London was in a celebratory mood when Selfridges launched the Meet the Chefs series last night, on the day Queen Elizabeth II became the longest reigning British monarch. The series was opened by Irish chef Mark Moriarty, who was recently awarded the title of San Pellegrino Young Chef of the Year.
Moriarty, the 23-year-old from Blackrock in Co Dublin who won the competition in June, emerged smiling from a strangely calm kitchen to introduce his tasting menu, showcasing Irish produce with an original twist. The menu made terrific advance reading and included hay, pig and Guinness porridge.
Wait staff walked between the tables holding open a cigar box while he invited guests to take a “cigar”’ of salted cod brandade rolled in pastry, to be dipped into a scallop shell with roast garlic aioli with red pepper sauce (to resemble the scallop), sprinkled with black leek ash, reminiscent of the Irish pub ashtrays of years gone by.
The bread (warm, light, bacon and onion brioche) arrived at the table in brown bags.
The house-smoked salmon, smoked by Moriarty earlier in the afternoon on Selfridges’ roof in a wooden box with a bed of hay, was served alongside baked potatoes with buttermilk dressing, leek oil and pureed egg yokes.
The taste which most strongly lingers in the memory is the celeriac, hay and hazelnut dish, which won Moriarty the San Pellegrino title. He emerged from the kitchen holding up a celeriac that looked like a coconut.
“Next up are these yokes,” he said.
The skin had been peeled back and the singed with a blow torch, and through a strangely magical process involving miso, barley and fermented “haylage” (which he described as “hay before it turns to silage”), a dish with layers of flavours emerged, with hints of nutty, yeasty Guinness.
Nothing was wasted, he said, the complete vegetable appeared on the plate in various guises, and the remains poured out as celeriac and smoked hay tea, which was both sweet and savoury.
The Guinness porridge was magnificent, one of those deserts like brown bread ice cream which you don’t expect to like but love.
Moriarty and his team, including his mentors from his time at The Greenhouse Ciaran Sweeney and Slovakian Joe Joe "The Beast", are about to embark on a world tour. They play off each other, he said, aiming to be Irish, unique, and to produce something which hasn't been done before. Supported by Fáilte Ireland, they want to "shout out about a new wave of Irish cuisine".
The evening drew to a close with petits fours, which Moriarty described as a play on hot whiskey.
We sat under the eerily watchful eye of the fashion mannequins in the store. When the coffee cups were cleared away we were whisked out through the fashion floor, past collections by Stella McCartney and Victoria Beckham. Moriarty’s cooking left us in no doubt that the nation’s food is in capable hands.
