Thoughts for Food

Cooking for Friends. Chef Matthias Gfrorer and his team hosted the third such event in St Maxim’s at the weekend, and very satisfying it was too.

Cooking for Friends is a sort of culinary club. Matthias takes over the restaurant, invites half a dozen rising stars from different kitchens to collaborate and show off their talents, and we get to enjoy the results. It’s fun, and highly entertaining in a foodie kind of way. Trying to identify flavours and ingredients. Tasting new combinations. Understanding what the chef was trying to achieve with a particular presentation. Each course is accompanied by an appropriate and interesting wine, which last night ran the gamut from Mercurey 1ier Cru to a sweet and luscious late-picked Muscat.

Highlight for me was the ‘Boeuf a la Mode’, a gloriously tender braise presented in a hollowed-out loaf, the original ‘trencher’ and a wonderfully medieval note in an otherwise thoroughly modern setting. Talking to the chef afterwards revealed just what it took to achieve such perfection of flavour and texture – two days of work, of near-constant attention and meticulous tasting. But boy was it worth it. Tender, unctuous, intense.