Autumn 2011: Dining with style
An evening in the Krug Room at The Dorchester proved to be a delicious experience for Pritchitts’ Regional Recipes competition winner Bill Cohen and guests.
There’s something so special about dining in the Krug Room at The Dorchester, as Bill Cohen discovered when Pritchitts handed him this golden opportunity.
Cohen, chef lecturer at Grimsby Institute of Further & Higher Education, had won the company’s regional recipe competition with his dish of creamy smoked haddock with soft boiled duck egg, and this was his prize – an exclusive dinner in the Krug Room hosted by Pritchitts, with the menu specially prepared by The Dorchester’s executive chef Henry Brosi for Cohen, his wife Karen, and guests from Pritchitts and the Craft Guild of Chefs.
The Krug Room is the original ‘chef’s table’ that first opened in the 1940s. To reach it, guests are taken along a passage called Innovation Boulevard, and then through the kitchen that services the room, to enjoy canapés – salmon mousse, foie gras, pea mousse and brioche with truffle all served with The Dorchester’s fine ‘black’ champagne.
Yet the Krug room is invisible. Only when Brosi presses a button does a frosted screen subtly change to reveal a red, black and gold dining room with a beautifully set table for 12 and mirrors so no one misses out on the experts in the kitchen.
The culinary experience continues with Brosi explaining each course and the sensory connections with each bite. For example, a single basil leaf was served to everyone and he challenged all to pinch their noses, breathe through their mouths and tell him what they could taste when they tried it. Cohen tasted mint, which Brosi says signifies a very good palate. “The nose is the most important sense. Through it you get an amazing waft of flavour, but releasing the nose you get full flavour,” he says.
With wine, he says trust your gut instinct – see it, smell it, try it, and give first impressions on the wine, on the food and then together. The amuse bouche gazpacho andaluce, for instance, was served with Pehu Simonet grand cru blanc de blanc, “a great combination – yeasty champagne that brings out the lovely gazpacho flavour with the wine. It works from the first sip right through the soup”. However, the wine match for his spicy but rustic Meli Melo three way lamb dish needed care because of wine’s tannin content.
His dish of white asparagus came in a pancake with San Danielle ham to give it saltiness, while morels in Madeira wine brought two sweet things together, and a little aubergine fritter with tomato sauce inside combined acidity with sweetness. An ambiguity was the lettuce leaf “just to give a bit of colour”.
Dessert was another impressive dish with micro cresses to enhance the flavour such as honey cress from South America that Brosi describes as a sugar plant, pure and natural. Cohen says the whole thing was fantastic. “It was a real honour to be able to meet Henry and experience the famous Krug Room for myself – the food was incredible.”
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