Jonathan Schofield enjoys excellent food and tells a daft tale
On a recent Wednesday Steven Smith of Manchester's Kaji (Musu) restaurant combined with Dave Wall of the Unruly Pig gastropub in Suffolk to create a fabulous and spectacular dinner. Both men are chef patrons and both know their onions and other ingredients too.
Mancunian diners will probably be familiar with Kaji or Musu, its previous moniker, as that top quality Japanese restaurant on Bridge Street in the city centre. The Unruly Pig might be less familiar but was awarded number one spot in the Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropubs in 2022. I was down in Suffolk in October last year in circumstances that provided one of those wonderfully bizarre moments of coincidence, but more of that later.
The meal displayed the talents of both chefs to great effect and appeared to leave all the guests feeling satiated and happy.
The collaboration came about as both men are familiar with and admire each others work. They have worked together before at the excellent Freemasons at Wiswell not far from Whalley in Lancashire.
As usual with Kaji the dining room is pure drama with large colourful screens and beams of light splashing across the floor. The kitchen is along one side, a theatre for people passing to and fro through the restaurant.
The food, as usual, was pure drama too, as you can see in the pictures on this page. Combine the presentation of the food, the vivid colours, the delicacy of arrangement with the precise cooking and outstanding flavours and the result was exceptional dining experience.
Over 11 courses there will inevitably be dishes that one favours over the others. Palates are different and even with this level of cooking personal preferences kicks in.
So, for me the John Dory with flame-grilled butter poached lobster and XO Hollandaise was standout amongst several standout dishes. This was a 10 out of 10 dish. Everything about it was right, the gentle John Dory flesh (scorched on top to give that lovely charred kick) providing a superb foil for the more strongly flavoured and beautiful flame-grilled lobster. The The XO Hollandaise added lift without overpowering any of the fish elements. I almost licked the plate to make sure none of the fishy richness of the sauce was missed.
Ostensibly simpler elements revealed the skill in the kitchen. The 'bread and butter' was anything but as plain as that description with crispy chilli buns and poached jalapeno butter.
The whole experience was luxury at its highest with oysters done two ways, gloriously prepared succulent bluefin tuna sashima, subtle yet potent nigiri, a temaki hand roll and BBQ octopus which showed the chefs were human and fallible as in this instance it had been BBQed too long - the one tiny error, along with overbearing music.
We ended the savoury dishes morel-istically. Morels are edible sac fungi but they are also earthy, the taste of woods and leaf-mould. There's a wildness to the flavour that's almost primal. A morel appeared with both the Iberico Presa and the Kaji-aged Herdwick lamb rack but these otherwise very different dishes came with other those clever add-ons that brought extra welcome complexity but also entertainment, such as a braised cheek raviolo with the pork and white asparagus with the lamb. A rich as Croesus chocolate and hazelnut tart rounded the occasion off.
Smith and Wall must be congratulated for providing such a satisfying and lovely meal. It displayed the talents of both chefs to great effect and appeared to leave all the guests feeling satiated and happy. It was excellent all round.
Kaji, 64 Bridge Street, Manchester M3 3BN. 0161 883 7746. Look out for more events here
And now for the daft story…
I dined with two friends at the event, Howard and Judith. A while ago Howard had decided a couple of pairs of very good Jeffrey West boots had become surplus to requirements. Half my working life involves walking whilst guiding people around and smart ankle supporting boots are very necessary.
In October last year I went on a visit to Sutton Hoo, the celebrated location of the Anglo-Saxon ship burial. When we arrived there’d been a power cut so the helpful attendant wondered if we would like to come back later. He recommended a pub nearby where we could take an early lunch and then return. This turned out to be the Unruly Pig.
Our plates were cleared away by a man who turned out to be the owner of the Unruly Pig, Brendan Padfield. He asked where we were from and I said, Manchester. He said he knew Manchester very well, some people who lived in Century Buildings. I said, I do too, Howard Sharrock and Judith Watson.
There was a pause before Brendan said, she’s my sister in law. This was one hell of a coincidence when one considers Brendan shouldn’t have been there but something had cropped up which meant he’d had to come to the pub. Nor would we have been there if there hadn’t been a power cut at Sutton Hoo.
This gets more bizarre, I said, I’m wearing Howard Sharrocks boots. And then I told him why.
When we left I called Howard and said, you’re not going to believe this but….
