They polished off some cheese with a 1997 Grand Cru Chablis (Reserve de l’Obedience) having slurped their way up the gears from Petit Chablis to Premier Cru Les Vaillons. Of these seventy diners, seventy finished every morsel on their plate. This says something about seafood. The Greeks were right: there is something metaphysical about it. We are not bound by rules of appetite or hunger. The road to immortality is not littered with broken dreams and ideologies but with discarded oyster shells and the carapaces of lobsters. We have langoustines and lobsters, razor clams, mussels, oysters and cockles in great profusion for the next two weeks. See if it isn’t true.

After Simon Gray died in August 2008, Simon Callow wrote a wonderful tribute to him and captures the essence of Simon’s surrealist tendencies brilliantly.  Simon Callow will be attending the screening of Old Flames tonight and will be answering the Q+A at the end of the film.

“It was the phantasmagoric element in his idol Dickens that he valued above all others, the endlessly transmogrifying metaphors, the fantastical distortions, the elements of the grotesque, all underpinned by a great central humanity: and this was what characterised so much of Simon’s work – in a different key, of course, from Dickens’s, and on a different scale, but still recognisably the same. It was what we both loved in Dickens, and what I loved above all in Simon and  his work. Conversation with him was often free-associatingly surreal, hilarious and slightly dangerous.

     It was this dimension that was so rarely explored in productions of his work. Of course, there were in his output straightforwardly well-made plays, but many more of them were predicated on an awareness of the oddity of things when viewed from another angle. Dickens had a word for it: “mooreeffoc”, which is simply “coffee room” seen from the other side of a glazed door. I believe I introduced Simon to this coinage, but he jumped on it: it was what he was about. His sense of the sheer strangeness of things was acute.”

ASPARAGUS. Great fat sticks of white asparagus will be with us soon, served simply boiled with hollandaise or with blood oranges and olive oil or wrapped in parma ham and glazed in Parmesan. In late April we should see the first English green asparagus: it will need very little but some good butter or a nice soft boiled egg. As the season goes on we will start to experiment….

MORELS.  A trickle from faraway places like Mexico and Siberia (really) at the moment but soon European morels, the finest mushroom of all in my book, will be coming in. We’ll stuff them with chicken mousse and poach them in consommé flavoured with Sauternes, we’ll serve them on toast and in a ragout with white asparagus (sometimes with scallops too) and always happy to do a party in the private room featuring the perfect combination of spit roast chicken and fresh morels.

NEW SEASONS LAMB. Once Easter is out of the way, we’ll start on the new season’s lamb, pale, sweet and succulent. Watch out for a gigot en persillade, a steamed saddle with mint and racks ‘alla cacciatore’.

ST GEORGE’S MUSHROOMS. Punctual to a fault, April 23^rd sees these fragrant spring mushrooms pop up all over Southern England and Northern France. There punctuality and fragrance is married to an exquisite meaty, floury taste, best seen with eggs, butter, chicken and fish. For a fortnight at the most, an absolute treat.

SEA TROUT. Gently poached in butter and finished with a shredded sorrel and lemon; steamed and anointed with a little olive oil on a little spinach and wild garlic puree; delicately grilled and served with béarnaise. Whichever, sea trout is the taste of spring.

GARIGUETTES. Greenhouse strawberries in April. Sounds pretty stupid, until you taste them. They have high acidity but are unbelievably sweet and flavoursome. The usual sort of thing: with pannacotta, with meringue, in a champagne jelly, nothing fancy. Also very good in conjunction with…

RHUBARB, of the early forced ‘champagne’ variety. Already with us, with mackerel as well as a myriad of other, just desserts.

NETTLES. “Tender-handed stroke a nettle, And it stings you, for your pains: Grasp it like a man of mettle, And it soft as silk remains.” In soup and in spaghetti, with a hint of garlic and some Pecorino cheese.

PLAICE. Towards the end of April plaice should have fattened up and the remarkable harpooned fish from Poole harbour should be appearing. Their thick succulent fillets with a sensational briny fragrance and melting texture are a sure sign of spring becoming early summer.

Udayan Prasad, James Fleet & Peter Bowles

Running Late was the second film in the Simon Gray season for Le Cine Anglais.  A film which could not have been more startlingly different in both tone and pace to the tranquil, poetic A Month in the Country.  Peter Bowles is brilliantly cast as the selfish, paranoid and insufferably vain TV inquisitor George Grant, whose life literally goes to pieces in front of our eyes as he discovers that his wife has left him.  Towards the end the film gets increasingly surreal, where Bowles drinks champagne in an obsequious bank manager’s office and is dragged off handcuffed by police across the mud flats of the Thames.  And then we realize that it’s us who have been had all along. 

Rowley & Prue Leith

Jonathan Margolis describes the film beautifully: “Death was [also] the theme of the brilliant Running Late, but you had to get to the last minute of Peter Bowles’s virtuoso performance to realise it. As this is a play which will be repeated endlessly, I don’t want to spoil it by revealing… This manic black comedy…which Bowles co-produced, showed how good a television actor he is when served by a script as fine as Simon Gray’s…The scene in the bank, where Bowles, an obsessive egomaniac desperate to get some cash and having failed the cash point challenge (he forgot his PIN number) was a masterpiece. [The bank manager (Roshan Seth)’s] conversation with Bowles on the subject of love is one of the most profound dialogues you’ll hear in a TV play.” Jonathan Margolis, Mail on Sunday, October 18 1992.

The Q+A hosted by Harry Burton with actors Peter Bowles and James Fleet and director Udayan Prasad gave a fascinating insight into the making of the film.  The film took only around 23 days to make – the sense of speed and urgency being only too apparent. 

To celebrate World Book Day, we have compiled a short list of recommendations:

Art Deco Complete: The Definitive Guide to the Decorative Arts of the 1920s and 1930s – Alastair Duncan

‘Art Deco Complete…’ is a thorough tome providing a comprehensive selection of over 1000 colour images of objects, interior design, artwork, graphics and consumer materials alongside Duncan’s prose. The largest volume ever compiled, this is a must-read book for any Art Deco enthusiasts and is a testament to the multitude of styles that converged to create a uniquely lavish and sumptuous era of decorative arts.

The Plums of P.G. Wodehouse – Joe Whitlock Blundell

This collection of stories and excerpts is an excellent starting point if you’ve never read any Wodehouse before, and serves as a reminder of the author’s abundant reservoir of genius and comic for the more seasoned fan. The passages are well selected by Joe Whitlock Blundell – the only problem is that they’re so charming that you can’t help but want to keep reading…

Bridge: Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them – Andrew Robson

As a bestselling book from The Times’ Bridge Correspondent, this is the perfect introduction for those of you who are interested in our bridge nights.  Common mistakes are presented with the method of tackling them in this useful guide.  If you haven’t tried bridge yet, and are interested, then join us on Monday 22^nd March and enjoy an introduction within Le Café Anglais.

Lutyens and Rubinstein

 Although not a book as such, we highly recommend Sarah Lutyens and Felicity Rubinstein’s independent bookshop in Notting Hill. Launched in October, these former literary agents instill a refreshingly personal touch back into book buying: they believe in “pressing books into people’s hands that we are confident they will enjoy.”

From Left - Kenith Trodd, Pat O.Connor, Colin Firth

Last night was our first ever Le Cine Anglais event and it was a tremendous success. As the evening was a sell-out, we closed the restaurant for the night and for the first part of the evening the Café was transformed into a large cocktail party with Parmesan Custard and other hors d’oeuvres being offered round. Colin Firth arrived fashionably later than the main party and we all then walked the short walk across Whiteley’s to the Odeon Cinema where a small, intimate screen awaited us. 

A Month in the Country is a beautiful film, set in Yorkshire, about a young man (Colin Firth) who, fresh back from the horrors of the First World War has been commissioned to uncover a medieval painting above the nave in a small village church. He meets his direct opposite in the ebullient Kenneth Brannagh who happens to be doing an architectural dig in the field outside the church, and is also just back from the war. They are both mentally scarred by what they have been through, but deal with it in very different ways. The film was tinged with sadness with a sensitive performance by Natasha Richardson as the uptight and reclusive vicar’s beautiful, ethereal wife.

At the end of the film, Colin Firth, the producer Kenith Trodd and director Pat O’Connor talked to Harry Burton about the film. They told the audience how it rained almost every moment of filming, despite the film appearing sunny throughout – they had 45 second takes to get a shot with sunshine before it poured with rain again. Ironically at the beginning of the film when Firth arrives at the small station with a scene where it is lashing it down – on this one day it happened to be sunny and they had to resort to a rain machine. The atmosphere in the small screen cinema was both relaxed and intimate and Colin, Pat, Kenith and Harry all gave extremely articulate and interesting insights into the making of the film, whilst the audience asked questions.

Those who came mentioned that they felt very privileged to be a part of something so small. After the film we all went back to the restaurant for a delicious dinner. Guests were placed at long tables and whilst kept within their parties, were also sat with other guests, making it a great opportunity to meet people and discuss the evening. Next up, Running Late with Peter Bowles on Tuesday 9th March. The evening will take the same format. Some tickets are still available at £50/head.

To see more images from the night, visit our Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/London-United-Kingdom/Le-Cafe-Anglais/182868933306?ref=ts

Part 1: Disscussion 

Part 2: Questions

With our inaugural Le Cine Anglais taking place tomorrow evening, we’re delighted to see that our first speaker, Colin Firth, has received a gong for Best Leading Actor at last night’s BAFTAs for his role in A Single Man. Directed by renowned fashion designer Tom Ford, Firth gives a delicate and superbly crafted performance as George Falconer, a gay British university professor living in Southern California in 1962.

Among the other winners, and also flying the flag for Britain in what is an increasingly global awards ceremony, was Carey Mulligan who won the award for Best Leading Actress for her role in An Education.

The latest news is a wonderful addition to the recognition Mr Firth has already been receiving from the Oscars, in what has truly been an outstanding month for him.

With Colin set to grace us with his presence tomorrow evening, we’ve got a special bottle of champagne on ice.

Together these two men (said by Bruford to be sworn enemies, whereas the opposite is the case) work in parallel to develop the gastronomic and farming culture of the immediate locality so that it is an organic (in the true sense) and self sufficient community and a landmark to a wider, international audience. Giovanni, whose estate takes up a magnificent crescent shaped valley on one side of the town has built up a small herd of Chianina cattle at the bottom of the valley where the soil and sun are unsuited to growing grapes or olives.

The chianina is an extraordinary beast, tall, powerful – well capable of pulling a plough up these steep slopes – and graceful in its movements, yet capable of reaching maturity comparatively young and producing meat that is well marbled and rich in flavour. Giovanni’s animals are, of course, as well cared for as any beer fattened Waggyu bullock and, even though this is a non profitable sideline to his day job, capable of being sold for over 4000 euros a piece.

Having spent the night in a guesthouse in the middle of the vineyard with the most stunning views of the Chianti landscape, I became completely converted to the two men’s love and vision for their native town. I walked around the vineyard (Dave and Giovanni were killing time by riding their bicycles the very hilly twelve miles to Radda and back) and noticed whilst photographing the olive grove on the East facing slopes beside my lodging that I was not the only mammal enjoying a walk that morning. After breakfast we met Dario again and I mooted the idea of doing a night in Panzano back at Le Café Anglais. Giovanni, who has already hosted a wine dinner (stunning Flaccianellos from three vintages, and Vigna del Sorbos) at the Café had obviously primed the man because he bounced up and down with excitement even more than usual.

It was a sort of done deal. Back in London and after the Christmas rush, I e-mailed David – my trusty interlocutor and Italian speaker – to revive the idea with the two protagonists. I offered them some dates. It came down to two, the 1^st or the 8^th of March. Then Dario said he couldn’t do the 8^th. Then he said we were all on for the 8^th and oh no, he couldn’t do the 1^st. So we are on, A Night in Panzano on the 8^th. With Dario, I think. And a lot of meat. And wine.

Dario’s last e-mail is a poem:

“First, please know that I am very happy to come to the Café Anglais.  My idea for the evening’s menu is to bring Giovanni Manetti’s beef and perhaps to serve it prepared in at least two or three ways, in order to make use of various cuts.   I would propose the Bistecche as you asked, but also Carne in Galera Crostini di Sugo di Manzo and Sushi del Chianti (a Tuscan beef tartare).  Very happily I would also add the Burro del Chianti and the Tonno, as you have requested. 

The beef I will bring was born and bred near the vineyards, on the Fontodi  estate, with healthy food, a free life and as easy a death as possible.    It  found a “good butcher” as the grapes of the estate found a good vintner.  And it seems to me that this would be a splendid celebration of food and wine, highlighting the sustainability of Panzano for which Giovanni and I are working.“

 It could be a lot of fun. Once we get the meat, a great deal of fabulous Fontodi wine (http://www.libertywine.co.uk/producer.aspx?ProductCode=FO308F09) Dario, Giovanni and David – to make sense of it all – here at the same time.

….PH:  I did a pheasant pot-roast with caramelised vegetables and chestnuts. You get a lovely Le Creuset pot, brown your pheasants, take them out, put all the vegetables in, caramelise them, put in your chestnuts, the sherry, a bit of stock, a couple of bay leaves, a lovely bread dough round the top. Then you seal it all up, let it prove, bake it, take it out, let it rest, and you get this phenomenal bread that’s like a dumpling – delicious – and with a lovely crust on the outside. It was my first bit of studio TV for a long time.

RL: Sounds quite ambitious.

PH: It is actually super-simple. So I went to rip the lid off, with the cameras looking, and I’d forgotten to put the bloody pheasant in.

RL: My mother once made the most beautiful rice pudding. It came steaming out of the oven with golden skin – and she’d forgotten to put the rice in!

Read the full article (FT, 15th January 2010)  http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/bbc85b4c-0160-11df-8c54-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1