James Martin

Wine and the City talks to celebrity chef James Martin at the London School of Hospitality and Tourism about food and beer matching, working at Château Cheval Blanc as a teenager, his passion for Gaja and Montrachet, and why molecular gastronomy does his head in.

Ms Marmite Lover Bacchanalia at Blacks

“Follow the pineapples” Ms Marmite Lover announces, holding one under each arm like dumbbells. Resplendent in a mustard yellow dress (echoing the colour of a Marmite jar), flame red hair prettified with a black fascinator, and a frilly white pinny, Ms Marmite Lover, otherwise known as Kerstin Rodgers, leads her guests up the wooden staircase of Blacks members club in Soho, and into its power blue dining room.

My first encounter with Ms Marmite had been in the same room three months prior, when Tom Parker Bowles had whipped up Tequila-fueled Mexican feast with a little help from chef Alberto Figueroa. After the lunch, while a few guests remained drinking the dregs of their wine and eking out the afternoon, Ms Marmite had educated my friends and I about the joys of “figging”. We listened incredulous. Historical examples of horses were given, along with a suggestion that red chili works just as well as root ginger in achieving the desired affect.

I digress. With Ms Marmite Lover pulling the apron strings, I was curious as to what I’d be served – would ginger make it onto the menu? Opting to take the 18^th century as a theme in homage to the Georgian townhouse playing host to our reveries, Rodgers explains that in the 18^th century, pineapples were the height of luxury. Much like a Louis Vuitton handbag today, the tropical fruits, grown in hot houses in Bermondsey, were excruciatingly expensive, and thus seen as the epitome of chic. Ladies could even pay to hire a pineapple for a few hours to serve as a centerpiece on their dinner tables in order to uphold the appearance of a luxury lifestyle, returning them after the meal.

Our feast begins in a sober fashion with unctuous lemon barley water. Thick with sugar, it tastes like lemon curd. Huge platters filled with fiery orange fritters then emerge, and are quickly devoured by the hungry crowd. “Gentlemen used to cook these on their bedroom fireplaces,” says Rodgers. “A dangerous pursuit,” I venture. The fritters are magnificently moreish – the batter light and crispy, the centre soft and gooey, and filled with those faithful bedfellows: pea and mint. Accompanying the fritters is celery soup with truffle oil, which, according to Rodgers, served as 18^th century Viagra. Slightly too cold, it’s refreshing and redeemed by the richness of the truffle oil.

Mid-feast, Rodgers explains that while seasonality is trendy today, in the 18^th century it was the poor who ate seasonally because they couldn’t afford to eat any other way. The lunch continues with an 18^th century classic that has Blumenthal written all over it: Stargazy Pie, served with garden peas and vermicelli. The pie is a visual spectacle, recalling the theatre of 18^th century cooking. While there aren’t four and twenty blackbirds backed in it, I count no less than five fish heads peeping out of the pastry.

I fail to notice them at first, and get quite a fright when I scoop a head onto my plate. Being so visually close to what you’re eating is an odd experience. As diners, we like to distance ourselves from the animals our food comes from. The Stargazy Pie brings you face-to-face with your plate mate and its unfortunate fate. Eating the rustic concoction was like going back in time to an era I’m not sure I’d want to live in.

Luckily, many a sweet treat was to follow, beginning with black pepper strawberries and a sugar mountain piece montée of profiteroles stuffed with orange flower water and drizzled, Jackson Pollock style, with toffee. Notching our sugar intake up to dangerous levels, we’re then offered tuck shop style salted caramels and sugar-coated candied orange peel. Both look and taste of childhood.

Rounding the lunch off with a fiery Bloody Mary, I step out into the summer sunshine and pontificate about the pineapples. Which foods today are considered the height of luxury – Lobster? Caviar? Foie Gras? Truffles? And more interestingly, what will the luxury foods of tomorrow be? In colonial times, lobster was considered poverty food in America, and was often fed to prisoners and servants. The law even limited the number of days lobster could be fed to prisoners before it became abuse. Today ordering lobster off a menu is the ultimate display of decadence. The beauty of food is its cyclical nature – you can never predict what’s around the next culinary corner.

Bompas & Parr pancake magic at Harvey Nichols

Culinary alchemists Bompas & Parr unveiled their latest set of tricks at Harvey Nichols last week, celebrating Shrove Tuesday in style with an evening of pancake-flipping frippery at the 5th floor restaurant. The event, in collaboration with Lyle's Golden Syrup, kicked off with a pear Bellini, which, when stirred with a magic swizzle stick, turned purple.

While enjoying my now grape-tinged Bellini, I'm ushered to my seat. The restaurant is packed with expectant spectators. At the crashing of a cymbal, Bompas & Parr appear, handsomely dressed in black tailcoats and white bow ties. Overflowing with energy, the boys explain their aim for the evening – to woo and wow us with their magic skills – then quickly launch into their first act: electrocuting a gherkin. Bompas stabs electrodes into the gherkin while Parr mans the mains. It sparks a little a first, but doesn't create the fireball they were hoping for. The second attempt proves more fruitful – the gherkin lights up like an engorged glow-worm, and leaps into the air from the 240-volt shock.

Having made the humble gherkin magnificent, there is a two-course interlude in which to get down to the serious business of eating. The paper-thin discs of beef carpaccio served beneath a rocket and parmesan salad are delectable, as is the hearty, silver-skinned sea bass piled high atop a new potato throne, though I was slightly disappointed at how un-magical the food was, given the theme of the evening. I'd rather hoped for something more ludic and Heston-like, or at least a sprinkling of popping candy here and there.

Before our magical pancake pudding, the boys reappear. Bompas is holding a huge black goblet filled with moonshine. He passes it round the restaurant, asking everyone to take a sip. When it gets to me, I stick my head in. It's the most intoxicating smell I've ever experienced – like pure ethanol mixed with nail polish remover, making me instantly light-headed. My lungs object to the onslaught and I begin to cough. Soldiering on, I take a sip. It's lethal. A few more and I'd be on the floor. The salty aftertaste leaves me craving for something sweet.

For their next trick Bompas leaps inside a black box, while Parr attempts to make liquid nitrogen ice cream on Sam's stomach. He cracks a few eggs, pours some cream down a test tube, fills the black box with nitrogen, then proceeds to saw Sam in half to the sound of the Top Gun soundtrack. Having been put back together, Sam emerges, Humpty Dumpty-like, covered in egg. "Some things are best left across the road", Parr quips, in reference to Heston Blumenthal's runaway success Dinner at the neighbouring Mandarin Oriental hotel.

After a quick outfit change, the boys have two more tricks up their sleeves before pudding. Having traced the enzymes that make fire flies glow, they show us the enzymes in action, making the clear liquid inside a medicine bottle glow turquoise for a few glorious minutes. For their final flourish, they blow up a tin of Golden Syrup, causing a bang so loud my ears nearly bleed. The violence of the explosion is offset by the beauty of the resulting Time Square-style ticker tape shower.

Finally, it's time for pudding. We're presented with a pair of pancakes, upon which is a silver spoon. Upon the spoon is a red pill made from the miracle berry – a small red fruit grown in Africa. Along with the pill is a note, stating: "In 257 years of production, there have been no known side effects, but please take the pill at your own risk." Always keen to push culinary boundaries, I can't wait to try it. Sucking the pill blocks your bitter receptors, causing sour foods to appear sweet.

I give mine a good go, sucking it almost into non existence, and then, having doused my pancake with lashings of lemon juice, take a bite. It has worked. The sharp sensation has been replaced with an overriding sweetness. Still unconvinced, I chomp on a wedge of lemon, expecting to wince, but it's perfectly sweet. My tastebuds have been hypnotized into thinking sour things sweet. I'm seriously impressed, if a little concerned that my sour receptors may never return. How clever to have tricked my tongue. Alas, I didn't go home with one of the 10 food and magic kits the boys were giving away, but I did bag a box of Golden Syrup chewing gum, which tasted of childhood.

Sherry and tapas: the perfect marriage?

I'm a huge Sherry fan. I think it's the most underrated and unappreciated wine in the world. When you say Sherry, most people think of their Grandma reaching for the Harvey's Bristol Cream at Christmas, but there's so much more to it. Sherry is the most versatile wine style. It runs the gamut of the flavour spectrum, from bone dry to treacle sweet. My favourite styles lie somewhere in between.

Sherry and food matching is an exciting arena for experimentation. So much so that culinary alchemist Heston Blumenthal wrote a foreword in a book on the topic, The Perfect Marriage: the Art of Matching Food and Sherry. Heston has been doing a great job alongside Wines of Sherry in promoting Sherry as the perfect food partner.

I went to an event he hosted at Shoreditch House just over a year ago where he'd created a special tasting menu of Sherry and food pairings. The dishes were sensational – Fino with Gruyere fondue, Amontillado with Pata Negra ham, peach and almond, Oloroso with smocked mackerel and Pale Cream with warm quails egg Scotch eggs.

It's a common misconception that you can only drink Sherry as a desert wine. According to Heston, it 'delivers in the mid-tongue acidity area making food perceptibly juicier'. Sherry literally whets the appetite and acts as a taste booster. It also contains compounds that enhance the flavour of foods rich in Umami, the elusive fifth 'savoury' taste, such as meat, fish, Parmesan cheese and shiitake mushrooms.

Last Friday I headed down to the West London Wine School for a Sherry and food pairing event hosted by my flatmate and director of the school, Jimmy Smith. Like me, Jimmy is a Sherry nut, and used the tasting as a platform to try out some exciting new pairings.

Seven wines were on show, from the salty La Gitana Manzanilla to the super sweet Gonzales Byass Nectar Pedro Ximenez NV. Following Heston's philosophy that 'the most exhilarating and enjoyable moments in food are often those when the contrast is at its greatest', Jimmy pushed the experimental envelope with his matches, pairing the Manzanilla with sardine and green apple. It worked surprisingly well. The acidity of the apple enhanced the natural acidity in the wine, giving it extra freshness and lift, while the saltiness of the sardine emulated the wine's sea air aromas on the nose and palate.

My favourite match was Amontillado and gingerbread. The two flavour profiles harmonized beautifully, weaving in and out of one another to the point where the one became indistinguishable from the other. The sweet spice of the gingerbread fused with the nuttiness of the Amontillado, creating more rounded, rich and complex flavours in the wine. It exemplified the Platonic ideal of the coming together of two perfect halves. My tastebuds were in heaven.

The Lustau 15-year-old Dry Oloroso, with its heady nose of orange peel, cinnamon and sweet spice went deliciously well with one of Jimmy's more adventurous matches: Manchego cheese and golden syrup. For his final trick, Jimmy offered up the classic Sherry and food pairing: PX and vanilla ice cream. PX is my least favourite Sherry style, as I find it a bit too sweet, but when tasted with spoonfuls of vanilla Häagen-Dazs, it takes on a more subtle flavour profile. The pairing is inspired.

The wine of the night was the Gonzales Byass Apostoles 30-year-old Palo Cortado. It had a fascinating nose unlike any of the other wines we tried. Tropical and sweet, it was almost rum-like, with vanilla and desiccated coconut taking centre stage. The unctuous palate was tangy and rich, bursting with hazelnuts, toffee and caramel. London's first Sherry bar opens next week – I'll be first in line with my tasting glass.

Shaker Bar School

Any bartender worth his Margarita salt knows a thing or two about Molecular Mixology. It's the new buzz word in the cocktail world, and is proving so popular, there are even courses where budding Blumenthal's can learn to make a molecular cocktail full English breakfast.

On Thursday night I headed down to the Shaker Bar School in Shoreditch to sample the latest in molecular mixology. Hidden behind a black door on East road, the Bar School specializes in cocktail courses, teaching everything from flair classes, where you can learn to twist and shake your Tom Collins like Tom Cruise (there's a padded room downstairs for perfecting your technique), to the more serious five day WSET accredited international bartenters course.

Preparing our full English was Shaker founder Adam Freeth, who set up the bar school back in 2001 as part of his business management degree. The brand has now expanded to Cape Town and Johannesburg, with new schools planned for Cyprus and India.

First on the menu was the Gin-based Earl Grey Mar-tea-ni infused with lemon, served in a mini martini glass. Smokey and citrusy, it was refreshing and smooth. Next up came the Bloody Mary, served with a layer of celery air. Any food or drink with 'air' in the title screams pretentious, but I love flamboyant food, as long as the flavour backs up the fanciful robes it masquerades around the plate (or glass) in.

Round three saw us sipping on a Pancetta and Porcini Martini; a Vodka-based Martini mixed with a Porcini mushroom infused Vermouth served with a salty Pancetta strip. See-through and seriously strong, I'd be falling off my Shaker bar stool after a few of these.

The pièce de résistance came at the end, in the form of an egg. The barman diligently filled a dozen empty egg shells with pineapple and coconut foam, crowning each with a mango yolk, known as a ravioli, made from a sodium solution dipped in a calcium bath. The Pineapple and Mango Egg Colada would certainly turn Heston's head, but did it tick the taste box too? Adam assured us that if we tipped our heads back, it would fall out of the egg in one. It didn't, even after much coercion. I enlisted the help of a spoon. It was delicious.

I wonder what will be next on the molecular cocktail menu – a Sunday roast perhaps, or maybe an American breakfast; blueberry pancakes and cream soda. Whatever the mad mixologists come up with next, I can't wait to try it. Innovation should always be applauded.

Molecular cocktails: it's all in the mix

Ferran Adrià started the hydrocollised  ball rolling, then Heston got in on the act and now mixologists are the latest to dust off their test tubes and try their hands at molecular gastronomy. 

For the month of October Hush bar in Bond Street are offering a six-strong molecular cocktail menu devised by a duo of not-so-mad scientists Pedro Solorzano and Boris Ivan - the Blumenthals of the cocktail world.

During our mixology masterclass they seem keen to point out that the secret behind creating the perfect molecular cocktail is getting the quantities spot on. Too much alocohol and the cocktails won't freeze, too little and you've got a mocktail. 'You have to take all the elements out of the cocktail, separate them and reintroduce them in a different way', says Solorzano. 'The key is to keep the elements separate by mixing them at the correct speed', adds Ivan. 

First up I learn how to make a Piña-Cavia-da (a Piña Colada festooned with tiny rum-filled caviar-like balls). A syringe is thrust into my hand and I'm handed a white tub full of calcium chloride flakes. Flashbacks to grammar school chemistry lessons and the nightmare that is the periodic table ensue. I mix 1 1/2 spoons of the flakes into a glass of water and give it a good stir while filling my syringe with a sweet gloopy mixture of rum, apple juice and sodium. 

I then syringe drops of the rum mixture into the 'calcium bath', which makes the rum emulsify into tiny hydrocollised balls. A full syringe only gives you a teaspoon of balls - molecular cocktails are an intricate art and demand extreme patience on the part of the maker.

Pedro whips out a tub of pineapple and coconut sorbet from the fridge and spoons it into a martini glass, sprinkling it with the hydrocollised rum. It's not something you can really drink, more an alternative pudding. I plunge my spoon in, making sure I get a good dose of the rum caviar. It's hideously sweet, but the balls do taste of the Element 8 rum they were made with.

I also try my hand at the Caipiroli (a Caiprini shaped like ravioli), made from a mixture of rum, lime juice, syrup, green food colouring and sodium alginate. Dipped in the calcium bath, the mint green mixture is frozen for 10 minutes in a square mould. It's much stonger than the Piña-Cavia-da, and considerably more appealing to the tastebuds, especially when paired with the suggested green apple slices. 

Another molecular delight on the list is the B58 - a take on the B52 with the usual Baileys and Kahula and a shot of rum foam that explodes in the mouth. The glammest cocktail has to be the Element Fizz, a mix of Prosecco, rum and Grand Marnier caviar that floats ebulliently round the glass chasing the bubbles.

'We're off to Spain tomorrow to showcase the cocktails in Barcelona', Boris informs me, as he dips into the fridge and brings out his latest experiment – strawberry beer sorbet. 'We're planning on pouring it into the beer bottles and serving it like that. I want to bring all the elements of the kitchen back into the bar. The bar is the new kitchen'.