And So That Was Christmas...

Another Christmas is over. I've been oop North to 't' grim frozen wastes and despite the best attempts of the local highways department to convince me otherwise, I've managed to get back down to the Smoke. Happy to have survived the snow in Yorkshire, I hadn't realised that there's also been snow chaos back in Spain until I saw the photo on my Christmas e-card from Hotel Ferrero and read the news.

Despite everything with legs (apart from us) being banned from the Christmas table this year, we enjoyed a right royal feast. We began with a glass or two of Gran Campo Viejo Reserva from Rioja, chosen as a tribute to my adopted country. To start our meal, I made Scallops on bok choi leaves with a warm Thai vinaigrette, while dad put together the main course of fresh herb stuffed sea bass, Maris Pipers roasted in goose fat and a selection of roast Yorkshire root vegetables including some delicious seasonal parsnips. It being a Christmas table we couldn't go without the mandatory little round green brassicae, so I made truffle-creamed sprouts that went down rather well if I say so myself. And just to prove that the best of wining and dining isn't entirely Spanish, we enjoyed a superb Maison Louis Jadot Mersault from the Côte de Beaune. Our meal was rounded off with dad's infamous and seriously alcoholic gluten-free Christmas pudding and cream.

It all goes to show that, much as I enjoy meat, it's perfectly possible to create a superb feast with little or no trace of four-legged friends. A truth that we experienced at Quique Dacosta a few weeks ago and one that was to be reinforced on Christmas Sunday when we sat down to one of Simon Rogan's tasting menus at L'Enclume in Cartmel (more on this to follow soon). Although we worked our way through many of the other vegetarian, fish and seafood dishes planned for the week - the moules marinière, fish pie, king prawn curry with dhal and kedgeree were all eagerly devoured - somehow we never found the time to manage the broccoli & Stilton soup, the butternut squash risotto or the American breakfast pear pancakes. Still, we managed to consume large quantities of chocolates and nobody went hungry. The photo on the right, by the way, shows my response to dad asking me to "make something with an interesting texture using leftover sprouts and carrots". Well, there comes a time when you've done enough cooking.

To all my readers - have a very Happy New Year or un feliz año nuevo! Postscript: A little note to the vicar of Holy Trinity Church Cowling. No, you weren't imagining it on Christmas Eve. Your small, dedicated Anglican congregation was indeed augmented by a party of Agnostics, Catholics and Jews taking the opportunity to enjoy a brief period of contemplation and spirituality before the gregariousness and over-indulgence began. So get that letter off to The Church Times.

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Happy Christmas Everyone

May I wish everyone the very best at this seasonal time of year. Belated greetings on the celebration of Hanukkah, Bodhi Day, Al-Hijira, Yule and Litha. Have a happy Christmas, Makar Sankrant, Oshogatsu, Zarathosht Diso and Ashura. Whatever is your thing and whoever is your God, if you believe in one, may peace and happiness be with you over the winter holidays. Salaam and shalom to you all.

Yesterday morning I received an email from my dad, with two photos attached. The first picture shows a toy Santa, sat up high on the brightly decorated Christmas tree with a sack of presents alongside, waiting for the real Santa to pay a visit on Christmas Eve. This year my brother Joel is spending Christmas here in London with his mum-in-law Jacqui, while mum and I are spending the holiday week up in North Yorkshire with dad. As per last year, it will be the best of local food. This year the livestock get a break and surf takes over from turf, as we indulge ourselves on king scallops, king prawns, crab, mussels, smoked haddock, smoked salmon and baked stuffed sea bass, along with roasted Maris Pipers and a selection of Yorkshire's finest root vegetables, brassica and herbs.

There was just one potential problem with our plans, illustrated by the second photo which shows dad's driveway, pictured from an upstairs window on Monday night. The local road is under about a foot of snow and the hill up from the village has been impassable to all but four-wheel drive vehicles. But never mind. Dad has parked his car on the main road up in the village, so we can get out to do the last-minute shopping. And neighbours have offered him the services of their Freelander to ferry us from the village if needed.

And that's what it's all about, really. Fighting its way through the materialism and self-indulgence, Christmas and New Year is all about community, friendship and people helping and supporting eachother. So together we can all celebrate the ending of one decade and the coming of a new one. As it happens, we didn't need the rescue service and we arrived safely a couple of hours ago. The food is in the fridge and the freezer, a bottle of Cava has been opened and we're ready for the festive season regardless of what the weather brings. I hope you are too. Wishing you all the very best. Aidan.

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Westminster Kingsway Quality

I've never been into competitive cooking. Not because I'm particuarly nervous in a competitive situation or in public - I used to be very successful at youth football and I've worked on stage in public alongside Gordon Ramsay, Jean-Christophe Novelli and Raymond Blanc. It's simply that some people are turned on by cooking contests, while others including me are not. Selin Kiazim is certainly someone who gets a big buzz from culinary competition. The 23-year-old chef was a year below me at Westminster Kingsway College, from where she graduated in 2008 with a Professional Chef Diploma with Distinction.

While still a student at WestKing, Selin won two cooking gold medals at Hotelympia, Britain's biggest professional hospitality event, and went on to reach the final of Taste of Mexico, before winning the winning the NZ-UK Link Foundation Culinary Competition. The prize was a five-week working trip to New Zealand where, after work experience at Peter Gordon's Dine in Auckland, Selin secured a job back in London at his flagship restaurant, The Providores and Tapa Room. My opinion of this Marylebone eaterie is well known to regular readers - I spent two of the most formative weeks of my culinary development working there alongside Peter Gordon, a truly brilliant chef for whom I have the utmost respect. Last autumn Selin was voted top achiever at the 2008 Graduate Awards presentation lunch at the Royal Garden Hotel, a month before setting off for the Culinary Olympics in Erfurt Germany as a member of the multi-medal winning British junior team.

The other week Selin was in front of the cameras once again, this time reaching the semifinals of BBC Young Chef of the Year. No disgrace coming third behind chefs with years of experience at two of the country's most talked-about restaurants - Fergus Henderson's St. John which I hugely enjoyed back in 2007 and Simon Rogan's L'Enclume, where I have a family reservation for post-Christmas lunch next Sunday. With such drive and passion, Selin is bound to make a great career for herself. I can only wish her the very best and congratulate WestKing on yet another quality graduate.

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A Pastry Chef Comes To Hotel Ferrero

I wasn't able to show my readers much of our food while I was working at Ferrero, but now for the first time I can give you an insight. Scottish ex-pat Brian Campbell is Pastry Chef at Kermadec, a stunning, award-winning restaurant overlooking Auckland's Viaduct Harbour in New Zealand. He recently decided to take a month out to visit Spain - but it wasn't to laze about on beaches. I know this because Brian is a blogger who made contact just before visiting and has subsequently written about his experiences.

In my Restaurants section, I quote Ferran Adrià: "The best chefs I know are the ones who most enjoy eating" and explain how he inspired me to improve my knowledge and standards not only by cooking in many kitchens but also by eating in many dining rooms. This October Brian Campbell put me to shame. In three weeks he ate at El Celler de Can Roca, El Poblet, Martín Berasategui, Arzak, Mugaritz, Sergi Arola Gastro, L'Angle, Ferrero and several great tapas and pintxos bars, shopped at two of Paco Torreblanca's pastry shops and experienced the fresh food delights of La Boqueria. And he wrote up most of his experiences, with loads of photos! Click on the links above for Brian's reports.

Chef Campbell has now published an excellent summary of his Spanish gastro-tour, which I encourage everyone to read. It's clear that Brian and I share a very similar opinion of food. He chose El Poblet (now Restaurante Quique Dacosta) as his best dining experience in Spain, closely followed by El Celler de Can Roca. I would cite the same two, albeit in reverse order, for my own best meals in Spain. Brian's choice for best individual dish was the squid dish from 3-star Restaurante Martin Berasategui. Although I have yet to eat there, I've worked in MB's Lasarte restaurant in Barcelona and wouldn't hesitate to cite a dish from one of his kitchens on the basis of the ability of his head chefs to deliver stunning natural flavours. Runner-up was Quique Dacosta's Foie Cubalibre dish, which I experienced as part of my birthday meal and thought was absolutely brilliant.

Brian's choice for best hotel of his trip came as no surprise to me: "Hands down this goes to Hotel Ferrero. The hotel has it all - a world class restaurant, a stylish and luxurious design, stunning bedrooms with everything you want, beautiful outdoor pool area and attentive staff. It has just recently been included in the Relais & Châteaux guide, which is all about luxury. I loved every minute and felt so relaxed at this hotel." Of the food, he kindly commented: "The meal was standout, and I certainly don't understand Michelin any more - they are blind to the food coming out of that kitchen."

This slideshow of Brian's photos comprises some of the hotel, followed by the individual dishes of the restaurant's Menú Innovación. Click on slides for dish descriptions and Brian's comments. Now safely back home, Brian recently posted Exploding Strawberry Milkshake. Why do I mention this rather odd-sounding dish? Let Brian explain: "So here we have another dish recently gone on our menu, influenced by my trip to Michelin 3* Restaurant Arzak in San Sebastian. I serve a milkshake poured tableside, which then starts to bubble up and sauces the rest of the plate which actually makes up the main part of the dish... A jelly veil is made from an intense jus extracted from strawberries. This is draped over cheesecake mousse and then we garnish up and around the jelly with strawberries, raspberries, black and blue berries, a blackcurrant meringue, strawberry and blackcurrant fruit tuiles, pineapple sage flowers, coriander flower and corn flowers. Also compressed watermelon adds... extra freshness to the dish. A small amount of black olive and muscavado powder adds a little savoury touch. The dish is finished off with a lavender ice cream and... the strawberry milkshake is poured by the waiter." Click on this link for a clip of his innovative milkshake in effervescent action. And that sums it all up. Even a non-professional can see clearly in this write-up a whole plateful of influences from Brian's trip to Spain. And that is what creativity is all about. It's so important to eat at other chefs' restaurants, but we don't do it in order to steal their ideas. We eat at other chefs' restaurants in order to fill us with the inspiration to be truly creative and original ourselves.

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TGRWT #20 - Chicken And Pumpkin

Launched in April 2007 by Norwegian organometallic chemist and gastronomist Martin Lersch of blog.khymos.org, They Go Really Well Together (TGRWT) is all about unusual flavour pairings - combining culinary ingredients in ways that we aren't necessarily familiar with from classical cooking. The scientific hypothesis behind these experiments is that if two foods have one or more key odorants in common, they might go well together and perhaps even complement and enhance each other.

I was pleased to host TGRWT #18 and when I saw that the current event TGRWT #20 was being hosted by my friend and professional mentor John Sconzo, aka. Doc Sconz, I was quick to volunteer an entry. I couldn't do anything at first because I was busy moving myself from Valencia to Catalunya and getting ready for my Christmas trip back to Blighty. And it was while I was packing my things and considering options for a chicken and pumpkin dish that I came up with an even better idea. I'd get my staff to do it.

I've got a year's experience as a chef de partie under my belt now and in shortlisting potential employers for my next job I've focused on larger kitchens where I would get the opportunity to manage a team. So why not test my powers of delegation on TGRWT #20? After all, my dad thinks he knows something about food these days and, after eating with me at Quique Dacosta the other week, he should have learnt something about technique and presentation. More importantly, I've discussed the taste spectrum with him many times, so he should know where to start when designing a dish. So I briefed my father... and what follows is the result. All his own handiwork, including the photos.

The host of TGRWT #20 initially chose cooked chicken and lemongrass for the ingredients, before amending the challenge to fit the technical criteria by replacing lemongrass with pumpkin. So I decided to follow his initial line of thought and attempt a dish using all three of these ingredients. My offering is a slow-cooked chicken and pumpkin roulade on a bed of pilaf rice, with a sauce of coconut and lemongrass. Mostly Cambodian, in tribute to my son's love of Khmer cooking, with a bit of Thai and some French and Persian influences. The place to start, so Aidan explained to me, is analysing the principal flavours of the key ingredients. For pumpkin, the dominant flavour is sweet and for chicken the dominant basic flavours are umami and sweet. So my first thought is to cut through these with salt, sour and bitter flavours along with some astringency and pungency if possible. It was that line of reasoning, together with the lemongrass hint, that led me to the cuisines of Cambodia and Thailand.

The pumpkin choice now became obvious, although I had a lot of trouble finding one until last Friday, when Waitrose in Otley obliged. Kabocha is generally assumed to be indigenous to Japan (it's commonly called Japanese pumpkin), but it surprised me when I first discovered that its origins were in Cambodia, from where it was brought to Japan by Portuguese sailors in the 16th century. The Japanese name has roots in the words 'Kambuja' and 'Kampuchea' (the Khmer names for the ancient and modern states of Cambodia), while in Khmer it's called 'Lpoeu'. On the left is my trophy. She's not the most beautiful of vegetables (actually, if we're going to be correct, like all squashes, she's a fruit), but she's really delicious all the same.

My first task, the night before cooking, was to remove the breasts from a corn-fed free-range chicken (who said I had to make a peasant dish?) and marinate them in home-made kroeung paste. The use of kroeung lends this dish its distinctly Khmer character. I used finely chopped shallot, sliced lemongrass stalks, crushed kaffir lime leaves, some dried lime, a little chopped chilli, crushed and finely chopped garlic, a teaspoon each of galangal paste and powdered turmeric (rhizomes of the latter two are difficult to obtain in Britain and especially so in Yorkshire!).

The kroeung didn't entirely go to waste after use as a marinade because I used some of it in the next component of the dish, a soured variant of Somlor Machoo Ktiss, or lemongrass and coconut soup, inspired by this dish from Bay Area Cambodian food blogger Khatiya of Khatiya Korner that I found quite easily via a Google search. For my version I used coconut milk, the kroeung paste made for the marinade, some nam pla, shrimp paste and tamarind paste - cooking slowly for 30 mins before straining through muslin and reducing to a thick sauce. Wow, those flavours were intense!

Next I prepared my chicken roulades, starting by carefully trimming and slicing into each breast of marinated meat to create large, thin sheets. Having already cooked down my pumpkin pieces (setting a few aside for the final plating) and roughly blitzed the resulting purée together with sautéed spinach and finely chopped mushroom, I seasoned this mixture and spread it across the chicken breasts. They were then rolled in clingfilm and tied at each end to create stuffed meat sausages, which I cooked for half an hour in a water bath maintained at around 85°C.

While the chicken was slow cooking, I tossed some pre-soaked short grain rice in fat that I had set aside when trimming the chicken the previous day and subsequently rendered down. I used Thai kao niao (sticky rice) on the assumption that this would not be dissimilar to a Cambodian sticky rice, although with hindsight I would probably have substituted a less glutinous product for this part of the dish. After adding some chopped Thai basil leaves, I covered the rice in stock made from the chicken offcuts and bones and put the rice in the oven to cook.

Just before serving the rice, I unwrapped the chicken roulades and seared them in very hot chicken fat. Plating up, I made a mound of pilaf on which I placed slices of the stuffed chicken. I poured some of the reduced sour lemongrass and coconut soup into the bowl and finished off the dish with some pieces of reserved pumpkin lightly caramelised in chicken fat with a sprinkling of palm sugar. So here's the final dish - Kroeung Marinated Chicken Roulade with Pumpkin, Spinach and Mushroom on a bed of Chicken and Thai Basil Pilaf with Caramelized Pumpkin and a Reduced Sour Coconut and Lemongrass Sauce. So, how was the pairing? I don't know if chicken and pumpkin is a traditional combination in other cuisines, but a quick search on Google turns up recipes for Thai, Moroccan, American, Italian and even British dishes. Anyhow, it's certainly a combination that works. It stood up well to competition from the intense flavours of coconut and lemongrass, shrimp and tamarind. My pilaf, combining sticky rice fried in rendered chicken fat with chicken stock, was simply too rich and sweet. If I repeated the dish, I'd also think more carefully about the colours. The combination of turmeric and tamarind turned an otherwise beautiful soup into a muddy brown liquor, so next time I'd make part of the kroeung without haldi and look for a clear tamarind extract or use another souring agent. I'd also make the dish more sour, because the sweetness still dominated. It took me ages to make this meal, but it was happily consumed within minutes. And it certainly convinced me that chicken and pumpkin go really well together. Mike.

OK, so I wouldn't advise dad to give up the day job (actually he's retired) - but for someone whose idea of fine dining used to be a pickled gherkin with his spare ribs and chips, that's not at all a bad effort.

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Dinner In Dénia

It's not every day you fork out £500 on dinner for three... and then happily surrender a further £100 for the accompanying book. But then dinner at Quique Dacosta (formerly El Poblet) is no every day meal.

It's no surprise that Quique Dacosta has eventually abandoned the name of the El Poblet district of Dénia, with its down-market shopping parade, and renamed his distinctly up-market restaurant eponymously. But it must have been a wrench for the largely self-taught Michelin 2* chef who began his culinary career locally as a 14-year-old dish-washer.

Quique's philosophy was shaped though years of experience in Costa Blanca restaurants, including the pizzería where he first took control of the stoves and understood the pride and attention to detail with which the Italians cook simple local produce. From that moment it was only a matter of discovering the Valencian culinary roots, becoming familiar with the abundance of local fresh produce (especially the amazing local seafood) and learning something of the new techniques being developed in Catalunya and the Basque Country... and a master chef was born.

The decor is a comfortable balance between rustic and modern minimalist, with partition screens and table positioning creating privacy without seclusion. The first thing that strikes you as you take your seat is the elegant tableware with its unmistakeable signs of expensive tastes and wallets to match. That famous phrase comes immediately to mind - "If you need to ask how much, you can't afford it." Next to seize your attention is the introductory note. At Mugaritz the note poetically encourages you to abandon your worries and enjoy a few hours of stress-free relaxation. With Quique the welcome is more practical - explaining the importance of temperature to several dishes and the consequent need for consumption without delay. As you read it you realise that you have surrendered yourself into the arms of a chef who not only focuses on flavour, aroma and visual appearance, but also on texture and temperature techniques. It can only be a matter of time before the headphones arrive, à la Blumenthal.

No self-respecting meal in the Valencian Community would start without bread and olive oil. Here we are talking warm, freshly baked bread (including a gluten-free offering substituted effortlessly for my coeliac dad) with a choice of superb local extra-virgin oils presented with a selection of paired vinegars. Along with a mellow Gramona Imperial Gran Reserva 2005 Cava, with its subdued and beautifully integrated carbonation and light flavour of apple balanced by the most subtle toasted aromas, it signalled the perfect start to an evening of blissful gastronomic indulgence.

Utterly brilliant and something I would definitely do in my own place was the supply of individual menus for each customer, printed in their own language and tailored to their individual dietary choices. I've seen this done at the end of a meal, but doing it at the start of the meal and thus providing a written guide to each dish was truly inspired. Another nice gesture - this time aimed more at the affluent diner than at the eager gastronome - was the depositing of small cushions on the floor beneath mum's handbag and dad's camera. It's those little touches that earn you accolades.

Inspired by a love of Italy dating from Quique's youthful experience as a pizzeria chef, "White Truffle from Montgó" brought excitement and intrepidation in equal measure. The aroma was unmistakeable. But an Alba truffle this size must cost a fortune! Is it an extra, to be added to the bill? A second glance reveals the dish to be a crafty reconstruction - a parmesan mousse moulded into a rustic truffle shape, plunged into liquid nitrogen to freeze and then quickly dusted in a powder of five dried wild mushrooms to form an aromatic, crusty shell. If great dishes are meant to make you smile, this one brought tears of joy.

If the first dish brought memories of the woods at sunset, the second was redolent of the forest at sunrise. A green pea purée base soft under foot, with vegetables and shoots, mushrooms, herbs and flowers gently raising their heads into the early morning mist. After the earlier use of liquid nitrogen, "The Haze" was a perfect occasion for the deployment of solid carbon dioxide, or 'dry ice'. The concept behind this dish was flawless. The only problem was the difficulty of delivering flavours to match the aromas, temperatures, textures and appearance.

Anticipating "Foie-Gras Cubalibre", you might expect your rum & coke to be served with crushed ice & lemon in a glass alongside a piece of foie. But you'd be reckoning without Quique Dacosta's skills of deconstruction and reinvention. Here we have a base layer of light and incredibly smooth foie mousse beneath a gelatine layer of rum and Coca-Cola reduction. In the centre, compressed lemon granita providing a vibrant contrast in colour, flavour, temperature and texture. Where a sorbet would have been pleasant, the crunch of the ice crystals counterbalanced the smooth, creamy unctuousness of the foie cubalibre. The mustard leaves were a step too far. But a fabulous dish all the same and one that will long be remembered.

The alternative dish provided for my pescatarian mum was billed as "Weird Leaves", although a better translation of the original Spanish "Hojas Raras" would be "Unusual Leaves". On offer were pairings of sweetleaf and chameleon plant with olive oil & black olive, kalanchoe with jamón fat & tomato, nasturtium with truffle oil & anchovy, sempervivum with hazelnut oil & wasabi, begonia with smoky beetroot oil, echeveria with avocado oil & eucalyptus, majii with walnut oil & Moscatel and oysterleaf with codium seaweed, all presented over a tomato water gel. A panoply of sensory experiences to excite and challenge the palate, nose and eyes.

Next to arrive was "Iberian Oyster". Not the most attractive dish, with the initial appearance of a raw mollusc left long enough for its life juices to leech out and the corpse to suffer a severe fungal attack.

Luckily, however, the dish tasted far better than it looked. The flavours were fresh as a daisy. The oyster was presented raw, perched on top of a jamón gel, with a nitro-frozen "oyster air" made from baby squids blended with the oyster's natural juices to create a dark grey liquid base to which lecithin was added. The base was then frothed up and spoonfuls of the air dropped into liquid nitrogen to instantly freeze the bubbles into a solid structure. A pleasant and interesting dish, but not exactly ground-breaking.

"Dénia's Red Prawn" offered the best of local seafood, presented in a deceptively simple arrangement on a salt crust rock. Cooked à la plancha, then in sea water. According to the Maitre d', the red prawns brought in at the shores of Dénia are especially sweet because of the seaweeds on which they feast. The waters in which they swim are apparently so deep that the seaweeds on which they feed have yet to photosynthesise - resulting in a unique product with an extraordinary flavour.

For me this dish was the out-and-out winner of the evening, for sheer beauty in simplicity and incredible flavour. The only criticism I can make is that the prawns weren't deveined properly, which at this level of cooking isn't really excusable.

Dish 6, "Langoustine, from las Rotas" was one of the few disappointing plates of the evening. There are times when you feel like cracking thin langoustines with miniature nutcrackers and extracting the flesh milligram by milligram with a winkle-pin, but this wasn't such a time. The shellfish were split neatly down the middle longitudinally to form a symmetrical pair of halves, and was dressed with a sea water air, which to be honest wasn't very salty. Not a very impressive dish, I'm afraid.

Strangely named, "The Hen of the Golden Eggs", given that the heroine of Aesop's fable about prodigal poultry was a goose. Even more strange that such an unoriginal and outmoded dish, with its low temperature egg and excess of gold leaf, should be ascribed to invention as recently as 2005. But the dish worked well, both as a visual treat and an oral experience, with a perfect yolk spilling into the mouth orgasmically like a scene from Tampopo, to be washed down with a reduced stock made from its progenitor. Not the most challenging dish of the evening, but a satisfying one nonetheless.

During the discussion of dietary requirements, I'd asked for a rice dish to be included on the tasting menu. After all, Quique is a recognised expert on modern rice dishes. "Senia Rice with Black Truffle from Morella and Smoked Pigeon Liver" was one of those creations I view as a victory for Michelin expectations over good cooking. Far too much truffle (partly our own fault, as we accepted the offer of an additional grating of Alba), masking the flavours of both pigeon and rice. Cut umami with something acidic or pungent and the effect can be stupendous. Layer umami on umami and it's simply over-indulgent.

With "Monochrome of Coconut", the first of two desserts, came the shock of snowblindness. Surely we weren't expected to munch away at a pile of shredded coconut? With each spoonful the apprehensions dissipated and the smiles extended. Silky coconut ice cream covered with shavings of grated coconut gelatine, small pieces of raw virginal coconut flesh, a smear of smooth coconut purée and tiny dancing balls of coconut 'caviar'. Monochronicity suddenly made sense. Remove the visual stimulus and the sense of flavour and texture is enhanced. Simple, ingenious, flawless, delicious. Possibly the best dish of the evening on texture alone.

With Quique's 2009 dessert "Stones", the meal ended where it began - back on Valencian soil. Not now the dampness of the woods on a truffle-hunting autumn evening nor the chill of the forest on a misty spring morning, but the concept of dry crunchiness of a road on a summer's afternoon. Stepping onto a chocolate mousse path sprinkled with chocolate biscuit crumbs, with huge stones made of panettone coated with a special sugar preparation, plunged into liquid nitrogen to form a crust and then painted with mint. Tiptoeing through strands of kataïfi pastry and dancing crystallised herbs and flowers. Full of amazing textures and, like all truly great chocolate dishes, without excess sweetness. Sublime.

I must say something about the accompanying wines. When we ordered our menús degustaciónes, we followed the now established pattern of electing paired drinks (I say "drinks", because beers, sakés and other alcoholic beverages are finding themselves increasingly paired with dishes these days). So it was somewhat of a surprise when the sommelier suggested a bottle of Gran Veigadares 2005 to accompany several of the courses, with other specifically paired wines for just three of the dishes. And what a choice that turned out to be. Gran Veigadares is one of the high quality vinho verdes known as Galicia's Green Gold, from the Condado de Tea subregion of the Rías Baixas. Like many of the fine wines in the region, it is made from the local Albariño white grape by one of the many female winemakers for which Rías Baixas is famous. It paired the seafood exquisitely. A wine more suited to me you couldn't find. Cross the Minho into Portugal and it's not long before you reach my home from home, where cheaper vinho verde is consumed avidly. Wines provided for specific dishes were a light sweet Sidra de Hielo icewine, a full-on complex Bota de Manzanilla Pasada sherry and a local Fondillón 1980 demi-sec monastrell from Salvador Poveda in Monóvar, Alicante. For the first time ever in fine dining, I couldn't fault a single wine pairing. They were simply perfect.

Service was attentive - perhaps a little too much so at times. But we had, after all, arrived so early that kitchen team scarcely had time to turn on the ovens and we'd clearly disrupted the Maître d's smooth service plans for the night. It was good to see that the request for gluten-free bread was noted across front of house. Dad is fond of recounting experiences of announcing his coeliac status to one waiter while rejecting the offer of grissini, only for a second waiter (or worse still the same one) to recommend the ravioli. Slightly disappointing was that the clinking of our cava glasses accompanied by a distinctly audible birthday toast went unnoticed. Balloons and sparklers would be a tad vulgar for this sophisticated establishment, but a simple candle with the final dessert would have been nice.

With smoking now banned at restaurant tables in Spain, the new lounge area provided the perfect retreat for coffee, petit fours and liqueurs and for mum to exercise a habit she should have given up years ago. It was also the opportunity to meet Chef Dacosta and discuss our dining experience.

If you click on the photo left to enlarge it, you'll see a large white book hidden away beneath a book of Picasso paintings and a travel magazine. Arroces Contemporáneos (Modern Rice Dishes) is a seminal work on the cuisine for which Valencia is most famous. Nobody pushed the book at all, but when I asked if I could have a copy for my birthday and my folks agreed, the restaurant was quick to oblige. Within minutes the waiter reappeared, brandishing a brand new copy of the book for Quique to sign.

OK, so he misspelt my name. After the perfection of the meal, it was a mistake I could happily forgive.

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