A culinary masterclass from a master chef

Sweetbread, almond, pear

Back in December, a whole fortnight before Christmas, we ended up at the Gilbert Scott for my birthday meal, after a salutary lesson in just how far in advance you need to book for certain restaurants.

Not, I hasten to add, that The Gilbert Scott is in any way a culinary let down.

But within a few days, I’d suggested to The Other Half that we try to book well advance for his birthday, which fell this weekend just gone.

It paid off – thanks to very helpful staff – and we found ourselves with a reservation for lunch at Marcus, Marcus Wareing’s eponymous eatery at the Berkley Hotel in Knightsbridge.

Having quaffed a late-but-light breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast – as much to get the systems going as anything – we dressed and headed out into Saturday’s gloom.

To begin with, the bus was slow. Then, after getting to King’s Cross, the tannoy blared out the news that a signal failure had stalled all Piccadilly line trains – just as we’d found our way to the platform.

I’ll just say at this point: King’s Cross was always bad, but it now simply seems bigger and more crowded than ever, even if shiner and newer. It’s a nightmare to navigate around.

We thought about hopping onto the nearby Victoria line and changing – only to see that there are no stations where you can change to the Piccadilly.

We’d given ourselves more than enough time – more than recommended by Transport for London – but with less than half an hour left before we were due to take our seats, we hopped a cab and I rang the restaurant to let them know we would be a little late – which didn’t worry them in the least.

Eventually, we made it across London just 15 minutes beyond our appointed time, but nonetheless feeling slightly harried.

Anjou pigeon, celeriac, bean, blackberry

Moving through the tea room and into the restaurant provided almost instant tension relief.

At a comfortable spacious table, we started to unwind with the menus, a welcome glass of fizz and small, doughy balls with a Parmesan salty kick inside that really lengthened the taste experience.

Marcus is one of those establishments that uses very simple menu descriptions, but frankly, I don’t know why some people find it disconcerting: for me, it’s a nice way to highlight the key flavours and ingredients.

So, while The Other Half started with “sea bass, sweet potato, saffron, sorrel”, I opted for “veal sweetbread, almond, pear”.

Sweetbread is one of those hugely misunderstood cuts: yes, it can be testicles, but it can also be several other things – not least, thymus.

These were blissfully sweet and tender, with a texture that was not unreminiscent of foie gras, and with a gloriously caramelized top providing a wonderful contrast.

The pear came in at least two ways: two segments that, our waiter explained, had been given the sous vide treatment, which firmed them up at the same time as keeping them juicy. The cut edges had a filigree of black on it – a little like charcoal, I thought.

And indeed, that would work perfectly, given the wine I had.

We’d decided to rely on the sommelier for recommendations, and for this course, mine was a French white – Chardonnay ‘Vieilles vignes’, Seguela, Côtes Catalanes, 2013 – with a distinctly burnt toast taste that worked really well as a compliment to the sweetness of the meat and the pear.

There was also a pear crisp that was wafer thin and simply melted in the mouth, plus slivered almonds and a purée to add further textures.

It was divine.

For a main, The Other Half picked “venison, chestnut, cranberry, black pudding”, while I took on “Anjou pigeon, celeriac, bean, blackberry”.

Again, two very happy diners.

The pigeon was wonderful: superbly cooked, with a single leg roasted to the point of being sticky with it’s own juices, and served in a tiny bowl of bread sauce and with a water bowl alongside. There’s something almost divinely nefarious about sitting in a two-Michelin-starred restaurant and eating with your fingers.

Rhubarb, custard, thyme, ginger

The blackberries, I suspect, had also been in the sous vide for the same reason as the pear – intensified flavor and firmness – while the celeriac came in both tiny, sautéed dice and little roundels. The beans added yet more texture.

Wine this time was an earthy red – a Châteauneuf-du-Pape, ‘Clos des Brusquieres’ from the Rhône, 2010.

And then, of course, dessert.

Both of us, having seen Wareing himself present Masterchef: The Professionals late last year, were aware of his love for the dishes his grandmother cooked in his native Lancashire.

So on seeing a listing for “rhubarb, custard, thyme, ginger,” neither of us bothered with a second thought, given that the Yorkshire Triangle’s forced rhubarb season is just underway.

Not, of course, that this was any old rhubarb and custard.

The custard came as feather-light set discs, flavoured with vanilla and thyme.

With that, there was a sticky rhubarb smear, a quenelle of rhubarb ice cream, pieces of rhubarb (probably from the sous vide, because it was ‘cooked’ yet firm) with dots of foam and thyme, ribbons of stewed rhubarb and strings of ginger.

With the restaurant out of banyuls, I tried a digestif from Spain: a Moscatel Dorado, Bodegas César Florido, Jerez, which was full of prune sweetness and sunshine.

There were Tahiti vanilla and milk chocolate truffles and banana ganache with yuzu gel squares to complete the meal.

We that, we headed home, both sated and soothed.

People sometimes question whether fine dining is worth the lay out.

Truffles and ganache

I know I’ve said it before, but yes, it really does.

This was flawless cooking; not a single false note. Superb ingredients, with flavours that were robust yet combined with great subtlety, and all presented quite beautifully.

Having the wine selected for you by an expert really adds to the experience: when matched like this, it becomes even more an integral part of the meal than if you simply selected a single bottle to cover all courses.

Service was exemplary – friendly yet formal at the same time: the perfect way to illustrate this was that the junior sommelier happily agreed to give me a list of the wines we’d had, and did so in a beautifully hand-written list before we left.

And in the interests of completeness, the setting combines comfort and elegance.

This was a wonderful meal – and a perfect way to spend an afternoon.

Snapshots of the morning commute

For many millions of Britons, the working day starts with a journey. It may be many miles or not so many; it may take hours or could be numbered in the minutes.

But whether on foot or by car, bus, train or tram, we travel to our places of work.

And while many people use that time to listen to music, read – or check up on social media and email – others have discovered that you happily use it as art time.

My morning journey usually takes around half an hour on two buses, so there’s not really time to sketch much, while I find that having nothing to rest on is awkward, particularly when you’re moving as well.

Then there’s always the question of whether people will be getting off at the next stop, leaving you with just the beginnings of a sketch.

But since I have, for the best part of the last year, adopted a routine of travelling early and then spending an hour over coffee in a café near work, that’s the drawing time.

It makes a good and relaxing start to a day, but it’s also a discipline and a challenge – the former simply because it has now become a habit to sketch/draw every day, which is good practice, and the latter, simply because of subject matter.

There’s only so many times I can draw what’s on the table in front of me or my surroundings.

Sometimes, I’ve created a still life out of what’s in my bag or even something I’ve carried with me for the purpose.

But another way around this is provided by my fellow travellers.

If there isn’t time to actually get out the pens and sketchbook on the bus, there’s often time to snap off a surreptitious shot on my phone – and then draw from that when sitting down with a coffee.

Street photography taught me some years ago that people are often oblivious to a great big camera being pointed in their direction, so the smartphone version is no difficulty.

That having been said, though, it does mean that all of the pictures are particularly well lit – even more so at this time of year when my morning journey takes place well before it’s light – while focus can also sometimes be a bit askance as we jolt around London’s roads.

But that, I think, can also add to the challenge – not least because a lack of precise detail can help you remember to look for the spirit of the picture without fretting about it being photographic (a trap I can still fall into).

It’s particularly fascinating to see how people lock themselves into a personal bubble, often – but not always – with music and/or social media/email.

There’s a tendency to consider these things as the preserve mainly of the young – to an extent that, in Germany at least, it’s even entered the language.

In a look at some of the best new words or phrases of the past year, mentalfloss.com highlighted the delightful ‘Generation Kopf unten’ – or ‘generation head down’ to give it its literal translation – as being a description of the generation that is always looking down at assorted devices.

As a slight aside, I love the combination of wonderful German literalness of this – the nation’s language keepers did worry about whether a TV picture should be ‘on’ or ‘in’ the screen – and the sense of it representing a far wider idea.

Anyway, as some of the sketches here show, it’s far from being a generational rule in London.

People are, of course, fascinating. And catching them candidly offers a totally different result than having anyone pose for you.

One of the things that these illustrate is the sense of how people use the in-between time that bridges home and work, when our options are limited by the facts of the journey, but these days, increased by technology.

But perhaps that is also indicative of why I hear so very few actual conversations on the bus too. They reveal a sense of isolation that is also indicative of a big city.

In the winter, when people are bundled up against the inclement weather, that isolation – that creation of a personal bubble – seems even more complete.

I’m beginning to see this as a project. After all, it records a different London from the one so often recorded: this is an early-morning city of ordinary people going to work, getting themselves psyched for the working day ahead – the motor of the capital.

They range from administration staff to cleaners some of the thousands of construction workers that are changing the landscape of the city – and goodness knows how many more roles that the city rarely celebrates, but without which it could not survive.

The evening bus rides home are different: more crowded and more noisy – not least with young people heading home from school and college, plus shoppers with the same aim in mind.

I hope you enjoy the selection of pictures posted here: it’s probably fair to say that, since these have all been done in the last three months, I’m on the cusp of becoming expert at drawing huge, padded coats.

Some are very light sketches. Other, depending almost entirely on what I was able to snap and from what position, are closer to portraits. I think that both sorts have a value.

From the top, the first one was done this morning – and what a wonderful look of concentration she has.

In the second, the huge hood makes me think of a fantasy character: every time that I look at this I think that he could be a modern version of Aragorn from Lord of the Rings.

There’s no gadget component to the third, but again, what a characterful face – and that is worth its weight in gold.

In the fourth, her beautifully-done hairstyle made me think of Josephine Baker, while I found it amusing that she was ‘plugged’ in to two devices.

The fifth down was the first I did (and is the only one done in sepia ink) and again, the concentration is extraordinary.

The sixth has a lovely sense of dignity – it was the one time thus far I've been tempted to add colour, since her dainty umbrella was red: a massive contrast with the heavy clothing.

The seventh also shows great dignity – and great serenity; newspaper folded neatly on his lap as we approached his stop.

The eighth is one of the sketchier pieces, but gives a little more of a sense of physical context.

The ninth gives more context yet, but still conveys the sense in which, at that time of day, people are very much in their own bubbles and concentrating on the day ahead

All are in black India ink (apart from the one mentioned above), on light-weight 16.5x15.5cm paper that is slightly tinted. I have made sure that all scans are on the same basis.


• All drawings copyright.