ChefsWorld attends The Greenhouse’s New Seasonal Cookery Class

Attending Executive Chef Antonin Bonnet’s first seasonal cookery class was a gastronomic experience of the highest calibre.

[ClickPress, Sun Feb 25 2007] Invitations were sent out to patrons of the Greenhouse announcing the seasonal cookery classes. The class comprised of ten food lovers, which starts at 10am through to 12.30. The restaurant being closed for lunch on Saturday gave us all an incite into the restaurant and kitchen that the ordinary diner never sees, we felt as if we had been invited into their home.
You are presented with a recipe booklet setting out the recipes for the four seasonal courses that Antonin and his team would prepare for our lunch later that afternoon in the Greenhouses private dining room.

The menu for the day comprised of:

Warm beetroot salad, grain mustard emulsion and balsamic dressing.
* * *
Roasted diver-caught scallop, tuberous chervil puree and grue sauce
* * *
Limousin fillet of beef, Alenois cress and suede puree
* * *
Butternut squash cheesecake, honey reduction and Perigord truffle ice cream

Antonin talks you through the individual courses, the products and ingredients he has chosen and most crucially and inspiring, his passion about the products. Antonin gives you an insight into his philosophy and style of preparation, preparation and the flavours he tries to capture and instil in his dishes.

Antonin originally from Lyon, trained under Michel Bras at his three-Michelin star restaurant in the Aubrac region of France, he also gained invaluable experience during his three years at L’Oustau de Baumaniere in Provence.
His style of cuisine is influenced by a combination of elements: re-evaluating how to create powerful menus by ‘getting back to nature’; his technical background from his past experiences in restaurants; utilising the finest ingredients and his own experiences of Lyon, Provence, Italy and the Far East. Intuition, refined by impeccable training, has perfected his style, which challenges the boundaries of convention by combining flavours and methods from around the world in order to create original dishes. In essence, his style of cuisine is highly proficient yet he manages to create unusually light dishes.

Antonin is passionate about produce origins. His suppliers are small, individual producers who are able to offer the finest, freshest ingredients from around the UK and abroad.

Sitting down to lunch we are presented with an amouse-bouche of cep mousse topped with a ginger and spring onion jelly, a wonderful and generous touch as we were only expecting the four courses covered in the kitchen earlier.

The wines served were a Bourgone white, a Barbaresco and finished with a Vouvre.

The beetroot salad was superb, Antonin’s belief of taking a beautiful product and cooking it to enhance its natural flavours were beginning to take shape in our minds. The scallops, so fresh they fought back earlier in the kitchen, reawakened my love for the sea and its flavours. The showstopper and my fellow ‘gastro’s’ agreed was the beef fillet.

A pre dessert of mango and cumquat sorbet topped with a lemon grass e’spuma reaffirmed our host’s generosity. Butternut cheesecake was the first for me and all cheecake’s will now be measured against this wonderful creation. An after dessert was also served, but ashamedly I cannot completely recollect the dish, with our table in full swing and conversation flowing we all basked in our own gastronomically heavenly experience.

Antonin Bonnet and Jean-Marie Miorada were the most gracious of hosts and teachers who gave us a glimpse of their passion.


The Greenhouse
27A Hay’s Mews, Mayfair
London
+44 (0)20 7499 3331

ChefsWorld

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