london

Celebration, caffeination, wine nation

Home of the Advanced Sommelier exam, WSET, secret Michelin restaurants and overall general culture: enter my favourite city in the world. Exam anxiety aside; intense head cold aside; tourist and royal wedding season aside: June is a great month to be here.

We started our first dinner at St. John Bread & Wine. As you do. A great friend of mine used to live across the street from this iconic east-end restaurant when she worked at a London Michelin-star a few years ago: a fact that stood out to me more than anything. And the simplistic, rustic-chic tables and chairs. Perhaps also the creaky wooden floors and the noticeably small, white paint-framed pass at the kitchen. The food was great. The service was mediocre when I was there; maybe they were tired. I’ve only heard great things on this front, so I let it go. I’m with my person; it’s our first night in the city with only a week ahead of us to enjoy.

We order a bottle of Pithon-Paille’s ‘Mosaic’: an Anjou blend that’s refreshing, crisp, and sings Chenin Blanc – this is an epic producer that I discovered earlier this year, and their Val de Loire delivers as much as the top bottling.

Pithon Paille is represented by Burgundy Direct agency here in Toronto – run, don’t walk.

St. John also makes their own wine, négociant-style, where they work with wineries who they are close with to produce wine under their own proprietary label. Led by head chef, Fergus Henderson, St, John proper (not the Bread & Wine location, where we went this time) is the only Michelin Star restaurant the world to use Bag-in-Box wine. This is what I’ve been trying to tell people for two years now… BIB is where it’s at. Cue Valdibella’s BIBs that we bring in at The Vine from this fantastic, organic Sicilian producer. But I digress.

The crushable St. John wines are imported (elusively) into Ontario by Franco Stalteri at CB Wine Imports: the offshoot of Charlie’s Burgers Supper Club. Google your heart out; it’s meant to remain a bit of a mystery. Either way, you can email him with inquiries if you’re as impatient as I am.

coffee culture, uk

While spending the week under the weather (not literally, though still unfortunately), we did a lot of coffee “research” as J likes to call it. Necessary feeling is what I like to say, but either way: London is a playground for this as much as it is food and wine.

Our first stop for epic coffee became our usual, and we really got to know the underground making the commute from Knightsbridge to Kings Cross over the course of the week. Café Alain Ducasse, in the ultra-mod, very new Coal Drops Yard just north of St. Pancras Station, ushers not only some of the best drip coffee and espresso I’ve ever had, but seems to be a Mecca for fantastic hospitality professionals.

Here, splurge on the coffee. My taste is evolving to “natural process” coffee - where beans aren’t washed while being processed, but rather allowed to ferment and left in the sun to bake off any remaining fruit - and this is where I’ve had the best natural process drip coffee in my life. Splurge on the coffee here; get more mandolins than you think you’ll be able to eat. Trust me, you’ll finish them. Try espresso and drip, maybe a cortado (go with their recommendations for this), and probably make some great friends with the baristas along the way.

Closer to where we were staying (a couple of blocks from Harrods and Hyde Park), a serendipitous afternoon took us to Fernandez & Wells. Located across the street from the Natural History Museum and the V&A, this is the perfect place to get a cuppa while cruising the museum scene. The espresso here is much more extracted - I’m NO expert on this, but I was picking up where coffee is made stronger and where it’s made to be a bit less extracted, which my taste tends to prefer. Nonetheless, J seemed to enjoy it; it’s a beautiful building (aren’t they all), and the people watching is epic. Sit outside, have some sparkling water with the caffeine and take your time. No takeaway cups.

Café Alain Ducasse and our new coffee/madelines friend, Guiseppe

THE WINE

Tbd…

Our days took us to many restaurants, side streets, little storefronts and most of the underground tunnels. Some notable stops were:

• Hedonism wines (we didn’t stay to taste; that would have resulted in a full day there)

• Berry Bros Wine Imports

• 67 Pall Mall …