“Any dinner that ends with dancing on the tables is a success in my books!” said my sis when we woke up, heads throbbing, after the first London edition of the Paper Plate Dego. Agreed, but there are so many other reasons why this dinner was a success that to solely single out the dancing is to do a massive disservice to the chef.
‘Dego’, for those of you who don’t speak Aussie, is short for degustation. (If you find yourself stuck in the outback, a good rule of thumb for words over 2 syllables is to chop off all but the first and stick an ‘o’ on the end: avo, servo, dego and so forth.)
But why the paper plates? It started out with a lack of crockery and now the name has stuck, so why not? It means less dishes to wash and, in a neat play on words, Chef Sam’s twitter handle can also be read as ‘paper plated ego’.
Sam is not the least bit egotistical, but his food might fool you into believing so. My notepad made him extremely nervous and he must have asked about 20 times whether I really thought the meal was any good: “you can say if you don’t think so”. I said it 20 times then and I’ll say it again, the food was perfect. Couldn’t fault it.
He seemed unsatisfied so to prove to him that I am not scared of dishing out criticism, I told him that if I were to fault anything it would be the matching wines. Most were great and well matched, but a progression from white to red to white again is a bizarre choice, not to mention inadvisable unless your goal is to get your guests so utterly blotto that they can barely remember the last 3 courses.
But let’s not get bogged down in one minor discrepancy in what was otherwise a truly outstanding meal. What blew me away the most was his creativity. For example, his use of broccoli in a dish of deep-fried quail, green chilli sambal and peanut was very inventive. It came in three forms – the stem in delightful ribbons along with florettes and a puree.
This was probably my favourite dish (though it is tough choosing). The quail – crisp on the outside, tender flesh – was rich enough to stand up to the sweet and spicy sambal. The peanuts and puree brought earthiness and the florets and ribbons a touch of freshness.
Bass with cauliflower textures was another dish that made use of a kitchen staple in novel ways. Here it came pureed, in florettes and crumbled as ‘cous cous’. But the surprise here was in the pairing with a sweet raisin puree spiced with curry powder.
These are not flavours I would have thought to put with fish, but it really worked. The key was in the light-handedness – a touch of spice, a little sweetness, a tad of creamy richness, balanced with fresh, moist and flaky fish with the crispiest of skins.
The most successful of the wine pairings were with the first two dishes. A lightly oaked Petit Chablis was buttery on the nose, but more delicate on the palate, with apple and citrus notes. It was robust enough to sit alongside a rich dish of creamy truffled egg yolk with crispy potatoes and sleek and salty Serrano ham, but at the same time subtle enough not to steal the show.
My favourite of all the wines was a Gewürztraminer, another surprise; my Dad’s taste in wines of this variety comes in a horrible shade of urine yellow and tastes almost as sweet and sickly as dessert wine. This was quite the contrary, light in both colour and flavour. Apricot and honey on the nose, honeydew melon and blossoms on the palate. There was only a slight sweetness, but it was very refined and a fantastic contrast to the umami rich mushroom soup with zingy, salty Parmesan.
By now I am afraid my memory begins to fail me. I have had 4 glasses of wine with each dish, plus a few in between, not to mention the aperitifs. My notes, increasingly unintelligible and illegible, tell me the following about the lamb: “so tender, delicious, salty fat crust.” I had forgotten that it was paired with black pudding, which my notes say was “different savoury, great contrast, more intense”. All a load of rubbish, but the six exclamation marks suggest that I enjoyed it a lot.
Dessert was a milk and olive oil pannacotta with rhubarb and black pepper, perfect for someone like me who prefers savouries to sweets. The rhubarb was lightly pickled in lemon, with a hint of spice from the pepper. I was particularly taken with the olive oil it seems, though I can find no notes that accurately tell me why. I'm afraid I wolfed this one down before I got the chance to take a picture:
For the last course – baked Normandy Camembert with blackberry and clementine compote and apple chutney – paper plates were done away with and fingers engaged in what can only be described as an inelegant and uncouth cheese fest. So, just as it should be.
Cheese demolished and table cleared, the night was rounded off with further hilarity, dancing and all manner of raucousness, not to mention a few broken glasses. The boys have had their first booking and I hope many more will follow. If you are interested, let me know. I can’t promise it’ll end in dancing on the tables, but I can guarantee that it will be the best meal you’ve ever eaten off a paper plate. Perhaps even a china one.
