs you have ever experienced

 One of the greatest tourist destinations in the modern world has been reclaimed by the Romans, with foreigners a rare sight, even in such haunts as the Vatican and Capitoline museums. Normally the Vatican Museums deal with upwards of 25,000 visitors daily but at present the figures are restricted to 10% of this, which means treasures usually obscured by jostling spectators can be viewed sometimes with no one else in the room. From a balcony overlooking the Forum, it appeared to be virtually deserted. On the streets, there are a few brave souls from Germany, Austria and Britain but no Americans, Russians, Chinese or Saudis. This gives one a privileged feeling of being enveloped in another culture, enhanced by clusters of local youth just chattering and laughing in the narrow streets surrounding the Pantheon and Campo di Fiori. 

Not many of the well-established hotels have re-opened yet but those that have, including the Hotel de Russie on the edge of Piazza del Popolo are now populated by groups of Romans in the public areas, all obediently wearing face masks until they are seated. The magnificent courtyard gives the Russie enhanced appeal. 

 The management took advantage of the lock down to completely restore the rear “secret garden” on the Pincian Hill, which was designed by Giuseppe Valadier, who was also responsible for improving the Piazza del Popolo in the Nineteenth Century. 

Behind the scenes, such hotels are hurting as occupancy rates are around 15%, given that nearly half of all Summer bookings were usually from Americans though the heavily occupied open-air restaurant and gardens evoke a sense of normalcy.

Very few of the multi-Michelin-starred restaurants are currently open, but they were never the point of dining out in Rome. Instead, there are a plethora of casual local establishments serving versions of cucina povera, usually with wine lists you can only dream of elsewhere. 

This was the reason for a return to La Matricianella, a family-owned place on a side street equidistant between Augustus’s tomb and the Italian Parliament. Popular with politicians and other power brokers, it possesses one of the greatest value wine lists in Rome, crammed with superb Amarones, Barolos and Barbarescos below current wholesale prices. Given how narrow the outside terrace is, there were Perspex “Sneeze Screens” shielding surrounding diners but you soon managed to mentally dismiss them. Perhaps the head chef was on furlough because apart from 

a satisfying tagliatelle funghi porcini, the remaining dishes of 

veal, roast potatoes and spinach were verging on overcooked and parched. Remarkably, I wouldn’t hesitate to return, thanks to my forgiving nature and the spectacular Produttori del Barbaresco Asili 2014 for less than £40.

Next day was occupied by visiting the Vatican Museums. The 25-minute walk from Piazza del Popolo was broken by 

 a visit to Franchi’s, a simple deli with tables that has been on the Via Cola di Rienzo for more than a century, serving pasta dishes, whole quail and delicious cold peppers, spinach and artichokes.  On the return journey, further along the same street and opposite the Piazza della Libertad is Gelateria La Romana, which serves some of the best puddings and ice creams in Rome.

Supper was at Da Armando Al Pantheon, a tiny restaurant on a side street adjoining the Pantheon, which had been recommended by Katie Parla, one of Rome’s leading food writers. This serves the essence of Roman Cuisine – gutsy, offal-based dishes such as 

Panino con Coratella d’abbacchio (heart, liver, lungs of lamb on a bed of spinach) 

along with a fragrant Spaghetti alla Gricia – cured pork jowl, pecorino and black pepper. 

However, the dish of the day was Faraona ai funghi porcini (luscious Guinea fowl with porcini, pine nuts and Sicilian spices). Again, the prices were ridiculously cheap, though perhaps that explained why my 

roast lamb  also contained dangerously hidden shards of bone that could easily take out a tooth with an incautious crunch. 

The next day was devoted to exploring a segment of the Via Appia, the original cobbled superhighway from Rome to Brindisi. We grabbed a bottle of mineral water and a porchetta panini from 

Norcineria Viola, which has been serving all porcine products in the Campo de’ Fiori since 1890. 

Only five miles out of Rome and suddenly you are on a two-thousand-year-old dead-straight road interspersed with catacombs, ruined churches, roman tombs and the floorplans of former villas. 

We began in front of a huge circular mausoleum, originally occupied by Cecilia Matella, the daughter-in-law of Marcus Licinius Crassus, the richest man in Caesar’s Rome. Opposite is San Nicola, a ruined fourteenth century Gothic church.  

The Via Appia is virtually traffic-free as any car attempting to drive along the rutted road tips and up down like a boat in a storm. Instead, there are occasional cyclists and hikers negotiating the well-worn tracks on either side of the road. There are also some contemporary villas, one of which was occupied by Sophia Loren, but they are out of sight behind locked gates. 

Our cultural pursuit the next day was the Capitoline Museum, the world’s first public collection of sculpture, with the staircase entrance dominated by the gigantic third century figures of Castor and Pollux. At the current time, there is no pressure of numbers so you can linger as long as you please to see the highlights such as the colossal head of Constantine or 

the original she-wolf of Rome, said to be of Etruscan origin, though some recent research suggests it was created in the Middle Ages. 

From a terrace, you get an uninterrupted view of the Forum, again, virtually deserted. Just in front of the Curia, there is a small clump of greenery – an olive tree, a vine and a fig tree. Our friend Ivan Ruggeri pointed out that in the Old Testament, they are sacred in Ancient Israel but in this case, they relate to early Roman myths, though these examples were replanted in the Twentieth Century. 

There are more than 900 churches in Rome, so it is always worth venturing into any that have open doors and no service going on. 

On the edge of Piazza del Popolo is Santa Maria del Popolo, which has accreted a selection of masterpieces over the centuries, including two Caravaggios, a chapel designed by Raphael and works by Bramante and Bernini. There are probably more great Renaissance works of art here than in the entire Southern Hemisphere.

 London friends had spent a week in Rome ahead of us and insisted we try Taverna Trilussa in Trastevere, the Roman equivalent of Shoreditch. This was heavily endorsed by Alessandra, the impressively forceful and enterprising concierge at the de Russie. I named our preferred time, which she said would be fine, despite it being one of the most patronised restaurants in Rome, even during these restricted times. When I asked her how could she be so certain it would be available then, she smiled: “Do you think they would ever dare not find space for my customers?” 

 

Taverna Trilussa is the Roman version of London’s River Café – a smart, popular place with especial care to provide the best ingredients regardless of cost. This was definitely the most accomplished meal we had – 

 

bucatini all’ amatriciana served in its cooking pan and 

  

stinco di agnello da latte con patate arrosto (milk-fed lamb shank with roast potatoes). The service was also equal to that of the River Café, with everybody eating outside surrounded by greenery and large umbrellas. If any city appears normal during these stressful times, it is Rome because everybody eats outside in the Summer months anyway and everywhere appeared to be fully occupied. It was only when I spoke to the Trilussa manager that a more challenging picture emerged. “We normally serve 350 covers nightly but now, we never have more than 140,” he explained. Not only that, the wine list, full of Italy’s finest wines – Barolos from Conterno, Giacosa and Gaja and Super Tuscans from Ornellaia and Sassicaia, all for hundreds of pounds a bottle, but no one is ordering them as these are invariably purchased by wealthy tourists. The manager explained that usually, more than half of their customers are foreigners but at present, they are lucky to have even a handful. 

 

On our final day, we managed to get highly prized tickets to the blockbuster Raphael Exhibition at the Quirinale – to be honest, this was another bit of sleight of hand from Concierge Alessandra. We were happy we went to it but because of lock down, only groups of ten were allowed into each room at a time with whistles blown to move you on, which somehow took away the magic. 

 

Taking advantage of this paucity of tourists, we dined on our final night at Da Fortunato al Pantheon. The food was straightforward, save for a 

 

luscious mezzemaniche all’amatriciana con pecorino romano e guanciale di Amatrice and 

 

a well-executed risotto ai funghi porcini with a reassuring number of coin-sized slivers of black truffle. However, in this case, what made the experience memorable was the view from the outside tables – a large chunk of the Pantheon looming at the end of the street.

 

There is nothing gloomy about the atmosphere in Rome at night – everything appears to be functioning normally especially as every square and side street has voluble people seated outside enjoying themselves. Until mainstream tourists consider it safe to return though, Rome will be in the same uncertain boat as the rest of us, though I know where I would rather be until things finally change for the better.

 

Hotel de Russie: www.roccofortehotels.com/hotels-and-resorts/hotel-de-russie

 

 

 

Guide Books

 

 

 

The greatest classic account is the 1871 Walks in Rome by Augustus Hare, updated in the Twenties. It is packed with pages of diverting extracts...who knew that in 1832, Rafael was removed from his tomb in the Pantheon and displayed in a glass case “to settle a dispute between two academics as to which had his skull: neither had it.” Or equally important, “Mr. Charles Greville (1830) fulfilled a vow in giving a silver horseshoe to the Madonna in the Pantheon when his mare won a race at Newmarket.”

 

If you have to choose between the Michelin Green Guide to Rome and the DK’s Rome, Dorling Kindersley wins because of its easily accessible exploded views of piazzas and churches.

 

Comparing the Blue Guide to Rome to the earlier Rome by Mauro, Paola, Eric and Jack Lucenti (Pallas Athene 2006), the latter wins through its readable informal style and huge amount of detail.

 

The Michelin Red Guide to Italy has always had a poor reputation because of its obsession with contemporary and innovative cuisine over the more traditional. Better get hold of David Downie’s excellent volume on Rome published by the Little Bookroom. 

 

If you are simply looking for the best archaeological guide to Rome, the best is Rome and its environs by Filippo Coarelli (University of California Press). If that is more detailed than you require, there is always Philip Matyszak’s Ancient Rome on Five Denari a Day (Thames and Hudson). 

 

Also, not to be overlooked is Palladio’s Rome (Yale), a beautifully illustrated edition of his two guide books to Rome.

 

However, if you really want to push the boat out, nothing compares to the definitive two volume Atlas of Ancient Rome (Princeton) but it is far too bulky to take on a journey.

 

Ultimately, the best single volume guide remains Georgina Masson’s Companion Guide to Rome, lightly revised by John Fort. It breaks down to 27 walks taking in everything of merit. For those who crave more of her scholarship, try and get hold of her marvellous, now rare, Courtesans of Renaissance Italy (Secker & Warburg).  For those who are more than familiar with the usual sites, the City Secrets Rome (Granta) is a delightful collection of anecdotes from architects, artists, creative types in general of their favourite things to do in Rome and it is pocket size.

 

The two best websites for food in Rome are

 

Elizabeth Minchilli’s (www.elizabethminchilli.com)

Katie Parla’s (www.katieparla.com) though I should flag she is a devotee of supernatural or as it is now known, “Clean Wine”.

 

A shorter version of this article has appeared in Reaction Life:

https://reaction.life/when-in-rome/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amanpuri and its blue/black pool 

On New Year’s Day in 1988, a small hideaway resort was launched on a peninsula above a beach in Phuket, southern Thailand. There was no reception, car rental desk or gift shop and guests were not asked to sign for any of the services. The huge swimming pool was clad in blue/black tiles with temple-style gazebos at the extremities. This all pavilion concept was the antithesis of previous luxury resorts. The staff to guest ratio was a staggering five to one. Each pavilion had an outdoor terrace and once inside, the bathrooms were as large as the bedrooms and there was no television. This was Amanpuri, the first Amanresort designed by Ed Tuttle. The room rate was US$250 plus 20% tax and service, which was a small fortune at the time. Founder, Indonesian-born Adrian Zecha, was concerned that it might be too elitist for the public, as the rival Phuket Yacht Club was a mere $75 a night. The worry was short-lived. It became a virtual template of all subsequent luxury hideaway hotels around the globe although the Amanresorts group never spent a penny on advertising or even had a logo. 

 Tuttle also designed 40 large private villas with their own swimming pools adjoining Amanpuri, which have soared in value since 1988. He purchased one for himself and Christian Monges, his partner, which they used both as their Asian base and also for more leisurely pursuits. Bill Bensley – the Bali- and Bangkok-based resort designer told Wallpaper*: ‘I don’t think there is a resort designer on the planet who has not been influenced by Aman. I was most influenced by Tuttle’s space planning which really set the scene for a new era. 

Imagine, he made the bathroom the same size as the bedroom and with natural light from four sides, when the rest of us were cramming tiny bathrooms into dark corners.’ 

Before designing Amanpuri, Tuttle spent months travelling around Thailand to study traditional architecture and classical teak houses. Tuttle was also responsible for the design of every item inside the villas too. There is a slippery divide between celebrating local architecture and the world of Walt Disney, but Tuttle, with his painstaking obsession with cultural authenticity, never approached, let alone stepped across that line. The other extraordinary fact is that not a single palm tree was cut down during the construction of Amanpuri or the adjoining villas. His passion for perfection made it a challenge to question his work: Anthony Lark, the charismatic young Australian General Manager of the Amanpuri, recalled that he didn't dare try to change anything about the layout of the resort. "If a plant had been moved two inches by a gardener, he would be the first to notice it. He even designed the cutlery, the wastepaper baskets, the stationery, staff uniforms and all of the pots plus the art work." 

The bar of the Amanpuri was run by Oreste Rossi, the head barman of the Splendido in Portofino, as their winter closure co-incided with the peak season in Phuket. Ed had designed a simple beautiful black granite island, but there was nowhere to store the bottles or glasses. Lark pleaded with Adrian Zecha to intervene as Ed wouldn't budge, saying why didn't Oreste simply carry all of the glasses and bottles in every day? Finally, Adrian instructed Ed to design a storage pavilion or find another solution. Ed refused and simply stormed off. Ultimately, Adrian calmed him down and the next day an elegant bar store had been designed to sit behind the island.

Later, other Amanresorts designed by Tuttle appeared in Bali, Java, the French Alps, Greece, Morocco, the Rockies and India. Because of the minimalist almost Palladian approach of his architecture and furnishings, his Amanresorts exuded a zen-like calm. There was also sophisticated lighting of wood carvings or sculptures both out and inside the pavillions. Dubbed “the Livingstone of Modern Times” because of his incessant travels, he was slightly built and kept a low profile both personally and professionally. He never even had a website for his Paris-based business.

This emphasis on elegance and privacy was pitched at a tiny elite of international travellers including the more discerning celebrities, Hollywood veterans, monarchs and Princess Diana. (Potentates demands could be bizarre – one African monarch drank Amanpuri out of their reserves of Chateau Pétrus, prompting them to charter a plane to Singapore for fresh supplies while an Eastern Royal demanded a similar expedition to Singapore for several kilos of Uncle Ben’s rice, as it was the only grain he would eat.) Guests quickly became addicted to these levels of service and discretion and were subsequently called Amanjunkies. Sir James Goldsmith, the British billionaire and a close friend of Zecha, had checked into a standard pavilion. The management were unaware of this friendship but when they discovered it, offered him an upgrade to a grander location. So content was this demanding corporate raider, that he graciously declined saying he couldn't be happier than he was already.  Sometimes, demands could be too far-fetched to concur - one portly Hong Kong billionaire asked why Ed hadn't included a stairlift along the side of the dramatic stairs leading to the beach from the Amanpuri pool. "This is a hotel, not a hospital," was his reply.

Within a couple of years, Amanpuri became the most sought after Christmas/New Year destination for international power-brokers, American Senators, nice billionaires and other similarly influential individuals. The fact was that while it was impossible to get a booking during this period, even harder was to find space for a private jet at Phuket airport. Ironically, until this point, the Oriental in Bangkok was the preferred celebratory bolthole for this crowd. Kurt Wachtveitl, the veteran GM of the Oriental, was gracious enough to not only concede this tectonic shift, but added that Zecha and Tuttle should be awarded medals for on occasion saving these frenzied people's lives, such was Amanpuri's uncanny ability to calm and reprogram some of the most difficult and demanding guests known to man.

 Adrian Zecha, a former publisher, had a near-identical obsession with simplicity, authenticity and good taste as Tuttle. They first met in Hong Kong in the late Sixties and Tuttle re-designed Zecha’s Hong Kong house in the early Seventies. Zecha was an admirer of Geoffrey Bawa, the renowned Sri Lankan architect who invented “Tropical Modernism”. Zecha owned Villa Batujimbar in Bali, which was originally designed by Bawa. It was Tuttle’s updating of the villa in 1981 which led to the creation of the black-tiled pool, which then became de rigeur throughout the Tropics. This association and their long-standing friendship, prompted Zecha to hire him to create Amanpuri and a handful of the subsequent 30 or so Amanresorts.

Edward Burnham Tuttle Junior, was born in Seattle in 1945, just days after the explosion of the atomic bombs over Japan. His father, Edward Senior, owned a steel mill. Tuttle was named after an ancestor, Franklin Pierce Burnham, the renowned 19th century architect. From 1963 to 1968, he studied architecture and interior architectural design at Portland State University, the University of Oregon and the University of Washington, where he was heavily influenced by the work of Modernist architects such as Mies van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright. His studies focused on Wright, especially his masterpiece, Fallingwater, a house cantilevered over a waterfall in Pennsylvania. Tuttle briefly lived in Fallingwater and knew the people who had built it.

Immediately after graduation in 1968, he began working in the design studio of Gumps, the celebrated San Francisco department store. Through a colleague, he assisted in the design of a family house for a member of the Pritzker family, who owned the Hyatt Hotel group. Later in 1968, he joined Dale Keller and Associates in Hong Kong, who were responsible for numerous luxury Asian hotels, including the Taj Mahal Palace in Bombay (Mumbai) and the Hotel Okura in Tokyo. Tuttle also collaborated on a number of other hotel projects with Keller throughout South-east Asia.

Then between 1973 and 1976, there was then a spell working in Hydra and Mykonos in the Greek Islands with Dale Keller on private villas throughout the region and later the Shah’s Winter Palace on Kish Island just before he fled the country. From 1977, Tuttle was based in Paris, where he ran Design Realization with his business and life partner, Christian Monges. 

Tuttle travelled on average more than 50% of his time, before devoting himself full time to the Amanpuri project in 1986 and 1987. Tuttle said in an interview with Architectural Digest, that he practiced “design as a basis for the human lifestyle, whether it’s a residence or a hotel. It’s about making the individual feel comfortable and stimulated in a space that functions well. I was educated as an architect, and I see and think in an architectural sense first.”

In 1992, he designed Amankila in eastern Bali, with its spectacular triple pools overlooking the Bali Sea. He told one interviewer he often found creative solutions when looking at - or being immersed in - water. 'I love being on the water. I love swimming. Water is a very important part of my designs. It's the essence of tranquillity…” 

The next Aman project was not by the sea but located in central Java, close to Borobudur, the near-intact ninth century temple, the largest Buddhist monument on earth.

Again, Tuttle threw himself into the culture of the location, spending an entire week exploring the temple, with its hundreds of seated Buddha statues and two and a half thousand bas reliefs depicting religious myths and secular life. The design of Amanjiwo is a homage to Borobudur, though with a bell-shaped dome on the top of the roof rather than a stupa, as Tuttle felt this would be verging on the sacrilegious.  

What enhances the power of the experience is that in the middle of the sight line through the building is the silhouette of Borobudur nearly two miles away. 

Tuttle was determined to get every single detail as accurate and authentic as possible, even if it meant specially commissioning brass bowls identical in shape and purpose to the original ones used at Borobudur. There were sometimes heated discussions between Zecha and Tuttle on such matters but they were never vitriolic as both knew the other was merely trying to attain their own vision of perfection for the project.

One of the early general managers recalled the genius of Tuttle’s work, but lamented the sacrifices made for perfection. Aesthetics took precedence over practicality. There was a drip tray for the air conditioning units lodged between the ceiling and the roof of the villas which had to be drained every two or three months. Most architects would incorporate a hook in a detachable part of the ceiling for access but Tuttle refused to have any such blemish on the perfect ceiling space. The only way to gain access to the drip tray was by literally cutting out a portion of the ceiling every time and then plastering it back again.

Tuttle also created numerous private villas for well-heeled clients around the globe, including Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced paedophile who committed suicide last year. In 2002, Tuttle designed the main house on Little Saint James, his private island off the coast of St Thomas in the Caribbean. Apart from private villas, Tuttle also designed fabric patterns for Jim Thompson’s Silk Company and a range of furniture for them along with upholstered sofas for Wittmann.

 Amanbagh in Rajasthan

Tuttle was also responsible for Amanjena, the Moroccan hideaway outside Marrakech, Le Melezin in Courchevel, Amangani in the American Rockies, then a palace-like structure in Rajasthan called Amanbagh and latterly, Amanzoe, a classically-inspired hideaway in the eastern Peloponnese of Greece. There were two other architects frequently used to create the 30 or so Amanresorts – Kerry Hill and Jean-Michel Gathy, but none had as much overall impact on the group as Tuttle. He also kept up his connections with the Hyatt Group, designing the Hyatt in Milan and also in Paris. Tuttle also kept in touch with old friends such as Brice Marden, the famous abstract expressionist painter. He redesigned Golden Rock, his old sugar mill in Nevis and refused payment, though Marden returned the gesture with a gift of some of his paintings.

For more than 40 years, home was a converted 18th-century house in Paris' St Germain des Prés, with his office just around the corner. After exercising in his gym, he would check into his office and consult with his dozen staff about current and future projects but said most of his important work was achieved between 5pm and 9pm. He was an inveterate scribbler and sketcher, whether it was in his favourite Parisian restaurants Le Voltaire or Le Duc, or on board a plane. He would use whatever was nearest to hand, whether it was a scrap of paper, a drink coaster or tracing paper on a drafting table: ‘It's my way of getting a theme going; you get the rhythm going and eventually it all starts to come together. I also like to immerse myself in the culture of the place where I'm working, to be stimulated and inspired.’

Such was the close connection between Zecha and Tuttle, that even after decades had passed, no change was ever made to Tuttle’s design or furnishings of the resorts he created without his prior approval. This changed abruptly in 2014, when a series of boardroom moves by investors ended Adrian Zecha’s control of Amanresorts. To the shock of some of the original Amanjunkies, Amanresorts ended up with a Russian property developer, whose former paramour was Naomi Campbell. Zecha, now 87, is too much of a gentleman to publicly comment about the fate of his beloved Amanresorts, though he was quoted in Wallpaper* earlier this year, as saying: ‘It would be inappropriate for me to comment on Aman’s legacy as I was the founder. However, my hope has been that it would be perceived as an honest and elegant approach towards luxury hotel living. And of course, that it always would be aligned with the beauty and culture of a place.’

Apart from a profusion of televisions and Wi-Fi, there is now a Thai boxing ring at Amanpuri, along with a juice bar and a large gift shop right in front of the once uncluttered entrance.  

It sounds a far cry from Tuttle’s beliefs, which he described in an interview 15 years ago: “The design of a resort and its operation are not two separate things to me, I believe they very much have to flow together. Do I have a philosophy of design? Well, I believe very much in tranquillity and order. Comfort and lifestyle mean an enormous amount to me. They may sound like funny things to base your architecture on, but they are extremely important. A sense of classicism and proportion is also vital and, of course, beauty. Outside of classicism, rhythm is what makes something beautiful.”

Ed Tuttle, Architect and designer. Born Seattle, August 11, 1945 died of a brain tumour, June 21, 2020 Paris. He is survived by his three sisters and Christian Monges, his partner of 46 years.

A shorter version of this obituary appears here:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/ed-tuttle-obituary-mmp0rk352

In the early Sixties, Jean and Pierre Troisgros, two ambitious French chefs, were intrigued by an undercooked salmon they ate in San Sebastian, the culinary heart of the Spanish Basque Country. Returning to their kitchen in Roanne on the Loire, they experimented and finally created Escalope de saumon à l’oseille Troisgros, or Salmon with Sorrel sauce. This simple preparation, with the salmon, cooked for a mere 15 seconds on each side in a non-stick pan, initially received a hostile reception. Angry customers sent it back to the kitchen, declaring “Do your job and learn how to cook fish!” However, things changed when Robert Courtine, the veteran restaurant critic of Le Monde, tasted it and pronounced, “Finally, an intelligent salmon.” Pierre later remarked that this was the true beginning of his culinary career.

Pierre Troisgros 92, died of a heart attack on September 23, in his kitchen at Le Coteau, waiting to play cards with his friends. He was one of the last chefs who trained under Fernand Point at La Pyramide in Vienne, who was considered the father of modern French cuisine. Now the only one left is Louis Outhier of L'Oasis, who trained under Point at the same time as Pierre Troisgros and Paul Bocuse. Pierre Troisgros also became one of the world’s most famous chefs – and Troisgros was awarded three Michelin stars in 1968 and still maintains them to this day, which is a record. Unlike other chefs associated with nouvelle cuisine, he had little interest in celebrity. When the restaurant won its third Michelin star, he understood the pressure to retain it and remarked, “C’est une catastrophe.” 

The salmon and sorrel dish, and others such as Mosaique de Légumes Truffée or cold vegetable terrine with truffles, quickly became signature dishes and heralded the beginning of what later became known as nouvelle cuisine. The movement, which also included chefs Michel Guérard and Paul Bocuse, did away with heavy sauces and celebrated fresh ingredients preserving as much of their innate flavours as possible. Perhaps the crowning glory of the salmon dish was in 1975, when it was served to President Giscard d’Estaing in the Élysée Palace on the occasion of their friend Paul Bocuse being awarded the Legion d’Honneur. Sometimes fame can become a millstone and when Pierre’s son, Michel, took over the culinary reins at Troisgros in 1996, the first thing he did was remove the salmon and sorrel dish from the menu, though later it returned after he was accused of “spitting on history”.

Pierre Troisgros was born in 1928, in Chalon-sur-Saône, on the edge of southern Burgundy. His father, Jean-Baptiste Troisgros, ran a small café, as did his father, but in 1930, the family moved to Roanne, eighty miles to the south west, where he purchased Hôtel des Platanes a four-storey establishment, which he renamed Hôtel Moderne. His wife, Marie, was in the kitchen, but although he had no formal training in either food or wine, he dictated every move in the kitchen and the restaurant. His two sons Pierre and elder brother, Jean, each started in the kitchen when they were around 15. Even when they were still schoolboys their father would send them off to collect snails and insisted on the best products of the season: salmon from the Allier, lobsters from Brittany and Bresse pullets and capons. The brothers went to the market every morning. Jean-Baptiste later sent them to work in leading French restaurants. These included Fernand Point’s La Pyramide, at the time the most renowned haute cuisine restaurant in Provincial France, before finding them places in the leading Parisian restaurants such as Maxim’s, Lucas-Carton and Les Ambassadeurs at the Hôtel de Crillon. 

In the early Fifties, the Hôtel Moderne was a popular destination for travelling salesmen but its reputation grew with the return of the two brothers and it was awarded its first Michelin star in 1955 and was renamed Les Frères Troisgros. In its heyday Troisgros cookery was stamped with the earthier traditions of France and Burgundy: pigeons cooked with whole cloves of garlic in their skins; snails in a little pan with a parsley butter; foie gras fried with spinach; a rib of beef with Fleurie wine and marrow bone.

Jean-Baptiste was a hard taskmaster, working seven days a week and insisted his sons not call him Papa, but Patron, while their mother was patronne rather than Mama. He consistently railed against the heavy sauces that were the stock in trade of contemporary cooks and never allowed flour in a sauce.

Les Frères Troisgros was ahead of its time, being the first serious restaurant to serve all dishes plated in the kitchen rather than reconstructed by waiters at the table. They also served red wine slightly cooler than was conventional at the time. It was a family affair. The breakdown of responsibilities meant Pierre looked after the food, Jean the sauces and wine, while other family members were in reception and Aunt Georgette was on the till. What with their wives all working in the restaurant too, half of the rooms in the hotel were permanently occupied by the extended Troisgros family. Their reputation grew, especially in the mid-Sixties, with its championing by Henri Gault and Christian Millau in their new food guide Gault Millau. They extolled it as being “simple and pure and good”, living by “the truth of the market”.

Despite this culinary rigour, there was a passionate championing of local produce as well as an innovative verging on casual attitude to traditional haute cuisine rules. Unlike other three star restaurants, Troisgros was happy to have salt on the table (“We are not judges – anyway, how can a large item be salted inside?”) and if a customer preferred to drink red wine with fish dishes, or white with red meat, that was up to them (“Never mind all that, drink what you want to drink. It’s your taste that counts”). 

Johnny Apple, the late great New York Times bon viveur, first stumbled across Troisgros in the mid-Sixties and perfectly described the nature of the experience:

When I asked for the wine list, I heard Jean-Baptiste murmur to one of his cronies, ''Let's see whether the rookie knows anything.'' I ordered a '61 Bonnes-Mares, which was pure luck. Bonnes-Mares proved to be one of Jean-Baptiste's favorite Burgundies, and that bottle served as my passport into the family circle; after dinner I found myself talking shop with Jean and Pierre. But first, I got down to business.

I ate my way through the house specialties: pâté de grives, made from thrushes; a scallop of salmon with sorrel sauce, invented here and copied everywhere, but not with such a perfect juxtaposition of slightly sweet fish and slightly sour herb; a thick little fillet steak topped with a medallion of bone marrow and a sauce made from Fleurie, one of the best Beaujolais, and a potato gratin, mystifyingly described on the menu as ''Forezienne'' in style. Only this year [2001] did I learn that the Forez is the fertile plain south of Roanne. After the spuds came the cheeses, and after them, ice creams, sorbets, fresh and stewed fruits, fruit sauces and other temptations, which you could combine as you liked, called ''le grand dessert.'' It, too, has been very widely imitated.

Apple wrote that after this experience he went back as frequently as he could and it became his favourite three-star Michelin in France. In 1967, Pierre travelled abroad to cook in various countries and also was involved in opening Maxim’s in Tokyo, one of the first French chefs to operate in Asia.

The accolades grew and in the early Seventies, at the beginning of the nouvelle cuisine movement, a survey of leading chefs considered Troisgros to be the best restaurant in the world. In his definitive book, Great Chefs of France (1978), restaurant critic Quentin Crewe declared Troisgros to be the most natural: “It is nearly impossible to imagine anyone going away from this place other than happy, for among chefs the Troisgros brothers are the greatest dispensers of joy and goodwill.”

Pierre was rotund, with a friendly moustachioed face and a more than passing resemblance to comic actor Oliver Hardy. He made a point of greeting his customers during service and doing everything in his power to accommodate their personal preferences. There was nothing stuffy about the service and Troisgros was the only three-star restaurant in France to maintain a public bar in the entrance that locals were welcome to use. Possessing a fine palate for wine, he enjoyed touring the estates of his friends, particularly in Burgundy, Bordeaux and in the northern Rhone. In 1992 he invested in a two-hectare Loire vineyard called Les Blondins, which is still served in the restaurant. When he was not cooking, he also confessed to a fondness for sport: tennis, football and basketball. He loved the cinema and had an interest in modern art — or enough to cover the restaurant wall with the sort of paintings admired by Michelin inspectors.

Jeremiah Tower, who was the first chef at Chez Panisse in Berkeley and later credited with the invention of California Cuisine. He told me he was cooking in Chez Panisse one night in the Seventies, when he heard a French voice behind him. "It was Jean Troisgros, who I didn’t realise was in the dining room. I loved his cuisine as his book had just come out and he said to me 'I so envy you,' and I was absolutely gobsmacked – “You envy me? You’re my hero – you have three Michelin stars…” and he said “No, No…you get to do whatever you want – because of the way things work in France, I can’t do anything that I want.” He then said “By the way, would you let my nephew Michel come and do a stage at Chez Panisse?” So, I said of course and when Michel arrived, he was still a teenager and the only thing he wanted to do was beurre blanc - that’s really about all he knew at that stage, but he stayed with us for about a year.”

In 1983, Jean Troisgros died of a heart attack, aged 56, so Pierre was joined by son Michel, aged 22, who apart from staging at Chez Panisse in California, spent time at Girardet in Switzerland, Taillevent in Paris and the Connaught in London. A decade later, Michel replaced Pierre, who remained a familiar figure in the restaurant and occasionally helped out in the kitchen. Michel put his own mark on the restaurant and introduced several Japanese elements as he had cooked regularly in Tokyo and admired the simplicity and quality of Japanese ingredients. Meanwhile, Claude became a successful restaurateur in New York and Anne-Marie cooked in a restaurant in Bordeaux owned by her husband. Asked in 2006 what he thought about his children’s choice of career, Pierre said “I am a happy man”.

The original site of Troisgros was opposite the local railway station, which at one point the local Mayor had painted pink and green in honour of their salmon and sorrel dish. 

Troisgros has been renamed Le Bois sans Feuilles (The forest without leaves). The overall operation is still run by Michel and his wife Marie-Pierre, who also manages the hotel. Sounding as enthusiastic as grandfather Pierre for progressive change, chef de cuisine César proclaims “The days of foie gras and truffled everything are over. Now it’s about vegetables, grains, and meat and fish from sustainable sources.”

Pierre Emile René Troisgros, chef, born September 3, 1928, Chalon-sur-Saône. Married Olympe Forté in 1955, d. 2008. Died September 23, 2020, Roanne, France. 

A shorter version of this obituary appears in The Times

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/pierre-troisgros-obituary-7p6n9cgtn

Upstairs at Noble Rot Soho

Where do fine wine lovers go to enjoy themselves in London? I’m not talking about those with infinite amounts of cash, who can afford the three to four times mark ups which are found in the multi-starred Michelin places – prices that are amongst the worst value on the planet. The Ledbury, The Square and Bonhams Restaurant were honourable exceptions but they are no more. There are a handful of St James’s clubs that still have extraordinary lists but they are only for male members and 67 Pall Mall, which is specifically for wine lovers, but is also members only.

The situation has been partially ameliorated with the arrival of Dan Keeling and Mark Andrew, whose Noble Rot opened on Lamb’s Conduit Street in 2015. At best, the cuisine was the equivalent of thoughtful pub food, cooked by Paul Weaver and overseen by Stephen Harris, chef of the renowned Sportsman near Whitstable, Kent. However, the food was secondary to the wine list, which itemized hundreds of wines. It was a pleasure to uncover obscure offerings such as Château des Tours from Rayas or Burgundy from Roulot. Their passion for wine extended to 

an eponymous publication, which, along with The World of Fine Wine, are the best wine magazines in the business, though from entirely different perspectives.

A year ago, Keeling and Andrew announced they were opening Noble Rot Soho on the former site of Soho’s Gay Hussar, the favoured restaurant of the Literary Labour Left. It was vaguely Hungarian food, thanks to the influence of proprietor Victor Sassie, who had spent time in Budapest. Relying on its unique blend of “gossip and goulash”, Sassie was the major reason for its success - he once threw out George Brown, the then Foreign Secretary, for groping a woman at a neighbouring table. Fellow Labour MP Tom Driberg, who Churchill once remarked, was the sort of person who gave sodomy a bad name, was once stretchered out from one of the private rooms. As he reached the front door, he hastened to reassure the startled diners that he was suffering from a heart attack rather than food poisoning. I used to go there occasionally more than 40 years ago with Christopher Hitchens, but the only Labour figure I recall seeing regularly was a jovial Roy Hattersley. Latterly, it was allegedly the gathering place for Tory Wets to engineer the ouster of Margaret Thatcher.

Greek Street still lives up to its louche reputation. Not so long ago, I was lunching at Soho House, when I glanced across the street and there silhouetted on a blind over a grubby first-floor window, was a couple copulating energetically. Further up Greek Street, no such view was on offer at Noble Rot Soho, probably because the first-floor window panes are slightly opaque. Such is the reputation of Keeling and Andrew and the deluge of praiseworthy coverage; it was impossible to get a reservation for at least a week. 

The décor is attractive and cosy, with saloon style seating along each of the mirrored walls with a display of decanters along the dado. 

Upstairs mural

The central open corridor leads to the upstairs rooms, which are more atmospheric, with full length murals celebrating the street front and former guests. The current customers all looked like they bugger around in the arts, with not a tie in sight. The bearded pair on the adjoining table were discussing the merits of Château Léoville Barton versus Beychevelle (Roy Jenkins favourite) though they ended up drinking Lafon-Rochet 87, a minor Saint-Estèphe from a questionable vintage, though the sommelier assures me it was perfectly potable. Overall, the wine list offers few bargains under £60 – you are better off trying Andrew Edmunds or 10 Greek St. However, once you go above this figure, there are plenty of interesting bottles nudging £80 and upwards. If you want to celebrate with some Champagne, Pol Brut Blanc de Blanc 02 for £132 and Cristal 08 at £240 are both steals. Corkage is a reasonable £25 and the general mark-up is usually double or less (except for wines under £60), which is rare for London. Alex Jackson, formerly of Sardine and Dock Kitchen is head chef, but it is unclear if he is actually in the kitchen as it says on the website that the cuisine is overseen by him. The set lunch of the day looked like a bargain at £22 for three courses. 

I drank a bottle of Murgo Etna Rosso 17, which was a perfect light fragrant lunch time wine. 

Maybe it is a mistake to review somewhere so early after opening but the food didn’t really do it for me 

– the Choux bun, duck liver parfait and Tokaji jelly was slightly chilled on the inside, so not a lot of impact while 

the game stuffed cabbage and sour cream was pleasant enough but verging on bland -  given how minced up the game was, it was impossible to guess what it actually was. 

And the Swaledale beef shin goulash “Gay Hussar” was not exactly packed with flavour – like a lot of beef shin, it was slightly dry – perhaps beef cheeks would be a better alternative. I imagine that paprika was somewhere in the mix, but it didn’t raise its voice. One argument could be that the food is kept distinctly under-seasoned for the sake of the fine wine, which is a valid enough excuse. 

The Armagnac Baba and whipped cream wasn’t saturated enough for my taste either, though admittedly the only Baba Rhum that knocked me sideways was at the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo and it probably cost more than the entire meal at Noble Rot Soho.

It almost seems irrelevant though to carp about the cuisine, as the atmosphere is addictive – perfect well-informed service, reasonable prices and everybody having an exceedingly good time. It is extraordinary how such a new venture has already embedded itself in Soho. If only a few more restaurants would offer this range of wines for such amounts. However, a problem faced by all restaurants that offer rarities at sensible prices is that they can sell out within the  week and often can’t be found again. The proprietors mentioned in their advance publicity that they had Cecile Tremblay Burgundy but I doubt if it will still be there much longer – ditto any wines produced by Rayas. However, there are plenty of alternatives to keep you amused or simply bring your own rarities. 

Noble Rot Soho (www.noblerot.co.uk) 2 Greek Street Soho W1D 4NB +44 207 183 8190

Closed Sundays. Set Lunch £22 for three courses or £70 without wine. 

A shorter version of this review appears in Reaction Life

https://reaction.life/noble-rot-soho-review-a-new-venue-for-wine-lovers-in-london/

Lucie “Lulu” Peyraud, who has died aged 102, was long considered the personification of “la cuisine de bonne femme”. Arguably the most loved and highly regarded home cook in all of France, she was also venerated abroad by leading chefs, wine merchants and writers. She was also the matriarch of a dynasty of wine-makers  – Domaine Tempier – located in the sheltered hills above Bandol in Provence, which is the leading wine of the local appellation. Standing less than five feet tall, she was entirely self-taught and regularly cooked for 20 or more guests at the vineyard over a large wood-fired hearth in her kitchen while occasionally utilising a tiny two-burner stove and oven in an adjoining room. 

Richard Olney, the American authority on French cuisine, published in 1994, Lulu’s Provençal Table, celebrating her cuisine and role in promoting Domaine Tempier wines, which had been owned by her family since the early nineteenth century. He remarked that the family were dedicated to the belief that “the meaning of life lies in love and friendship and that these qualities are best expressed at table. Perhaps love and friendship can never be quite the same in the absence of the cicada’s chant, of fresh sweet garlic and voluptuous olive oil, of summer-ripe tomatoes and the dense, spicy, wild fruit of the wines of Domaine Tempier, which reflects the scents of the Provençal hillsides and joyously embrace Lulu’s high-spirited cuisine.” The obsession with fresh local ingredients all came naturally to her, decades before the advent of the farm to table or the Slow Food movements. 

Jim Harrison, the American writer and gourmand, recounted that “If I have ever been to a home that may suitably be called magic, it must be that of the Peyraud family in Bandol. The place has all the delicate mystery one senses in reading Alain Fournier’s Le Grand Meaulnes but also the very visceral, sensual quality of the best food one is likely to eat, prepared by Lulu Peyraud.”

He reminisced about four dishes that were the best of their kind: “A Provençal daube; a soupe de poisson; a seventeen-pound snapper wrapped in grape leaves, soaked in olive oil and garlic, and cooked slowly on the wood grill; and two tiny legs of lamb, about two pounds apiece, braised with the smallest fresh April vegetables, including artichokes.” 

Alice Waters, the founder of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, first met Lulu Peyraud through Richard Olney in the mid-Seventies and considered Lulu Peyraud her mentor. She is said to have toasted Lulu Peyraud with a glass of Domaine Tempier Rosé after service every evening. “I am heartbroken," she said on social media. Waters made a wreath of olive branches and marble grapes and hung it on a fence outside of Chez Panisse, the most influential exponent of what later came to be called California Cuisine. "Tonight we are drinking Bandol rosé with Lulu's friends until we fall over! She had boundless love: Everyone who met her felt that she was their best friend." 

Sally Clarke, the proprietor of Clarke’s Restaurant in Notting Hill, recalled an evening “watching Lulu cook bouillabaisse for 20 of us using tiny wriggling crabs which she had found that morning in the market along with assorted rockfish, rascasses (scorpion fish) and moray eels. Her kitchen was the centre of the house and her big heart embraced everyone around her - hospitality was her middle name.”

Another reason cooking was so important in her household was she had seven children to feed and this made her cuisine special for another reason: “What makes it different from recipes in cookbooks and from restaurant cuisine is that I am always cooking for someone I love.” She credited her longevity to never drinking water but only Champagne and red wine. “I love Champagne because it makes you laugh while water only makes you rust.” Another factor she credited was her daily 50 swings on the swing in her garden.

Lucie Renée Tempier was born in Marseilles on Dec. 11, 1917, to Alphonse and Eugénie Tempier. Alphonse ran a leather-importing company which had been in the family since before the French Revolution but more importantly they had owned a vineyard near Bandol, 30 miles to the east of Marseilles since 1834. Wines from Bandol had a high reputation in the nineteenth century with their use of the Mourvèdre grape, but after the outbreak of the vine-killing phylloxera bug in 1864, they had been wiped out and replaced by faster growing inferior grapes. The Tempier wine had been sold in bulk to merchants in Marseilles and after the Depression, all but seven of the 23 acres had been torn up and replanted with peach trees.

Lucien Peyraud, who had been born five years earlier than Lulu and had trained in viticulture, married her in 1936 and after the Fall of France in 1940, Alphonse had gifted what remained of Domaine Tempier to the young couple. Alphonse found the last bottle of his prephylloxera wine in the cellar, which hugely impressed Lucien with its quality and longevity. Immediately, Lucien was determined to restore the Domaine and in 1941 helped create the new category of Appellation Bandol Contrôlée, which stipulated that at least 20% of the grapes had to be Mourvèdre, as that was the highest quality grape in the region which had been side-lined because of its low yield.  The proportion eventually rose to the current 50% although Domaine Tempier actually uses more than 80% Mourvèdre.

After acquiring several other neighbouring vineyards, Lucien Peyraud produced his first Rosé in 1943 while the revived red Domaine Tempier first appeared in 1951 and quickly established itself as the leading wine in the Appellation. It was subsequently championed by Richard Olney, who in the early Sixties had bought a simple farmhouse only a few miles from the Domaine. He had already met Lucien and Lulu at a wine event in Paris in 1955 and quickly became friends with the entire family. Lulu played an important role in promoting the wines, spending up to three days a week travelling by car and train all over France. However, she was very much focussed on creating a welcoming atmosphere at her table. As Olney remarked: “The table is laid in advance to feast the eyes of arriving guests…she may have spent hours in the kitchen before appearing, effervescent with good-natured conversation, apparently without a care in the world. Lulu’s meals, are, in fact, remarkable pieces of theatre, the more so because no one is aware of the direction and timing.” It is a family affair: “Paule is often in the kitchen, Catherine arrives with sumptuous desserts that are foreign to Lulu’s repertory, Jérome has perfected the techniques of mounting Lulu’s aïolis and rouilles, François takes charge of open-fire roasts or grills, and 

Jean-Marie choses and serves the wines.” Lulu also kept a detailed menu diary, so she could see at a glance what food and wine had been served previously to avoid repetition.

Jeremiah Tower, the father of California Cuisine and the most famous chef at Chez Panisse, still reminisces about one of the most memorable lunches he ever had there in the mid-Seventies. “What really impressed me was that her cooking was the absolute definition of elegant simplicity…she cooked a whole sea bass outside the kitchen door for Richard Olney and myself. Later when I went outside, there were just the embers of the grape vine cuttings. She had made this sauce of the roe in a mortar and pestle and added some olive oil and it was one of the best things I have ever tasted.”

She was no purist when it came to recipes: “You can do what you like in cooking… there is no typical version’’. When it came to bouillabaisse, ‘I put all the fish into a big cauldron with potatoes, tomatoes, garlic, fennel, saffron and water which are boiled fiercely for a short time –everyone has a feast of fish in their soup bowl.” Another personal touch was adding monkfish liver to the rouille. She was also very partial to raw sardine fillets in escabeche and sea urchins, which her sons would dive for in the Mediterranean.

Richard Olney played a major role in the expansion of Domaine Tempier into the United States by introducing California wine merchant Kermit Lynch to the Peyrauds in the early Seventies. Within a few years, Lynch was purchasing at least one third of the Domaines entire crop and selling it in America. Before long, Lynch had also purchased a villa close by Domaine Tempier and now spends at least half of the year based there.

 Lucien Peyraud had handed over control of the Domaine to his sons Francois and Jean-Marie in the early Sixties and died in 1996. Shortly afterwards, the sons also retired, although the family still owns the Domain, but the wines have been produced by Daniel Ravier since 2000.

Lulu Peyraud was also a passionate sailor and owned her own boat from the early Fifties. Until the last decade of her life, she liked to swim in the Mediterranean daily. She was cogent until her final brief illness. One neighbour who met her shortly before she died, recalled her words of advice:

“Il faut toujours rigoler, rigoler, et ne pas faire attention à tous ceux qui vous emmerdent.” (You always have to laugh - laugh and not pay attention to anyone who pisses you off.)

Lucie “Lulu” Peyraud, cook and wine proprietor, was born December 11, 1917 and died on October 7, 2020, aged 102.

A shorter version of this obituary appeared in The Times

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2020-10-29/register/lulu-peyraud-obituary-2smp7b26g

After first being announced more than two years ago, Kol finally opened its doors in October at a spacious site, directly opposite Giorgio Locatelli in Marylebone. Sadly, its doors were only open for a couple of weeks before having to temporarily close because of the Covid Lockdown, though it is bound to return. The theme is Modernist Mexican, which makes its name a bit of a puzzle. Kol apparently means cabbage in Judeo-Spanish (and Malay) which is odd enough, especially given that there was no sign of this humble vegetable anywhere on the menu. 

Lockdown or not, it had been full since the day it opened and has no dinner tables for two until 2021. The reason for this enthusiastic response is because Santiago Lastra, the Mexican chef, was project manager for René Redzepi’s Mexico Pop up in 2017, so there is a sprinkling of stardust from the leading chef of his generation. 

Despite the sniping from some who found it unpalatable to spend US$750 a head for René’s Mexican experience, it was a huge success, with a menu that featured dishes such as cactus with tamarind, grilled chillis stuffed with chocolate sorbet and tortillas filled with grasshoppers and tomatoes.

I have eaten at Redzepi’s Noma and also at his Pop Ups from Poland to Peru and can testify he is a master at creating dishes that stun you with their juxtaposition of flavours and textures from local ingredients. 

Santiago Lastra declares he is following the same path, with his ingredients coming mostly from Britain. However, corn, chilli and chocolate are all imported from Mexico. Santiago refuses to use Avocado as he says it is not a genuine ingredient in Mexican cuisine, though the Aztecs first made a form of guacamole at least as early as the Sixteenth century. (Almost as interesting is that the word first used to describe avocados by the indigenous tribes in Mexico was also slang for testicle – something about the shape and the fact that they always came in pairs.)

Apart from a chef’s table menu, which wasn’t specified, there are only two dining options – four courses for £55 or £70 for the same dishes plus a langoustine taco. 

Everything is prepared in an open-plan central kitchen area with efficient service from the predominantly Spanish staff.

The first amuse was a seaweed and chili broth served in a stoneware cup, which packed a satisfying umami hit and was quite warming, perhaps thanks to some mescal, though the chilli sensation was purely surface and lacked depth. 

Then there was a tiny scoop of pistachio mole with a scattering of salad leaves and a corn crisp. This could easily be visually confused with guacamole except that it was virtually tasteless, not helped by the dominance of the flavours from the challengely hard corn crisps. Its fine to use alternative ingredients to the traditional ones but only if they provide an interesting taste.

Next, the ceviche of kohlrabi was a thing of beauty and the only savoury dish that was served without a tortilla, taco or corn crisp. It was subtle yet complex, assisted by the pink mole (sauce), pumpkin aguachile and smoked beetroot cubes and an excellent side portion of chilli sauce on the side. 

The langoustine taco was satisfyingly sweet and enhanced by squeezing the juices from its tail-less body over it. However, it was hardly more than a mouthful given the size of the langoustine. 

The next dish was semi-raw lamb cubes, and a herb salad guajillo mayonnaise completely hidden by a large corn disc. Again, the corn flavours overshadowed the subtlety of the dish.

Our very own quadrapus

The main course we chose was the whole grilled octopus with bone marrow and a tiny cup of Jerusalem artichokes. The octopus, which came from Spain, was exquisitely cooked and meltingly soft. It was cooked in lamb fat, which wasn’t a problem but the accompanying bone marrow didn’t have any relevance to the main ingredient. In fact, it was a hindrance as it was caramelised with sugar, which made it sweet and sickly. The waiter’s suggestion was to wrap the octopus up in freshly baked tortillas, then add the bone marrow and artichoke. Again, I failed to see how the combination enhanced the experience – in fact, every dish was more satisfying and interesting if you actually stripped away the corn element. The only alternative on the menu was for the octopus - Coloradito, which is a braised short rib with quince mole, pasilla Oxaca and roasted carrots. 

The pudding was a traditional chocolate steam cake wrapped in a banana leaf with corn husk ice cream and sea buckthorn. The chocolate cake was more like a paste but everything worked well together.

There was a wine pairing for each of the two menus, ranging from £45 to £60, but given that the list had a preponderance of obscure natural wines from Georgia, Czech Republic, Croatia and Switzerland, I declined. There was a minor Chardonnay from Burgundy, which was priced at £96.75 (retail cost £22). Kol has a strict policy of no corkage, so the options are narrowed to drinking predominantly fringe wines, which they optimistically call the “new classics”.

To sum up, this was not a fulfilling experience – there were not enough highlights or original combinations to stimulate the palate. A good example of how to succeed with this approach is the Michelin-starred Ikoyi, which is described as a Nigerian restaurant but is in fact a Modernist reinterpretation of Nigerian ingredients. Unlike at Ikoyi, there was precious little feeling at Kol that the combinations created something greater than their parts. Also, for the price, one would expect more generous amounts – the so-called whole grilled octopus we were offered for our table of three was in fact a quadrapus and the lamb dish was the only other one that might barely qualify as even starter sized. This wouldn’t be worth mentioning if the dishes had been more memorable but when they aren’t, hunger pangs have a tendency to become more apparent.

However, regardless of this, it will be a commercial and critical success, such is the marketing power of an endorsement by René Redzepi and the craving of the dining community for something aspiring to be local as well as apparently innovative and ground-breaking.

Kol Restaurant 9 Seymour St London W1H 7BA

Set Menus £55 and £70 https://kolrestaurant.com

+44 20 3829 6888

A shorter version of this appeared in Reaction Life

https://reaction.life/kol-review-the-new-mexican-in-need-of-a-little-extra-spice/

 James Symington, the scion of the Port family, had many interests, ranging from collecting classic cars to shooting snipe, but nothing came close, even in retirement, to his single-minded promotion of Port. A devotee of the Downton Abbey television soap opera, he was shocked to discover in the first series no reference to the consumption of Port amongst the Upper Classes. He immediately wrote to Julian Fellowes, the writer and producer, remonstrating that in the early part of the Twentieth Century, the era of the drama, Vintage Port was the drink of choice in grand country houses. This omission was rectified in subsequent series and suddenly after dinner, gentlemen at Downton Abbey were passing the Port. 

In his nearly 40 years of involvement in the family business in Oporto in Northern Portugal, James Symington was responsible for expanding the market for categories such as Premium Ruby (now called Reserve) LBV (Late Bottled Vintage) and Single Quinta Vintage and Vintage Port throughout the world, especially in the United States, where Graham’s is said to be the most valuable Port brand. 

Symington became the largest producer and shipper of premium Port worldwide, with James Symington acquiring the leading historic Vintage Port brands of Graham’s and Quinta do Vesúvio, adding to their existing ownership of Warre, Smith Woodhouse and Dow. Subsequent to this, in 2010, Symington’s acquired Cockburn. Despite Vintage Port’s fame, this sector of the market only amounts to less than 1% of total Port sales by volume but considerably more by value. 

Short of stature, he was a single-minded businessman, who was exceedingly hard-nosed and happy to speak his mind, even if it ruffled feathers in the tightly-knit community of Anglo-Portuguese producers in Oporto, not to mention the Portuguese members, who were not really considered serious competition even though Taylor and Fonseca were equal to and occasionally ranked higher than the Symington brands. One former senior employee who departed from Symington was asked to sign a non-compete agreement which didn’t even mention any of the Portuguese producers. A marketing initiative that offered a significant sales increase of Symington-owned Port would be vetoed if it also could potentially lead to a rival selling even a few more cases of their wines. Whenever he travelled past Taylor’s, the rival vintage Port establishment, James Symington would declare, with a smile on his face: “What’s that terrible smell of Vinegar?” He once remarked to a family member that “I would have made a very good dictator.”

The Port industry was facing a complete meltdown in the Sixties but through his efforts in raising standards in bottling and then worldwide marketing, he left it in 1998 in a far more viable state. He was also instrumental in reviving the fortunes of Madeira wine when he took control of the leading production company in the late Eighties. 

James Ronald O’Callaghan Symington was born in Oporto on December 8, 1934 in the family house opposite the British Club on the Campo Alegre. He was the third generation of Symingtons in the Port Trade, which was founded by his grandfather Andrew James Symington, who arrived from Glasgow in 1882. He married Beatriz Leitão de Carvalhosa Atkinson from an Anglo-Portuguese family that had been in the Port trade since the Seventeenth Century and became responsible for production of some leading brands such as Warre and Dow’s. His son Ronald, James’s father, ran the Symington family firm along with several cousins, an arrangement that persists until this day.

With the threat of the Second World War spreading to Portugal, James along with his two sisters were flown to North America in 1941 on a Pan Am Clipper Flying Boat accompanied by their mother Nora. They ended up in Montreal, where James attended Lower Canada College before returning to Portugal two years later, where he boarded at Lisbon’s St Julian’s School. After the war ended in 1946, he was sent to Ampleforth, the leading Catholic Public School, in Yorkshire. The Port trade had been in the doldrums since the Thirties, so despite being awarded a place in 1952 at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, he was unable to take it because family finances were stretched at the time. In fact, Ronald Symington had to inform his son that there weren’t enough resources to even employ him in the family business, so he joined the army instead. In 1954, after training at Eaton Hall, he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry Regiment but immediately applied to be transferred to the King’s African Rifles, who were currently fighting the Mau Mau Insurgency in Kenya. During his 16 months of patrolling around Mount Kenya and the Aberdares, he learned to speak fluent Swahili and was known by his Samburu Askaris as Kwa Bracho due to having given them lessons on how to polish their equipment with Brasso. James Symington maintained his links with Kenya for the rest of his life, visiting annually with family and friends as well as supporting conservation efforts and paying for a JCB digger in Northern Samburuland to assist local families and improve the habitat for elephants. He also supported the wildlife conservation efforts of the Northern Rangeland Trust in Kenya run by his friend Ian Craig.

After demobilisation in 1956, he worked for the Iraqi Oil Company and other business ventures before finally joining the family firm and marrying Penelope Craig-Mooney in 1960. Initially he worked in the tasting room and was responsible for the 1966 and 1970 Warre vintages along with Graham’s 1970, which is considered an exceptional wine. He was also responsible for moving the company gradually away from its dependence on bulk shipments with strategic investments in additional bottling capacity.  He became Joint Managing Director in 1970 and remained in that position until 1998 and was also Chairman from 1994 until 1997. After handing over the production side to his cousin Peter in 1973, he focussed on the commercial side, opening up new markets in Scandinavia and expanding their presence in the Pacific Region and North America.

In 1987, James Symington and his wife, Penny, purchased the semi-abandoned 350-acre estate of Quinta do Vila Velha and converted it into their family home along with 120 acres of premium vineyards.

In the late Eighties, he was instrumental in taking over the Madeira Wine Company, which was run successfully until it was sold back to the original owners in 2011. Another significant achievement was the creation of the Primum Familiae Vini (PFV) in 1992. This was a loose association of some of the leading wine producing families in the world, such as Miguel Torres, Piero Antinori and Robert Drouhin whose common purpose is to champion the values of family-owned wine companies and ensuring that they continue into the next generation.

One aspect of the Port industry which James Symington was slow off the mark was the move to produce still table wine in the Douro Valley as opposed to fortified Port. David Baverstock, a young Australian wine-maker at Symington’s, was refused permission to commercially develop table wine, so he left in 1991 and is now the award-winning wine maker of Portuguese table wines for Herdade do Esporao in the Alentejo region of Portugal. Shortly after James Symington retired from the firm, an agreement was reached with Bruno Prats, then owner of Chateau Cos d’Estournel in Bordeaux, to jointly produce Chryseia, which has since become one of the most prestigious Douro Table Wines. Table wine now makes up nearly half of all wine produced in the Douro Valley. 

His son Rupert, is currently the Group CEO of Symington Family Estates, with members of his family and cousins also in key positions.

One of the most commented on attributes of James Symington, was his love of practical jokes. This could manifest itself on a picnic by him throwing balls of bacalhau (dried cod) at startled guests to catch in their mouths or launching paper planes from the top of an atrium at a leading New York hotel. Another trick he was known for was to walk up to a ruined medieval castle with guests, where he would “discover” a bottle of port wedged inside the wall. After a dinner attended by leading experts in the world of Port, he once served two decanters of Vintage Port blind as is the custom. All the assembled company then spent a long time questioning which vintage was which and could one possibly be Dow and the other Graham or was one 1963 and the other 1966. It turned out that he had decanted a magnum of Graham’s 1966 into two separate decanters, though no one spotted it. 

He was a passionate shooter of game birds, including snipe off the marshes south of Oporto and woodcock on the Dunlossit estate of Bruno Schroeder on the Isle of Islay in Scotland, which he visited with a group of friends annually since 2003. 

James Symington had recently been in poor health but he insisted on driving out to visit the grape pickers during the recent vintage at Quinta do Vila Velha. He had a serious accident in his Range Rover, which resulted in a brain haemorrhage before later succumbing to a heart attack.

During the Covid-restricted service at Nevogilde Church in Porto, members of the remaining Anglo-Portuguese Port shipping families attended, such as the Grahams, Robertsons, Sinclairs and Cobbs. One of the largest wreaths was sent by the friends who made the annual shooting trip to Scotland - it simply said “The Woodcock of Islay.”

James Symington, Port Shipper, was born on December 8, 1934 and Died on November 7, 2020.

A more succinct version of this obituary appeared in The Times

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/james-symington-obituary-xwpw2c729

Steven was one of the most kind, affable and charming people I ever knew. There was something eternally boyish, verging on Woosterish, about his enthusiasms not to mention his complete inability to ever say anything nasty about anybody. I would see him occasionally at tastings and before the plague, we would both meet twice a year at the Saintsbury Club for oenophiles – probably the only institution with an average age higher than that of the House of Lords. Steven got a worthy send off in the obituary pages and even managed to have an editorial written about him in The Times (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-times-view-on-the-life-of-steven-spurrier-judgment-of-paris-537fg0svt). One obit said he was “the unsung hero of wine”, which he was anything but – virtually every fine wine enthusiast around the globe knew and loved him. In the Summer of 1976, I spent a few weeks in Paris, eager to expand my nascent knowledge of wine, which had been put on hold during my years reporting in Indochina and South east Asia. There was a good range of vintage Bordeaux at Nicolas, not to mention their special list of 45 and 28 Bordeaux Second Growths for a mere F500 (£25) each. However, my loyalties switched after I stumbled over Les Caves de la Madeleine in an alley close to Fauchon. It was a quirky place run by Steven Spurrier, an Englishman, but what especially appealed to me was Ducru Beaucaillou '61 at F80 (£8) a bottle. I recall being bowled over after drinking it with a French journalist friend and his tricky mother, who reluctantly conceded it was “pas mal”.  This was only two months after the Judgement of Paris event, which propelled Steven Spurrier to international notoriety, but I was completely unaware of it. 

Steven Spurrier could hardly have imagined that he would soon be both famous and notorious for organising the most talked-about wine tasting in history. In a scrupulously fair event in 1976, Californian wines were voted superior to their French equivalents by nine of France’s leading wine experts. The French wine industry was left reeling. As Spurrier’s wife, Bella, surmised: “There goes your Légion d’Honneur.”

As with many of the key moments in his career, Steven’s presence in Paris was not part of a grand plan. Thanks to the inheritance of a large fortune in his twenties, in 1969 he had purchased a property with an unmodernised farmhouse in Provence where he had hoped to start an antiques business. When the project was abandoned due to spiralling costs, he could not face returning to London, so he headed to Paris and purchased Les Caves de la Madeleine, an old-fashioned wine shop close to Fauchon and Hédiard, then the leading food shops in Paris. The widow who owned Les Caves was initially sceptical that this young Englishman could maintain the standards she and her late husband had set so he offered to work with her unpaid for six months to show his serious intent. By the end of the six months, she was won over and immediately after Spurrier took complete control, he placed an advertisement in the International Herald Tribune announcing that “Your wine merchant speaks English”. It took off with the large English-speaking expatriate community as well as curious Parisians.

Patricia Gallagher, his young American assistant, thought it would be a good idea to celebrate the forthcoming 1976 American Bicentenary with a tasting of Californian wines. Even though most French oenophiles had never tried them, they assumed New World wines to be at best promising, but poor imitations of the great bottles of France.

After visiting California and painstakingly tasting at the leading boutique wineries, six chardonnays and six cabernet sauvignons were chosen. They were dispatched to Paris as hand luggage of a French group touring Napa Valley. This was necessary to avoid French Customs, who could prove obstructive as they had trouble comprehending that wine was actually produced in the USA. None of these Californian wines were available in France. Nine of France’s leading figures in the wine world participated, from Aubert de Villaine, the co-proprietor of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti to Christian Vannequé, the head sommelier of La Tour d'Argent. 

The results were dramatic — Californian wines were voted top in both red and white categories. Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars ’73 and Chateau Montelena ’73 had triumphed over Château Mouton-Rothschild ’70 and Meursault-Charmes  Roulot ’73. One judge was so shocked she unsuccessfully demanded to withdraw her votes. She also declared “It was a false test because California wines are trying to become too much like French wines.” Aubert de Villaine is said to have commented ‘On a pris un coup de pied dans la derrière.’ (We took a kick up the rear).

Steven himself was quite surprised as he had expected the American wines to come a respectable fourth or fifth overall. There was no interest in the event before the result: only one journalist, George Taber, from Time magazine, had turned up, but they promptly called it the Judgment of Paris. Since then, George Taber wrote a book about it and Hollywood made a film based on the tasting — Bottle Shock starring Alan Rickman as Steven, who found the film “deeply insulting”. Eric Asimov, the New York Times wine editor, remarked “While it’s ostensibly about wine “Bottle Shock’’ has a lot more in common with a beer commercial.”

Rather than admit it had been a fair fight, some of the critics said French wines were slower to develop but subsequent blind tastings with the same wines 10 and even 30 years later, still resulted in Californian wines coming out top. Steven briefly became persona non grata in French wine circles while some of the critics were accused of treason by their colleagues. As for the credibility and sales of Californian wines, it had an immediate and lasting impact, but mainly in the United States and the rest of the world, rather than France. 

However, Aubert de Villaine thinks the Judgement of Paris had a profound effect on French wine beyond the competitive aspect. He told me "The Paris Tasting is always presented as a victory of California wines versus some great French wines and commented as such, when, for me, its most important consequence, which is not much spoken about, is the impact it had on the French wines, especially Burgundy. It made us realize that competition existed, that other regions of the world could make great wines and that we were ourselves often failing to express all the potential of our terroirs…We had to go back to work! It is exactly what happened. The Paris Tasting is of course not the only factor but it is one factor that had its importance to help lead us to a level of quality, in Burgundy at least, that could not even be imagined in the ‘70s!"

While the Judgment of Paris is indelibly linked to Steven and his reputation, he also made an important contribution through his creation of L’Académie du Vin, France’s first private wine school, and later the Christie’s Wine Course in London. Equally important is the impact he has made on people in the wine trade, with countless stories recounted of his helpfulness and eagerness to promote obscure wines throughout the globe. However, as he noted before he died, “None of my wine ventures has ever made money”.

He was also the best-dressed person in the British wine trade, with tailor-made Tommy Nutter suits, usually with one of his 30 Turnbull & Asser handkerchiefs in the top pocket. His reputation as a committed bon viveur was furthered by such caprices as installing a portable refrigerator in the boot of his sports car to keep his champagne cool or taking a hamper of foie gras and grouse, along with a bottle of 1945 Bordeaux, to a friend languishing in Brixton prison.

While at the London School of Economics, he joined the university wine society and confessed to spending more time learning to cook in his Belgravia flat than studying. Even so, he did manage to graduate in 1963 with second class honours. Although he was keen to enter the wine trade, no positions were available so he ended up selling encyclopaedias. While bemoaning his fate in a Knightsbridge restaurant where the lobster was especially cheap, a young man at a neighbouring table proffered his card and invited him to visit him at the wine merchants Christopher & Co in Jermyn Street. While not as well-known as Berry Bros or Justerini & Brooks, Christopher’s had the oldest pedigree of them all, claiming to have only been in Jermyn Street “since the Fire”.

During this period his grandfather had died, leaving him £250,000, equivalent now to about £6 million, which was his share of the proceeds from the sale of his business, which had provided gravel for the construction of the M1 motorway.

After several months in the cellars of Christopher’s, Spurrier decided to spend the following year working at wine estates in France, Germany, Spain and Portugal. Because of his inheritance, he offered to do so at his own expense, which meant he was frequently invited to dine with the proprietors and further his education in fine wine.

On his return to London, no position was offered at Christopher’s, though he found another job with a wine merchant. In the meantime he was busy burning through his inheritance, investing in restaurants, nightclubs and even films. He wore Carnaby Street styles, partied at Annabel’s and met Jimi Hendrix. He later confessed that “A lot of money was stolen from me . . . People who had ideas and no money found me an easy touch.”

In 1968 he married Bella Lawson and after an alcohol-fuelled reception, they took the Golden Arrow from Victoria Station to Paris for their honeymoon. His mother had packed a hamper along with a bottle of Château Pape-Clément ’53 for the journey while his father thoughtfully booked two first class cabins so they had one to be sick in and another for the remainder of the journey.

After the failure of their Provençal adventure, Spurrier decided to try his luck in Paris, where he found a large barge on the Seine moored opposite the Gare d’Orsay, which was extensively refurbished and remained their floating home for the next two years. With the success of the Judgment of Paris, Les Caves de la Madeleine thrived, as did his neighbouring Académie du Vin, which extended its scope to include tastings from all important wine regions in France. Things started to go wrong in the early Eighties, with one thieving staff member forcing one of his restaurants into bankruptcy.

A move to New York in 1981 ended badly in less than a year, with poor investments and family illness, so it was back to London. Shortly after his return Michael Broadbent, head of Christie’s wine department, asked Spurrier to set up a wine course, which he ran for the next 30 years. Later ventures such as his Académie  du Vin ventures in Italy and India failed to gain traction, though his Japanese outpost still survives.

In 1985 Steven had begun writing a regular wine column in Tatler and also published several books about French wine. However, his French enterprises were now losing money and ultimately all went to pay off growing debts and tax demands. Other opportunities arose, including an appointment as wine consultant for Singapore Airlines.

In 1991 he began another job as head of the wine department of Harrods, but that only lasted for six months as Mohammed Fayed resented that Steven gained more publicity than he did. Shortly afterwards Steven was at a wine industry trade ball, when Sarah Kemp, the managing director of Decanter magazine, asked him how he was liking Harrods. When he replied “I’ve been fired”, she offered him a position as consultant editor and later to be their chief Bordeaux taster.

He then settled into the pattern he maintained for the rest of his life — attending tastings and dinners all over the world and writing a regular wine column in Decanter. In 2004 he also created Decanter’s World Wine Awards, which has evolved into the world’s largest wine competition. Spurrier was always curious to try new wine regions, whether they were in Lebanon, Slovenia, Georgia or China.

In 2008 he decided to plant 20 acres of vineyards on his farm in Dorset, which is now marketed as Bride Valley Dorset sparkling wine. A decade later, he launched a publishing house called Académie du Vin Library, which publishes books on wine and the wine trade.

In his last interview in December, reflecting on current wine writing, he said: “There is too much useless information — too much hype and too much concentration on value for money rather than value for pleasure.” He added that he hated “show off wines”, preferred wines that expressed rather than impressed, and that he was becoming more partial to the Sangiovese grape in Tuscany’s Chianti and Brunello di Montalcino. However, Bordeaux remained the bedrock of his personal cellar and his own taste. When asked for his favourite Bordeaux of all time, he included a Lafite 1806, Margaux 85 (one of my favourites too) and a jereboam of Chateau d’Yquem 1988. Steven revealed to a friend just before he died: "Dear Boy, since my twenties, I have drunk at least a litre of wine every day of my life".

While wine was the prime focus of his professional life, he remained passionate about art, which he started collecting in his late teens. “Wine has been my life but art has been an addictive hobby,” he said. “Art means more to me emotionally than wine — there’s no contest.” He also believed “there are three important things in life: someone to love, something to do and something to look forward to”. He is survived by his wife, Bella, son, Christian, a writer, and daughter, Kate, an accountant.

In his final weekend, surrounded by art in his bedroom in Dorset, he told Jancis Robinson, an old friend: “I was a privileged boy and I had a lot of luck. But I have loved wine — and art — all my life, and the wonderful people I have been lucky enough to meet and perhaps inspire.’”

Steven Spurrier, wine expert, was born on October 5, 1941. He died of cancer on March 9, 2021, aged 79

A shorter version of this obituary appeared in The Times

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/steven-spurrier-obituary-j3rcmz7bx

A life in Wine by Steven Spurrier (2020) https://academieduvinlibrary.com

Wine – a way of Life by Steven Spurrier

(Adelphi 2018)

A lengthier version of the Academie du Vin version – allegedly poorly edited but it has far more amusing and diversionary material in it.