Simon Rogan is one of the greatest cooking talents in the UK right now and the past two years have seen more and more people won over by his unique but never less than brilliant food. While his restaurant L'enclume in Cumbria remains the centre of his operation, Roganic opened in London in 2011 to widespread critical acclaim and brought something genuinely new to the London food scene. 2012 meanwhile saw Simon Rogan as the only chef on Great British Menu to have every one of his dishes be short-listed for the banquet with his dessert, scoring 39/40 by the judges, winning that category.
Readers of our blog will know that we have been huge fans of Simon and his food since we first ate at L'enclume in 2011and we were absolutely delighted when Simon agreed to cook one of our charity dinners. Simon and all of his team gave their time without charge to support Manna Society, a Bermondsey based charity that provides a day centre for the homeless, feeding around 200 people every day of the year as well as providing basic help and medical care. Due to the generosity of many people and organisations, the dinner raised over £8,000 for Manna making a world of difference in the help they can provide to those in need.
As before, we auctioned two seats over Twitter for the dinner, and our thanks to the following who helped us put together some magnificent packages: The Ledbury and Pollen Street Social for tables at their restaurants, Le Manoir and the Raymond Blanc Cookery School for donating a prize and Infusions 4 Chefs for offering a fun filled day of molecular wizardry, Richard Vines of Bloomberg for volunteering to take our winners for a guest review and Inka Grill for sponsoring a dinner at The Church Green by Aiden Byrne. We remain massively grateful to Glenfarclas whisky and Dom Perignon who have supported the dinners from the start and continue to do so.
We must also say a hug thanks to Goodfellows who supplied all the plates for the evening, they can be seen in the pictures below how beautiful they are, and Robert Welch for supplying the cutlery.
And as immensely talented as Simon is, these events are never one man projects. Joining Simon in the kitchen was Dan Cox, Roux Scholar, farmer, chef; Kevin Tickle, sous chef from L'enclume, and from London, the Roganic kitchen team of Andy and Matt. Roganic were also represented front of house with Richard Cossins and James.
There were two other special things about the evening's food and proceedings. First, all the veg that was being served had been taken from L'enclume's own farm in Cumbria. Simon and Dan had picked the veg from the ground on Saturday morning and driven it down themselves. Dan as noted has charge of the farm and therefore had planted this, nurtured it, picked it, prepped it and cooked it - the ultimate in vertical integration. Second, Simon likes to be as close to the diners as possible to provide yet stronger links to the food and that saw us bring the kitchen out the kitchen so to speak, creating a pass next to the dining table as well as workstations with water-baths, a Pacojet, induction stoves and a liquid nitrogen display right there in front of guests. Brave, and very special.
Readers of our blog will know that we have been huge fans of Simon and his food since we first ate at L'enclume in 2011and we were absolutely delighted when Simon agreed to cook one of our charity dinners. Simon and all of his team gave their time without charge to support Manna Society, a Bermondsey based charity that provides a day centre for the homeless, feeding around 200 people every day of the year as well as providing basic help and medical care. Due to the generosity of many people and organisations, the dinner raised over £8,000 for Manna making a world of difference in the help they can provide to those in need.
As before, we auctioned two seats over Twitter for the dinner, and our thanks to the following who helped us put together some magnificent packages: The Ledbury and Pollen Street Social for tables at their restaurants, Le Manoir and the Raymond Blanc Cookery School for donating a prize and Infusions 4 Chefs for offering a fun filled day of molecular wizardry, Richard Vines of Bloomberg for volunteering to take our winners for a guest review and Inka Grill for sponsoring a dinner at The Church Green by Aiden Byrne. We remain massively grateful to Glenfarclas whisky and Dom Perignon who have supported the dinners from the start and continue to do so.
We must also say a hug thanks to Goodfellows who supplied all the plates for the evening, they can be seen in the pictures below how beautiful they are, and Robert Welch for supplying the cutlery.
And as immensely talented as Simon is, these events are never one man projects. Joining Simon in the kitchen was Dan Cox, Roux Scholar, farmer, chef; Kevin Tickle, sous chef from L'enclume, and from London, the Roganic kitchen team of Andy and Matt. Roganic were also represented front of house with Richard Cossins and James.
There were two other special things about the evening's food and proceedings. First, all the veg that was being served had been taken from L'enclume's own farm in Cumbria. Simon and Dan had picked the veg from the ground on Saturday morning and driven it down themselves. Dan as noted has charge of the farm and therefore had planted this, nurtured it, picked it, prepped it and cooked it - the ultimate in vertical integration. Second, Simon likes to be as close to the diners as possible to provide yet stronger links to the food and that saw us bring the kitchen out the kitchen so to speak, creating a pass next to the dining table as well as workstations with water-baths, a Pacojet, induction stoves and a liquid nitrogen display right there in front of guests. Brave, and very special.
Simon Rogan and Dan Cox
If you've eaten at L'enclume or Roganic, you'll know they do tasting menus rather than a la carte, and that is often preceded by a handful of amuse courses; so it was here. First out was something very special: unfortunately, the one member of Simon's team who was unable to attend the night was Mark Birchall, Head Chef of L'enclume who was back in Cumbria delivering service, however, he did send a little treat down to kick things off - fried anchovy bones. This is a Can Roca special loved by us. Since Mark spent his three months there having won the Roux Scholarship in 2011, he knew we would love this as a way to start, we did, thank you Mark. This little snack is delicious: the anchovies are salted and cured, the bones are removed and placed on a purée of cooked rice and then deep fried. It's the best light crispy salty snack imaginable. This was paired with seaweed prepared in the same fashion. Amazing.
The other amuses were equally brilliant and included a crab and potato ball in crispy pork fat, a stunning looking mushroom bread, a gingerbread sandwich 'buttered' on one side with spiced strawberry jelly, on the other a tarragon mayonnaise, and the middle filling being a semifreddo of bay leaf and rapeseed oil. And as if this weren't enough treats to start, there's a poached oyster and chicken liver parfait too.
The other amuses were equally brilliant and included a crab and potato ball in crispy pork fat, a stunning looking mushroom bread, a gingerbread sandwich 'buttered' on one side with spiced strawberry jelly, on the other a tarragon mayonnaise, and the middle filling being a semifreddo of bay leaf and rapeseed oil. And as if this weren't enough treats to start, there's a poached oyster and chicken liver parfait too.
Crispy mushroom bread, mint, vinegar
Poached oyster, wild juniper and hazelnut
Cumberland creamed chicken livers
Enough of the amuses, onto the menu: Westcombe cheese dumplings with dried tomatoes, fennel, celery, spring onions and onion broth looks stunning in the selected bowl. The cheese dumplings, made with kuzu are exquisite, and like much of Simon's food, offers some familiar groupings, cheese, tomato, onion, with its own twist, the soft almost melting texture dumplings and broth.
For some, the next dish is one of the real highlights, mackerel in coal oil. The coal oil intrigues, Simon explains that it's achieved by pouring oil over red hot coals allowing the oil to infuse with the coals to give a smoky barbecue flavour. Simon uses this on a number of meats and it recently featured paired with beef tongue at Roganic. The quality of the veg really comes through here also with the own farm peas noticeably contributing to the dish, as does the mustard like dittander.
For some, the next dish is one of the real highlights, mackerel in coal oil. The coal oil intrigues, Simon explains that it's achieved by pouring oil over red hot coals allowing the oil to infuse with the coals to give a smoky barbecue flavour. Simon uses this on a number of meats and it recently featured paired with beef tongue at Roganic. The quality of the veg really comes through here also with the own farm peas noticeably contributing to the dish, as does the mustard like dittander.
Westcombe dumplings, dried tomatoes, fennel and celerey
Fresh mackerel in coal oil, peas and dittander
Verbena and smoked curds, radishes and watercress
Bay shrimp with purple sprouting, blackberry and crystal lemon
Thanks go to Kevin Tickle for making the special journey from Cumbria on Sunday to bring us the beef tongue. Here it is served with carrots (in the picture below what looks like an egg yolk is in fact the perfect end of a chantenay carrot), mushrooms, buttermilk foam, crumbs of carrot cake, and dill dressing.
Carrots and beef tongue, dill, buttermilk
Red orach, smoked yolk, purple azur, apple marigold
As if 26 courses were not enough, the next course, not featured on the menu, was a surprise but still welcome addition: crispy duck sweetbreads on a sweetcorn purée. This is very L'enclume, but what follows is a pure Rogan signature dish: vintage potatoes in onion ash. It's dishes like this where a great chef using great ingredients can allow even a humble (albeit vintage) potato to be the star without so much additional fuss; that's real talent.
duck sweetbreads, sweetcorn puree
Potatoes in onion ashes, lovage and wood sorrel
Razor clams with sea herbs, turnips and pearl barley
The sea bass with roasted leeks came with its own marine inflections, dressed with sea sandwort, garlic sand and a cockle sauce which had been set in the shape of a starfish. Brilliant.
Sea bass, grilled leeks, sandwort with cockle sauce
Salt baked turbot, marrow, cauliflower and roasted bone
Randolph Lop suckling pig, Scottish girolles, mustard and chenopodiums
Reg's English Fowl, offal, broad beans, and elderflower
Cumbrian Hogget is a regular feature of the menu at both L'enclume and Roganic. While there are several conflicting definitions of a hogget, consensus suggests it is defined as an animal between a lamb (up to 1 year old) and mutton (more than 2 years old). While lamb remains commonplace, hogget is seldom seen on menus yet as we discovered last year at L'enclume, hogget can be so much better, at least when done by Simon Rogan. To add further depth of flavour, it is served here with lambs tongue.
Hoggett with courgettes, pickled tongue, nasturtium
Desserts were of course fabulous, you'd expect nothing less from the chef who won GBM on the strength of it. We started off with sweet cheese ice cream, a component that featured in the winning GBM dish. Because Simon only uses British ingredients, you wont see for example chocolate on his dessert menu, but what it does mean is that what you do get is usually innovative, often surprising and always delightful.
Sweet cheese and raspberry, honey with rose
Meadowsweet with sweet bracken, lemon balm, rhubarb
Douglas fir and cherries, goat's milk and penny royal
closing treats
James, Matt, Richard, Andy, Dan, Simon, Kevin
What a phenomenal achievement this was by Simon and team. From what ever basis the meal is considered, the range of ingredients, number of courses, the quality of each of those course, the originality of the dishes, the ability to do this in a domestic home, it left everyone in awe of the talent on display. This was a unique menu, featuring an occasional signature dish but mostly created specifically for the night constituting for many the meal of a lifetime.
It's impossible to communicate in the post just how much hard work went in to making this meal happen but our sincere thanks to Simon and his team and all the sponsors who contributed to the success of the night. The evening, without doubt will make a difference to hundreds of people supported by Manna Society over many months to come.
If you want to try Simon Rogan's food, Roganic continues to deliver an amazing food experience Tuesday to Saturday while a trip to Cartmel Cumbria will be rewarded with food perfection at L'enclume. If you want a similar experience to the dinner above, consider dining at Aulis where Dan Cox will cook you a meal right in front of you allowing you to enjoy a very personal and up close experience.
For a personal view of what's going on in all of the above you can also follow Simon Rogan on Twitter @simon_rogan
It's impossible to communicate in the post just how much hard work went in to making this meal happen but our sincere thanks to Simon and his team and all the sponsors who contributed to the success of the night. The evening, without doubt will make a difference to hundreds of people supported by Manna Society over many months to come.
If you want to try Simon Rogan's food, Roganic continues to deliver an amazing food experience Tuesday to Saturday while a trip to Cartmel Cumbria will be rewarded with food perfection at L'enclume. If you want a similar experience to the dinner above, consider dining at Aulis where Dan Cox will cook you a meal right in front of you allowing you to enjoy a very personal and up close experience.
For a personal view of what's going on in all of the above you can also follow Simon Rogan on Twitter @simon_rogan
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