Hi, Timber!

01-Jun-10 - Up to London for a two-day DECANTER tasting of the wines of Castilla y León, including Arlanza, Toro, Bierzo, Arribes and Cigales. It was an excellent range with some startling emergent wines. My lips are sealed as to the results until the magazine is published, of course, but we found some very pleasant surprises.

Because of the ridiculous price of railway tickets before 09:00 in the morning it costs about the same to stay in a modest hotel as it does to commute, and I tried out the Travelodge Aldgate East, which is about a ten-minute taxi-ride from the DECANTER building. I quite like Travelodges - even in London you can get a room for about £50 and whilst they are very much no-frills, when all you're going to do is sleep there why pay for more? I was a little disappointed to discover that the bar only opened in the evening, but found my way round to the nearby Princess of Prussia for a late light lunch and a glass, before retiring for a siesta.

This was because I had taken up a very generous offer from Neleen Strauss, who manages High Timber, the South African restaurant beside the Thames, opposite Tate Modern. We featured the project in the January, 2009 issue of YES CHEF! Magazine: ZA wine producer Gary Jordan brought in Neleen from Vivat Bacchus in Farringdon Street, and Justin Saunders from Dukes Hotel in Mayfair, and the restaurant launched in the spring of that year. I was invited to the launch but wasn't able to make it, so Neleen very kindly asked me to come along at some other time and, being in the neighbourhood I took her up on the invitation.

I had arranged to meet my ex-colleague Sam Jones (formerly deputy editor of YES CHEF! Magazine and now working for a publishing house in the city) and her fiancé Glynn, who live nearby. Sam had been able to make the launch and absolutely loved it, so they were very keen to go again. The weather tried to spoil everything, of course, with a relentless, miserable drizzle, but once inside the place is very warm and welcoming, as was Neleen, and Justin came over to say hello between courses. High Timber has been described as 'a steak house' but it really is very much more than that, and Justin has been given a great deal of freedom to create dishes of his own. There's a sample menu on the restaurant's website, but if you're a regular reader of this blog you'll know that I can never resist steak, and the sirloin with braised mushroom, roast vine tomato, onion rings, baby watercress and hand cut chips - served on a plank - was a consummation devoutly to be wish'd. The restaurant also has a 40,000-bottle wine cellar, but we didn't make too much of an inroad into that, in spite of trying. It was an excellent evening.

Fab steak! Pic.: High Timber website