I’ve been really busy on a couple of very exciting projects, which I’ll post about soon, so here are a couple of quick updates to prevent the backlog from burying me!

The Thomas Cubitt

Situated in a picturesque part of Belgravia, the Thomas Cubitt is part of a small pub group that prides itself on sophisticated atmosphere, great British food and amazing drinks. Being familiar with its sister pub, The Orange, we felt confident turning up for a late lunch on Sunday.

Any drinks menu that features the wonderful chaps at Sipsmith that many times gets my vote and we weren’t disappointed. Top cocktails. The menu has a great selection of ‘traditional’ pub food but it didn’t take me long to go for the beef. A short wait later and it appeared, a delicious pile of British goodness.

You might notice that it’s missing something – the gravy took another couple of minutes to come out. I don’t know if presenting delicious roast beef then withholding the gravy is banned under the Geneva convention, but it should be!

In fairness, when it eventually appeared with was gorgeous, thick and glossy. The meal as a whole was delicious, great meat (Castle of Mey) lovely veg and the macaroni cheese was sublime. Very good – I definitely need to visit The Orange again to compare notes.

Chocolate Ice Cream
I’ve had some bad experiences with home-made ice cream, it’s often insipid and grainy. When my little brother asked me to show him how it was I done I went in search of a really good recipe to give it the best chance of success, alongside reading up on ice cream theory from the likes of Heston Blumenthal and Harold McGee.

The results were stunning, taking extra time to properly temper the chocolate, and using a wet caramel poured into egg yolks to make the custard creates a fantastic texture. Giving the ice cream maker the best chance possible, by pre-chilling the mixture and regularly scraping the sides worked a treat. It’s super chocolatey and very reminiscent of Ben and Jerries. I’ll try and get my tweaked recipe for it up soon.

Beef Ravioli
Home-made pasta is great – its a fantastic way of showing off a simple flavour combination and beef, red wine and mozzarella is about as Italian as it gets. Yum.