Eurofrutta – welcome to the fresh delivery

what the pluck?

I don’t know whether anyone caught the Saturday Kitchen on BBC One at the weekend but chef Marcus Wareing made an appearance to plug the opening of his new restaurant ‘Marcus Wareing at the Berkeley Hotel’, which opens on 15 September.

Wareing is such an accomplished chef that his culinary skills have helped earn London retaurant Petrus two Michelin stars and five AA rosettes. It was reassuring to hear Gordon Ramsey’s former protege talk about the importance of using in-season ingredients in his cooking while viewers also got the chance to observe the maestro in action as he rustled up an eight-minute concoction of braised halibut with watercress puree, coddled quails’ eggs and grilled baby leeks.

All was going swimmingly until Wareing suddenly produced a jug of chicken stock and chucked all 200ml of it onto the halibut. Chicken stock!

Now, he may be flavour of the month at Petrus, or the Berkeley, or whatever other posh London eatery have decided to line his pockets but to a one-time pescatarian, the sight of Wareing submerging fish in meat juice is like finding your wife in bed with your father – or worse still, a Tottenham fan. What on earth was he thinking? You could maybe understand it happening at a village b&b – the chicken stock/fish debacle that is, not your old man getting it on with your old girl routine, although come to think of it both are equally appropriate – but this is Marcus Wareing we’re talking about. Shame on you, Wareing!

All of which of course means that if a famous gourmet chef uses meat in his ‘fish’ dishes, then how many other times in the last 15 years have I been similarly duped? And, come to think of it, where on earth is my Missus? She should have been home hours ago.

Posted on September 9th, 2008 under Uncategorized • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback