The Pudding Menu with Gurdeep Loyal: newsletter volume 3.0
A cocktail called 'Tomato', an unfathomably delicious tiger milk ceviche, cream cakes in Henry James, the return of boho, Indian cosmic love in music, and Chicago style neon green hotdog relish.
It’s volume 3.0! A little later than anticipated, but then that’s the joy of being ‘probably weekly’ - technically, i’m always on time every time this comes out (nail polish emoji). If you missed volume 2.0 you can check it out here. And please do subscribe… if you like. Gurdeep :)
New(ish)… a cocktail called ‘Tomato’ at Scales, Mayfair
I remember when the ‘speakeasy’ had a real moment about 10 years ago. I think it’s The Vault underneath Milroy’s that ignited the flame, which still to this day is an exceptional hidden (literally) gem of an establishment.
Scales Cocktail Bar takes the speakeasy into a whole new stratosphere of gastronomic exquisiteness. Modern, minimalist and moody – hidden down a discreet staircase in a liquor store opposite Selfridges called ‘Drinks with Sasha’ - this is the kind of grown up place I want to go to. A lot.
They have an extraction lab in the back, where they take the best fresh seasonal ingredients they can find and work their magic on them into cocktails with discerning one ingredient titles. ‘Fig’ was remarkable. ‘Shiso Apple’ more so. But it’s ‘Tomato’ that I can’t stop thinking about: a concoction of Barsol Pisco, Tomato, Basil, Strawberry and Olive. It was sweet, savoury, fresh, and a little tart. Just the way I like it. Go!
Scales Cocktail Bar, 25 Duke Street, W1U 1DJ, London @scaleslondon
Also I have to mention the Original Beans Chocolate annual dinner the other night – a new highlight of the culinary calendar. This year it was at Llama Inn, the Peruvian rooftop restaurant at the Hoxton in Shoreditch. One of the courses was a ‘Seasonal Fruit Ceviche with Ponzu Tigers Milk, and Original Beans 75% Piura Valley Chocolate’. I have honestly never eaten a sauce so sublime. Puckeringly tart, slightly sweet, fragrant, floral, and extremely moreish. A dish I will be trying to recreate, and restaurant to go back to based on that dish alone.
Llama Inn, The Hoxton, Shoreditch, 1 Willow St, London, EC2A 4BH @llamainnldn
Oldie but a goodie… Henry James
I don’t go down rabbit holes lightly. Jhumpa Lahiri was one of my first. Then Leoš Janáček. Yukio Mishima was a very big one that i’m still very much in. Edith Wharton was last year’s. And that’s led me to this year’s: Henry James. Four novels in so far, there are 5 things about him in particular that I can’t get enough of…
The way he assumes that men and women think the same – which muddles all conventions when it comes to marital and intergenerational family dramas
The way he masterfully uses ‘zeugma’ – a literary device where one verb is used in a single sentence but applying to two different things
The way that in some sentences you have literally NO fucking clue what is happening because he doesn’t give you a verb until the very end
The way his writing is LOADED with homoerotica and queer overtones at every turn
The way he is - very occasionally - so hysterically funny that I think he’s the only person that has ever made me laugh this hard. Ever.
There was a line in Washington Square where the narrator is a big queeny bitch about the main character Catherine, which I am still laughing at weeks later:
“In her younger years she was a good deal of a romp, and, though it is an awkward confession to make about one’s heroine, I must add that she was something of a glutton. She never, that I know of, stole raisins out of the pantry; but she devoted her pocket-money to the purchase of cream-cakes.”
Delicious design… the meteoric return of ‘boho’, Chloé style
The Chloé Winter 2024 campaign - the first from new Creative Director Chemena Kamali - speaks for itself. Ruffles in peachy caramel, baby blue and dusky pink, I’m so obsessed I can’t even write about it. Just look!
Sienna Miller in Matthew Williamson circa 2004 was always timeless tbh.
Kitchen hero… Chicago-style neon green relish
Of every culinary epiphany I had in my Chicago month long stay last year (see my Insta for a LOT of posts on that), there is none that I think more about than the Chicago Dog at Devil Dawgs in South Loop – with a snappy sausage, mustard, onions, a giant pickle, tomato, sport peppers, celery salt… and lashing of Chicago-style green relish.
There’s actually nothing special about this condiment – it’s just a classic sweet relish that’s dyed neon green – with a million legends about why, and how this ever came about. As Fanny Cradock said, in food “…one must please the eye as well as the palate”. The fluorescent glow of that addition might not technically add anything to the flavour, but it does add to my memory of it which in turn does effect it’s taste I guess.
There are artisan versions of it available in the UK, but I’ll be trying my hardest to track down one that is pure lurid Grinch artifice, just as it should be. Sometimes you need to go with what’s tasteless to maximise on taste.
Devil Dawgs, 767 S State St, Chicago, IL 60605 @devil.dawgs
For pudding… Indian cosmic love in Olivier Messiaen
Turangalîla-Symphonie by Olivier Messiaen is a cacophony of sound that the world has never again been able to come close to – and that baffles listeners to this day. The title comes from two Sanskrit words that mean ‘divine cosmic play’ and ‘eternal love’ – mashed together. It’s a soundscape of chaos when you first hear it, but that has so much structure and order internally its literally a musical universe with it’s own physics.
A lot of the scaffolding of it comes from Messiaen’s love of ancient 13th century Indian talas – or rhythmic sequences. Many of these are palindromes, effectively mirror image patterns of sound that are ‘non retro-gradable’ because they’re the same forwards and backwards. Hearing it blows my mind every time - and the thing I love even more is the album cover art that accompanies every recording.
Particularly this one from the Toronto Symphony…
And this one…
If you want to go on a transcendental journey of ordered chaos in sound, it’s worth giving an hour of your life to. You’ll never hear music the same again. There’s a recording by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam conducted by Jean-Yves Thibaudet that is very remarkable.
And for pudding wine… Mother Tongue is now out in the USA!
It was a wonderfully surreal experience seeing Mother Tongue out in book stores across San Francisco - including at City Lights Bookshop, which literally make me scream (or HOWL I should say…. sorry couldn’t resist…). One of the joys of my trip was doing a talk at Omnivore Books in Noe Valley - a very special place, with an incredible team. There are signed copies available in store and online, can’t wait to go back.
Omnivore Books, 3885 Cesar Chavez St, San Francisco, CA 94131 @omnivorebooks
Petit fours…
Summer is coming. I’d like to spend it entirely in SMRDays.
This song is so very stupid. I love it.