L’Enclume – Jan 2015

I’m going to be 40 this year… senility has already started to set in… forgetting to take my camera on a trip to L’Enclume has got to be the start of a slippery slope.

What follows are pictures taken with my phone - normally I wouldn’t want to post photos that do not do the food justice but I like to record the progression in the food and the seasonal changes of the many visits I have made to L’Enclume over the years (for some stunning pictures of the menu, check out Stephen Perez’s flickr – here)

Of the snacks the standouts were the dim sum-like Game dumpling and the Crispy chicken, squid, redcurrant – a squid ink wafer and emulsion with crispy chicken skin, chicken liver parfait and, the star ingredient, a redcurrant gelée.

Once again, the Artichoke with goat’s cheese, tarragon, stout vinegar and malt was my favourite dish however the new Hake with crab and pine, leek, celeriac and sorrel was a close second – as you'd expect, the hake, enrobed in fat, was beautifully cooked but, for me, it was the ingenious injection of acidity from a tartly sweet reduction of Granny Smith apples, sorrel and wild ramson capers that made the dish sing.

Oyster pebbles

Game dumpling

Crispy chicken, squid, redcurrant

Smoked eel with ham fat

Raw scallop and caviar

Creamed turnip, Tunworth, lamb’s tongue

Bread

Baked squash, Maran egg, nasturtium, chestnut, goose leg

Valley venison, charcoal oil, mustard and fennel

Butter poached lobster, parsnip, scurvy grass and black radish

Artichokes with goat’s cheese, tarragon, stout vinegar and malt

Hake with crab and pine, leek, celeriac and sorrel

Penny Bridge Dexter, creamed kales, carrot and mead

Apple and rosehip tart (scoffed without a pic, get me!)

Almond, pear, anise hyssop

Beetroot slate, apple marigold and cobnut

Caramel, poached quince, walnut and perilla

Cornets

Tweet

Follow @HungryHoss