The Truffle Cheese Shop - Cheese, glorious cheese.
"This would be the more natural alternative, right?" notes the inventor of the rather brilliant Goat Cheese and Mushroom Tart with Potato Crust ("How To Cook Everything Vegetarian," page 227).
It also helps that Harris co-developed the menu, a whip-smart mix of wine-bar staples (brilliant charcuterie, immaculate cheese), old Sportsman favourites and the odd slam-dunk of a showstopper (halibut braised in oxidised 1998 Bâtard-Montrachet Grand Cru); and that the wine list makes aficionados go all gooey-eyed.
The honey, champagne and parsnip mix was a triumph, and the gewürztraminer and vinegar combination was a brilliant pairing with the cheese course.
As an alternative to fish sauces for pasta, the captain suggested a simple dish that he said was typical of Nerano, where restaurants compete to create the best versions -- spaghetti with sliced zucchini and a brilliant yellow, quite-liquid cheese sauce.
But this part of the country, the north-west, has such brilliant meat, vegetables and cheeses".
But a plain-sounding gigante bean gratin turned out to be a creamy, brilliant reinvention of mac and cheese.
It could serve as a first course, but to miss some of the appetizers would be a pity, particularly one as delectable as warm potato "lasagna," a brilliant layering of potato, goat cheese and wild mushrooms moistened with a reduction of port.
As well as being a good partner for grilled meat and fish, caponata is also a brilliant match for that salty, addictive Mediterranean cheese, halloumi.
Those made a lovely spring salad, along with which we had bread, scallops (with roe; they still do that throughout the U.K., happily) sautéed in butter and served with a brilliant sorrel sauce, and three beautiful local cheeses.
This pairing was brilliant, the earthy qualities of both wine and cheese enhancing and amplifying each other.
