A toothsome time on the Thames

Published Jul 3, 2013

Share

London - A grinning young twenty-something in a hat that shouts trendy, raises a small dish above his head to avoid the crowd. A crumbed orb the size of a tennis ball is perched on the recyclable plate next to a bit of apricot jam.

It’s the Duck and Waffle restaurant’s signature dish – spicy ox cheek donut, and there’s a long line of takers at this year’s Taste of London.

At the Zoo end of Regent’s Park, Jamie Oliver’s Barbecoa stall buzzes with 15 sous-chefs plating up pork sandwiches under the watchful eye of the naked chef’s self-proclaimed mentor, Gennaro Contaldo.

“Hoo-ha, hoo-ha,” they chant between yelling orders of the three dishes on offer.

Just around the corner from a Thai food artist carving fruit and vegetables to form a visual forest, a queue snakes away from the most popular stand of all. Yuppies in skinny jeans and blazers line up for the Action-Against-Hunger five-star burger. The thing that makes it so good? Dry-cured treacle-smoked streaky bacon, say the patrons.

Taste of London has become a seminal affair on the city’s calendar, regardless of the weather. With 10 years of successfully serving up London’s best fare to visitors in a park surrounded by up-market terrace homes, the food extravaganza is attracting more and more gourmet guests as a must-do summer day-trip in what is often regarded as a world culinary capital.

“Yesterday, a couple of men arrived in their top hats – they came straight from Ascot,” British Airways’ food and beverage manager Christopher Cole tells me.

This year’s foodie cabaret is sandwiched between the famous horse-racing event and Wimbledon. Once more, British Airways is the headline sponsor and staff dressed in crisp airline uniform and faded Union Jack-print wellies (the best antidote to unpredictable weather) greet gastronomic guests.

That is what Taste of London is all about – there’s a quirky element to almost every experience.

An estimated 50 000 guests step through the hedges and into Regent’s Park each year to have an array of food from 40 of London’s restaurants at the food show. It proves British cuisine has come a long way since fish and chips.

Inside a domed tunnel, we sit at make-believe jet seats, while chef Mark Tazzioli, BA menu design manager, talks us through a tasting menu. A three-course menu paired elegantly with wines and involving seared clam, pork belly and a chocolate bar, is presented to guests as if onboard a BA flight.

The interior of the temporary structure is peaceful despite the outside inclement weather and mock air stewards move swiftly around the carpeted cabin. A gust of wind catches the entrance to the structure and deep blue curtaining lurches inward as the walls clatter.

“Turbulence,” someone shouts. We all laugh and Tazzioli recovers quickly: “I forgot to mention the emergency exits,” as he gestures with his hands in unison down the aisle and flips them outward as if giving a safety demonstration.

For three days, we have sampled the London high life, starting with the marvellous Roka in Soho, where a yellowtail carpaccio set the tone.

Outside our scheduled food forays, I take to the streets on foot but soon decide motorised transport might let me see more. I don’t realise how long a round trip tour on one of the big red sightseeing buses will take and find myself helpless in an open-top bus at the Tower of London when I ought to be grouping for supper at the splendid Harvey Nichols café. Fortunately, it happens to be the longest day of the year, so I don’t get to miss the crispy quail eggs or chunky cut chips that went so well with a South African chenin blanc one can’t get here.

From my vantage point on the bus, I am amazed to see how radically the skyline has changed in the last decade. Great shards of modern architecture with names like Cheese Grater, Light Sabre and The Gherkin now puncture the traditional silhouette.

We also stretched our legs in two of London’s most beautiful hotels. The Goring in Westminster is the capital’s oldest family-owned hotel. With 103 years of clientele, the hotel’s silk-clad rooms and custom ised furniture are the result of patient restoration and, in each of our rooms, a fluffy creature resides as a reminder of village life. The hotel’s mascot, the sheep, was introduced to “bring a little bit of country to the city”, says James the night concierge, who has been known to rescue a hotel duckling.

High tea is an English tradition that the Langham Hotel takes to another level. Splendid teas have been served here to the likes of Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde since 1865 and piled plates arrive with glossy goodies as we reach for our bubbly.

Macaroon, Laurent-Perriere, salmon sandwich, berry aperitif, Earl Grey, meltingly delicious granadilla tart thingy – who’s to say in what order you should consume it all?

I’m pleased to read in their guide to London that I tick the boxes according to the hotel’s tea etiquette register: no lifted pinky, tea in cup first, then milk and no clinking or dunking.

Shopping protocol is a little less complicated and requires endurance rather than finesse, but once again a private outing has me scurrying home as Big Ben strikes.

I run into the changing of the guard, which requires I make a substantial detour before falling through the doors of the Goring. A royal inconvenience really.

Notwithstanding my high street misadventures and tea insecurities, I manage to hold my own as a (sort-of) gourmet guru during our extended weekend. On the way out of the Taste festival, I spot trendy-hat guy holding court with fellow fashionistas near the South Africa stand and it strikes me how Londoners have a way of making any occasion a celebration.

That’s just what I decide to do on my flight home. I book myself a massage session at the lounge spa and order Kir Royale and fillet for dinner before nestling into my yin-yang sleeper.

Three cheers to a town called London. - Saturday Star

Related Topics: