First Dinner Of Married Life...... At Arzak!!!

….Finally my first post, (Your not alone any more Alex, awesome work so far! )

With all the pre-Wedding/Honeymoon last minute scramble to put all the pieces of the puzzle together behind me and settling back into day-to- day life after the celebration of our union, I was very surprised or more to the point…forgot. That I still had the tidying up of all the loose ends of everything else I had put on the side during the last month or so. And with the light at the end of the tunnel getting within in sight, it’s as good a time as any to pick up my end of the deal…..

With a million things I could ramble on about stacked up behind me piling up I’m gonna put to one side for the moment and keep them for a rainy day- Don’t worry we’re in London.

I'll start with a few tales of the culinary kinda from our Wedding and onwards.

With the celebration of our marriage being the happiest day of our life, it was also one of the most enjoyable meals of my life. Sure the emotions were high, my blood stream flowing with happy chemicals and lots of love everywhere.

But the food…. Incredible. Maybe it’s the Spanish air? They seem to put an exciting edge on their ingredients that takes it to the next level.

The first thing that caught my eye was the canapés, little cubed sandwiches which had the loveliest piquillo pepper on top as the garnish and the lightest whipped butter as the filling. The four different flavours all had the ‘filling’ on top as the garnish. It was the first time I had seen that, so simple but perfectly cut, executed and tasty. Other highlights were olive reverse spherification, a la ‘El Bulli’ and Foie Gras Chocolate Lollipops.

In total 16 hot and 16 cold little wonders, forgive me if I don’t go detail for all of them.


Another Unforgettable Spanish canapé I’ll never forget was a liquid Tortilla in a shot glass - Chorizo, potatoes, onion and egg yolk slow cooked at 64c. All this gorgeous warm goo flooding your mouth with the thick velvet egg yolk giving way to the sweetness of the onion, smokiness and spice of the chorizo binding with the fried potatoes.
They quickly disappeared with people going back for seconds.

Before I knew it was dinner time,

Crispy Seafood Terrine, Vegetable tagliatelle, cloud of American sauce

Gin Fizz sorbet

Young Loin of Lamb 65c, Polenta Mushroom Mousse, Soy sprouts

Marinated Char-grilled tropical fruits with Spices Ice-Cream and Almond tiles

Mini Pastries and Chocolates

And…

CAKE – The beautifully decorated 3 level Wedding Cake which my incredible wife created especially for me with the flavours that I like very MUCH.
Super Moist Chocolate Sponge which is made from an mayonnaise base, passion fruit mousse, blood orange inserts all wrapped in Chocolate and topped with Large Coconut Tapioca Pearls.

Quite an involved menu for plating 47 at once and not forgetting all the work that went in to the Canapés and Petit Fours.
Due to everyone wanting to talk and thank the bride and groom, I didn’t even get a chance or time to try the Petit Fours. Doh! And being a pastry Chef, that’s quite a crime.
I do remember seeing 7 or 8 different little sweet works of art…..shame

Crime No. 2
With all the cameras taking photos over dinner, NO one actually took any photos of the food. Well apart from the occasional caught out guest taking a mouthful in the background.

Dancing, drinking and more dancing meant the night went very quickly before it was all over……..



Day 2.
Off to San Sebastian at the complete opposite end of the country to Malaga for a surprise (for my wife) culinary experience at Arzak.

It’s quite an understated place from the outside, I actually drove past it before realising what street number I was at. Better for the surprise, parked up and walked back up the hill. As the name above Arzak became visible my wife started to jump up and down with joy.

Extra brownie points!

We entered into the small bar/foyer area and were greeted by the friendly staff. Off to our left was Elena Arzak talking and signing photos with an old American man who was asking after her father, who was actually in New York for the International Chefs Congress. The American gentleman later went on to sleep at the table for at least a hour or so. When we left he was still going....

We were then escorted in to the dinning room, first through a rapidly opening automatic sliding door. Cool. The intimate room was waiting for us, being the first table to be seated was quite special as we had the whole downstairs dining room for 10minutes to ourselves, apart from the waiting staff blending into the surroundings preparing for the coming palette rollercoaster.

The whole experience went incredibly fast for the 4hrs we were dining.

Curiosity and intrigue with every plate, Looking and tasting each others dishes as most of the 16 courses were different for both of us.

It was really nice to have Elena Arzak come out and check and chat with us 3 times during the meal. She came across as really down to earth and very friendly. With my wife being Spanish, she managed to extract more info from Elena on the dishes; sadly my 12 word Spanish vocabulary wasn’t so handy and had to wait for the in-depth translation after she left the table.

Elena also asked politely that the photos be kept for personal use and not publish them, nearly broke my heart but agreed…..which brings up a whole lot of other issues on why?

(didn’t ask at the time, my mother did raise me with some manners you know! So didn’t want to be rude….after 10yrs in a kitchen I still have a few left).

Is it…..Intellectual property, keeping secrets, not spoiling the surprise for other future diners, spoiling the food by taking 20 photos before eating it and losing the instant magic of the dish by deconstructing it looking for the best angle, other people’s crappy photos of the dishes being put out on the net and of course the other side ‘I just paid 4-500euros for the meal’…….the list goes on.

But with respect for one of the best chefs in the world, I can see where they’re coming from, the surprise and anticipation for the next dish, not knowing what’s coming next gave me ants in my pants, my body tingled with excitement with each dish. Looking back, losing that element of the unknown would’ve cut down the whole experience of tasting and looking upon the dishes for the first time.

Unlike 2yrs ago I was at Per Se in New York and ½ of the meal was like going through the French Laundry book page by page. Sure everything was amazing, beautifully cooked, immaculate service but I knew what was coming and even tried half of it before back in the kitchen at work……..

So I’m with Elena on this one.

Arzak

At the end of the experience Elena then ask us to check out the kitchen and the pastry section. Service was nearly over with just the Pastry section left and half of the section cleaned down. She then went to demo one of the desserts we just ate Sopa y Chocolate “entre vinedos”

A light Strawberry soup, fresh basil ice-cream and liquid chocolate balls. I won’t go into much description to spoil it for anyone going.

What she went on to demo was very interesting.

A Methyl cellulose membrane around a solid looking chocolate ganache, heated so completely liquid when served.

One of the Pastry team then put the whole dish together right in front of us. It was brilliant to watch her work, you could tell she’d done that about a thousand times. The fact is that was her dish for the whole service and that’s all she did, practice makes perfect…..

So once back at work I was quite keen to give it a go, with no quantities or ratios give out from the Arzak ‘behind the scenes’ experience. Time to jump in the deep end.

A small discussion with Alex later I hydrated the Methyl cellulose, couldn’t wait for it to fully hydrate so did a quick premature test…..worked but should’ve waited.

The next day.

Decided to start with a frozen chocolate ganache, wasn’t working too well. I gave my wife a call to see if any finer details were passed on in Spanish back in the Arzak kitchen. Sure enough, the chocolate should only be fridge temperature and that it also contained an amount? Of cocoa butter with the chocolate. Hmmmmm…..

Not wanting to wait another day, I decided to try it out with a hand rolled Dark Milk chocolate Cherry truffle I had on plus for Petit Fours.

Dipped the Truffle with a needle completely into the Methyl cellulose base. Tapped off excess and submerged into lightly sweetened 80c water. Gelled up immediately. Left in for 1minute for the heat to liquefy the centre and carefully removed, dried off and then plated the second time round as membrane ripped on me. I think The ratio of the base needs to be tweaked a lot bit more before it’s at Arzak level.

I was more interested in testing the results and incorporating it into one of my own creations rather than complete plagiarism. Still, I would like to tick that off my list for future reference.

Second time, plated with a Strawberry Fluid Gel and micro mint.

It was just what was in the fridge at the time but it was nice / hot cold sensations which I quickly made disappear.

Back to the drawing board, well half way anyway….