Cooks’ tour of London

LAST WEEK we headed off to London with a group of teachers from the cookery school. We were on our school tour, a fact-finding mission to check out and experience the London food scene. It’s amazing what can be crammed into two days when you are on a mission.

When we arrived on Friday evening we headed straight for one of London’s best known gastropubs, Anchor & Hope off Blackfriars Road. The menu changes twice daily. It’s totally seasonal, simple uncluttered food. They are particularly well known for their shared dishes such as a shoulder of salt marsh lamb cooked for five hours with gratin dauphinoise, or a slow-cooked stuffed duck or chicken.

That night, it was roast kid with hand-cut chips and home made aioli. These dishes are served to parties of two, four and six. I’ll shock you by telling you that I started with crispy pig’s tail with aioli. It was so good and was such a hit with the customers that at seven o’clock mine was the last portion on the menu.

You can’t book at the Anchor and Hope (except for the Sunday lunch menu) but even that doesn’t seem to dampen the punters’ enthusiasm. By 6pm it was wall-to-wall with people and they were five deep on the pavement as well. The food was hearty, delicious and unpretentious and everyone was having a brilliant time.

8.30am on Saturday we were out of our beds and on our way to Borough Market. It’s vital to get there early. First we made a beeline for the Monmouth Coffee Shop; Anita Le Roy sells a full range of single-estate coffees which are first roasted at their site in Maltby Street, Bermondsey. Big blackboards tell the story of the coffee and there is a queue all day for coffee, bread, jam and buttery pastries.

Next door is Neal’s Yard dairy, famous for Randolph Hodgson’s collection of British and Irish farmhouse cheese. Here we had a tasting of cows’ and goats’ mild cheese all in beautiful condition. Michael Jones told us the story of each cheese, whetting our appetite with tales of the lush pastures the cows graze on and the passionate and eccentric cheese makers.

Around the corner we peeped into Konditor & Cook, which sells fabulous cakes, the sort you’d make yourself if only you had time, energy and inclination.

There are lots of inspirational stalls in Borough Market. We ordered pata negra at Brindisa and took our turn while the assistant hand-cut slivers off the jamón Ibérico. This is sublime cured ham, the best of which comes from the long-legged black Iberian pig, cerdo negro, which feeds on acorns in the woods of Andalucía. (I keep wondering why some Irish pig farmers don’t attempt to cure hams for the growing market for charcuterie.)

Tapas Brindisa on the edge of Borough Market does great little tapas that make a delicious-tasting lunch, little squid and octopus dishes, fried pimientos de Padrón sprinkled with crunchy sea salt, crisp croquettes, deep-fried goats cheese, salted anchovies with roasted vegetables on toasted garlic bread, crispy pork belly and sautéed chicken livers.

Then on to Broadway market in Hackney to Claire Ptak’s stall to taste her iconic cupcakes. This market has an eclectic mix of food and craft. One stall roasts a whole pig on the spit each week. Close by is Brick Lane. Another fascinating area for food lovers, it’s nicknamed the curry mile. Brick Lane Market is pure East London, which means Jewish bagel shops, Bangladeshi curry houses, Indian sari silks and never enough time to explore everything.

Hackney City Farm is close by, an oasis for city children to see chickens, free-range pigs, sheep and donkeys.

Ottolenghi in Islington is a must. The quality of the salads and baking just knocks your socks off: beautiful little passion fruit tarts topped with burnished soft meringue and crunchy chocolate, rose petal cupcakes...

Dinner was at Moro in Exmouth Market. Sam and Sam Clarke and their team love to cook Spanish and Moroccan food – you’ll need to book and build in enough time to have a pre-dinner cocktail at Cafe Kick across the road. They make the best mojitos and have an extensive list of cocktails.

For those who love fine handmade chocolates, there are many options in London, but we visited the shop of Paul A Young in Camden Passage in Islington whose salted caramels alone are worth the detour.

Other places of interest for a foodie weekend are Marylebone Market on Sunday morning. People queue to buy unpasteurised milk and beautiful homegrown vegetables, cheese and meats from The Ginger Pig butcher shop on Moxon Street where they bake pork pies in the Aga.

Here you can buy dry cured rare breed meat reared on the Yorkshire Moors. Well-aged cuts are lined up on the top of the counter and the customer can choose meat that has been hung for two, three, four or five weeks and pay accordingly. It was a joy to see well-hung meat and not a drop of sweet-and-sour sauce in sight.

Patricia Michelson’s iconic cheese shop La Fromagerie with its temperature- and humidity-controlled cheese rooms is next door. It’s also a marketplace of fresh and well-sourced dry goods. Have breakfast, lunch or supper in the café and enjoy boiled egg and soldiers.

Finally we journeyed out to Richmond to have lunch in the Petersham Nurseries Café where Australian chef Skye Gyngell weaves her magic using the best of British food at its seasonal peak. A memorable finale to our action-packed two days.

I have chosen some recipes fromOttolenghi: The Cookbook (Ebury Press) for you to try, enjoy!