Supper clubs are pretty popular around Edinburgh and as a lover of all things new and different, I…read morehad been dying to investigate this phenomenon for myself. So, the idea is this: so many places are released for dinner in a private residence. Your host/hostess does all the cooking (and the dishes!) and you turn up with your drink of choice, eat what you hope is lovely food and pay at the end (usually the suggested amount), whilst enjoying a night of hopefully good food and good company.
As it was my first supper club, I really was going on the 'its different so it should be good angle'. There was no menu published before hand, I had registered as gluten free and the directions to our supply club were released five days beforehand. Luckily my friend Kate has travelled extensively, has a sense of adventure and isn't a fussy eater so we were both excited rather than worried.
I had seen the Bread and Butter Supper Club advertised on Twitter. Greg and Russell are two professional chefs who have cooked in different (and Michelin starred) restaurants around the world. I had high hopes into my first supper club foray and I wasn't to be disappointed!
The food was phenomenal. Truly amazing and definitely Michelin quality. The recommended donation was £35 for 6 courses!!! Our menu was fantastic with a wide range of ingredients which were so well matched. It was a night of eating things I wouldn't normally but then now wonder why I've left it so long to try. Our tables were set out in the living room (18 diners) and as the kitchen was open plan, we could watch the two chefs at work - working seemlessly and presenting us with absolutely beautiful food.
So, the menu. We started off with bread and goats butter. I didn't find the goats butter over powering and it went well with my gluten free bread (which was lovely!). Then we had celeriac - more of an amuse bouche with roasted hazelnuts, Alexanders and pickeled celery. For the record, I think celery is the food of the devil. Some yelpers hate mushrooms, well I think celery should be banned. But in this dish, it wasn't the nasty over powering celery I love to hate, but something more subtle which worked so well in this dish. I ate every part of it.
Then Pigs head, mustard caramel, watercress and poached apple. This was beautiful. Divine flavours and the pigs head was so meaty but perfectly balanced with the apple. The mustard caramel added a lovely sweetness and not the usual tangyness or heat you would associate with mustard.
Then came the grilled mackerel, sea beets, pennywort and black quinoa. I loved this dish - not least because we could see the mackerel getting the blow torch treatment in the kitchen so it was lovely, fresh and tender but the quinoa (naturally gluten free) was lovely and earthy and matched the fish. The Rib and cheek of beef was beautiful - a mini roast with onions, wild leeks and purple carrot - rib of beef was cooked pink so melted in the mouth and the cheek - wow! perfect beefy yummyness!
It wasn't all savoury though and it was then time to progress to the sweets. Baked duck egg custard, butternut squash jelly, mandarin mousse, roasted pecans - wowzer! This was phenomenal. Despite the creaminess of the custard, this dish for me still worked well as a palate cleanser as the citrus from the mandarin mousse cut through so kept the overall dish, lovely and light, and a taster of what was to follow.
The dessert was banana cake, coffee ice cream, chocolate mousse and salted caramel. As I'm gf, there was no banana cake but caramelised bananas and salted hazelnuts. OMG everything worked so well. The chocolate mousse was very rich which I loved and I really enjoyed the coffee ice-cream - I felt the flavours were so perfectly balanced that nothing over powered any other ingredients and I think this probably sums up what I loved about the meal. All the flavours were so well matched and complemented each other so well, it was just a taste explosion. I can't honestly say what I preferred more out of my courses because when I look at my menu, I just want to have it all again!
So, I would definitely recommend this. If you like something different, experiencing new things and meeting new people then give a supper club a go. We were lucky to have a fab table and have a great night filled with lots of great chat and divine food. Watching two professional chefs at work was a real pleasure too - seemless delivery of divine food and I've already told both Russell and Greg I want an email when the next lot of dates come out as, to quote Arnie, "I'll be back!"
