Embracing my inner carnivore

Based on all the adventurous meat I have consumed over the past couple of months it is hard to believe that I spent a large portion of my teen years as a vegetarian. When I have some duck confit or a tender steak in my mouth I really wonder what the hell I was thinking.

I wouldn’t say I was a boring eater before I moved to London but I certainly was predictable. I never ordered fish or red meat off a menu, instead safely taking cues from my veggie days with risottos and pasta dishes, occasionally choosing a bird, and almost always picking the cheapest main I could find.

You see, I had serious issues spending money on eating out. I felt that dropping roundabouts $50 on a meal that, to be completely crude, would slowly pass out of my system within a few hours, was a colossal waste of money. But now it is one of my absolutely favourite ways to spend my hard-earned cash.

I have to give some credit to my friend Paul for converting me. When I visited him in Paris last October he introduced me to the most stimulating and satisfying gastronomies I had ever eaten. That trip truly made me fall in love with food all over again. And, since he is a chef, he even did some cooking for me when he was visiting London.

Paul also took me out to my first Michelin-starred restaurant, the Ledbury in Notting Hill. Another first was the amount of money spent on the meal, just over £250, but it was totally worth it. The Ledbury entered the S. Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants list at 34 this year. Compiled by more than 800 restaurateurs, chefs, food writers and gastronomes from around the world, the list is considered among the highest praise in the restaurant world.

The food was divine. There were amuse bouches of fois gras mousse in filo cups and soft-boiled quail’s eggs in mushroom puree. I ate more fois gras – my favourite thing, I don’t care about the poor goose – for my starter, in a terrine with cooked and raw apple sake. My main was loin of deer with chanterelles and pumpkin sauce. Next was a pre-dessert of malted chocolate on a bed of cookie crumbs, followed by a selection of mango, green apple and blueberry sorbet, and topped off with a lovely glass of Oban single malt scotch. I am getting ravenous just thinking about it.

For my 30th birthday I had reservations with some friends at St. John Bar and Restaurant in Smithfield, which is 41 on the S. Pellegrino list. English chef Fergus Henderson has been praised for his use of offal (entrails and internal organs of a butchered animal) and other neglected cuts, and for his philosophy of nose to tail eating. Needless to say, it is not the ideal spot for a vegetarian to dine, though there are a few lovely non-meat dishes on the menu.

Among the six of us, there were starters of lamb tongues, bread and green sauce; purple sprouting broccoli vinaigrette; smoked sprats, potato and dill; cold roast middlewhite and dandelion; and welsh rarebit. The mains were roast mutton, lentils and wild garlic; skate, bread and capers; crispy duck and dandelions; and calf’s liver and shallots.

Since March I have had the chance to try out a couple of exciting restaurants through work lunches. The first was Quo Vardis in Soho, which has been around since 1926 and was at its most trendy in the 90s when Marco Pierre White was chef. I opened the meal with steak tartare and then had my first-ever braised ox cheeks with mashed potato and kale. Surprisingly tender and melt-in-my-mouth delectable.

Lunch at Pearl by Jun Tanaka in Holborn came next. Executive chef Jun Tanaka is not yet 30 and has worked at seven Michelin-starred restaurants where he perfected the art of French cuisine. To start I had smoked Challans duck breast with puy lentil salad, plum puree and stuffed neck. Then I had roast saddle of lamb with spinach and pine nuts, herb couscous and wild garlic. Dessert was a peanut mousse with salted caramel, banana and passion fruit sorbet. Oh my god, it was unbelievable. I didn’t get a whole lot done that afternoon.

Besides the piles and piles of meat I have been sampling, including my first tastes of steak tartare, duck confit, venison, lamb tongues and ox cheeks, I have also taken my first run at cooking fish. Last week I baked haddock with a mint and walnut pesto crust and, if I’m allowed to say so, it was kind of delicious.

Next up, I am going to really take on a challenge and try to cook proper red meat for the first time, maybe a pork loin, a lamb shank or a slab of steak. I’ll let you know how it goes, or maybe I will invite you over to eat some.