London Food Detective

All's well at The Wells

Despite being one of the wealthier areas of London, Hampstead has a dearth of really good, high end places to eat.  By far the best food is to be found at the Wells pub, which i've visited on numerous times over my three years of living in the area and I thought it was high time I wrote a review of the place.

The Wells is situated close to the heath and the main downstairs pub reflects this with dogs being welcomed inside, big comfy sofas to relax on and there is a general laid back feel to the place.

For special occasions and for more formal dining they also have an upstairs dining room that is open throughout the week. The menu isn't anything fancy and combines a number of traditional dishes (bangers & mash, steak) with more unusual ingredients such as barbary duck and venison. Generally the food is uncomplicated, but highly accomplished and I've yet to have a bad meal there.

My latest visit was for Sunday lunch and I went along with Grace and my parents on a cold and miserable day looking forward to a filling, wholesome lunch.  We weren't disappointed.

From previous experience I know the Wells are pretty generous with their portions and that the desserts are especially good, so as we'd been out the night before we skipped starters and went straight into the main courses.

Roast Beef & Yorkshire Pudding

Don't worry, the roast beef did come with veg (it's hidden behind the yorkshire) and was, as usual, delicious. Three, generous slabs of rare, melt-in-the-mouth beef were packed full of flavour and were served with the sort of rich, meaty gravy that I could almost drink neat.  The veg was perfectly cooked and my only complaint would be the roast potatoes.  I like mine really crispy and whilst these were soft and fluffy in the middle, the outside had no crunch. Overall, a very good Sunday lunch.

Sea Bream with winter greens and new potatoes

Mam was delighted with her sea bream. The fish was light and delicately cooked and combined well with the accompanying tomato and basil reduction. Again the accompanying green beans, kale and potatoes were perfectly cooked and it was a good all round dish.

Venison with blackcurrants, pumpkin puree, kale and parsnip crisps

I've had this dish on two previous visits and it's fantastic. The sweetness of the blackcurrants, pumpkin puree and accompanying sauce perfectly compliment the richness of the venison. As a lover of all things parsnip the crisps are an added bonus and provide a contrasting texture and crunch. It's a really top dish and shows off the skills of the kitchen and their understanding of flavours and ingredients. Excellent.

Pannacotta

The Wells' pannacotta is also a favourite of mine.  It has a firm texture, more vanilla flavour and is sweeter than other pannacottas I've had and I prefer their version over blander, milkier ones I've had.  It came with a fig and strawberry sauce, which wasn't as good as the blood orange version I had in the autumn (which was one of my fav desserts of the year), but still went well with the pannacotta.

Sticky Toffee Pudding

Sticky toffee pudding is a long standing family favourite and my mam is a particular expert on all things sticky toffee (her favourites remain the Cartmel Village Shop one).

The pudding itself was a little dry, but came with plenty of toffee sauce to make up for it and was a good, if not spectacular version.

Service was friendly, chatty and efficient as usual and overall it was another excellent meal at the Wells.  The kitchen consistently turn out good, unpretentious food and it is by far the best food I've had in and around Hampstead.  It's not cheap and comes with the almost customary 12.5% service charge, but I believe it's money well spent and deserves the various accolades it has won.  I'm going to miss having it on my doorstep!

Vive le Cheese at La Fromagerie

One of the great things about being a food blogger is you get invited to various events and I was delighted to go along to the launch of the ‘Vive le Cheese’ campaign last week.

It was hosted by the lovely Katrina Alloway and an enthusiastic bunch of food bloggers gathered at La Fromagerie in Marleybone to try various French cheeses.

  

Some of the La Fromagerie features: a fox & a crow fighting over a cheese block, some of the goods on display and a disco ball for when they play cheesy music?!

La Fromagerie is a beautiful shop. A real Aladdin’s cave of cheesy treasures and it is packed full of personality, warmth and charm that reflects well on Patricia, the owner who has an encyclopedic knowledge of all things cheese.

To begin with I felt a bit of a fraud as I was the only one who said they take chocolate over cheese if stranded on a desert island.  However, that’s more due to my chocolate obsession rather than any lack of love of cheese!

We were split into groups and I ended up in the smallest group (not a bad thing as it meant more cheese for us) with Kavey, Chris and Stephen.

We started off with a tour of French cow’s cheese by the friendly and knowledgeable Jean Baptiste.  We got to sample ten cheeses of various strengths, textures and flavours.

My favourite three were:

Comte D’Estive – this was amazing. I absolutely fell in love with this and had second, third and then fourth helpings of it!  It had a sweet, almost caramel taste to it and I bought a big chunk to take home with me.

Reblochon, Savoie – quite mild, but had a lovely smooth creamy texture. A great snacking cheese I thought.

Vache Porte D’Aspe Valley – A challenging cheese with a strong and distinct flavour. Kavey described it as giving an almost chilli like sensation in the mouth and I know what she meant.  It was very different and something that I would not normally try.

Cheese Map of France

It was then off to the café section of the shop where we were served with four dishes featuring cheese.  Unlike my other group members, I particularly enjoyed the roquefort soufflé. Light, not too strong and with a good contrasting crunch from the enclosed hazlenuts. It was accompanied with a lovely spiced pear chutney that provided a good fruity contrast to the blue cheese.

Roquefort and Walnut Souffle with spiced pear chutney

A spicy  butternut squash soup with reblochon fritters was also a big success. The soup started off with the creamy butternut squash flavour, you then got a taste of coriander before being left with the heat from the chili flakes.

In keeping with my sweet tooth, my favourite wine was the Sauternes-Barsac, which went well with the soufflé and the fig tarlet.

Finally it was off to the Affineur’s room and a lesson from JP.  For those that don’t know (and I didn’t until Wednesday) an affineur is basically a sommelier of cheese.  They prepare, manage and look after the cheese so it reaches the customer in perfect condition.

Inside the Affineur Room (part 1)

The Affineur’s room is a giant walk-in fridge packed full of cheese. Together with the maturing rooms that they have at La Fromagerie, it is used to age the cheese to perfection.

JP talked all about his job - how he ‘washes’ the cheese to give it extra flavour, keeps waste to a minimum and how he gives cheese recommendations to people wanting advice on experiencing new cheese.  

As well as being highly knowledgeable, he was friendly and had time for all our questions.  It was obvious that he loved cheese and he talked about it in the way most people would talk about their loved ones.

Inside the Affineur Room (part 2)

The night was drawing to a close and I stocked up on four of my favourite cheeses from the evening to take home to my parents for a tasting over Easter.

These went down well, although I bought a bit much and ended up taking them down the pub with my friends, which led to the slightly surreal moment of watching the David Haye fight whilst eating some fine French cheese!

Overall, it was delightful evening and I learnt a lot about cheese.  From the small producer in the Pyrenees producing 50 cheeses a week to the battles over PDO status with big producers about the names of some of the regional cheeses, it was an enlightening and enjoyable event.

You can find out more about the Vive le Cheese Campaign on Facebook, at the official blog or on Twitter.