The Providores

Dinner at The Providores Tapa Room last week holds a special place in my heart, Thomas' final exam day, an unplanned celebratory post pub meal to mark the end of a very tough period of time and the beginning of a hopefully calmer and happier phase of life.

Twice in 2 weeks I've seen my favourite white wine, Cloudy Bay, on a menu, first at The Warrington and again here at Providores but yet again it was priced out of the realm of possibility for the occasion, here it's £72 a bottle. I almost cried and ordered a large glass of the far more reasonably priced house white which was fine.

As for the food, I've been keen to eat here for some time to see if somewhere might give Barrafina or Del Parc a run for their money in terms of eating tapas in London. I return to these places time and time again and am never disappointed. I felt that Providores certainly hold their own and offer a perhaps more adventurous and playful approach to dining. Ingredients and flavours combining to dazzle and challenge the diner rather than presenting fresh and superbly sourced foods in a more traditional way. These approaches are equally worthy I feel and choosing between them in future will depend on mood and appetite at the time (with a predilection to pick Del Parc perhaps because it's about 10 seconds away from our front door!).

To begin with at Providores we selected the The Tapa Plate of grilled chorizo, Guindilla chilli, marinated olives, radish, spiced fig preserves, babaganoush and Cabra del Tietar cheese.

This was good, a mish mash of flavours and textures, it came with some bread and crackers. The chorizo was the crowning glory of the plate, disappointingly little of it sadly but what was there was amazing. Other highlights were the citrusy babaganoush, this was great on the crackers and the order of Pimientos de Padron with a generous sprinkling of sea salt. We got some of these from Brindisa at Borough Market and made them ourselves this weekend, they're so delicious and easy and we got a huge bagful for just £3.

We were sitting on a fairly teeny table for 2 and when the next dishes came there was barely room, so we had to swiftly bid farewell to the (unfinished) platter in order to accommodate the sweet potato and feta tortilla. This was Thomas' favourite dish, I was less keen for the most part because I thought it was too cold. I think this would be best served at room temperature, also several of the advertised key ingredients were missing.

There was no sign of the edamame and the cheese on top of the tortilla was certainly not feta, more like mozzarella. Looking at the picture now, that might be feta in the tortilla but it didn't taste like it and I love feta so that was a shame. Still, this was quite pleasant, very dense and packed full of flavour, the sweet potato was perhaps the nicest component and the yogurt made for an interesting texture contrast.

We also tried the bruschetta topped with red onion and watercress salad. Initially this was very pleasing, (more of the) oozing stringy mozzarella with tangy cherry tomatoes which were bursting with flavour on a large piece of toasted sourdough. Not that any of this can be seen in the picture, interesting presentation, salad hiding the actual dish!

As time wore on the bread became more and more soggy, I know the idea is to have the juices of the tomatoes moisten the toast but this became very stodgy and heavy and the bread completely lost it's crunch.

The highlight of the meal for me was the Yellowfin tuna with beets and horseradish salsa. This had been delicately charred around the edges, it must have barely touched the pan yet it managed to retain a distinct grilled flavour, I loved its incredibly soft, almost melting texture and the horseradish and beets combined brilliantly making each mouthful leave you wanting more.

The meal came to around £70, not cheap considering Thomas didn't drink (just tap water) but I think we probably ordered a bit too much food for the 2 of us, it not actually fitting on the table and all! I liked most of what we had, decent produce cooked in an exciting way, particularly the tuna and I'd like to return, I hear the breakfast is particularly good so I'll probably revisit and try that out.

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You remember that song don’t you? You know, that one with Adam Levine and Maroon 5 all those years ago. The opening piano riff, the acoustic guitar coming on. I have to admit, waking up on to do a food write-up on a cold sunday morning ain’t the easiest. Especially with the holiday season knocking ’round the corner, it gets harder trying to churn out some constructive ramblings.

I was mulling over when to release this review since it was last sunday when I woke up and decided that I should do a review about breaking the fast. It would be injustice if I didn’t do one of these especially noting it’s importance in a healthy diet - as my dad used to say:

“Son, breakfast is like a gold medal. And so you should treat your three standard meals in a day like winning gold, silver and bronze. Whatever you do in life - as long as you never miss breakfast, you’ll be a winner.”

selecting you to eat

Are you like me when you choose a place to eat? You sit there, thinking you know your city, but in actuality, there’s so much you still don’t know about. In your mind, you make this assumption that you kind of know things exists, either that, or someone told you about this place or that place and you think to yourself “I know the best place to have breakfast” .

Yeah right.

If you don’t already know, urbanspoon has this cool iPhone application where you can put in a few criteria of what you want to eat and literally shake the phone for it to return a few results. Did it tell me to eat at the providores and tapa room? Nope. I used trusty ol’ timeout for this one.

Queue before you rock

We showed up closer to lunch than breakfast time in the marylebone village - which is fast becoming the foodie equivalent of the square mile - and were greeted with a long queue just outside the restaurant. You might have noticed the rather long double barreled name in the providores and tapa room; well the doubly nature manisfests itself as two separate eateries. Upstairs is the posh dining space ‘the providores’ featuring innovative cooking and…. that sort of thing (it’s sunday, what can I say?) , while downstairs is ‘the tapa room’ which is a breakfast-cum-wine-cafe-bar chill out zone for those looking for a lazy spot to settle down.

While Im still in the queue ( I called beforehand and the tapa room does not take bookings) , I’ll take the chance to talk abit about the menu. This much heralded double whammy of an eatery is run by Peter Gordon and Michale McGrath, the team from down under has brought abit of classy fusion to london marylebone, and their menu features teriyaki infused sweetcorn which sits comfortably next to the rabbit & foie gras terrine. Although, on this occasion, I came here specifically for their breakfast & brunch menu, which in itself is a pretty interesting read. With grilled sardines and paprika roast potatoes, greek yogurt and grilled chorizo on courgettes - the rainbow of diverse ingredients somehow evoked a sense of inspiration and wonder which one feels when walking down a food market gawking at the fresh produce and the endless ways in which they can be combined together - in harmony- to create some truly tasty dishes.

Not that I don’t appreciate a full english ( I really do ) , but with such rule bending cooking at hand - I had to try it for myself to see how it hangs together.

Is a poached egg a fry up?

The wait was a short fifteen minutes before we were ushered into a rather tiny eating space with low hanging fluorescents, the day was cloudy but the dim lights made it downright gloomy. Aside from a pretty small bar table, with a smattering of fresh pastry and cakes, the middle of the room was dominated by a long table and high stools, while we were sat in the corner on ‘normally low’ tables. Very cosy, but I’m stll abit troubled by the darkness of the room.

The lack of light aside, I was really enjoying the cool and relaxing atmosphere the space evoked and I thought it was the perfect place to settle for a sunday breakfast. The buzz was infectious and it really did wake me up. Oh what’s for breakfast?

Everything looked so good on the menu, but my eyes just couldn’t tear themselves away from the classics. I looked the menu up and down but the results were the same - french toast, fry-up, eggs, eggs, eggs, bacon … I knew that on the first visit, no matter how much I wanted to try the more imaginative stuff ( Pineapple, grape, pear, pink grapefruit and satsuma fruit salad with vanilla poached figs ) , they would have to wait until my next.

I usually have two modes of operation when I go out to eat these days and I refrain from putting my blogging hat on when I’m eating with friends. But on this occasion, I dragged the meister out to breakfast with me. She had already been on a couple of other trips with me so she was comfortable with the picture before diving in moment. As with any self-respected, amateur photoboy, one struggles and takes the time to get ‘the shot’. With the restaurant being rather dark - it became even harder to avoid the camera shake with long exposures. The result is one very hungry and pissed off looking (albeit, good looking) lady waiting longing to eat her breakfast.

Perhaps like her, I’ve made you wait about 900 words before I would deliver the taster notes on her fry-up. Consisting of her choice of two poached eggs, grilled smoked back bacon, sauteed field mushrooms, slow roasted tomatoes on sourdough. While the combo is relatively straightforward, it’s taste was anything but. The bacon had a smoky intensity which reverberated with the fragrantly buttered mushrooms and the nicely grilled flavours were wonderfully balanced against the tangy tomatoes before breaking the eggs to reveal the yolk running down to the bread. As one would expect, very classic and predictable flavours, this was just a solidly cooked breakfast which would make any englishmen grunt with pleasure.

Grunt.

Let’s talk about Parmesan and toast

Before I go on too long, I’ll just bring you back to the lead picture of this write-up which is my order of sauteed creamed wild mushrooms with Parmesan and jamon on toasted sourdough. The first thing I noticed when the waitress brought the dish over was the fragrance. Hang on, here’s the picture again to remind you:

The melted cheese gave way to this full buttery smell which was accompanied by the lovely aromas of the steam rising from the cooked mushrooms. It opened up my appetite entirely and I just had to dive in.

By the way, I don’t take notes anymore. I used to whip out my moleskine on restaurant trips because it made me feel like some sort of bona fide critic and I would hastily and scrutinisingly jot down pages and pages of thoughts with each bite… yeah, that was so daggy! ( It’s australian for uncool - you learn something new everyday eh? )

These days, I prefer to keep as low a profile as I can - so I use my mobile phone. I still hold on to my trusty Nokia 6300- and this is for all budding foodbloggers and wannabe critics out there- use the sms function to make notes and turn on the t9 - it really is a godsend.

Intense, the parmesan melt provided the foundations for the flavour profile which was creamy and made for a distinctly able balance of stinkiness against saltiness. The mushrooms had a hard cheese like chewiness which gave it much needed texture and form. If the cheese brought seasoning, then the ham brought much needed flavour to bring the dish to life and together provided for an umami rich topping which went so well with the sourdough. To sum things up, this was a hearty breakfast.

Eggs on Yogurt

It had all the makings of a beauty queen. I genuinely thought she was the one. I caught the first glimpse of her on the menu and was gasping. She was exotic in that her name was turkish and she came from the restaurant known as changa in Istanbul, which legend has it, was a maverick of a place which carried no rules in it’s recipes and violently fused cooking styles from across the globe as they saw fit. It angered food snobs left, right and centre but that idea only served to intrigue me.

And this was perhaps the most eye-catching dish on the menu which I had to have. Two poached eggs with whipped yogurt swirling in a hot chilli butter. It looked so stunning it could not fail right?

i fell for the gimmick in the caveat of the changa recipe but it was god-awful. First of all, the whole thing is cold. Even the butter - which tasted rather more like chilli oil- was cold, the greek yogurt was cold and the eggs were stone cold too. Spooning some of this stuff was abit disturbing in that it was just dollops of heavy oil with cold, tangy yogurt and some COLD runny eggs. The sharpness of the yogurt was further elucidated by the coldness of the dish. As it went down my throat, I could literally feel the yogurt and saturated oil going down my stomach. I’m sorry, this was just too weird for me ( that must be some kind of record for the frequency of the word cold in a paragraph) and dare I say it - was just absolutely disgusting.

Yogurt and eggs do not go together, especially if it’s swimming in a sea of cold oil. So much for ‘the one’.

Mochaccino or Cappuccino?

l got into this debate with the meister when I said “oh, I love mocha, that’s what I usually order when I go out” . She looked at me in disbelief, as if I was only pandering in our coincidental choice of brew. Ok fine, my brew of choice is the cappuccino (as my tea lady at work can attest to) but on occasion, I do plonk for the mocha. The only thing that stops me from doing more mochas when I’m out is the unusual price discrepancy between a few spoonfuls of chocolate powder - does it really warrant it being 50p more expensive? I should think not, is the coffee at the tapa room awesome? Yeah actually, it really was rather good, the foam was thick and creamy. Yum.

Anyway, in summary - The Tapa Room is a great breakfast spot and a lovely place to laze around on a Sunday. Breakfast is served till 3pm, otherwise the innovation continues in their all day menu. If you’re comfortable with trying something out of the ordinary, then you will be glad with the food here - whatever you do, stay away from the cold turkish eggs and you’ll be just fine.

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my absolutely favourite place for breakfast. fab smoothies, geat menu, things not normally seen on a breakfast menu. try the banana pecan toastie with maple syrup. yuuuuummmmmmy!!

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On the ground floor of this Marylebone eaterie is a bar where the tables and chairs could hardly be crammed in tighter. On the floor above is a small dining room where the use of space is only a little less dramatic; tables are tiny and you are just inches from your fellow diners. The New Zealand chef serves "fusion" cuisine, mixing western and oriental ingredients with dishes that involve many flavours. For example grilled Scottish scallops and kina (sea urchin) tempura were served with mustard miso, a seaweed salad, Jerusalem artichoke puree that supposedly had some truffle flavour and crispy buckwheat. Whew! Anything left in the kitchen there? The scallops themselves were capably cooked, though leaving the coral and membrane on the scallop is not something I would choose to do. Scallop coral has "no place in cuisine" according to Pierre Troisgros, and that is a good enough source for me. The tempura should have been a little crispier though the sea urchin was OK, but the salad elements did not seem very harmonious to me (4/10 just).

Roast Gressingham duck breast was cooked quite pink and had fair taste, served with new potato, lightly cooked, green beans, a pomegranate cumin dressing and a crispy "pastille" of pastry allegedly containing foie gras, but the filling was remarkably tasteless, so if there was foie gras in here there was precious little of it (4/10).

Goat cheese cheesecake with mangosteen, lychee, passion fruit and elderflower salad was in fact quite well made, though the pistachio praline was one flavour too many. The wine list is almost entirely from New Zealand and has well chosen growers. Sourdough bread is bought in but they make a cumin bread and also a chilli and garlic bread roll (bread 5/10).

Coffee was remarkably good, a blend supplied by the Monmouth Street coffee shop, which is where the Manoir aux Quat Saison at one time got their coffee (8/10 coffee). Service was friendly and efficient. Apart from flavour overload one can quibble about price, with starters mostly around £13 and main courses £24 or so, with vegetables extra, and desserts at £8.80. With a three course meal with vegetables coming to around £50 for the food (and no free nibbles) this is hardly bargain basement – more than Michelin starred Zafferano, for example. Ingredients did not seem to me inspired but technique was generally very good. The place is buzzing so there are clearly satisfying their target audience, but in my view you can find better food for the same money elsewhere.

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There isn't a single dish that I wouldn't consider ordering…’
[Aidan Brooks]

FOOD AND WINE matching is far from trivial, especially when you get it wrong. I remember when my father vetoed a sommelier, selecting a bottle of Barsac to rinse an entire meal sweet. A sticky collision! The same principle can be applied to the people you dine with. A conceited companion affected by dietary quirks, excessive intoxication or a miserly attitude can ruin a repast.

I met Jonathan, sage co-author of meal miscellany, ‘Around Britain with a Paunch’ a few months ago. We arranged to have dinner and played e-mail tennis to whittle down a selection of venues doing things differently, deftly and with bravery. Clearly he is worldlier than me because his shortlist included a bierodrome in Berlin whilst mine extended to Colchester’s ‘Company Shed’! Eventually we set our sights on Peter Gordon's 'Providores' in Marylebone Village: sophisticated Kiwi cuisine brightened by Asian and Middle Eastern spices… Whilst I am a fan of the buzzing ground floor ‘Tapa’ room, named after a mahogany coloured ceremonial tapestry (try the Wasabi martini), I had not before ventured upstairs to the small but chic dining room.

Thanks to our second-rate railway, I was running late and so I telephoned to arrange a flute of cool, apple puff scented Pelorus (Cloudy Bay) for Jonathan. This is one of New Zealand’s most distinguished sparkling wines, owned by the world’s largest luxury goods organisation, ‘LVMH’ – Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessey – note the handbags go first! The restaurant delivered this with charm. Indeed, despite a couple of recent criticisms about an ‘unsmiling’ attitude, we only ever encountered patient, unqualified sweetness, front of house.

The menu, which reads almost lyrically despite an utter absence of adjectives, is malleable to your desires. Basically you choose between two to five plates, noting the enticing wording ‘desserts can make up one or more of your courses’ and then think about the wine. Bear in mind that the user-friendly, again concisely worded list provides probably the most comprehensive range of Kiwi bins in Europe, with much offered by the glass.

Whilst I tried to forward plan, going so far as to ask chef / blogger Aidan Brooks for navigational advice through the intricate menu (he did a placement here in ’06) I felt much more spontaneous now. I suggested therefore that we stopped gazing at the paperwork and handed all decisions to the kitchen. The result? Ten plates, shared, served two at a time, with liquid correspondents.

Rather than itemise every course, here is a taste of the most intriguing...A soft circle of panna cotta, which evoked fresh white Stilton, was topped with petrified dashi (made from the base of miso soup). This nudged bracingly fresh, moist tataki (‘pounded’) line-caught Yellowfin tuna and deep green sweet nori (seaweed) purée. It was decorated with small feathery fennel fronds, licked by brisk green peppercorn and lime dressing and dotted with slightly medicinal tasting, brittle buckwheat bullets. Despite a desire for a pocket version of ‘Wikipedia’ to decode aspects of the description, the medley was moreish, balanced and I would imagine highly nutritious. It highlighted the tangibly fresh, slightly mysterious ingredients and a pristine, honed aesthetic awareness. This verged on the deconstructed, but never fully flowed into that philosophy.
A glass of toffee scented, judiciously unoaked Māori-made Chardonnay from the tip of the south island, Marlborough (Tohu) elegantly cleansed. It may be worth pointing out that the Māori were one of the few peoples to have no form of alcoholic beverage before the British missionaries arrived.

Soft-shell crab was crisply, greaselessly deep-fried and served on tight-knit ginger and wasabi tobikko (flying fish roe) arancini (rice ball) with pickled papaya (a preparation which toned down the fruit) and carrot salad. I last encountered such romantically titled ovaries at another Kiwi influenced enclave, the ‘Bleeding Heart’, Farringdon. A lacquer of salty sweet Nam Jihm dressing nervily brought all the elements together. The textures richly interplayed, particularly the grated carrot, which became slightly sweet, even nutty under the influence of the dressing. Gordon, incidentally, is a salad radical, as demonstrated by his leafy missive ‘Salads – the new main course’.

A glass of stylish Pinot Gris (a prince to north Italian pauper, Grigio) came from the foot of New Zealand’s north island, Martinborough – note the ‘n’ for north as opposed to Marlborough at the tip of the south. It had a visibly languid texture when spun in the glass and generous, glamorous flavours such as lychee, blood orange flesh (and a slither of peel) as well as ripe pear (Palliser). Its sumptous, persuasive weight deftly softened the inner juiciness of the crab, which had the texture of dry forest leaves.

Jonathan is fascinated by the magnification of the senses. He talked lucidly about enjoying Heston Blumenthal’s ‘Sound of the Sea’, experienced at ‘The Fat Duck’, Bray. Apparently ocean sounds are woven via I-Pod alongside a collage of tapioca, fried baby eels, cod liver oil and langoustine crowned with abalone, oysters and seaweed. Here, the fact that the roast Middlewhite swine belly created such an audible, satisfying crunch helped amplify the flavour, he said. I think I see what he means. This was served on kim chi (Korean fermented cabbage – they eat 40lbs of it per person, per year) with dense, dark earthy wood ear mushrooms, pickled quails egg and lustrous, highly aromatic anise Sichuan broth. A glass of dry, wet chalk scented Riesling from Waipara Springs, North Canterbury added an interesting tangerine tangent and a judicious piercing acidity.

Squab (or young) pigeon was delicately tandoori spiced (although I wonder whether Providores has an actual tandoori oven) and served on playfully ginger ale braised cabbage with black trompette jus, cooling banana raita (yoghurt) and lightly absorbent sumac lavosh (unleavened bread). This was matched with the classy Célèbre, a Bordeaux meets Rhône style red from Ata Rangi, Martinborough. Incidentally, to make ends meet in the early days, this producer sewed pumpkins between the vines to sell at market.

We finished with the dessert plate for two, an idea I am always willing to embrace. A miniature toasted coconut pannacotta, warm chocolate prune cake exaggerated by spectacularly sweet Pedro Ximinez sherry, and a ‘wee’ pear bavarois, mischievously melting.

Coffee, hailed by Giles Coren as ‘the best in England’ and served in mini Duralex beakers, was Monmouth in its revitalising strength and bitterly ravishing.

Did Jonathan and I succeed in finding somewhere bold and extraordinary? -Whilst we didn’t physically leave zone one, unshackled by adherence to local fodder, Gordon took us to far-flung climes through creative, visionary collages. Whilst some of the descriptions made as much sense on paper as serving Barsac and Colonial Goose, the actual plates were remarkably pretty, poised, startlingly provoking the palate with bright bases, careful textures and exotic spices. In short, it fused, as did the communication between front and back of house. This was therefore one of my most exciting meals this year.

As we began dinner, we noticed a couple nearby, miffed at the menu, clearly outside their comfort zone. The thought of a departure from the well-worn three course rut must have seemed as far from gastronomy as astronomy. Whilst I lost track of them after the first morsel arrived, I do hope that they succumbed to Gordon's enthralling craft...

Since The Providores and Tapa room was established ('01), an outside catering operation has prospered. Peter Gordon also has ties with two venues in the world’s third largest city, Istanbul, one of which was recently voted best new restaurant.

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