You can just come along and get stuck in, perhaps you know lots about wine, perhaps you know little but just want to drink some good stuff in decent company…

But if you can bear any more of my wittering you might find this helpful…

First a confession - it wan’t as many years ago as I’d like that I didn’t know that pouilly fumé and fuissé were made with different grapes from different parts of France - I just thought they were really nice, drinkable and expensive wines that were generous to offer guests or take round to someone’s house.  And that they are.  But part of the reason I didn’t know much about them was that I had never had a chance to drink them side by side and compare the experience.

Chardonnay versus sauvignon blanc; the great white grapes of France play themselves out across our list at different price points.  At the less expensive end an unoaked chardonnay fom Preignes le Neuf mocks all those who miss out on it when they say “a glass of white wine, anything but chardonnay”, and can be compared to the most popular wine on our list - the ‘petit sancerre’ that is Touraine sauvignon.  At the other end, past the petit chablis (yes chardonnay) a flinty silex Sancerre (sauvignon) does battle with a trio of high class chardonnays Rully, Mersault, Montrachet.  So right at the start there is the comparison of what you get for your money (although the less expensive wines are sweated over and carefully chosen the answer is still….a lot) and you get to compare two of the world’s most wonderful white wines.  Oh and we’ve slipped in a new world sauvignon as well.  Generally you won’t see too many wines that have travelled a long distance - I prefer to see a grape/style/price point filled by a European wine where possible and really only list old world wines where there is a strong argument that the terroir and grape sing exceptionally together.

Ideally, however, those wines are just marking points for the adventure that lies ahead across the rest of the list.  I routinely express my sadness that people don’t feel that another £5-£10 on a shared bottle of wine isn’t worth it, when it so often is.  My other, greater, sadness for our diners is the small number of them that venture off the beaten track amongst the mid list white wines.  Here real discoveries are made and the discovery of something wonderful in a wine transforms an event into a special and memorable one.  If you are in Thursday at some point pause and look around and listen - wine is a drink that makes people fizz with excitement, pleasure, conversation.  The white wines in our mid list are amongst the best at delivering that and yet sadly are among the most neglected. For sure stay up in price and get your money’s worth so do not leave without trying the classic Gruner Veiltliner, fabulous Friulano which I could drink a bottle of a day, elegant Riesling much misunderstood and maligned as a ‘sweet’ wine, and the generous and moreish Macon.  But do get down and dirty with the picpoul, white rioja, pinot gris…..

Oddly if we only sold red wines I perhaps wouldn’t feel there was as much value in doing the drink the list - red wine drinkers seem to range more wildly across countries, grapes and styles.  I suspect most do know that burgundies are made with pinot noir and bordeux with a blend of cabernet sauvignon, merlot, cabernet franc, petit verdot.  It is again worth comparing the less and more expensive (Roncier pinot noir with Roche Bellene, Feraud Rhone with Gigondas) and the new versus old world (High Note compared to Savigny).  Explore varietals and blends, the spicy and fruity Spanish, the super drinkable Brouilly..

If you like bagging cult names or you are a winemaker geek then the (Potel) Bellene, Thunevin, Seresin, (Geddes) Gordito and of course Chocolate Block are the ones for you.

I will be on hand on the evening if you have any questions or want to chat, and I am hoping that a couple at least of our suppliers will be around too.  Most of all I hope you have a lot of fun.

Sherry?

Another mea cupla…or just acceptance that we get things wrong and try to get better.

Which means it begins again with ‘When we first opened’….

When we first opened we were determined to be a pub not just a restaurant.  That means we are ok with people sitting at a table slowly drinking one pint and try to be as welcoming to them as we are to dining guests.  We have tables that we don’t book…we did decide, however that we do take bookings.  As pub dining has incorporated important family gatherings, birthday and other celebrations so people like to know where they stand and aren’t prepared to take the risk of meeting somewhere good, popular and crowded without reservations.

 So we took the early decision that we would take bookings.  We were adamant, however, that we would not ‘turn tables’ – by which I mean automatically give people time slots after which we would bump them off and ask for the table back.  It didn’t doesn’t seem right to be sitting in a pub on a Friday night or Saturday lunchtime being asked for the table back.

In the last year the Sunday lunch bookings have gone crazy – I’d like to think it was just our much in demand big sharing roasts, but I know the other great pubs nearby us have the same experience as us.  Sundays are booking out at least a week in advance of any other day of the week.  And I know why – I’ve booked in to the pub for Sunday weeks in advance for my birthday (21^st since you ask) as it is great for family gathering and seeing friends – as people go out less during the week so the weekend becomes more important .  We always keep tables free for walk-ins, we always ‘turn’ some tables as people naturally leave but the fact is that we disappoint lots of people by turning them away when they would like to eat here.  And we hate to disappoint.  As a result we have decided to change our Sunday opening hours to go straight through from 12.00 to 8.30pm with one single Sunday lunch sitting, instead of stopping lunch at 4pm and opening again at 7.00pm.

What this means, sadly, is that we have to now allocate ‘turn times’ to tables on Sunday lunch.  We have set up the system so that it always allows what we think should be enough time for you to enjoy a leisurely and enjoyable Sunday gathering – for example a table of three will be allocated 3 hours…

All staff who take bookings have been told very clearly, however, to always ask people making a Sunday booking if they would like the table for longer than the default offering …and that they should meet any request for a longer sitting without question if it is available.  Here is the text on our website to the same effect:

As a pub we do not ‘turn’ tables – if you book for lunch or dinner the table is yours for that service unless all we can offer is a table with a prior booking and we let you know that when you book.  The one exception is SUNDAY when we run from 12.00 to 8.30pm.  The system will allocate you a table time of at least two hours, depending on the size of your party.  If you wish to request a longer lunch please do call to discuss, we will always be happy to allocate you as long as you would like subject only to the constraint of prior bookings.  To be 100% clear you can have as long as you want if it is available at the time of your booking and you let us know in advance.

If you have any thoughts please do let us know – if there are teething problems at all in the next few weeks please bear with us/tell us.

Drink the List! 25th April Way back in the mists of time (four years ago) I put together the original wine list. At the same time we found, refurbished and opened the pub, hired and trained staff, got the kitchen up and running…there was quite a lot going on. Some months later a customer pointed at a bottle of wine and said ‘what is this like?’ and I realised I had no specific recollection of the wine at all. Sure I knew its varietal and terroir characteristics and could read the notes on the wine list but no actual recollection. I realised I needed to try every wine on the list all over again - both to familiarise myseld with them and to validate those original selections. Thus was drink the list born - because it would be a shame for me to open all the bottles and pour most of it away. Since then when we change the list, which we do twice a year, we open all the wines and host a rather fun wine guzzling event upstairs. Apart from the obvious fun we have one of the reasons we do this is to give our customers a chance to sample across the list. I sincerely believe that an extra £5 or £10 on a bottle of wine can transform the enjoyment you get out of a meal here - but I also understand that people feel the pinch and want to know it is going to be worthwhile. So.. come along and try all of the wine and then next time you are back pick the perfect one for your meal. The event costs £30 per head and includes some simple finger food to soak up the booze and help you have more without falling over. If you are focused on maximising the value drink two bottles of the Mersault, list price £65, and totter off into the night well ahead… An interesting write up on a previous event here:

http://www.scalawine.com/wpblog/2012/06/19/the-drapers-arms-drinking-the-list/

There are some people who, however high their profile, everyone just seems to love ……

At the start of the year I sat down with my chefs and asked them if there was anyone they would like to work with on a pop-up or event here at the pub.  In a heartbeat they chorused ‘Gizzi Erskine!’ – for of course the gorgeous Gizzi is one such person.  No chance I thought but I promised to give it a go.  Serendipitously days later I spotted on twitter that Gizzi was finishing up on her new cookbook, “Skinny weeks and weekend feasts” and that it was going to launch in the spring.  Why not ask her if she would like to come and cook up a feast from the book here with our chefs?  I must have got her at a weak moment……

On 11^th April Gizzi will be working away in the Draper’s kitchen with James and the team to prepare a lovely ‘family style’ feast of loads of dishes straight out of the cookbook.  Everyone will also get a signed copy of the book to take away.  I personally love the idea of the book as it is designed to help us eat and live the way we aspire to without unrealistic and horrid self denial – a little bit of sensible and eminently do-able restraint during the week and then turning up the volume and letting your hair down at the weekend.  I’ve held the book and it is absolutely lovely.

If you would like to come along for the perfect introduction to the cookbook, cooked by Gizzi herself, please call the pub on 020 7619 0348 or email info@thedrapersarms.com.  I think this might get booked up fairly quickly…

The evening will cost £45: £35 for the meal and £10 for a signed copy of the book.

Update as of 12th March…as anticipated this has been very popular and is currently provisionally full.  We will run a waitlist and will explore ways to maximise capacity, so please do still drop us a note via email if you have an interest in coming… info@thedrapersarms.com

I can vividly still recall the taste, the experience and the wonder of the first bite of my first Meateasy burger.  More, I am still captured by the feeling of betrayal, by the burger itself, as it dared to diminish in the face of my greedy assault – with the looming inevitability of being left bereft, still wanting more, always more.   A sense that lingers still if I have to go more than a week or so without one of their burgers.

I broke my Meateasy cherry some two years ago.  For a few months before I had been picking up repeated and surely, it seemed, hyperbolic chatter regarding the Meatwagon on twitter from the small group of food bloggers and enthusiasts that I still rate as the best guide to who, what and where is great for food in town – with ringleader Chris Pople foremost among their champions.  (read him here and hopefully soon in the Observer! http://cheesenbiscuits.blogspot.co.uk/).  Busy busy as we were at the time working on bedding down the pub, and not knowing where Peckham and the other places the van popped up actually were, I failed to pop up at any of the places that Yianni’s guerrilla burger purveyors popped up at.  Until they popped up above the New Cross Inn for a residency of burgers, cocktails and beers for a few months to April 2011.

My first burger was the bacon cheeseburger but I also tried chilli fries and the dead hippy.  Within weeks I had found an excuse to go back with family, friends from one area of my life, friends from another, alone (really)….back with family to say goodbye…  Why?  I’ve always liked a burger.  Burgers were my constant companion in hotels around the world when work involved travel most days most weeks and long, late night conference calls in samey hotel rooms.  Flame grilled burgers are still my strongest memory of my first visit to the exotic USA with its glitz and glamour, a far cry from turgid, beige late 70s England.  But the Meateasy..and subsequently Liquor, Market and Mission incarnations were a paradigm shift in sheer overwhelming, juicy, “oh my god” at the start and “oh no I’m nearly finished” at the end fabulousness.  I’m not going to pretend, out of loyalty to the operators who I now consider friends, that they are now the only burger in town.  Patty & Bun, Bleeker Burger, Lucky Chip, Burger Bear to name but a few all now produce damn fine burgers.

The Meat*****s however blazed the trail and have led to an explosion in ‘street’, ‘dirty’ or just plain great fast food across London.  So much was 2012 the year of the burger that more than one jaded and bearded salaried food writer sought to call the turn against the boring phenomenon of great burgers and dirty food.  ‘Just a burger’ might as well be tattooed on their fingertips so often does it tippy tap onto their reviews, articles, twitter and other journalism – for as we know few can support themselves with the earnings from a restaurant review column in a national alone.  We are all so bored about hearing about burgers they lament.  Well yes – I can imagine that if you tweet within a circle of the food obsessed, read every review, visit every most talked about new place perhaps you are ready to move on to something new.  But there are still thousands if not millions of people who haven’t been to any of the places I have mentioned, or their slipstreaming cousins.  Many will not have heard of them at all.  But all those interested in a decent burger, whether often or infrequent, will benefit…..

When we opened the Drapers Arms we eschewed the pasta; sausage & mash; fish & chips; steak; meat dish; fish dish; some misplaced ethnic dish; burger…oh and a veggie ‘gastropub by numbers’ menu.  Instead we have set out to provide varied, enjoyable, authentic, British, seasonal food with a changing menu (‘yawn’ I hear you say and yes some of that can be considered worn and clichéd too…but not if you do it really well and with passion I think).  Tucked away in our original business plan however was the phrase ‘If we do a burger it will be a thing of beauty’.

We didn’t do a burger.

Until now.

Now beauty may not be the correct term but, post Meat******, we have no choice but to do a damn fine burger if we are going to do one at all.  There’s a standard.  Burgers are relatively easily compared – I recently did a little road trip around London with some of my chefs to taste a few of the leading candidates.  I and others use Bergerapp to find the nearest great burger.  If it doesn’t immediately hit you with an oh my god moment, if you aren’t lamenting the diminishing pattie even as you tear it apart in unseemly haste then you’ve a dud in your hands.  Every operator who has any aspirations to meet and exceed customer expectations now has a vividly clear benchmark that they know anyone coming into their establishment may have at the back, or indeed forefront, of their minds as they sit down to tackle the proffered burger.  And burger eaters have Scott and Yianni to thank for that.

We are going to start doing a burger weekday lunches and Saturday lunches.  Why? We just thought it might be fun.  If everyone who comes in asks for it we will probably stop, frankly I want the chefs to enjoy their jobs and they are a talented and ambitious crowd who like to cook a variety of different things.  But if sometimes you drop in and a burger is just what you fancy for lunch..well, I completely understand.

And there’s a hostage to fortune if the chefs ever saw one. That’s why they love me.

Over the last couple of years the number of staff cycling to the pub has risen to around 100%, helped in part by the excellent Cyclescheme which enables the pub to buy them bikes which can be paid off over time from pre-tax income.   A significant number of regular customers and friends of the pub cycle too and there is often an amount of friendly banter among front of house, kitchen staff and customers about bikes and certainly about speed.

Last year we decided to gather a team together to do the British Heart Foundation London to Brighton ride, to sort out who was the swiftest, to raise money for charity, to have a little fun across teams and with some customers….all sorts of great reasons.  Not least among them was the plan to have drinks in Brighton together and a very kind friend also offered to host a BBQ in Ditchling before we moved on to the intimidating task of climbing the Ditchling Beacon, the only really significant piece of uphill on the route.

On the day a team of some 14 of us set off, not all at the same time and not all at the same speed…and I won’t embarrass my team by mentioning that only one of them made it up the Beacon without getting off and walking…

Among us was a certain Scott Collins of, in this context, Capital Pubs who bought himself a fancy bike and has since got the cycling bug..which he has passed on to among others Heath Ball of the lovely Red Lion and Sun in Highgate and Oisin Rogers of fabulous Ship in Wandsworth.  We plan to enter a group for the event again this year and, hopefully, all of the above will be chivvying their staff and customers and bringing a pub team as well.  This year there is an additional inducement; the aforementioned Scott Collins is, in another context, the visionary part-owner of the fabulous Meat Liquor/Mission/Market burger restaurants and I happen to know that their new place should be open in Brighton by then.  Post race ride should see us indulging in well-deserved dining on the best burgers you’ll find in the UK, damn fine cocktails and fresh sea air.  That’s a pretty tempting recovery programme even Lance Armstrong couldn’t beat…apart from the cocktails bit.

The event is on the 16^th June and registration is from the 2^nd March.  I intend to register the maximum allowed 10 spaces and will allocate them to staff/customers on a first come first serve basis.  If you would like to join the Drapers team please either register yourself and email me at nick@thedrapersarms.com or just email me that you would like one of our spaces.  It would be great to have you along – we will organise team shirts and try and set off all at the same time this year…

It would be great to have a few other London pubs along – I know pubs do an awful lot for good causes and you all have events you run and charities you support.  This ride is great fun, a lovely way to spend time with customers and your own staff and I reckon it could also be a good opportunity to hang out with other pubs.

WE WILL BE REGISTERING FOR A 7am START TIME!  Much later than that and you limit your drinking time in Brighton, but you can also get stuck in slower moving traffic once the rest of the world gets onto the roads out of south London.

PS – I don’t actually recommend too many pints in Ditchling although The Bull is a truly lovely pub run by a very nice man!

Valentine’s at the Drapers Arms 2013..

The autumn and winter season has a rhythm and series of events in it that perfectly suit the pub – and it gives operators a framework for hanging events and ‘get yourselves down here’ marketing messages on.  The whoooooo of Halloween; crash, bang, whooooosh ….ahhhhh! of the 5^th of November; lighting the fires…mulled wine and cider (bleeuuuurgh); carols and mince pies; Christmas parties and gatherings, from family dinners to vomit and shots corporateathons and finally the crash bang snog and lengthening bog-queue fest that is New Year’s eve as our exhausted staff thank god the month is over (whilst wondering how they are going to survive New Year’s day service).

And then the barren wasteland that is late winter in the new year and early spring…our customer’s wallets are exhausted, their livers tender and there’s little on the horizon to celebrate.  Oh hurrah as valentine’s pops over the horizon, like a piece of driftwood edging toward a drowning man on an otherwise empty sea.

My early valentine adventures seem so very long ago…hazy memories across the mists of 30 years.  At a boys only boarding school and whisked off at the end of term to what was effectively a mining town in the middle of Africa where I met no girls there was never a danger of my being overwhelmed by valentine’s cards, and yet walking out of breakfast to where our post was set out was always a nervous time, tinged with hope – and sure enough after a while the odd card popped up.  As more time passed the day transformed for me so that, broadly speaking, at my stage in life I think of valentine’s as an opportunity for us blokes to show our love for our womenfolk and I think sometimes we do ok on the day and step up to the plate.  *pats self on back*.

But I get to thinking, what about the other 364 days, how do we blokes do then? Well I’ve got a little list of how women fare the rest of the year, and it isn’t exhaustive. Women:

·         Are paid on average around 15% less to do the same job as men

·         Have glass ceilings and working practices at work that prevent them from enjoying an equal opportunity for fulfilment through work and career

·         Are ganged up on, bullied and trolled on the internet when they dare to be smarter, cleverer and funnier than men

·         Are  depicted in magazines and ‘newspapers’ that take pictures up their skirts, of their sweat patches, underwear, weight gain, weight loss, aging, poor plastic surgery, bad hair days, poor clothes choices – at the same time as being bombarded with images of ‘perfect’ unattainable ideals for womankind ….so there is no woman anywhere who can ever feel un-judged, secure and happy with their appearance

·         Are raped at home, at work, at play and in the outside world where rape convictions are at shockingly low levels

·         Are sexually abused as children principally in the homes and schools where they should feel most secure

·         Are forced into marriages they don’t wish for

·         Are subject to attempts to deny them control of their own bodies by refusing them abortion rights including after rape

·         Are ‘honour’ killed when they don’t do what they are told

·         Are called sluts if they enjoy sex and frigid or lesbians if they don’t sleep with us

·         Are called ‘normalised’ pejoratives like ‘bitch’ and ‘ho’ in everyday language

·         Are the target of acts of domestic physical and psychological violence that destroy and undermine their entire lives

·         Have men mutilate their genitals with the express intention of preventing them from enjoying sex

·         Have rape against women used as an act of war in conflicts propagated mainly by men

Quite the list, and taken around the world collectively it affects billions of lives.  So, in the round, I’m not that comfortable ringing the tills in the name of mens’ love for women on the 14^th of February and turning a blind eye the rest of the time to mens’ collective acts of violence against women.  Women should step out into the world feeling genuinely loved by men 365 days of the year.  This year and every year until it is no longer needed we will treat all of our takings on valentine’s as a voluntary donation from our customers to a charity organisation that supports women affected by the violence of men.  This year that will be Refuge.

Because there are 365 days in the year, not just one.

Here is an excerpt from a letter I received from Refuge - the numbers are shocking both in terms of money they receive and the number of women who need their help:

Domestic Violence is, unfortunately a massive problem within the UK, in fact it is the biggest social problem facing women and children. Every day we support over 2000 women and children in our refuges and through our specialist services.

Raising the essential funds Refuge needs to ensure the continuation of our vital frontline services to abused women and children is becoming increasingly difficult. The women’s sector is, subsequently, one of the most impoverished of all charitable sectors: in 2009 The Donkey Sanctuary received £20 million in voluntary donations; in comparison, Refuge received £1.7 million.

Domestic Violence facts:

•           One woman in four experiences domestic violence at some point in her life

•           Two women are killed by a current or former partner every week in England and Wales

•           Thirty women a day attempt suicide to escape domestic violence

•           The police receive a domestic violence related call every 60 seconds

To the lovely old geezers who pop in for two and a half pints between 10pm and 11pm every Friday; to Phil, Malcolm, Steve and others who come in for a pint and a chat at the bar; to locals, friends and neighbours who use us as a pub should be - a half, a quick bite, a proper drink and a special occasion; to first time visitors from far and wide - especially those who came back a second time; to all of you who trusted us for a special event, birthday party, engagement celebration and especially for your big day - I hope we helped create memories you can treasure forever. For people like my friend Chris who trusted us to make them look good in front of that most difficult of audiences, your colleagues on Christmas party day; to those who felt moved to write lovely stuff on blogs, review sites and twitter.

Thanks to every one who engaged with us as we discovered new suppliers, wines, dishes. To new pubs opening nearby who helped motivate us to up our game.

And to those who suffered a mix up with your order, an unacceptable delay on your food or something that didn’t meet the standards we aspire to - apologies again if you come back we will try and make it up to you.  We try to learn and get better every time something goes wrong.

To all the wonderful people in the industry who accept us as colleagues and peers.

Thanks and have a happy, relaxing, fun, warm Christmas with your loved ones.

Much love

Nick

Four steaks in prospect – 23, 55, 79 and 98 day aged Dexter sirloins carefully and lovingly looked after by an amazing butcher – Nathan Mills from www.thebutcheryltd.com and the great man himself on hand to share all of his expertise and knowledge.  Three wines in prospect – 1990, 2000 and 2008 Chateau Cantemerle 5me Cru Classe, Medoc provided by one of only 300 Master’s of Wine in the whole world, James Handford, from his personal cellar and him too sitting with me and generous with his expertise.  A group of hand-picked food and wine enthusiast friends as company.

Me, operator of one small pub in North London, sitting there disbelieving that I get to call this work and wondering when I wake up…

Like so many of the other great things that happen to me these days, including meeting many of the guests last night, the idea for the event came out of a brief exchange on twitter.  I spotted a tweet from the lovely Oliver Thring (@oliverthring – Writer. Often on food, often for the Guardian) asking if beyond a certain point aging meat added any value (or if alternatively it was simply competitive macho posturing he either implied or I remember reading into his question).  I think he was researching for a potential story.  I had attended a beef butchery course at a well-known butcher of good repute who I liked to buy meat from for my own use at home and had a vague recollection of one of the butchers telling me that after a while the additional time was not worth it. No real flavour development and additional wasteage were cited, I vaguely recalled – so I tweeted back to that effect.

Now normally that’s where I would have left it – after all I’m the person who told a dentist’s son that brushing your teeth couldn’t cause your gums to recede; who without having seen it told people who’d been to and enjoyed Forrest Gump they were wrong and that it was a bad film (I’ve seen it since and I was right obviously)…the list goes on but uninformed and strong opinions have always been a forte.  I’ve recently found, however, that the great thing about doing something you love is that actually it is interesting to delve deeper, to increase your knowledge, to work on it where it lacks; so in an uncharacteristic way I added ‘but why don’t we ask @*********ltd (the butcher I went to).  They tweeted back to say that with the right quality and cut of meat aging could make sense for really quite a while and cited some 80 day old steaks they had done recently.

I was struck with a growing curiosity about the process of aging meat.  What does it do – is it about taste? Texture? Ripeness? Richness? Being familiar with the idea of ‘vertical tasting’ of wines when you simultaneously taste different vintages of the same wines I immediately thought – why not do a vertical tasting of different ages of meats so we can see for ourselves?  I suggested this to Oliver and to the butcher.  Oliver sadly was unable to find people interested in the story and had to move his focus and energy on to the next pitch.  Interestingly the butcher said that they’d discussed it internally and because of the close relationship between them and a large steak and burger chain they didn’t feel that they could be linked with an event like this with anyone else.  Hence the tortuous reference to them as ‘the butcher’ for which I apologise.

Although I find that approach to business perverse I am heartily glad they adopted it – because it gave me the impetus to get in touch with Nathan.  I had been increasingly aware of his amazing pictures of meat on twitter (@naththebutcher), his passion, skill and enthusiasm for meat shining through, and the fabulous butchery classes which looked intense and thorough.  I had been meaning to get in touch so grabbed Head Chef James and dragged him down to South East London to meat Nathan, see his work and see if we could interest him in the event.  Nathan was immediately engaged, genuinely pleased to help, he had amazing beef and as well as lining up the event as soon as he could construct the ‘flight’ we started to buy as much meat from him as we could pretty much the next day.  Even though it means that there will be less to go around for us I suggest you do the same.  I’m also thinking about doing a butchery class with him.

Now my staff will attest to my interminable sadness about people failing to match the aspirations they have for a meal to the quality of wine that they select to drink with it.  Too often I see a group of three people sitting down to have the roast forerib on Sunday (£55 so basically £18 per head) with a bottle of house red wine between the three of them - £16.50.  Now while we do everything we can to have a decent, drinkable, clean and honest house red, for less than another £10 or £3 per head they could have the Perrier Pinot Noir we get from James Handford.  I feel quite strongly that change will make the meal balanced and make sure the money they spent on the whole event is money better spent.  So…intent on avoiding hypocrisy, having been inspired by the idea of a vertical tasting of wines anyway and never having participated in a vertical tasting of Bordeaux vintages I had a brainwave – why not do both at the same time.  Call it a greedwave if you prefer.

James Handford (MoW!), like Nathan, was enthusiastic, supportive and on board immediately.  How lucky am I to have his support for our business.  In the end the wines he brought came in part from his personal cellar at home as well as the shop he owns in Kensington.

So finally the meat was ready and our small team assembled.  James carefully prepared the wines.  After some discussion we went with the meats in youngest to oldest order – there was a suggestion that we should mix it up and bring them blind but I wanted to see the development of the meat over time to understand what was happening rather than indulge in a game to see if I could guess what we were having.  Notwithstanding that we were going to be eating a great deal of meat I didn’t feel like charging in headlong so we had some lovely Duchy native oysters, sourced from Wright Brothers, together with a Sancerre Silex from our list which we get from James.  Lovely wine, lovely oysters.

I don’t mind people who do and I enjoy their pictures, but I’m not a great one for taking pictures while I eat.  So far the pics Chris Pople posted in his twitter feed are the most comprehensive I’ve seen of the cooked meat but here’s one I took of the meat before we ate:

Head chef James roasted and rested the sirloins sending them out one at a time on platters with chips and horseradish.  That meant we had a little wait for the first meat once we were all assembled and seated, but I don’t think there were any complaints once it arrived.  As an aside I did once or twice in the past suggest that we consider sous-vide-ing our roasts like some other busy on a Sunday places do and I am glad that Head Chef James resisted – while you can knock out large volumes just finishing off the meat briefly in hot ovens whilst maintaining tenderness across the meat I simply don’t find the look, smell, texture or taste anything like as rewarding as properly roast and rested meat.

After my first mouthful of the first steak I wondered how it could get better – the beefy flavour was all there and rich, intense, remarkably tender meat had a lovely crunchy/juicy layer of fat.  The meat had some ‘chewyness’ but was pretty tender and as someone who loves onglet, bavette, rib-eye over fillet every day of the year this was at a level of tenderness I could luxuriate in.  Head chef James’ chips meanwhile were attracting almost as much praise as the meat

I was surprised by the way the next two steaks maintained their moistness – but perhaps that was partly the liquid fat swooshing around in my mouth.  Nathan said that the level of moisture retention was significant after the initial loss over the first few weeks so dryness shouldn’t be a factor with aged steak.  Both steaks were a progression in tenderness and intensity.  We were all interested to note that the length or persistence of flavours was greater with age – in the same way that it is a valuable characteristic of fine wine.  With the 79 day aged steak there was a noticeable hint of gameyness that I could imagine a queasy-vanilla-fillet-eating and non-grouse-bone-sucking person might have begun to have an aversion to.  I loved both…in fact I just paused to have another look at Chris Pople’s twitter feed from last night to look at them again and I’ve got a bit of a craving.  I like to make sure there’s a good bit of fat with each mouthful and the flavours therein were overwhelming.  For me the 79 day shaded it and I was one of only three of ten who opted for that age as champion – but I’d eat the 55 day all day until I burst if it was offered to me now.

The 98 day was interestingly suddenly quite different; the slice that I had had much less fat on it, although that wasn’t the case for all of the steak.  Nathan explained that as the fat cracks so the mould penetrates deeper and you need to trim more off.  I think if one of the consequences of aging to this point is that you lose the fat coverage to a significant degree then that counts heavily against it for starters.  The colour and texture was different – the meat was denser, more grainy but even softer so that you could pull pieces off with a fork.  Definitely gamey, strong and long.

I hadn’t really thought much about ‘the result’ but it occurred to me that we could quickly score the steaks and see what the general view was.  Each diner including Head Chef James ranked the four steaks in order of preference and I gave one point for first ranked, two for second….and the results were (lowest score is the winner)

·         23 day aged 29 points and favourite by one person

·         55 day aged 15 points and favourite by six people

·         79 day aged 21 points and three

·         98 day 31 points

The wines were terrific.  I expect you know more about what to expect with wine than you do with meat – the structure, notes, balance and fruit adjust over time in a way that can be great over a long period for great wines but is not really very helpful for wines that have less potential.  I’ve got a photo of an illustration that James Handford drew for me below.  The, ahem, pointy thing represents cabernet sauvignon bringing fruit.  The soft dome the merlot bringing structure and texture. In the early days the texture of the merlot is expected to dominate the fruit of the cabernet sauvignon but over time the merlot softens and comes into harmony with the fruit – the wine opens, becomes balanced.  At least that is what I think he said.

What is interesting in this of course is that us non-experts haven’t got to hand the grid or framework of previous wines drunk in our mind ready to bring to the fore as a reference point.  Give me one of these wines today and I would like it – I liked them all.  Give me another tomorrow I’d like it but I wouldn’t necessarily have the toolset for remembering the prior wine and comparing them qualitatively in detail.  Drinking them together allows one to observe what is going on and (begin to) grasp what aging and development does to wine that has the potential to benefit from it.  The oldest wine, like the oldest steak, was quite different – the rich purple intensity had begun to fade to brownish hues and the richness to fade away.  I quite like what I think of as a thinning elegance in older wines but James, along with pretty much everyone else preferred the 2000 to the 1990.  I didn’t capture as many scores for the wine but they were:

·         1990 14 points

·         2000 7 points

·         2008 15 points

And so our guests drifted off into the night as we moved onto a bottle of Bourgogne pinot noir James has on our list.  I felt exhilarated by the evening – great company, amazing food, a sense of having learnt something, sensational wine.  It doesn’t all come together as well as it did last night very often.

I would love to do this again (and again and again.)  Judging by some of the reaction on twitter some of you might like to try it too.  Getting the ‘flight’ of meats ready takes a little time but I have asked Nathan to have a look at getting it together again for us.  If you would like to be told of a future vertical meat event please email me your details on nick@thedrapersarms.com and I’ll let you know when we have a plan.  We will do what we can to keep costs affordable.

Many, many thanks again to Nathan Mills, James Handford and James de Jong – a talented chef we are lucky to have.

As an addendum here are James Handford’s tasting notes I recovered from the detritus on the table – I’m glad to see a Master of Wine starts out with good intentions and then chucks it in and gets boozed up, for these were the only one’s I could find.  I think it is interesting how he applies his palate to the characteristics of the meat:

“2008 soft, vanilla, closed, almost [minty], greenish, cool, plummy, no [cassis] but not too yielding in fruit, more textured, rounding, crunch”

“23 day steak, rosy pink, textured fat & a bit chewy”

“55 day fat tastes the same but longer, [sounder], richer, steak more even, long”

You can find Nathan at www.thebutcheryltd.com and James Handford at www.handford.net .

More on the evening on @hrwright @rocketandsquash @chrispople (including pics) and @eatlikeagirl

A year or so back I was looking round a pub in Notting Hill with a view to perhaps taking it on; it wasn’t going so well and I thought perhaps I could make more of it.  As I chatted with the then owner who I knew socially he said, conspiratorially, “Of course all of us publicans would do without draft if we could – with the effort, wasteage and low margins”.  Having previously served me one of the vilest, cloudiest pints that has been served this side of 1978 that comment sealed the deal – I was sure I could do better and I made an offer for the place the next day.

Having since had a failing pub and experiencing the desperation of low trade and (in my case) pouring away beer when demand wasn’t high enough to keep it fresh I can see why and how he got to that place – but I can’t imagine ever getting there myself.

If you think about the one single thing that you can get in pubs that you really don’t find anywhere else – it is draft beer, or more specifically draft ale.  I’ve nothing at all against pubs and bars having a huge roll call of interesting bottled beers, it certainly gives people more choice than they have at home.  Carefully chosen, however, pipes cleaned regularly, conditioned by someone who knows about the live breathing animal that turns up still requiring secondary fermentation – there’s nothing quite so pubby as sitting down with some jugs or jars.  The situation has changed hugely since when as a teenage drinker I only drank Guinness because ale was so rank from one pub to another and lager tasted predominately of advertising.  Obviously CAMRA has had a huge role in transforming the British beer scene over a long period – but in the time since we opened nearly four years ago the change in the beer scene has been dramatic, and very much for the better.

As with many of the facets of running a pub, at the outset when it came to beer I was a relatively unknowledgeable enthusiastic amateur.  (Enthusiasm but lack of rigour being a failing that runs through my blogs…life).  So at the outset we asked around and one of Ben’s contacts – operations for a high quality gastropub group now sold to a brewer - agreed to talk us through the basics.  As he outlined things you talked to one of the big brewing companies with an extensive portfolio and asked them to install lines and coolers in exchange for putting their beers on the majority of your lager lines, and then got your ales from Waverley.  The brewer options being Inbev, Miller, Heineken and Carlsberg.  If you have a look at the brewers websites you can see their portfolios of brands – and work out next time you are in a pub just who they are in bed with.  The big companies are skilled at building brand portfolios that stretch across prices, countries and styles so that almost anyone can buy from them and have a seemingly extensive, diverse and carefully assembled offering that is either mainstream or trendy, cheap or premium….

As one of our guiding principles we were striving for authenticity.  For some reason it stuck in my head that the beers we served should come from where they sounded like they were from – I can’t see the point of serving Asahi or Becks brewed in the UK.  Even mass market lagers must have some typicity that reflects its heritage, origin and geography.  It turned out in our negotiations that we needed to offer three lines to the brewer who would install our lines – so we went with Inbev and Becks Vier (imported from Germany unlike standard Becks), Staropramen (then imported from Prague but since switched to the UK without us receiving any notification of the change), Leffe and Bitburger imported from Germany but not an InBev beer.  Stowford Press, Guinness, Harveys Sussex Best, Black Sheep and Spitfire completed the full round up.

Currently we have Becks Vier as our recognisable market brand, Camden Hells lager, Meantime London lager, Brooklyn lager – which is pretty expensive but distinctive, Stowford, Guinness, Harveys and two ale pumps on rotation across small, artisan, predominately local brewers including Sambrooks, Windsor & Eton, Redemption, Dark Star, Thornbridge, Nethergate and Truman.  Apart from when people come in and order Carling or Fosters without looking at the pumps, or when they comment that we are “pretentious try-hard wankers with our beer that no-one has ever heard of” most people are happy with our current line up and the more recent approach sees us with a beer offering that is much much closer to our values and delivers a more interesting, rewarding and higher quality experience at fair prices.  I don’t think it just us that have made this journey over the period – broadly speaking there are a host of operators who have sought out better beers, supported localism, craft and distinction.  From the beer mad Draft House group to ale led pubs such as the Earl of Essex not too far from us (just far enough mind, too far for all you folk!), through passionate beer heads like the Gunmakers the variety and standard of ales and lagers that people offer is both supply-push and demand-pull driven as pubs and operators fight hard to remain relevant and attractive.  We are bombarded with ale offers by new, small, cult and established brewers and, because I couldn’t list something that I haven’t tried, I’m pretty busy trying to get round and find pubs where the new ales are popping up.

The two London brewed lagers are an unexpected development for me.  Early days one of the supplementary reasons for the ‘authentic European made where they sound like they come from’ approach to lagers was that I thought we made ales and they made lagers.  It seemed right for us to leave things that way.  I’m still not sure if there is a cask conditioned European ale out there [that we would serve] – but I’m happy to hear of one.  The Meantime and Camden beers however are a revelation – distinctive character, fresh, clean and interesting.  Refreshing.  Along with Kernel (and others I’m not as familiar with to be sure) they have established London as a place where really lovely artisan quality keg product can be found.  Compared to the universally piss poor overly fizzy (serve extra cold so you can’t taste it) pig lager that this country has been awash with for the recent past our lager pumps are now a proper temptation when it comes to the end of shift wind down pint – and that can’t be a bad thing.

So raise a glass of seasonal porter with me to the risk taking, passionate entrepreneurs who in the face of a declining pub trade, stalling economy, war on drinking, beer duty escalator, supermarket piss-pushing and a thousand other reasons not to have turned the current era into the most exciting and rewarding for the pub beer drinker.  Cheers.