Casa Batavia

“Italians are particularly prone to the comfort and reassuring nostalgia of food. They eat with a childish verve and enthusiasm, and exuberant remembrance of their homes, their mothers, their lovers and their Vespas,” so says AA Gill in his review of Casa Batavia in last Sunday’s Style magazine in The Sunday Times. The Vespa reference is a national stereotype too far, but I get what Gill means. Italians have a love of food unequalled throughout the world. They worship at the altar of food, the architecture of their day built around what they are going to eat.

Nicola Batavia is a self-confessed “eggspert”. I met the chef a month ago at a Castello Banfi dinner at Camden curio Gilgamesh. His arrival at the table was met with much fanfare and clapping of hands, like the returning of the prodigal son. Unfamiliar with his oeuvre, I felt in the presence of a world-famous celebrity that had somehow got through my net. Peering through a pair of neon orange specs, he tells me, in a Dalínian fashion, of his beatific reverence for eggs – of their mystic duality: the hard and the soft, the white and the yolk; the eternal conundrum. Mention is made of a truffled egg dish, which recalls treasured memories of Spuntino’s truffled egg on toast. Noting my enthusiasm, Batavia invites me to try the dish when he’s next in town.

The Michelin-starred chef found fame in Italy with his Ristorante Birichin in Turin. He now has a regular spot on Italian TV, a book, wine line and olive oil to his name. This summer, he teamed up with seasoned London restaurateur Paolo Boschi to launch Casa Batavia on Kensington Church Street. White walls, black leather chairs and polished wooden floors lend an air of austerity to the space, which is softened by playful graphic prints by Italian cartoonist Osvaldo Cavandoli. The interiors are so pared down they border on corporate, but a glass-domed roof lends much-needed light to the proceedings. Tablecloths are a tasteful beige, mirroring the hues of the ladies who lunch that populate the room.

Boschi is so old school you couldn’t invent him. He takes my (beige) coat and sits me at the window table, in full view of the Notting Hillbillies passing by. Our feast gets off to a good start with a cupful of crunchy, lithe grissini sticks served with Batavia’s bright green, grassy, Umbrian olive oil. With it we’re served a generous-sized Riedel glass of Gancia Alta Langa Brut 2007. Aged for three years in oak, the northern Italian sparkler glints gold in the glass, offering a rich and toasty nose of honey and hazelnuts that could give Bollinger a run for its money.

We’re then presented with a silver slither of skate wing served with capers, tomatoes and olives. Soft as swan’s-down, the fish is tremendously tender, and enhanced by the autumnal accoutrements. The embodiment of Batavia’s “modern Italian” cooking philosophy, there are no foams or temperature tricks, just simple, seasonal ingredients. Then it arrives. I can smell it coming. The famous truffled egg. Hopes are high. Poached, it looks beautiful in the dish, nestled in a pond of potato fondu, a solitary sage leaf balancing on top like a fallen feather. The egg is expertly cooked, its orange yolk oozing into the cheese pool below. Rich from the truffle oil, it’s decadent, delightful and comforting beyond belief – what baby food would taste like in heaven.

To follow is a trio of oxtail ravioli blanketed with a snowflake-shaped shaving of Parmesan. Packing a flavour punch, the Parmesan has the intensity of a fresh cheese straw and works well with the tender ox meat. Astutely autumnal, Batavia is spookily in tune with the seasons, like a culinary weather vane. To match, the sommelier suggests Andrea Oberto Giada Barbera d’Alba 2005. An attractive bright ruby, the nose bursts with black cherry, plum and forest fruits. Growing in intensity on the palate, blackcurrant notes give way to a liquorice finish.

Mid-pour, the affable young wine waiter tells us he’s from Narni in Umbria, explaining that C.S. Lewis named his imaginary land of Narnia after the Umbrian hilltown, having stumbled across it in an atlas as a child. The final flourish before dessert is Batavia’s signature dish: pork tonnato in a rustic tuna sauce, latticed with courgette and carrot. Usually made with cold cuts of veal, the juicy medallion of hot roast pork loin is textbook. Dessert doesn’t reach the highs of the main event, though a bowl of molten chili chocolate doused in Amaretto lifts the spirits, while a Lavazza espresso from a bespoke machine imported from Italy delivers an invigorating and smooth caffeine kick. Judging from earlier reviews, the Haribo fried egg sweets presented with the bill have been wisely replaced with almond-filled biscotti.

Though heaving on my visit, Batavia made the effort to talk to each customer, gauging their needs and tweaking their order accordingly. You’d never get that level of service in Soho or Mayfair. My only criticism is that dishes are delivered at warp speed – we were served five in under an hour, giving us little time to luxuriate in the memory of what we’d eaten before we were onto the next course. With the pace of life accelerating, it’s more important than ever to be able to take your time over a meal and let the memory of each dish solidify in the mind before moving on, otherwise we’re just refueling.

L'Etranger restaurant review

As AA Gill mentioned in his recent review of Comerç 24 in Barcelona, our approach to food is changing. In keeping with our impatient times, we want our food to be big, bright and breathtaking, attacking our tastebuds with flavour, and menus across the world have been pimped with exotic ingredients to keep up with the trend.

One way to win on the flavour front is to marry food from two different cultures, bringing the best of both worlds to the table. Sushinho on King's Road is doing interesting things with its Brazilian and Japanese menu, but way before the restaurant opened its doors, L'Etranger was in on the act.

The South Kensington stalwart has been serving up French and Japanese, or 'Frapanese' cuisine since 2002. Head chef Jerome Tauvron, whose CV includes stints with Pierre Gagnaire in France, Alain Ducasse in Monaco and Marco Pierre White in London, isn't keen on the term 'fusion' cooking, as while working together, the ingredients remain separate and distinct platefellows.

The minimal lilac and grey interiors seem to echo Albert Camus' economical writing style in the existentialist novel L'Etranger, from which the restaurant gets its name. Boasting over 1,000 bins, L'Etranger has one of the finest wine lists in London and an on-site wine shop. Perhaps in a nod to the novel's protagonist, Meursault, an impressive 40 Meursault's by the bottle are on offer.

I dined at L'Etranger with a chef friend on a Tuesday evening, and the urbane 50-seater was throbbing with life. Arriving early, our table was soon flanked on both sides by enthusiastic Americans. Manager Dorian explained that they rely on their regular customers and that numbers dipped dramatically during the ash cloud crisis, when a chunk of their affluent clientele were left stranded in different pockets of the world.

L (the chef) and I both opted for tasting menus, with L sampling the £59 'Degustation' menu, while I opted for the slightly more decadent £89 'Opulence' menu, both of which were diligently matched with different wines by Timothy, our eager-to-please French sommelier who looked like he was fresh out of wine school.

My scallops tartar with summer black truffles served in its shell was matched with top Rhône producer E. Guigal's Crozes-Hermitage Blanc (£9.50/glass). The pairing worked well, the ceviche-style citrus in the dish mirroring the remarkable freshness of the rich, complex white Rhône. Light yet flavoursome, it was hard to fault, and the perfect beginning to this epicurean adventure. L's tuna tartare was well executed, but the accompanying serving of sevruga caviar was tiny.

As L's menu was a dish smaller than mine, we both shared the rock shrimp and exotic flower tempura with sweet ponzu; a sauce made from soy and lemon. Served in a Japanese bamboo steamer, the green, orange and purple exotic flowers exploded with colour, and when paired with the sauce, flavour. Rock shrimp tempura is my favourite thing on the menu at Nobu, and I didn't think anything could ever come close to matching its magnificence, but this did, the zesty sauce wonderfully counterbalancing the fatty tempura. Our wine match, 2008 Gatekeeper Chardonnay from the Barossa Valley in Australia (£8.50/glass) was the most disappointing of the night. The wine was rich and buttery, while I was hoping for something fresh and zippy to cut through the fat.

Both the fish dishes impressed. I was envious of L's caramelised black cod and sweet miso sauce, L'Etranger's signature dish, but in the end it was my roast Chilean seabass that shone. While the cod was slightly dry, my seabass was expertly cooked and fell off the fork. Tender and slightly sweet, the flavours were elegant and delicate rather than punchy. It was matched with an exciting, grassy wine from Nantes producer Eric Chevalier made from the region's native grape Fie Gris (£40/bottle), whose searing acidity cut through the oily fish, giving it freshness and lift.

On to the main event, which for me was pampered and preened Grade 9 Wagyu beef fillet with black truffle and sauteed wild mushrooms paired with Austrian producer Anita Und Hans Nittnaus Kurzberg Pinot Noir 2005 (£9.50/glass). I asked for it medium rare, and it came deliciously pink. Soft and tender, the meat was almost silky, and packed with juicy flavour, which harmonized with the savoury, leathery Pinot Noir, that took a back seat to the beef, enhancing rather than overpowering its flavour. When combined with the rich foie gras and heady truffle it made for a soft, opulent mouthful of flavour-rich food. I closed my eyes in pure delight to catch every flavour in my mouth. But at £55 a la carte, it should be damn good.

Pudding was an equally exciting affair. After a tofu ice cream palate cleanser and a glass a ice-cold saké, L's caramel tart with macadamia nuts matched with Ramos Pinto 10-year-old Tawny Port stole the limelight from my more modest pear tartin and sesame ice cream, which matched well with a waxy, unctuous Château Septy Monbazillac 2005 (£9/glass).

L'Etranger clearly knows what it's doing. The food is accomplished and stylishly presented, and the service from the predominantly French staff is attentive without being overbearing. The a la carte will give your credit card a workout, but the 3 course set lunch is amazingly good value at £19.50. Marrying French and Japanese food may sound like a strange exercise, and you have to taste it to believe it, but Tauvron's dishes respect the classic tradition, bringing with them an exciting modern twist.