Chefs at home. So last night ate dinner at a neighbour’s house, just five doors up from us in south London, where chef Jean and his partner Sandy cooked for us, we’ve known them at a distance for at least 15 years but hadn’t properly sat down for dinner together. Well, it turns out Jean and I used to work together in the mid 90s at a place called Mezzo in Wardour Street head chef’d by @johntorodecooks, with @chrisgalvin8 @chefmanx @jason.warwick. It was a huge restaurant so to be fair “worked together” is a bit vague as there were so many chefs, bakers and so on (Jean worked on the crustacean bar, I was the baker for a flash). So we started with a pink rhubarb g&t, ate the niçois fougasse I baked (with capers, shallots and black olives) with a whipped goats cheese and beet salad. Then had this super overnight-salted baked fish with garlic butter on black rice risotto (the salting firms the flesh and makes it cod-like, a great tip), followed by a ballotine of lamb shoulder with couscous and kale with Moroccan tagine spices. Then a molten chocolate and orange pudding to finish. Amazing cooking at home like a restaurant, but you know, with generous portions (hint-hint to chefs reading this). Were there with a young Australian couple who are planning their move back to Australia so we argued the toss between Melbourne and Sydney life (it’s a hard one, I’m utterly Melbourne-devoted but Sydney has lots of magic to it right now, and amazing restaurants).
