Shisha in the restaurant

Recently we had our guest chef Carl Kenzler from Ritual Restaurant Nelson Bay with his team and cooked with us with a "From the Sea to The Mountains Journey" dinner. One of the best pallet cleansers so far was using the Shisha or Hookah as the delivery technique for the apple and mint pallet cleanser. The Shisha was apple smoke and apple juice as the liquid and everybody enjoyed it so i guess some child hood memories came to some or a bit of a rebelous excitement to others.

Beef Cheeks

In the depths of winter we tend to crave a little comfort. For me, the humble beef cheek needs to be on the list of things to eat before spring comes to town.


Cheeks denuded and marinated for 24 hrs in plenty of red wine, orange rind, thyme, coriander seeds, white peppercorns, fennel seeds and garlic. A grizzly sight.

Then once patted dry the cheeks got a full dose of Mallard reaction and a gentle braise in beef stock for many hours.


A big soft Beef Cheek on truffled mash with braised leeks, turned carrots, braised eschallots, cauliflower and broccoli florets all in a buttery nage. Yum. J

Strawberry fields forever

Today is a new day, and as we embark upon a journey towards the end of winter we are blessed by nature giving us next to perfect strawberries the flavour is full and rich, perfect ph and sugar levels, offer an explosion of juice into the mouth,
Now when I think strawberries I'm instantly drawn to the quintessential beatles song strawberry fields, now to recreate a strawberry field not the easiest thing so I begin to draw inspiration from a bit of a slacker in the restaurant world my mate Rene from Noma in Copenhagen, only owns the best restaurant in the world he plates a dish like this




-so with Rene and his dish in mind I embark upon my journey
Here are a few ways I tried plating "strawberry fields"









The next on our ever existing quest for culinary perfection is a chefs table comprising of 8 seats, in which we won't just take you through the steps of eating haute cuisine we will capture you and take you on an extravagent journey through food and where it comes from and how we treat it
Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone