Hibiscus

Claude Bosi, the ambitious and exuberant chef-patron of two Michelin-starred restaurant Hibiscus in Mayfair, has a soft spot for ornamental chickens. So much so, he has a collection of the creatures lining the staircase at the restaurant, whose beady eyes watch you as you venture down to the loo.

Having upped sticks from its original home in Ludlow in 2007, husband and now ex-wife team Claude and Claire run a slick ship at Hibiscus. The restaurant is so understated, I walked straight past it. A polished desk on entry coupled with a partition screen give the impression you’re about to check in to a BA Club lounge. Inside, the interiors have been over-generously garnished with wood. Tones are hushed, lighting bright and flowers orange. On arrival, the restaurant is empty save for one or two tables, to give head chef Marcus McGuinness time to execute Bosi’s intricate dishes while he works his magic at new London pop-up The Cube atop the Royal Festival Hall.

Proceedings are kicked off in style when a pair of goody bowls arrive, one containing pudgy cheese gougères and the other ping pong ball-shaped yuzu and miso croquettes, both of which prove so addictive I’m suspicious they might contain crack cocaine. The croquettes explode with aromatic citrus liquid on biting, while the gougères ooze warm, creamy cheddar down my thankful throat. Chomping enthusiastically into a second, my skirt is christened with liquid cheese. Moments later, a concerned waiter arrives and silently offers me a starched white napkin from between two forks before swiftly departing so as not to draw attention to the incident.

Mackerel tartare with button mushroom cream

Obsessed with seasonality, Hibiscus doesn’t limit itself to the confines of a menu, but rather offers a page of seasonal ingredients, asking diners to choose the number of dishes they’d like (three, six or eight), and which ingredients they would like to see featured. I opt for eight courses and ask to be surprised. In a sweet and fitting tribute to the restaurant’s namesake, the feast begins with a vivifying hibiscus flower and pineapple soda amuse bouche, which I’m told to down like a shot.

Perhaps peaking prematurely, the first course is the apogee of the meal. Served in a small black bowl, a layer of foie gras-coloured button mushroom cream is prettified with edible flowers amid shards of shaved almond sticking out of the top like shark teeth. Beneath the teeth lies a smoky, meaty, mackerel tartare. When eaten together, the result is a rich, creamy and perfumed mouthful given texture by the almond shards in an exquisite example of the culinary pyrotechnics Bosi prides himself on.

Kaffir lime and spring onion ravioli

The next course is equally intriguing: a single, pleated ravioli stuffed with spring onion and Kaffir lime served with a buttery, broad bean and mint purée. The audacious use of lime highlights Bosi’s fearless approach. Out to surprise and delight, he takes flavour pairings to the edge of what is acceptable, assaulting and seducing the palate in one bite. Diners of a meek disposition may not warm to his gung-ho style, but, as each course reveals itself, I revel in the life-affirming flavour skirmish.

A pearl white hunk of roast Cornish John Dory was disappointingly mild on its own, but came to life when paired with the accompanying girolles drizzled in Lancashire mead and a salty sliver of Morteau sausage, the mead adding unctuous sweetness, the girolles earthiness and the sausage a savoury, meaty kick. Next up is a solitary, oak-smoked lamb sweetbread served with fresh goat’s cheese masquerading as a boiled egg, the yolk a pool of grass-green sorrel oil. Rich, juicy and oily, it tasted like a gourmet chicken nugget.

Roast squab pigeon with pistachios and cherries

Mention must be made of the wines. Chosen by natural wine pioneer Isabelle Legeron MW and enthusiastically poured by 22-year-old head sommelier Bastien Ferreri, the majority of the bins on the weighty list are organic and biodynamic, so what ends up in the glass is a bit of a lottery. While the opening wine, a 2009 Marsanne/Rousanne/Chardonnay/Viognier mash up from the Languedoc is cloudy in colour and spiteful in character, a 2007 Vermentino/Chenin Blanc blend from the Languedoc chosen to pair with the ravioli is bright, aromatic and elegantly spiced.

The only wine list in London to carry a page dedicated to orange wines, my wine find of the night was the curious and delicious Savasol 2007 from Loire renegade Julien Courtois. Made from the little-known Menu Pineau grape, Courtois deliberately oxidizes the wine to imbue it with wonderful, Sherry-like aromas of hazelnuts, toffee and sea air. Excited to be presented with a gleaming chunk of lobster, it turns out to be the least remarkable dish of the night. Much more impressive is an almost indecently pink slice of roast squab pigeon served with pistachio gravel. Sweetened by the accompanying cherries, the meat is achingly tender and exoticised by hints of spice. Finishing the dish, a crispy samosa contains creamy foie gras and an array of the bird’s innards.

White asparagus and white chocolate cream

The exhilarating flavour journey ends on a high note with a mystery dessert, the ingredients of which I’m asked to identify. Fashioned into a squidgy macaroon, I correctly guess the key components: white asparagus and white chocolate cream, and also manage to pinpoint the black olive splodges and coconut sorbet, but fail to decipher the elusive whey gel. The rich, savoury concoction seems straight out of the Great British Menu – a dish Matthew Fort would rave about and Oliver Peyton would peer down his glasses disapprovingly at. It was weird, but it worked. That’s the beauty of Bosi – he sends you on a crazy culinary adventure with no seatbelt or indication of the final destination, and the ride is all the better for it.

Hibiscus, 29 Maddox Street, London, W1S 2PA; Tel: +44 (0)20 7629 2999.

San Valentino with Emily O'Hare

During a recent visit to Emilia-Romagna with the lovely Emily O'Hare, sommelier at Michelin-starred Italian restaurant The River Café in Hammersmith, we got Ben Smith of Enotria to film this video where we try two wines from biodynamic estate San Valentino in Rimini, beginning with Due 2011, a Chardonnay/Riesling blend, and ending with the punchy, 100% Sangiovese, Terra di Covignano 2011. Salute!

Wregg: The majority of natural wines can’t age

Flag bearer for the natural wine movement Doug Wregg has admitted he doesn’t think the majority of natural wines can age. “60-80% of natural wine should be drunk within the first year, after that they fall apart,” the director of sales and marketing for Les Caves de Pyrène told the drinks business. “Most of the wines are light, pale, fizzy and fun. They’re meant for wine bars rather than cellars. It’s a miracle when something lovely happens in the bottle a few years down the line, but I wouldn’t bet my house on it,” he added.

Wregg disagrees with French and Italian natural wine importer Giuseppe Mascoli’s opinion that natural wine is “not for the masses,” as reported on Wine and the City. “Natural wine is for the masses. It’s not in any way intellectual or hard to understand – the wines are incredibly simple and easy to understand,” he said. He also revealed that he’s in no hurry for natural wine to get an official definition.

“I’m really against the idea of an official definition – I don’t think it would have any traction, so I can’t see the point of it. Having to adhere to a certain set of criteria would suffocate the freedom of the winemakers. I wouldn’t like the whole movement to be codified. Plus, the debate surrounding the natural wine movement has generated a lot of interest because of this lack of an official definition,” he admitted.

With regards to organic and biodynamic wine, he blasted the term organic as “meaningless,” due to the multitude of different definitions around the world. “I’m relaxed about the language surrounding natural wine – I use the terms organic and biodynamic interchangeably,” he quipped. He also spoke of his constant need to defend criticism of natural wine from the trade: “It’s turned into a playground fight – the wine bloggers are ripping their hair out."

Wregg is to host a natural, organic and biodynamic fair – The Real Wine Fair – at Victoria House in Holborn on 20-22 May, which will go head-to-head with Isabelle Legeron’s RAW wine fair on 20-21 May at the Old Truman Brewery in Brick Lane.

Château Guiraud awarded organic logo

Grand Cru Sauternes Château Guiraud has been awarded the Agriculture Biologique (AB) farming logo – France’s national logo for organic products since 1985. As reported on thedrinksbusiness.com, The 2011 vintage will be the first Grand Cru Sauternes to carry the logo, and one of the only châteaux in the Bordeaux 1855 classification to be certified organic. Products carrying the logo must contain more than 95% organic components, and be produced within the EU.

The château started to experiment with organic farming 15 years ago and today uses no artificial pesticides, fertilisers or herbicides in the production of the sweet wine. In 1996, fed up with constant chemical treatment of his own private 15 hectares of vineyards, director of the property Xavier Planty decided he wanted to work differently. Learning the ropes with a 12ha vineyard, he suffered a number of setbacks, but working alongside an agricultural engineer, he began to regenerate the soil with liquid manure to replenish the grassy vegetation that grows naturally around vine stock.

“Rather than feed the soil with fertiliser, we feed it with bacteria; it’s easy to go bio,” Planty said. “Illnesses such as mildew are closely monitored, and with weather conditions known up to a week in advance, treatment can be giving preventively. It’s incredible to see how the fauna and flora have returned,” he added. An insect census of Château Guiraud’s 100 hectares of vineyards found 635 different varieties, compared to fewer than 200 in “conventional” vineyards.

To help expand biodiversity, 3.7 miles of hedges have been planted to help protect insects and feed them in spring. The multiplication of insects which feed on vine predators has allowed Planty to dispense completely with insecticides since 2004. While Guiraud was the first Bordeaux grand cru to experiment with organic growing, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru Château Fonroque was first to win the organic label in 2006.

The Aquitaine region is the third largest in France to experiment with organic vineyards, behind Languedoc-Roussillon and Provence in southwestern and southern France respectively. Aquitaine now has 300 organic-certified estates and 400 working towards certification. Organic vineyard area in France doubled between 2007 and 2010, then increased again by 28% between 2009 and 2010 to 50,268 hectares.

Roganic

I’m running late for Ben Spalding – literally, running down Blandford Street in Marylebone hoping to catch the head chef before service. It’s 6.15 on a Tuesday evening and a pair of hungry Americans are already perched in Roganic’s compact, 25-seater space lined with lugubrious abstract expressionist paintings, waiting to be fed. Spotting Spalding on entry, I corner the charismatic 24-year-old before he disappears downstairs. Decked out in chef whites, his rolled up sleeves reveal arms heavily inked with tattoos. Musical notes and red and blue jigsaw pieces climb up each limb, alongside the name Tilda (his baby daughter), and the phrase ‘keep your feet on earth but your head in the clouds,’ – “As a chef, you spend so many hours in the kitchen, it’s important to be able to dream a little bit, otherwise you go crazy,” Spalding tells me. His speech is fast and furious, his words spat out like bullets. The world it seems, doesn’t move fast enough for him.

While most pop-ups have the lifespan of a dragonfly, Roganic is stretching the definition with a two-year venture. The brainchild of Simon Rogan, of Michelin-starred L’Enclume in Cumbria, Roganic (a hybrid of Rogan and organic), prides itself on locally sourced (preferably foraged), seasonal organic ingredients. Manning the mothership in Cumbria, Rogan has handed over the reins to the energetic and fiercely creative Spalding. In the absence of an à la carte, diners can opt for a six- or 10-course tasting menu, with a vegetarian option available in both formats. The championing of British produce begins as soon as I sit down, when a glass of salmon pink Chapel Down Brut Rosé NV is opened and poured by the restaurant’s affable 23-year-old manager Jonathon Cannon. Team Roganic is scandalously young and ridiculously clued-up about the minutiae of the courses. With the theatrical arrival of each new dish comes an exhaustive explanation of the origins of every last ingredient.

In front of me lies a solitary black pebble, foraged by Spalding from a beach in Folkstone. Pondering the philosophical significance of the stone, I become privy to its purpose when a waiter arrives wielding a knife and slathers it in sea salt-flecked, well-whipped butter to be spread on an array of freshly baked spherical bread, including buttermilk, spelt and pumpernickel, all with warm, fluffy interiors. The first step of our edible journey begins with an amuse-bouche of squid ink paper with lind seeds, aioli and cucumber foam, accessorised with an edible purple pansy. It is a thing of beauty, and too pretty to put in my mouth, but when I do I’m rewarded with an explosion of flavour and texture, from the crunchy black paper, to the creamy foam and silky flower. This is the laying down of the gauntlet; a glimpse of the culinary peacockery Spalding is capable of, which perfectly sets the tone for the dishes ahead.

To describe all 10, (15 if you account for amuse-bouches and palate cleansers), would be to fill a book, so I’ll stick to the highlights. Our first dish: heirloom tomato, poached lamb tongue and dill custard is as curious as it is delicious. The playful preoccupation with texture is a thread weaved throughout each course. Multi-layered and deconstructed, the dish is of such complexity, it feels like the culinary equivalent of Inception. Strangely, the overriding flavour is of the warm, salty gherkins you encounter in a McDonald’s cheeseburger, despite the dish being gherkin free. It’s a very specific and nostalgic taste; the taste of childhood. Dish three: smoked Cornish ling, arrives dramatically in a Plath-esque bell jar billowing with smoke. Protected by a crab apple shield, the ling is nestled in a bed of crispy onion slithers that lend the ensemble an enticing smoky edge.

Mention must be made of the wine. Throughout the five-hour epic, we are offered seven glasses from any array of regions, including Washington, Santorini, Campania and Wagram. To my disappointment, my glass remained empty on a number of occasions, our switched-on sommelier Sandia Chang (previously of Per Se) pouring frugal measures rather than full glasses. With a £50 supplement for wine, I was hoping my cup would runneth over. And we didn’t see red until dish nine – a haunting Alto Adige Lagrein brimming with cherries, rose petals and tealeaves – having been inundated with cool climate whites. Food is very much the star of the show at Rognic, with wine happy to play a reliable if uninspiring supporting role.

Back to the main event – dish five: pig and smoked eel comprises two square croquettes amid a tweezer-shaped swoosh of canary yellow pickled corn dotted with mustard seeds that detonate gently on the palate. The sugar cube-shaped squares burst with flavour on biting, displaying the smoky bacon character of Frazzles. Has Spalding been let loose with the monosodium glutamate? Mixing the forest and the sea in dish six: grilled langoustine, purple sprouting broccoli and loganberry oil, is the only miss of the evening – the subtle flavour of the crustacean overpowered by the sweet berries. But the broccoli is the best I’ve ever tasted, expertly timed to give it a satisfying crunch.

Meat makes a cameo appearance in dish nine, in the form of a perfectly pink cut of Cumbrian veal cooked in buttermilk. Soft as a pillow, it melts in the mouth. We are then treated to a septet of British cheeses, lovingly cut by our a walking encyclopedia of a waiter, including the nettle-wrapped Cornish Yarg and intensely tangy Harbourne Blue, enhanced by miniature poached pears. In preparation for the final furlong; a trio of desserts, our palates are cleansed with a vivifying ginger beer granita. Soldiering on, we munch our way through the textured trilogy, the highlight being a scoop of frozen natural yoghurt set beneath a dried caramel roof. Completing the homage to childhood flavours, the bilberries recall blackcurrant Fruit Pastilles.

At £80 for 10 courses, with a £50 supplement for wine, Roganic isn’t cheap, but it’s a destination restaurant. A night in its clutches is as entertaining, awe-inspiring and surprising as a night at the opera. Dish after dish, Spalding delights with his exquisite presentation, playful flavour combinations and deftly cooked ingredients. To send out hundreds of equally beautiful plates a night is testament to his exacting standards. These are more than dishes; they’re edible works of art to be deliberated over then devoured. It will be fascinating to see what this wild child does next.

Roganic, 19, Blandford St, London W1U 3DH

Tel: +44(0)20 7486 0380

Henschke tasting with Simon Woods

Last week on an incredibly soggy Wednesday eve, I braved the relentless rain and skidded across Wandsworth bridge to the West London Wine School for a Henschke masterclass hosted by Simon Woods, who was recently crowned Online Wine Columnist of the Year at the Louis Roederer Wine Writers' Awards.

Fresh from a trip to South West France, an ebullient Woods began by lamenting the typically British weather, though talk soon turned to the eight wine spread from the pioneering Eden Valley winery founded by Johann Christian Henschke in 1868. Legend has it that Johann fled Silesia by boat for the Barossa with his wife and four children, but arrived a single father of two having suffered three bereavements en route.

Having established the winery in Keyneton, Johann's great-grandson Cyril went on to make the switch from fortified to table wines, pioneering single varietal, single-vineyard wines. The winery is now run by 5th generation Stephen Henschke and his wife Prue – he makes the wine, she runs the vineyard. The pair are potty about organics and biodynamics (organic certification is due in 2011), and follow the principles strictly, picking Hill of Grace just before the full moon of Easter and Mount Edelstone a week after.

Other elements to their alchemy include sprinkling crushed eggshells from Henschke hens on the soil, burying cow horns filled with ground quartz, and planting yarrow flowers fermented in a deer's bladder into the soil, then dousing it with nettle tea.

With such whacky winemaking methods, I was curious to see what these lunar wines tasted like. What struck me about the range was that each wine had its own character representing the ever changing challenges of season, place and variety. The Eden Valley is higher, cooler, wetter and stonier than the warm, undulating Barossa, but I found myself drawn to both of the styles.

Highlights included the mineral, fresh and limey Julius Riesling 2007, which Woods described as 'like licking wet pebbles face down on a beach'. The Louis Semillon 2007 also impressed with its textured palate and orange blossom aromas, while the Croft Chardonnay 2007 from the Adelaide Hills had a powerful nose of rich buttered popcorn, peach and nut, and yet had a fresh, rounded, mineral palate.

As for the reds, there were two clear front runners: Keyneton Estate Euphonium 2004 from the Barossa and Cyril Henschke 2004 from the Eden Valley. The former, made with Shiraz and Bordeaux varietals, was Cabernet dominant, with black currant, black cherry and mint upfront. Voluptuous and opulent on the palate, I found notes of vanilla, cedar, smoke, tar, eucalypt, pepper and spice, with a black olive finish. Going back to the Cyril after 1/2 an hour, it had really opened up, with rich black fruit, licorice and mint on the nose and lush, fleshy, velvety fruit on the palate. Rounded and mouthfilling with a lingering finish, it emerged the superior wine. But for three times the price, you'd hope so.

The innovations at Henschke are far from over. After a stint of world travel, Stephen and Prue's son Johann is getting his hands dirty in their various vineyards and putting his own stamp on the wines. And being named Johann, he has some seriously big shoes to fill.