In early 2005 I hosted a cook book exchange with a group of avid home cooks and some professional chefs. We all brought books we had tired of and traded them one for one. The book that most intrigued me was Live Bait, a book written by a popular British chef that showed very exciting recipes for fish and shellfish. Fish is something I need to eat more of, but my skills with it are limited and I'm not very inventive with it either, so this book really inspired me. When I found myself in London on vacation I decided I had to try the restaurant that had such enticing recipes as: Salmon and Dill Ravioli, Potato and Hazelnut Gratin, Goat Cheese Cheesecake, Seared Sea Scallops with Red Wine Pears, Roast Fillet of Turbot with Foie Gras Mashed Potatoes, Roasted Tiger Shrimp Wrapped in Sea Bass with Tagliatelle Mussels and Merguez Sausages, Honey and Ginger Roasted Octopus, Spring Rolls of Squid Oyster and Bacon, Lasagne of Sole and spinach with a Stilton Bechamel Sauce, and finally Meatballs of Whole Sea Scallops with Spicy Sausage (a fish version of Scotch Egg...Scotch Scallop). I don't know when it changed, but by the time I had arrived, the restaurant was all about sustainable fish and the menu can be seen linked at the bottom of this post. I approve whole heartedly about not depleting the oceans and being vigilant about only eating sustainable varieties of fish, but why did the style of cooking have to change so dramatically? Everything especially the sides were so pedestrian.
The fresh baked bread was good, but they only offered the saffron and a baguette, not the tomato, or spinach breads that sat alongside the saffron bread in the book. The mussels were very good, although classic and not prepared with anything one would not expect. Clearly the restaurant made it's reputation on inventive, creative combinations of flavors, but could it be that as less adventurous patrons started pouring in, they only ordered the more familiar dishes, thus forcing the restaurant to dumb down the menu? Fish and chips were on offer from the start. If this was the case, it is really a tragedy for the chef.
In my quest for something different, I ordered the grilled yellowfin tuna with 3 sauces. It was quite disappointing to find guacamole and pico de gallo on my plate, especially since they were lacking salt and tasted flat. The description lead me to believe something else was coming, oh yes, sour cream, not my first choice for fish. It was a decent, tasty tuna steak, three of them actually, so all was not lost, just my quest for something that would inspire me. But I still have the book, so I plan to use those creative recipes on my own and hope they will turn out well.
My partner in crime, the one most likely to order something more familiar elected to try the fish and chips; we were in England after all. They did not disappoint. The cod was light and fluffy and the chips were nice and crunchy. As sides we decided to try mushy peas and the spinach with nutmeg, both very satisfying as far as flavor or should I say "flavour" was concerned.
The Cut, Waterloo
London SE1 8LF
Tel: 020 7928 7211
Mon to Sat: 12.00pm - 11.00pm
Sun: 12.30pm - 9.00pm
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