Happy Days!

Obviously the folks in South West London are a cultured lot, and this new addition will only add to the amazing options they have down there.

Lucky them!

hmmm…

Maybe….

ACT OF GOD?!

L’entrepot is closed tonight.

We really apologise to all that wished to find some warmth and comfort after having to deal with a full day of treacherous rain and miserable-ness.

Although we can’t promise it will be sunny tomorrow, we can confirm while we will remain shut in the day time we will reopen tomorrow evening..

Apologies once more..

BWx

Act 1.
Will and I had the steaks already in the frying pan when we realised that we are in the middle of the lent period. As we are not really committed to any kind of religion, this information didn’t really start any kind of moral dilemma in us. The steaks were just too perfect to allow us any kind of worrying for our souls.

The whole story started on Borough Market as usual. After the daily work was done so I just managed to beg the Ginger Pig lot to let me in to their almost closed shop to browse through the beef section. I wanted to sink my teeth into red flesh, and Ginger Pig never ever lets me down.

So I came across this nice collection of rump and ribeye steaks. Massive chunks, about a good kilo of pure first class aged beef all together. They were aged cuts, hung on the bone for a good 6 weeks. When you see the folks receiving the delivery, you wouldn`t believe, that the massive mould covered chunks are the source of the perfect prime cuts. But hell yes, they are!

As Will happens to be a bit more of a steak expert (unfortunately in terms of high quality aged beef Hungary faces some challenges). All the preps he did was a bit of salt and pepper, nothing more. It was perfect. Just to make sure that we have a perfect dinner rich in protein we roasted a couple of Sillfield farms fantastic venison sausages for snacks…

In the meantime I prepared the only green side we actually needed with the steaks: the Chimicurri. This is a pretty simple steak-side, from Argentina. Or Chile. Or Uruguay. Whoever you ask around Latin America, they will claim the genuine original recipe as theirs. And accusing all the neighbors of stealing and humiliating the original sacred recipe. It consists of VERY finely chopped parsley, oregano, red chili peppers, salt pepper and olive oil. So all you need is a sharp knife and a bit of patience.

The beef worked. It was a perfect rare, and with a bit of resting it gained the supreme juicy texture. It was gorgeous. With the Chimicurri and the venison sausages it gave a perfect pleasure rush to all of us around the table. The wine we chose was a great tuscany classic, the Casamatta red, made by our favourite lunatic artists from florence, Bibi Graetz. It was full of smooth cherries, beautifully complemented the beef (and the sausages).

In act two we shall tell you about our pork adventures…

The lovely L’eau a La Bouche has now our barrel wine, and therefore you can forget your daily/weekly tredding across daffodils and hiking over BBQ’s to refill your bottles with us on Wilton Way.

What great news!

Happy Easter, and may the bunny bring you many eggs x

The cafe, run by the lovely Jeffrey, really came into its own this week. Offering the best coffee this side of Graham Road, our local commuters now have an option to stop and regroup before and after work.

“One thing that I know is really important is to acknowledge your customers as soon as they walk in” says Jeff. “There used to be this guy who walked past every day at my old place of work. I started to say hello to him, and slowly he and I began to recognise each other each morning. Gradually, after both of us playing this game for a while, he came in for a coffee and then came in every day after that. We became part of his routine, and that’s what I really would like to see happen here.”

It feels as though the cafe is perfectly positioned to become part of the neighbourhood. The location next to the station is great for pre and post work ‘pop-ins’.

“I want us to be the place that helps people through the day – to offer coffee therapy.. Ultimately I want people to leave happier than when they arrived.”

Geoff is keen to support independent suppliers – “People who back themselves, that are artisans of what they specialise in” and this is why they are offering Caravan coffee – the first this side of Kingsland Rd. “The guys at Caravan approach coffee just like I think all things should be approached. It doesn’t need to have fan-fare. It just needs to be GOOD.”

And this applies to all the other suppliers too – He sources the delicious pies from Tom’s Pies – “I wanted a pie that you could eat in your hands, that wouldn’t fall apart. These are all handmade in Dorset, they are all natural ingredients, quality pastries and with fillings that are really generous..”

And the pastries too.. “we are offering Seven Seed Croissants and Pain du Chocolats. (Seven Seeds) are doing it tough at the moment, as their bakery burned down – so they can’t produce bread but they can do pastries, so its nice to support them. We are buying our cakes from Boo, who runs Treacle, on Columbia Road – the most popular is the Guinness and Chocolate cake, but the Earl Grey Tea Cake is perfect for the afternoons.”

But it’s the morning trade that is the most likely to benefit with Jeff getting behind the stove. “My Granola is being talked about from here to the other side of the Borough” he says. “But I can’t tell you what’s in it or I’d have to kill you” . And I wouldn’t like to test him.

L’entrepot cafe is open from 8am Monday to Friday and from 10am on weekends.

230 Dalston Lane, E8 1LA

020 7249 1176

It was over 15 years ago that Frank Hannon began working with food. Not being terribly foodie before hand, he secured a role on the floor of the River Cafe, he was introduced to ingredients that were of exceptional quality, and simple Italian cooking. He worked on the floor, in the kitchen, was involved in a lot of wine and food tastings and menu development which provided a great starting point to then expand on further.

After River Cafe, he then went to work in the kitchen of Moro, which although it was totally different food

“..it had a similiar ethos – produce led, somewhat relaxed and a kitchen that lacked ‘macho-ness’”.

Having known Muriel for years through mutual friends, they have since worked on a few events in the shop on Wilton Way.

“Muriel asked me to get involved with the new project. What it’s going to be is still evolving. (It’s going to be) interesting – little bit based on a Italian Osteria – Go to a bar, and get a really good bruschetta, that goes great with the wine..”

He goes on to explain “(we’ll have) Charcuterie plates, and then having the option of a main course  - keeping it simple. Steak Tartare, salad, good bread. Things that are good for sharing.. We are not a restaurant though – we aren’t trying to make a full menu. We don’t take bookings, we are going to try and keep the maincourses for under a tenner..”

I ask about the origin of the food.. Muriel’s French, as is a lot of the wine list. In my mind I was envisioning cassoulet’s…

“A lot of my cooking is meditteranean, more Italian than French.. I don’t see this being classically Italian either.. It is the things that I like to eat that I want to cook. I don’t have a huge repertoire, I just know what I am passionate about. Like I am really passionate about Bruschetta’s. I think you should be able to go into a bar, and there will be a flavour of the day Bruschetta, and you eat that while you have a glass of wine. Maybe afterwards, you order something more substantial.” Or maybe you don’t. At L’entrepot, it seems that there is no rules to follow. There will be something that will satisfy all of us, at any time of day.

The larger table at the back of the space will be used for wine matching dinners, Winemaker visits, and groups that wish to book it for their own.. I asked Frank what type of food would he be preparing for these..

“If I was to do a dinner tonight, for example, I would love to do a fried leek and chestnut bruschetta followed by a purple sprouting broccoli with Bagna Couda. Maybe with a chilli sausage risotto and then a fruit based dessert.”

“nothing too complicated… We were down at Maltby st last night. They just have a few mains, a few starters, focusing on the wine, really, and it’s all delicious.”

Food will be served from this friday from 7pm. Saturday will be serving both lunch and dinner. From the following week we will also be open on Sunday lunch.

Frank is showing at a location nearby in the next few months. Stay tuned for more details.

Part office, storage, wine shop and cafe, we have big dreams for this little warehouse. Situated next to the Tesco, right next to Hackney Downs Rail, L’entrepot will offer something that this little area has been missing for some time.

This building used to be the engineers shed, providing a working shell for railways. Our neighbours include many a creative at the back, and above (live/work units at the back, studio’s above), Tesco naturally, and Dalston Heights - the warehouse above which is used as a location for shoots. We all ready feel right at home.

We are going to be open from 8am to 11pm from next week onwards. Offering coffee and pastries in the morning, simple savoury options for lunch, and charcuterie and cheese at night. Being a wine shop primarily, we want to keep the focus on the wines so the food we will offer will be simple and inspired from where the wine comes from. Regularly we will have around 20 wines open, so to encourage folks to taste many different styles and characters. Although we won’t take bookings, we do have a table that sits between 16-20 guests which can be bookable and will be used for wine tasting and winemaker dinners.

Our first winemaker dinner will be on the 21st March! From the lovely winery of Domaine Roche-Audran, the biodynamic favourite Cotes Du Rhone of Wilton Way, we will offer a three course spring menu (with matching wines, of course) for the £30. Please contact us at either of our shops to reserve.

And like that lovely restaurant in Finchley that we wrote about recently, we are too offering a corkage charge on our wines – £8 on any bottle. We hope this will encourage us all to sample more of what’s on offer.

We really look forward to seeing you soon.

BWx

Yet an other wine with monastic origin. I really did not want to drag the monks out of the hat again, but I just bumped into a great wine with a good story. This time we take a look around in Spain. In Catalunya to be very precise…

This story begins with the Charthusian monks, around the 15th century. They were quite busy folks, as they had nearly 90,000 vines around their Monastery. Originally the monks came from the Chatreuse mountain in the French Alps. St Bruno founded the first community, and they were really keen on their booze, hence the Chartreuse liquor. I had the opportunity to walk around their monastery out in the middle of nowhere during a winter sunset. I understand now why their only escape was the distillery…

But this time the good monks were in the best part of Catalunya. Since the 18th century the monk`s winery was called “La Perla del Priorat”. In the early 20th century the monks abandoned the vineyards. Actually farming pretty much stopped in the whole region in the end of the 19th century, as most people found better paying work in silver mines (certainly not easier work, but at least they earned more). Poor Priorat was abandoned for 60 years.

Yet the region is one of the most dynamic Spanish wine regions nowadays. Since it was abandoned for many years, the first modern Priorat wines were a real discovery for the wine world. The region is located right next to Montsant about an 1.5 hour`s drive inlands from Barcelona.

The main speciality of this region lies in its soil. The locals call it Llicorella (liquorish). It consist of dark granite rocks and red earth between them. Beyond the fact that this soil has excellent heath storage qualities, it forces the vines to stretch their roots deep underground to find humidity, It is a perfect soil if you want to create elegant yet monstrously substantial red wines.

It is all fine and dandy with the soil in terms of quality, but the volume of fruit harvested is terribly low. A properly pruned old vine on the steep rocky slopes might yield just enough fruit that would make about half a bottle of wine. Because of the terrain, the lack of the trelessing system and the age of the vines, it is all manually tended.

The monks estate was revamped in  1998. Count Pyrenne bought the Las Perlas del Priorat and about 70 hectares around it. Since that they planted Cabernet Sauvignon and restored the old plantations of Garnacha and Carignan.

Our wine from Priorat, the Noster consists of 55% Grenache, and 45% Carignan. It is hand harvested, and most of it is aged in new oak barrel for a year. The rest of the wine remains in steel tanks, managing to retain the fruit as well as the secondary, oaky aromas. It has a massive range of flavours from plums, red berries to vanilla and jam. It is a perfect full bodied red with lots of elegance to please you with. As it was harvested in 2005 it is on the peak, drink it now!

Being that we at Borough Wines have a deep affection for all things Languedoc, where a large volume of this grape resides. We are often speaking of the characteristics of this regions wines. Carignan has had a bit of a bad run for a while, being described as harsh, overly acidic and even bitter. But the ones that we have in-house and have sampled are balsy, yes, but also concentrated with good acidity and high tannins. It’s all in the making, you see – and in the vines themselves.

Being a work-horse, you saw Carignan planted everywhere once. It was always a blending wine, often used with softer varietals such as Grenache. After a massive weeding out in the 1990′s, a large percentage were removed from France and replaced with more modern, easy on the palate varietals. But there were many Carignan still residing in Chile, Spain, the US and in the Languedoc. There has been some fan fare of late about the old vines of Chile producing some delicious Carignan wines, it appears that it may be the time for Carignan to have its moment.

Like all things, wine is in and out of fashion, and the Languedoc has been firmly in for some time now. We are thoroughly enjoying the more upfront, and rough diamonds of the South of France. It seems only natural that these often include Carignan in their blends.

Two of them which I would recommend from our stocks is the our Puech Auriol which is 100% Carignan, and the The Roche Audran Cotes Du Rhone which has 15% Carignan in its blend.

Happy Carignan day, which being a leap year will come around next in 2016. So you better drink up.

Jancis Robinson talks Carignan

Carignan – Is it Hipster wine?

Rhone and Carignan