JERMAIN DEFOE Thinking On His Feet - Mayfair Times

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22 food Cooking with books THE INTERCONTINENTAL Park Lane recently opened its main restaurant, Cookbook Café. Overlooking Hyde Park, the atmosphere is casual and comfortable, while the menu includes British comfort food and international favourites. Tepenyaki-styled cooking stations allow chefs to show off their skills and interact with customers. Another highlight is Sunday brunch, which includes everything from pastries and cereals to wood-fired pizza and Eggs Benedict. Cookbook Café, which features more than 200 original cookbooks from the 19th century to today, will also host events such as book launches and wine tastings. Galvin’s Armand wins Roux prize ARMAND SABLON, a young chef who works at Galvin at Windows at the London Hilton on Park Lane, battled with five other finalists to win the title of Roux Scholar 2007. Judges for the competition, now in its 24th year, included four members of the Roux family, along with Gary Rhodes, Brian Turner, Heston Blumenthal, David Nicholls and Andrew Fairlie. Armand’s interpretation of the classic dishes Escoffier Tournedos Rachel and Roux Bordelaise Sauce, together with a macaroni soufflé, clinched the award. Armand also won £3,000 cash, three months’ training at a three-starred restaurant in Europe, as well as trips to New York, Champagne and Milan. After being presented with his award by Michel Roux at a ceremony at the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, Armand said: “This is the most fantastic point in my career. I am just so thrilled and I look forward to every aspect of the year ahead.” Byrne’s British is best AIDEN BYRNE, who recently joined The Grill Room at the Dorchester, has devised his first modern British menu. Aiden (pictured) has a distinctive cooking style that has evolved from his time working at Tom Aikens’ restaurant in Chelsea as head chef and at Adlards Restaurant in Norwich, where he won a Michelin star at the age of 22. Alongside classics such as roast rib of beef – carved from the trolley – are dishes such as Dublin Bay prawns with broccoli purée, ricotta dumplings and caviar; braised trotters with Clonkilty black pudding and prune purée; and squab pigeon with pickled cabbage and sweet garlic butter sauce. The dessert menu features bread and butter pudding, spiced bread mousse and vanilla butter cream, and orange and olive oil cake with orange sorbet and candied celery. And the wine list, which now includes 30 wines under £30, is overseen by sommelier Jason McAuliffe (previously at Chez Bruce). To book, call 020 7629 8888. THE BRIAN TURNER restaurant at The Millennium Hotel in Grosvenor Square is now open for Sunday lunch between 12.30 and 2.30. Aimed at families, it features a traditional Sunday roast alongside the a la carte menu. TO MARK the launch of a summer à la carte menu at The Ritz, executive chef John Williams has devised a five-course champagne dinner to be held on May 15. Priced at £180, the meal will be accompanied by wines from the House of Ruinart. To book, call 020 7300 2562. THE PARK LANE HOTEL, Piccadilly, has launched a fragrant Rose Afternoon Tea, available at its Palm Court restaurant until the end of June. The tea costs £35 and includes Palm Court Crush Cocktail, potted shrimps and melba toast, scones and smoked salmon, sandwiches, scones with jam, and rosecoloured pastries. To book, call 020 7290 7328. To be featured in the <strong>Mayfair</strong> <strong>Times</strong> restaurant directory call Gemma, Katie or Sam on 020 7259 1050 restaurant directory
24 food Angela Hartnett was born and brought up in Kent but her heart lies in Italy. It’s the country from which her mother and grandmother came originally and it provides the inspiration for her first book, Angela Hartnett’s Cucina. Angela says the book “contains three generations of Italian cookery, which we’ve brought up to date”. The recipes are based on the food she grew up with – classic Italian dishes. While most are simple, there are some that require a little more time and patience. For instance, there’s a dish called Mostarda – preserved fruits – which cook in their natural juices, sugar and mustard essence. “You leave them for three weeks,” says Angela. “It’s basically an oldfashioned way of pickling – and they’re great served with cold meats and cheeses. Yes, some stuff takes time, but I don’t think you need to dumb down food.” Angela spent most of her teenage years helping her grandmother cook the family meals. “These years of shopping and cooking for Nonna taught me to understand what great Italian food is all about. Start with the very best raw ingredients and do very little to them. Just let the ingredients speak for themselves and make the best of their natural flavours and textures.” That advice stood Angela in good stead for a career as a chef. She became chef-patron at The Connaught in 2002 after training with Gordon Ramsay and launching his restaurant Verre in Dubai. She has since become a household name, having appeared alongside Gordon in Hell’s Kitchen and taken part in Great British Menu last year. And, to top it all, she picked up an MBE from the Queen earlier this year. “I was amazed – completely flabbergasted,” says Angela. The current closure of The Connaught for refurbishment couldn’t have come at a more suitable time for Angela. “My book’s coming out, so that’s going to take a big part out of my schedule,” she says. She’s also just opened Cielo, another Gordon Ramsay-backed restaurant at the Boca Raton Resort & Club in Florida. “I’m just going to take time out,” she says. “It’s very rare in this career to say you’ve got six months off. But I need to go to the office every day because I need structure. I can’t just sit at home – that would do my head in.” Angela is looking forward to returning to The Connaught when it reopens in November. “I’ll be getting things organised and writing a new menu,” she says. Although The Connaught restaurant is part of the Gordon Ramsay empire, Angela is pretty much left to run it her own way. “Gordon is always there, and you feed into that support as much or as little as The Italian touch you need,” she says. Angela is one of the few female chefs to have won a Michelin star and she has managed to hold her own in a maledominated industry. “Because there are so few women around, you stand out a lot, so I don’t think it has been a disadvantage,” she says. “And, when you’re working with 10 guys thinking of you as their sister, there’s such respect. If I was stranded at three in the morning, there’s not one guy in the group who wouldn’t be there to help.” Angela admits that Gordon can be a difficult boss. “He’s tough but very fair,” she says. “It annoys me when people think he’s an ogre. He’s not at all. I’m one of his longest-serving members of staff and I wouldn’t work for the guy if I thought for one minute he was a total, utter arse.” And then there’s the issue of boyfriends. “It’s been a bit slow on that front,” she laughs. Surely it must be pretty daunting to take her out on a date or to invite her to dinner? “If people know me, they aren’t worried,” she says. “Also, my friends know that I can eat shit like the rest of them. I’ll buy white sliced bread, I’ll eat crisps and happily have a takeaway or eat burgers.” What really gets up her nose is bad service and bad value. TV CHEF ANGELA HARTNETT’S NEW BOOK CELEBRATES THREE GENERATIONS OF ITALIAN COOKING IN HER FAMILY. SHE TELLS SELMA DAY WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE ONE OF THE FEW WOMEN AT THE TOP OF HER PROFESSION “I’ll pay anything for food,” she says. “I’ll happily fly places to eat but I get peed off if you don’t get value for money. And that’s from fish and chips or a burger to eating in five-star hotels. You’ve got to deliver people’s expectations.” Last year, Angela competed in Great British Menu but didn’t make it through to the second series. “As everyone said to me, including Gordon, ‘you might have made an effort. You might take these things a bit more seriously’,” she says. “I did enjoy doing it and without a doubt I do regret not making a bit more of an effort – I would like to have won, of course.” Still, as a result of the programme, Angela and chef John Burton- Race will be headlining their own TV series later this year. In BBC 2’s Kitchen Criminals, Angela and John will be competing to turn groups of kitchen no-hopers into culinary whizz kids. Although Angela says the latest programme has been good fun, she doesn’t intend to follow Gordon down the TV route. “I think Gordon is superb on TV – he’s a natural,” she says. “I would never be like that – it’s not my nature.” For now, Angela seems content to concentrate on her restaurants, do a bit of TV and see how the book goes. “I think I’ve pretty much achieved what I want,” she says. “I would like – ridiculous as it might seem – two or three stars because I’d like to be the first woman to do that, but that’s a long slog. It doesn’t happen overnight.” When she’s not working, Angela enjoys spending time with family and friends. “I love sitting around eating big bowls of pasta and salami with really good wine,” she says. “I’m not interested in lobster, caviar and all that nonsense.” “To me, it’s not all about food. I can sit and eat a ham sandwich in the park as long as I’m with some great friends and we’re having fun. It really is about the whole experience.”
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JERMAIN DEFOE Thinking On His Feet - Mayfair Times

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