A clever cheese plate at Dabbous

I've said this before but it always surprises me how little effort restaurants make to serve their cheese with style so it was good to find this clever cheese plate at one of London's hottest new openings, Dabbous.

What caught my eye was the fact that it came with baked apple. In fact it was more like the sort of sticky, caramelised apple you find on the top of a tarte tatin - though not as sweet.

The cheeses were from front to back were Driftwood a French-style goats' cheese from Whitelake in Somerset, Wigmore, a bloomy-rinded ewes milk cheese from Berkshire, a scoop of creamy Lancashire Bomb a 24 month old Lancashire cheese from Goosnargh and Crozier Blue, a ewes milk cheese from Co. Tipperary, sister (brother?) cheese to the more famous Cashel Blue. The Lancashire and the Crozier Blue went particularly well with the apple.

Full marks for presentation and for serving a selection of British and Irish rather than French or Italian cheeses. The plate also came with toasted sourdough - toasted on one side which didn't make it too crisp.

Four good restaurant dishes with cheese

I'm always on the lookout for interesting cheese dishes on restaurant menus and here are four recent ones which would be simple enough to adapt at home. (STILL writing my current book so I haven't had time to roadtest them but they should, I hope, inspire you!)

First a shallot tart tatin with goats cheese cream (above) at The Albion pub in Islington. Clever presentation - it looks just like a classic apple-based tatin with a scoop of what looks like icecream melting into it. The chef, Richard Turner, says you use 'unripened' goats cheese, beat it until smooth then add double cream and continue beating [until you get a scoopable texture, I would guess] They served it with a few rocket leaves and a drizzle of wild garlic purée.


Next a rather dramatic looking dish of burrata, basil and blood orange at Yotam Ottolenghi's new restaurant Nopi. I'm not sure I don't prefer my burrata (a richer kind of mozzarella) roughly torn Jamie Oliver-style but the combination with blood orange and coriander was brilliant.


Then Gorgonzola and date croquetas from The Opera Tavern, a great combination of sharp, salty, sweet and gooey. (I love croquetas in any guise.)


And finally, a deliciously old fashioned starter of creamy smoked haddock in individual ramekins at the Brown & Forrest smokery in Somerset. Just flaked smoked haddock in a bechamel with a bit of strong cheddar added and grated cheddar on top. Perfect comfort food.

Do eggs go with cheese?

When you're working on a recipe book - as I am at the moment - you have to think not only 'would I actually make this' but 'would the people who are (hopefully) going to buy it?' And it's a tricky one when it comes to eggs and cheese.

Of course you couldn't make a cheese soufflé without both but even then not everyone likes the idea of hot cheesy foam, my husband included. And I don't really like cheese omelettes that much, still less that classic retro dish of eggs mornay - eggs in a cheese sauce (although a bit of spinach helps)

It does of course depend on the cheese. Parmesan is pretty good with eggs - much better than Cheddar which tends to separate and go fatty when inserted in an omelette (I shudder even to think about it). It also helps to have another ingredient in the dish like onions, potatoes or courgettes as in a frittata though even then I'm not that keen.

Or wasn't until I came across a near perfect cheesy egg dish the other night at a restaurant called Riverstation in Bristol: a cauliflower and smoked mozzarella frittata, about as unlikely a combination as you could imagine and which I had to order out of sheer curiosity. It was really delicious - though admittedly it doesn't look much from the rather blurry image above.

Smoking mozarella not only gives it a more interesting flavour but a firmer texture which really worked well in the frittata alongside the lightly cooked cauliflower. The accompanying roast cherry tomatoes which had been drizzled with balsamic vinegar provided an interesting sweet-sour contrast as did some bitter rocket leaves.

I checked out the recently published Flavour Thesaurus, my current bedtime reading, to see what author Niki Segnit had to say about eggs and cheese and she didn't even mention them as a combination which suggests its not just me who feels this way. What about you? Do you use the two together and if so how?

PS Writing this I realise I'm perfectly OK with quiche. Must be the pastry - and the cream!

Androuet comes to London

I was wandering through Spitalfields market yesterday when I came across a smart-looking cheese shop - the first London outpost of the famous Parisien fromagerie Androuet. It's pretty small with a mixture of French and European cheeses, supplied by Androuet and English ones, sourced through Paxton and Whitfield with whom they appear to be in partnership.

There's a chic little wine and cheese bar at the back where they're already offering cheese plates and apparently plan to offer classic cheese dishes like raclette and fondue shortly.

I didn't have time to browse but managed to pick up a cheese I hadn't tasted: a delicious Swiss cheese called Bergblumenkase or Bergblume which I discover is rolled in alpine herbs. It's quite similar to a Gruyère in texture but much richer and fuller in flavour. I suspect it would go best with a crisp fruity white wine but it rubbed along fine with the modest Cabardes we were drinking last night.

I'll go back and try the hot dishes which I hope are better than those at L'Art du Fromage, the cheese-focussed restaurant I reviewed a few weeks back. It certainly looks a much more contemporary joint and has the virtue of being in a rather more accessible location.

A model way to serve cheese

We weren't planning to have cheese at what was already an over-indulgent lunch at Texture today but when we spotted their cheese course we had to give it a try. It consisted of just three cheeses - Valençay, Pecorino Sardo and Stichelton, cut and served on a square slate, each with a complementary relish.

In the case of the Valençay it was a honey and muscat jelly, the Pecorino was paired with a little peeled celery salad and the Stichelton with a delicately spiced pear and apple compote. There was also two kinds of toast, one made from thick slices of wholegrain bread and one (at the back of the picture) from some very fine slices of apricot bread.

The sommelier Erica came up with the perfect pairing, a spectacular glass of 1988 Cossart Gordon Sercial Madeira (see the website under Colheita) - all cream and caramelised nuts yet amazingly dry.

A model modern way to serve cheese.

A cheese room: the new 'must-have' restaurant accessory?

As I was lunching at the River Café this week (see here for my review) I took the opportunity to take a look at their glossy new cheese room that they installed after their refit a couple of years ago following the fire that destroyed their kitchen.

In fact it wasn't as large or as lavish as I'd imagined - just a narrow room at the far end of the private dining room (above) but it enables them to keep their cheeses at the ideal temperature and humidity (between 10-12°C and 80-85% respectively)


Needless to say the cheeses themselves were perfect specimens like this Provolone del Monaco (above) and Puzzone di Moena (below) from Trentino Alto Adige, both unpasteurised cows milk cheeses.


I've only seen one other cheese room in London at the South African steak restaurant High Timber but they look so cool I'm sure other restaurants are going to want to follow suit.

Have you come across a restaurant with a good cheese room?

Cheesy treats at Flinty Red

Last night we went to a new restaurant and wine bar in Bristol called Flinty Red with a fashionable tapas-y sort of menu. Nothing unusual about that you might think except for the larger than usual number of dishes that were based on cheese. In fact I was so overjoyed by this I tried three of them as my starter, main course and dessert.

The first dish was Fontina cheese, toast, speck and Finocchiona (above). In my excitement I zoomed in on the words fontina cheese and toast and assumed it would involve melted cheese but in fact it was a plate of charcuterie and cheese with a toasted piece of sourdough alongisde. Couldn’t fault it though.

Next up - and my favourite dish - was buckwheat and Tallegio ravioli with chard and potato which was a star combination. (Potato and cheese - who could improve on that?)


And finally Perroche crushed with armagnac and Castagnaccio (below - an Italian chestnut flour cake) which I have to admit didn’t quite hit the spot. Perroche is a delicate cheese and lost its character under the assault of the armagnac. The chef, Matt said what he had really been after and had been unable to source had been goats’ curd which I think would have worked. (An accompanying glass of Bramley and Gage quince liqueur was spot on though).


Despite this reservation this is a great little restaurant with a fantastic wine, beer and drinks list and plenty for all foodlovers - not just cheeselovers - to enjoy.

A nice simple cheese course

Just as I was whingeing about how restaurants never seem to offer cheese these days I walked into one that not only had an interesting starter - a porchetta salad with Pecorino - but a model cheese course: not carrying a supplement but as part of a fixed price menu.

The restaurant was Arbutus and the course a couple of slices of Tomme de Savoie (from La Fromagerie, one of the best cheese shops in London), some nice rustic bread and a few lightly dressed lettuce leaves. Simple, delicious and all you really want at the end of your meal. Other restaurants who say it can't be done please take note!

Why aren't restaurants more imaginative about cheese?

I was thinking about this blog the other day and realised that one of the reasons I don't post more often (apart from having too many other things to do) is that I don't often come across an amazing cheese dish in a restaurant. Or a really interesting cheese course that doesn't cost significantly more than a dessert.

There aren't that many chefs who put a named dish with a named cheese on the menu - odd when they are by and large keen to stress the provenance of other ingredients like their meat, fish and vegetables. Food writer and restaurateur Mark Hix is a notable exception and La Fromagerie in Moxon Street in Marylebone does a great job but I haven't come across many others You'd think more restaurants would be offering cheese-based dishes to vegetarians but that doesn't seem to be the case.

It's not good news for Britain's many talented artisan cheesemakers who could do with a showcase for their efforts.

I've come across some great places when I've been travelling, especially in Canada (see picture above) and the States and recently heard about a fabulous-sounding restaurant in New York called Casellula which someone mentioned on Twitter, which offers really imaginative cheese sandwiches and cheese flights.

So come on, restaurant entrepreneurs, why can't we have a cutting edge cheese café in London? Or anywhere else in the UK, come to that. It's not as if there aren't a lot of us cheeselovers out there . . .

If you know of a restaurant where you can get great cheese dishes or an interesting cheese course, do let me know.

Cheese at Lido

It's been a bit of a barren time for cheese lately. I was expecting to find some interesting cheeses in Priorato in Spain where I've been for the past couple of days but it was just the usual Manchego. But I came across a couple of really nice dishes last week at one of our local Bristol restaurants called Lido which I've mentioned on the blog before.

The first was a salad of deep fried artichokes, fresh herb labneh (remember labneh?) and crisp flatbread (above) a simple fresh and delicious starter for this time of year. You could use a young soft goats' cheee if you didn't have time to make labneh.

The second was billed as a 'small plate' for sharing at the beginning of the meal but I took it instead of a cheese course - a mixture of Gorgonzola (and cream, I think), sliced celery and walnuts with a drizzle of honey. I don't know why more restaurants don't do cheese plates like this. Cheaper for them than keeping a big cheese selection and cheaper for the customer. (I paid £3.00 for it instead of £6.50 for a piece of Gorgonzola served at the end of the meal). So easy to rustle up at home too.

The River Cafe's Cheese Room

Are cheese rooms the new must-have restaurant accessory?

You'd think perhaps not in these hard times but if the iconic River Café installs one you can be pretty sure that others will follow. I was hoping to check it out last week but didn't manage to fit it in with moving house (hence the lapse in posts on the blog) but there was a glowing article about it in yesterday's Telegraph

I was interested to see from their menu that one of the cheeses they stock currently is Castelmagno, an ancient semi-hard cows' milk cheese that's made next to a chapel of the same name up the mountains above the Piedmontese city of Cuneo. As you can see from the picture below, taken when I visited this time last year, it can have extensive blue veining but it varies from cheese to cheese.

Other London restaurants with cheese rooms include the Star & Garter in Lower Richmond Road, Vivat Bacchus in Farringdon and, of course, La Fromagerie if you count cheese shops with a café. But we have yet to have a full-blown cheese-centred restaurant of the quality of Artisanal in New York. With a lower average spend in restaurants maybe it will be the upcoming trend.