Review: Tragabuches, Ronda

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! We're at Tragabuches, the modernist Andalusian restaurant named after a famous bull fighter, situated just a hundred metres from the bull ring in Ronda. Whisper whisper! Unlike how I imagine a bullfight, It's really quiet in here. No roaring crowds, no oles, no fanfare of trumpets. We've done the quintessential Brits abroad thing and booked a table for dinner at 8.30pm. Except we're in Spain, and no one really eats that early over here. Consequently we're alone, apart from the three waiters in attendance.

"I hope it fills up", she whispers.

"I'm sure it will. We're just early", I whisper.

"Why are we whispering?" she whispers.

"I have no idea. Ridiculous isn't it? Let's mutter instead", I mutter in reply.

So we turn to our menus and mutter some more. Tragabuches has two dining rooms and we're in the rear one, the room with the wall of plate glass that has a magnificent view onto some parked cars, a tree stump covered in graffiti and, in the distance, the beginnings of a nice, rosy sunset. All of the tables for two are angled to give the diners a view out of the window and we have a prime spot close to the glass. Unfortunately for the table behind us, their view will be of the back of my head rather than the graffitied tree stump. If I were them, I'd complain.

I'm actually pretty glad we reserved a table for 8.30pm because if we'd started the 12 course taster menu at 10.30pm it would have been getting light by the time we'd finished. What a lot of food there was, but how good it was too. Two amuses, four tapas, two starters, two mains, and two desserts. Each.

The food is modern Andalusian, but not really knowing much about classic Andalusian cuisine and not being able to translate the menu, I couldn't tell you the roots of the dishes. What I can tell you is that this food is not for the lactose intolerant. After the first five plates I was seriously impressed, even to the point of thinking that this could be the finest meal I'd ever eaten. An ajoblanco with mackerel and caviar was a light and milky garlic soup with tiny rafts of smoked fish. A rich, creamy potato puree hid some unidentifiable but tasty poultry parts in a rich stock. They were slightly flabby so I suggested that it might be chicken skin, at which point Emilie nearly gagged and put down her spoon. More soup came in the way of a spring vegetable bouillon with tiny pea pods and lime zest and then followed the obligatory egg cooked at low temperature which is fast becoming as much a staple of avant-garde restaurants as lamb shanks were in gastropubs a while back. Here it was served in another Andalusian soup accompanied by mini towers of Iberian pork belly and chick peas. So far, so sublime.

The menu stuttered as we moved on to the fish main course which was hake in another milky soup flavoured with seaweed. Perfectly cooked fish to be sure, but the seaweed milk just didn't seem to hit the heights of the previous dishes. The meat main course was a supremely tender shoulder of milk-fed lamb with a milk foam and milk skin and again, it was cooked to unctuous perfection but crying out for a rich, meaty sauce to bathe the meat. I think only the milky bar kid would disagree, and possibly the odd nappy-wearing, dummy-sucking gourmand.

The menu returned to form as we moved on to dessert. A milkshake (yes!) ice cream with pistachio crumbs was far more interesting than a pistachio ice cream could ever be, and a moist chocolate cake with chocolate sorbet and passionfruit was the perfect ending to a meal that had more twists and turns that the winding mountain roads that lead to the village of Ronda itself.

It was definitely a memorable meal, for its inventiveness as much as its milkiness, and amazingly out of 12 dishes there was only one that Mrs Withchild couldn't eat. I'm glad that the chef didn't follow the maitre d's suggestion and "cook the low temperature egg a bit more" but instead gave her an entirely different dish from the menu, a lovely green asparagus and baby octopus risotto. At 200 euros without wine though, it was pretty pricey given the poor exchange rate but for a birthday meal it was definitely worth the splurge.

Review: Restaurant Sat Bains

If anyone is ever racking their brains about what to get me for a Christmas or birthday present, rack no longer. A trip to one of the restaurants that feature on the right hand side of this blog will always be well received and I'm happy to say that my parents, without any prompting, have cottoned onto this. Last year they very kindly organised a trip to the Waterside Inn in Bray and this year our gift was dinner and an overnight stay at Restaurant Sat Bains in Nottingham.

Restaurant Sat Bains is Nottingham's only Michelin starred restaurant and is one of the places that Location Location Location researchers might have missed when they voted Nottingham as the fourth worst place to live in the UK. It's not surprising that they missed it given that it's situated near a flyover, adjacent to a industrial estate, underneath a line of electricity pylons. Location Location Location? Phil and Kirstie would not be happy, and they'd make it known with their annoyingly chipper, overly scripted banter.

We are shown to our room which would doubtlessly be described as "well appointed" in a brochure or travel guide, although I have to admit that I have no idea what this actually means. I imagine there's some government department, staffed by registered officiants, charged with organising room appointment ceremonies for new builds and refurbed properties.

'I, Sir Douglas Ponsonby-Smythe, by the powers vested in me, do officially appoint thee, a room!" at which point a crowd of onlookers clap politely and mutter their approval amongst themselves.

'Didn't he appoint that room well, Margaret?'

'Yes, Joan, terribly well. Masterful I'd say. Would you care for another scone?'

Conversely, how are rooms badly appointed? Perhaps elsewhere, a spotty 16 year old who has patiently been shadowing a registered officiant for a week, finally gets to have a go for himself. Full of enthusiasm he bounds through the gates of a property like an overexcited labrador, and waving his arms around proudly proclaims,

'I, er, Danny Wilshire, by the power of my vest, appoint you, a room!'

After a moment of silence, his mentor turns to him and says,

'No Danny, I think you'll find that's a wheelie bin.'

'Shit.'

You sense there's as much opportunism going on at Restaurant Sat Bains as in a Heather Mills marriage. There's no question that the restaurant owes much of its current success to Sat's appearance on Great British Menu last year, where his duck egg poached at 62 degrees for 5 hours scored 10/10 from all three judges and was chosen as the starter to represent British cooking at a banquet in Paris. Great British Menu cookbooks are stacked high on the reception desk and available to buy for £20 (Amazon price: £13), and they have rather cheekily removed the famous dish from the £67 eight course tasting menu and offer it as an optional extra for a wallet-busting additional £15. Ch-ching!

Despite not taking the eggy extra, the menu is crammed with exciting flavour combinations - foie gras with corn icecream, poached figs with parmesan, salmon and plums, and magically they all work well. There are enough savory ice cream variations to start up a modern Mr Whippy van business, in fact I can see it now, driving around the gun capital of the East Midlands, with tinkling chimes broadcasting its arrival to the cascading notes of the Great British Menu theme tune. Ok, mister, stick your hands up and give me more of that pine-nut ice cream.

The cooking is adventurous, scientific and for the most part perfectly executed. The only let down was a course of foie gras which was served to our table of four in two different ways. Unfortunately the two dishes were markedly different in quality and execution and left those that had not had been served with the better one feeling cheated. One used 100% foie gras and the other didn't, one contained a leaf of thai basil but the other did not, one was served beautifully on a plate and the other in a cumbersome terrine pot. Why not just serve the same dish to everyone? It's the dumbest idea I've ever seen in a restaurant. Apart from that the food was glorious.

One of the hardest things things with these tasting menus is finding appropriate wines to go with the food. It's often a relief when you're given the option of matched wines with each course and adds an interesting dimension to the meal. This wasn't an option at Sat Bains and so naturally, I asked for help. Unfortunately instead of help, all I got was obstinate condescension and some of the unfriendliest service I've ever received in a restaurant. It went something like this:-

"Could you recommend wines to go with the tasting menu?"

"Well what wines do you like?"

" Well I like lots of different wines, but I don't really know what would go with the different dishes on the menu, I guess I need something versatile right?"

"Yes, that's right."

"So.....your recommendation would be.....?"

"Well as I said, it depends on what you like....."

"Mmmm, wellI like Malborough Sauvignon Blanc, I like reds from the Rhone Valley, I love Beaujolais when I want something light and fruity, I love a crisp Chablis, Champagne, Aussie Shiraz - it depends on what I'm eating!!!!"

"Well, you're never going to find a wine that will match with every course."

"Yes, I know that, that's why I want you to tell me the most versatile wines on your menu. Oh I give up!"

In the end I just went back to the wine menu and chose a Macon ("oh, that's very dry you know") and asked for a recommendation on what I deemed a versatile red, a medium bodied Pinot Noir ("were you thinking of the Central Otago Dry Gully, I drink it at home on a Sunday night.") No I wasn't thinking of that one actually as it costs £59 a bottle, but hey, you're doing my head in so let's just go with it shall we?

Not a good start and not really what you want from your head of front of house, a supercilious lemon-sucking, impersonal madam whose focus is on selling books and extra egg courses rather than mirroring the quality of the food being created in the kitchen. It's an example of how food is just one part of a dining experience, and it's a shame that it marred an otherwise great meal. I won't go into the fact that we weren't invited to taste the red wine, weren't offered the cheese course, had to pour our own wine all the time. These faults are so unnecessary and easily rectifiable that I hope they'll improve them and win the two stars that the cooking merits.

Review: Domaine de Chateauvieux

"Can I have the foie gras?" She looks at me, eyes wide with hope.

"No."

"What about the crab?"

"'Fraid not."

Her heart sinks as her worst fears are realised.

"Pregnancy sucks," she says.

And although inside her my child is growing, in the surroundings of this two Michelin starred restaurant, I can see her point. My eyes scan down the other dishes on the tasting menu.

L’œuf de poule poché sur une effilochée de crabe « Royal de Norvège », émulsion des carapaces aux piments d’Espelette

Le pavé d’aile de raie bouclée poêlé, carottes étuvées au cumin, émulsion de moules de bouchot au pamplemousse rose et campari

L'oie de Bresse « Miéral » rôtie et confite, poêlée de mousserons et purée de persil, jus corsé à l’ail doux

Les fromages frais et affinés

La mousse au chocolat au lait et ganache aux fruits de la passion, crème brûlée au thé Earl-Grey et sorbet au citron vert

Hopes are raised and then cruelly dashed by a malevolent ingredient lurking in the background of most of the dishes. Molluscs, crustacea and raw eggs lie in wait like a band of Victorian muggers down a darkened alleyway, daggers drawn and ready to pounce. Damn you, émulsion de moules! Up yours, runny œuf de poule poché!

Over in the corner I spot the cheese trolley, unpasteurised heaven on wheels for some, a listeria theme park for others. There may be tears tonight.

The a la carte menu isn't looking too promising either but she goes for the snail and frogs leg starter and pigeon for her main course. We ask for the pigeon to be well cooked. Does it arrive well-cooked? No. Oddly cooked? Most certainly. It turns up on a tray in the middle of a balloon that turns out to be an inflated bladder. How quaint. And it's rare in there. Maybe still even tweeting although I can't hear any noise from the avian isolation tent. I can't understand why it wasn't listed on the menu as Barely Warmed Whole Pigeon Cooked In A Former Pee Bag, or maybe they thought it would sell out too quickly.

Meanwhile we've all be ploughing through the glorious tasting menu, trying not to ooh and aah too much in front of the mum-to-be. It's difficult because the Norwegian crab with poached egg is sensationally sophisticated. A roll of skate wing is moist and lifted by a citric pink grapefruit and creamy mussel sauce. The goose cooked in two ways is wintery and rich, with melt-in-the-mouth confit and meaty fillets offering different textures to the palate. The food is as good as I remember from our first visit to this Genevan restaurant five years ago.

Luckily back then, our mum-to-be wasn't pregnant and could eat everything on the menu, as perhaps she could now in all truth. The French attitude to diet during pregnancy is far more relaxed than the British and we probably take caution a few steps too far, however as complete novices in the baby business we're happy to play things very safe. In six months time I've promised her a feast of foie gras, unpasteurised Epoisse cheese, scallops, and rare beef but for now these are off the menu and those sacrilegious two words, 'well done', will have to be used until our mini gourmet is ready to enter the world at the end of August.

Review: Benares

So I'm sitting on the tube reading The London Paper on my way to Benares and I spot that the lovely Natalie Portman had dined there the previous evening. This filled me with equal parts sadness and joy. Sadness that I had missed her and that it was unlikely that she would dine at the same place two nights in a row. Joy that Benares attracts such Hollywood A-listers and that the night might still throw up some good sleb spotting potential.

Benares is seriously swanky. To get there you walk through Berkeley Square, past the Bentley garage and the Ferraris parked outside. A top-hatted doorman ushers you inside and you go upstairs past a lily filled indoor pond and into the bar. Atul Kochhar, a man I've admired since watching The Great British Menu, is chatting to some smart looking people and we walk by into the restaurant itself. From his TV appearances Atul seems unlike most other "Celebrity Chefs" in that he is quiet. You can't imagine him effing and blinding like Ramsay, or throwing people out of his restaurant like MPW. He has this aura of calmness and control which it has to be said, is perfectly mirrored by the decor and atmosphere of his restaurant.

Around us, the room is filling up with suits. Lawyers, money men, business dinners. No Natalie Portman, no Charlize Theron. It's early though. There's still plenty of time.

The menu looks great and includes a few dishes that feature in Atul's book Simple Indian. Starters include Pan-Fried Potato Cakes and at the top of the main courses is Meen Molee, or Sea Bass in Coconut and Ginger which I made myself a few weeks ago and is pictured above.

I'm going to say right now that I spent the night suffering from serious food envy. Envious of the crisp soft shell crab with squid salad to my right. Envious of the simple potato cakes with Egyptian hummus to my left. Envious of the roast rump of lamb with rosemary and garlic chickpeas across the table. They all looked and tasted great, and the soft shell crab had my Dad in raptures. On the other hand my starter of spice crusted scallops with grape and mint dressing was beautiful to look at, but seriously lacking the mouth-stimulating spice I'd hoped for. It was, dare I say it, a bit bland. The Hyderabadi Speciality of Slow-cooked Basmati Rice and Lamb had an overwhelming flavour of saffron that swamped all of the other spices in the dish. It was ok, but certainly not special. I guess I just chose badly on the night, because everything else was fantastic. Sometimes it happens that way.

As we prepared to leave, a celebrity couple sat down at the table next to us. Was it Tom and Katie? Posh and Becks? Madonna and Guy? Not quite. It was the Two Hairy Bikers who were indeed very hairy, but unfortunatly not on their bikes.

Review: Chez Bruce

Like the Venture In in Ombersely, Chez Bruce is also housed in a building with history. Years ago, it was occupied by a savage despot who struck fear in those around him. Fist fights were common, neanderthal brawling almost the norm. The year was 1988 and Marco Pierre White was in the kitchen of Harveys.

These days the atmosphere in this Wandsworth restaurant is far more tranquil. Chez Bruce has occupied the site since 1995 and despite the lack of controversy and tabloid headlines, it has maintained a reputation for superior cuisine which its predecessor Harveys had initiated on the site. True, it hasn't reached the three Michelin star heights that Marco achieved, but its one star is testament to the quality of cooking in what is essentially a local, neighbourhood restaurant.

Last week we returned to Chez Bruce after a gap of over 6 years. The last time we went we'd probably had a few too many aperatifs before dinner so consequently didn't manage to appreciate the great food that was put before us. Such a shame. This time though, we were determined to savour every mouthful and we weren't disappointed. It was also inspiring to learn that the kitchen at Chez Bruce is now in the hands of a Leiths graduate, and who knows, when I finish my diploma perhaps I could aspire to such heights.

Despite trying to choose different starters, we were both drawn to a gratin of spatzle, chestnuts,and wild hare. Chief Taster was nostalgic for her childhood in Germany and so was desperate for the little noodle dumplings which I had never tried before. I was eager for something meaty before my fish main course and the gamey hare was the perfect option.

Our mains were terrific. Having regretted not ordering fish at the Venture In, I plumped for halibut with scallops, potato gnocchi and jerusalem artichoke puree. It was out of this world and surprisingly lifted by a fairly meaty sauce. Emilie followed her hare starter with more game. Her main of Anjou pigeon with red cabbage, sauce poivrade, honey, walnuts and foie gras was wintery perfection, the perfect plate of food to send you off into four months of hibernation with a grin on the face. I'm a big fan of the concept of hibernation and may start a campaign for human equality with hedgehogs. I hope one day to watch Blue Peter and see humans wrapped in straw and packed away in boxes for the winter. Basically I just want to sleep for a few months, avoid Christmas, and get up when its warm again.

I love Chez Bruce like I love Chapter One in Bromley. Both are worthy of their Michelin stars and both have that unpretentiousness that sets neighbourhood restaurants apart from their snooty west end brethren. Hopefully it will not be another 6 years before we are back in Wandsworth.