Pistachio and Pickle launched themselves into the London Supper Club scene all guns blazing back in October 2010. I’ve been following them on twitter and dying to visit from the word go! I can’t believe it took me 6 long months to get myself organised enough to book but the minute the tweet went out about their St Patricks Day feast I pounced on it and booked myself and a couple of friends in.
The thing I love about Supper Clubs is the way that you’re drip fed information and only discover the location, in this case via text message 48 hours beforehand.
Come Friday night, we hopped on the district line, way out east and ended up bang on time on Matt and Steve’s doorstep, clutching our bottles of wine. We got an extremely enthusiastic welcome from their lovely dog, Cooper and were handed a chilled glass of fizz while we waited for the other guests to arrive.
I was lucky enough to be sat at the head of the table, which just screamed St Patrick Day thanks to the liberally sprinkled glittery shamrocks…
I’d been so looking forward to the evening that I’d practically memorised the menu. But there were still a couple of good surprises in store…
The amuse bouche, billed as ‘a hint of the black stuff’, was served in a mini Guinness glass, only about 2 inches tall, filled with delicious leek and potato soup and topped with bacon foam. Matt wouldn’t spill as to how he’d made the soup black…it remains a mystery…
Then we had a special Pistachio & Pickle take on the Irish Breakfast…a shamrock shaped potato farl, topped with a poached duck egg yolk and a strip of crispy pancetta, surrounded by black pudding crumble….
It was so delicious that even my friend Hannah who had sworn she wouldn’t touch black pudding, not only tried it but nearly polished the whole lot off!
The next course was called clover leaf scallops…3 delicate, perfectly cooked scallops, with a pea puree and a fresh-from-the-sea flavoured mixture of cockles and shrimps…
Next up…Irish stew. A slow cooked lamb neck stew, topped with a beautifully cooked lamb steak and roasted onions, which was served with a potato and carrot confit. I couldn’t fault a single thing about this course…it was divine!…
Our waistbands were already straining but hey, there’s always room for cheese right?? Matt and Steve had selected 3 cheese from the Emerald Isle…
From top left in an anticlockwise direction we had…Coolea, Ardrahan and Crozier Blue. The Coolea was a slightly harder cows milk cheese, with a distinct but delicious butterscotch taste to it. The Ardrahan was semi soft and beautifully creamy and the Crozier blue, comes from the makers of Cashel Blue and is made from sheeps milk and although it’s a blue cheese has a very delicate flavour. I can’t pick a favourite because I loved them all. However, the icing on the cake for me were the amazing homemade pickles that were served alongside the cheese…
There was a huge jar of pear, apple and walnut pickle that we worked our way through but the piece de resistance for me was the fig preserve with ginger and orange…
My friend Hannah was cheeky ehough to ask, and Matt and Steve were gracious enough to humour us and let us take the jar home! I’m eagerly waiting until I get myself some cheese good enough to deserve being topped with the magic preserve 🙂
By this stage the wine and conversation had been flowing freely, I’d got my next holiday destination sorted after a personal recommendation from Matt’s Dad to visit Cordoba and was stuffed to the hilt but we still had one more course to go!
It was descibed as ‘Giants’ Causeway Dessert’, which baffled us all until it arrived in front of us with an explanation. For those of you (like me) who may not know what the Giants Causeway in County Antrim is a unique rock formation that looks like this…
and the dessert, bearing an uncanny resemblance, looked like this…
It was really yummy, however, due to slightly over enthusiastic wine consumption my notes aren’t particularly legible, but I believe it was black cherry jelly with homemade baileys ice cream, vanilla cream and…popping candy!
The popping candy was a really fun touch, which, for me, summed up the ethos of the Pistachio and Pickle supper club!
We finished with a coffee and then had to hotfoot it out of the door to catch the last tube. We’d had such a great night that we were sad to rush off but before we did we were presented with a goody bag containing a jar of the pear chutney we’d had with the cheese course and a beautiful mini green macaron.
Our evening, on leaving the house was a bit of an adventure, involving a series of public transport fails…but that’s a story for another time! We had such a lovely time, with delicious food, welcoming hosts and great company…I’ll be back in a flash…if they’ll have me 🙂
Afternoon Tease 