Yotam Ottolenghi drinks the world’s five greatest wines* Noble Rot meets one of Britain’s best-loved chefs for the ultimate liquid lunch Words by Dan Keeling | Photos by Juan Trujillo Andrades t’s early May in central – a celebration of classical duck presses, centrepieces for London and summer’s gastronomy so diametrically elaborate preparations that I arrival can be felt in the opposed to today’s zeitgeist turn classical French cooking warm concrete glow and for casual dining it may as into acts of pure theatre. languid pace of Gray’s Inn well offer its menu in shillings As the location for Noble Rot Road. Black cabs and buses and crowns. There’s nothing to reappraise the famous shuttle weary passengers about this place that should 20th century gastronome northwards to King’s Cross work, but it does. Mixing Curnonsky’s list of the Station or south to the City, old-school table service with world’s five greatest white past strip-lit takeaways, eccentric charm, it features wines with Yotam Ottolenghi cafés and Otto’s Restaurant antique silver lobster and it couldn’t get much better. *according to Curnonsky 36 Noble Rot “I’m absolutely bemused by Gastronomic France and in do’,” says Ottolenghi, the idea of a lobster press,” the 1930s classified what he observing a 1990 Château chuckles Ottolenghi as we considered to be the world’s d’Yquem being decanted. To settle down for a Tuesday five best white wines drink all five wines over the lunch of Lucullan proportions. (Montrachet, ‘Clos de la course of one sitting promises “How much juice do you get Coulée de Serrant’, Château- to be an extraordinary out of a lobster? I’m dying to Grillet, Château-Chalon and experience. It is, as they say, see,” he ponders as owner Château d’Yquem – all a dirty job – and Noble Rot is Otto Tepassé appears pushing French, naturellement). the magazine to do it. a dining cart carrying two “When I told friends I was Curnonsky died in 1956 colossal 70-year-old doing this today I had so but, among many gastronomic Crustaceans. “Oh my god – I many jealous people saying insights, he’s still best can’t wait to eat them,” says ‘That’s such a fun thing to remembered for his slogan, Yotam, admiring the barnacle- encrusted beasties. But before Noble Rot gets stuck into a menu of cheery artery cloggers such as ‘Homard à la Presse’ and ‘Poularde de Bresse Demi-Deuil en Vessie’, a bit more about today’s premise: who was Curnonsky? Was his list of wines really that good? And do they still justify such prestigious reputations today? Maurice Edmond Sailland AKA Curnonsky was born in Angers, France in 1872 and became the most influential food and wine writer of his generation. Voted ‘Prince of Gastronomes’ by Le Bon Gîte magazine in 1927, Curnonsky wrote a series of books about regional food called The (Left) “Have you heard the one about the German, the lobsters and the antique food press?” Otto Tepasse and friends (Above Right, Left to Right) 1990 Château d’Yquem, 1990 Château- Grillet, 1990 ‘Clos de la Coulée de Serrant’, 1992 Baron Thénard Montrachet, 2007 Macle Château- Chalon (Right) Otto’s dining room 38 Noble Rot Noble Rot 39 “Les choses doivent avoir le written, do many of your I once visited a hotel and they assistant always says to me, into real trouble because I test during the week. Some goût de ce qu’elles sont”; readers still think you’re a had a beautiful elk head on “before you tweet, call me…” got the figures completely recipes have taken 15 times things should taste of what vegetarian? the wall – a stunning animal wrong. It was supposed to to perfect. I also work with a they are – a sentiment that that died years ago – so I NR: Before you moved to say two-hundred thousand lady in Wales – every recipe Noble Rot’s special guest Yotam Ottolenghi: They don’t tweeted a picture of it. But I London you were a journalist and I wrote twenty thousand goes to her. She goes definitely agrees with. “A think that I’m a vegetarian, had to take it straight off on a national newspaper. Did and almost got fired. One shopping where she lives chocolate cake should, first but some of them don’t like because of the amount of you interview people or was decimal point wrong, but for a around Cardiff to buy the and foremost, taste of the idea that I eat meat. horrible comments I got. My it all news? news story... ingredients, cooks the recipes chocolate”, Yotam and for her family, then writes me business partner Sami YO: I was a news editor. NR: Your recipes are a report on how it went. She Tamimi unwittingly echoed in When I was at university in renowned for always tests all the timings and their introduction to The Tel Aviv I worked in the working. Have you ever temperatures so by the time Ottolenghi Cookbook, the first newsroom in the evenings made any mistakes with it comes back from her I feel in a series of phenomenally writing headlines. It was so those? confident that it’s fine. successful publications intense – we’re talking the (including Plenty, Plenty 1990s, with a room full of YO: Not many. With books, NR: And I suppose if you can More, Jerusalem and Nopi) cigarette smoke, just like in occasionally you find there find all the ingredients that, along with television the films. I was the first are two or three mistakes around Cardiff you can get appearances and five central generation that worked on that are normally fixed in the them anywhere… London restaurants, have computers and it was a very second print but I’m slightly established Ottolenghi as the funny time. obsessive about testing my YO: That’s the thing. I’m most influential gastronomic recipes. In my test kitchen famous for using obscure brand of the last decade and a NR: So what’s the funniest there’s no interesting kitchen ingredients, so she also has to half. Responsible for headline you’ve written? gear – no lobster presses get the ingredients and tell introducing a long list of – although I think I might me how she got them. She’ll exotic ingredients to the YO: I was really crap at need one of those. I’ve got a get some online, or she’ll tell shelves of British finance and stock market small team I send ideas to on me “I can’t get curry leaf in supermarkets, most ardent news. One time I got myself the weekend, which we then Cardiff, what should I do?” fans will at some point experience a minor existential crisis when another shopper snaffles the last bottle of pomegranate molasses in Waitrose. A chef who has done more than any to inspire “From the first Ottolenghi Cookbook a nation of mediocre home everybody does the traditional cooks to engage with real food, Yotam Ottolenghi we Palestinian chicken with lemon slices salute you. Bring on the and za’atar and sumac Montrachet! – if you haven’t, go home and try it!” Noble Rot: Given how many meat-free recipes you’ve Yotam Ottolenghi 40 Noble Rot Noble Rot 41 CURNONSKY’S FIRST FLIGHT I’m strict about offering NR: And free meals, right? Yotam Ottolenghi: (Sniffing surrounding appellations are pronounced flavour than ‘Clos alternatives, however about ‘Clos de la Coulée de famous for their super-sweet de la Coulée de Serrant’, one in every 30 recipes there YO: I don’t need any more Serrant’) Wow, this is so Chenin, this is the complete typically featuring aromas of is no alternative ingredient meals, that’s the problem! wonderfully dry. opposite. fenugreek, curry leaves and – like you can’t do this (laughs) When I started out walnuts. without dried mandarin peel, in London 20 years ago it was NR: It’s got that Sherry-ness NR: We checked the lunar which is only available in much less democratic than it to it, hasn’t it? calendar earlier and today is YO: As it ages it gets those certain shops in Chinatown. is today but now something a ‘fruit day’. According to curry notes, right? Yeah, has changed. I was under the YO: It’s beautiful, and you can biodynamics, some days have fenugreek, I can taste NR: Which recipes are you impression that whatever see how you could carry on better conditions for drinking fenugreek here, no question most proud of creating? happened, you needed to drinking it for a while and making wines. What do about that. The benefit with work in a Michelin-starred because it’s not cloying in any you think of the Château- wine is you can take a YO: The ones that I’m most restaurant and suffer terribly way. If a lot of the Chalon? It’s got a more metaphor of something that proud of are the ones people for a few years in order to cook most. From the first become a good chef. But Ottolenghi Cookbook that’s a complete myth everybody does the perpetrated by certain traditional Palestinian people. I couldn’t take it so I chicken with lemon slices and left and went to work at za’atar and sumac – if you places that were more haven’t, go home and try it! civilised. With Rowley Leigh, From Plenty there’s a recipe who was a real breath of fresh for confit garlic tart which a air, and then I worked at lot of people do.