Month: April 2016

This Easter weekend we took the opportunity to try out some new wine bars in London that specialise in natural wine.  The first was Sager + Wilde, which is based in Hoxton (literally a short walk from Hoxton overground).  This wine bar specialises in natural and organic wine, as well as tasty small snacks.  Before we get onto the wine, the bar snacks were great.  What is definitely not to be missed are the cheese toasties made with a variety of ingredients including jalapeno peppers and another with spring onions.  We both drank wine by the glass and had a variety of red and white wines.  The highlight for me was the Aligote Love and Pif by a Burgundy wine maker called Yann Durieux.  I haven’t drunk his wines before (he is based in Cote de Nuit near to Villers – La – Faye which is close to Beaune (north east) but will certainly look for his wines now.  I loved the way he turned this “secondary” grape of Burgundy into something so interesting.  The aligote tasted slightly oxidised as I know a lot of natural wines have a tendency to do, but where it really came into its own was the combination with the aforementioned cheese toastie.   Wanting to find out more about this wine maker, I found a wonderful wine site Living Wines which is an Australian site and gives you lots of information about natural wine.  One of the interesting facts I found out is that PIF is the French slang word for wine.  I can’t wait to try it out in my next French class.   I also saw his name crop up on one my favourite wine bars in Paris – Vivant.  Clearly Yann is a wine maker to watch out for.

The following day we tried Elliots in Borough Market.  We just popped in for a drink, rather than something to eat (although if you follow the link above it will take you to their website and a rather good promotional video which makes their food look absolutely delicious).  I had a glass of the Colfondo Casa Belfi which is a sparkling white wine made with the glera grape more commonly known as prosecco.  Don’t be put off by the fact that this wine comes to you cloudy and with not a lot of fizz, it is absolutely delicious and a great aperitif.  Elliots is a lovely place to sit and watch the world go by as it is right by the busy Borough market, and has a good selection of other wines by the glass.  The staff were very friendly and we loved the exposed brick work.

 

 

 

 

This weekend we decided to do a bit of exploring, and unbelievably we have never visited Maltby Street market, nor the road parallel to Maltby Street – Druid Street (photo below).

We started off in Druid Street, first visiting an Italian deli called L’Emporio.  It was like a cavern of all the finest things you can find in a deli in Italy itself.  It even had the owners children running around to add the sense of a real neighbourhood shop.  Samples of lovely oils were displayed, and displays of meats and cheeses filled the cabinet, behind which stood the warm and welcoming owner who invited us to taste superb coppa, mortadella and Gorgonzola cheese.  We bought a bagful of goodies for that evening’s supper and the bill was about half what you would pay at a similar place in town!  The quality and price make this a destination in itself.  But there was so much more to discover down this small parade of converted garages under the arches.

Outside the deli was a lovely coffee stand and next to this was a stall selling one of the best salted caramel brownies I have ever had. Fatties Bakery is run by a young woman who, reading from her website, was a graphic designer in a previous life.  Thank goodness she has decided to give this up and concentrate on her sweet treats, as they are really something to experience, with a number of different fancies expressing the divine qualities of salted caramel in a very divine way!

This just whetted our appetite for the main event (well for me it was) – a visit to Monty’s Deli.

 

I had been wanting to visit Montys Deli for a long while (I think I first read about it in a foodie magazine) and I realise now what all the fuss is about.  It could stand proudly alongside some of those great New York Jewish delis in my mind. I love this type of food.  It is a real reminder of my childhood when my Grandma would make me latkes and my mum would frown at the fact that I was eating fried food.  Monty’s latkes were just like Grandma’s but they had the added benefit of being served with the traditional apple sauce and sour cream.  We didn’t go for the obligatory salt beef sandwich ,which apparently Mark the owner makes from a secret recipe, inspired by his grandfather (the ‘Real Monty’) and which the chef Tom Ketteridge recently declared ‘the best value lunch in London’. Instead we plumped for another grandma worthy dish – the matzah  ball soup.  Despite the draughty nature of the interior on a cold day, it is so worth a visit. For those of you who have Jewish parentage, it’s a throwback to one’s childhood and for those who don’t, you can just enjoy it as a small taste of New York in Bermondsey!

The parallel street is Maltby Street and what is known as the Ropewalk. This is now a hot alternative to Borough Market, with an eclectic mix of street food stalls and cafes tightly packed into yet more railway arches.To me however the genuine excitement in the area was Druid Street.  It was slightly quieter and had a feeling of up and coming talented chefs and foodies all merging together.  We liked it so much we went back to L’Emporio again on the way out to get a few more cheeses for what was a lovely cold plate supper.