We did a hell of a lot of food-related activities over the last 12 months for Grantourismo. And my best foodie travel moments of the year didn’t occur while seated at a voguish restaurant…
My Best Foodie Travel Moments from our Grand Tour
Cheese tasting at Neal’s Yard Dairy in London
It’s not just the French who have fabulous cheeses! And yes, we had some great meals in London too. But Neal’s Yard Dairy in London was next level. Just the cheddar cheeses alone were mind-blowing. Just wish the bank would have stopped phoning us after each credit card transaction…
Making the Perfect Macaron
These macarons coming out of the oven perfectly at cooking school in Paris was a highlight for sure. I really want to believe I can replicate these at home. These macarons were picture-perfect – and we made dozens of them. If I’d known we were going to cook so many, I could have paid for our flights to Japan by selling the left-overs in Tokyo, where they were going for outrageous sums of money. There’s probably a black market for them. And there was the bonus of taking them as a gift to a Parisian dinner party and saying “I made these myself yesterday”.
Reminding Chef Pierre Gagnaire that Cous Cous isn’t French…
Pierre Gagnaire telling me that couscous was the classic Parisian dish was certainly unexpected. Trust a guy who has a Michelin three-starred restaurant to be contrary and come up with something so humble when I asked for his thoughts on Paris’ quintessential plate for my dish from each destination. But after we told him we’d just been to Morocco he reconsidered – thankfully suggesting I cook Côte de Bœuf, which became the most read food post of ours for the year!
Sharing fresh tuna with a tuna vendor
You want fresh tuna? You got it! A vendor at Tokyo’s Tsukiji Fish Markets, clearly mistaking me for some famous chef, carved me off a beautiful piece of tuna to dip into some soy sauce accompanied by a heartfelt quote: “It’s amazing that just yesterday this fish was swimming in the ocean.” The most sublime moment of the year for me.
The humbling “simple” Pasta Sauce
It really wasa masterclass in Italian simplicity. When Maria taught me how to cook her simple pasta sauce in Puglia, which according to Lara was “better than any sauce you’ve ever made”, I was a little crushed. I swear it was just the concentrated flavours of the cherry tomatoes that had been hanging in her kitchen for months, and were now hanging in ours. At least that’s my excuse. She then taught me to make real pizza, in an oven built into the side of our house. Show off!
The creativity of chef Jordi Artal
Exploring the evolution of a dish with a Michelin-starred chef in Barcelona was a min-blowing experience. Jordi Artal’s of Cinc Sentits restaurant in Barcelona explained how he turned a childhood treat into a dreamy dessert that we loved at his restaurant. I can’t decide what makes me more jealous – just how beautiful his dishes are, or the fact that he wasn’t a trained chef before opening his restaurant…
A cooking lesson and a lesson in when to shut up
Cooking with the Countess in Venice was quite an experience – and the emphasis is on the “with”. A big beautiful kitchen. A great bunch of people. Drinking Aperol in the morning. But me being put to work all day like a sous chef because of my big mouth about how I once used to cook in an Italian restaurant… Plenty of flowing wine and fun conversation. This is how I’d like to host dinner parties. Enrica Rocca rocks.
Most Mole Sauces are rubbish, except Marilau’s
It was quite a moment,realising every mole sauce I’d ever tasted was bogus. I’ve never liked any of the mole sauces I’ve tried over the years on our travels in Mexico, but at the wonderful cooking class I did in San Miguel de Allende, Cook Marilau had a batch of her secret recipe mole that we used for the dish sarapitos which contains an ingredient I don’t even like – plantains. It blew my mind – one of my best foodie travel moments.
Sharing the kitchen with Desak in Bali
Swapping recipes with Desak in Bali was a lovely cultural exchange. Our cook, Desak, at our beautiful villa in Bali made wonderful versions of local Balinese dishes – and gave me her secrets (here and here). I reciprocated by teaching her a few dishes of my own that she could make for the owner and other guests when they reached Balinese cuisine overload.
Being Humbled by Japanese Cuisine
In Tokyo there was that moment when I learnt that it’s sometimes better not to cook. Amidst the haze of a lingering bout of jetlag, we ate some sublime food in Tokyo. Halfway through the second week Lara asked me what dishes and eggs I was going to cook for our website. I had to admit that had no intention of cooking in Tokyo. There was just so many types of Japanese food experiences we had not yet explored and I didn’t want to waste a meal. And we had not even set foot in an eatery mentioned by Michelin. What can you say about a place where you look forward to the food on a train? I’d have to be in Tokyo a month before bothering to sharpen a knife.
What? No bacalau in a blender moment?
Technically speaking, Porto was after the official twelve months. That, of course, is the only reason it wasn’t a highlight ;)
T
This sounds like the trip of a lifetime, wonderful.
What an awesome post Terence! I love how the food that comes out of cooking classes always turns out to be the best thing we’ve ever tasted. Love the story of the best pasta sauce ever.
THe best indeed! I want a bite of that cheese, lovely.
We did choose our cooking courses carefully ;)
I can still taste that pasta sauce in my mind!
Cheers,
T
It was tangy and creamy ;)
It was indeed wonderful! We’ll be reflecting more upon the last year in coming days. Thanks for visiting!
i want to eat with you all. this is amazing! and you’re SO right abt japan – those train bento boxes are incredibly delicious!!! what a glorious year you had, in food!
OMG! I love the train bento boxes. Every time we took a train after that trip and ate crappy food from the train cafe or trolley we would look at each other. We didn’t need to say anything. We were just dreaming of those bento boxes.