Had a meal at the Sorrel Horse, the first since 2020 because of a number of reasons. I want to support the pub, but things have contrived against it for the moment, and another but, when I saw that they had a ‘stand in’ chef who was cooking Greek food I just had to attend.
So we booked with friends, but it was not until 20 minutes before we left that I decided to look to see what Maria Elia had done. It was more what hasn’t she done! I just had time to watch a little of her cooking in a TV programme in the States. It was pork belly with fennel, leeks and what looked to be the majority of a bottle of wine. I want to see the whole cooking skit (used in it’s American sense) but anoyingly I cannot find it at the moment, but I will! I must remember to bookmark stuff.
Anyway, and the point of this blog, I was very much looking forward to sampling her cuisine and it did not disappoint. My starter was a simple humous with pita and whole radish. Whole radish you say but let me tell you it was an inspired marriage. The humous was so very good, the pitta as different to any I have ever tasted before and the radish had their leaves on. I could not wait for my main course. I have always smiled a little at those master chef type programmes when the judge, and I thought it was to big up their TV presence, go on about the complex flavours of a particular dish, well I am converted! I chose beef cheek Stifado. Now I have eaten Stifado in every Greek place I have ever visited, and there have been a few, but this was the best I have ever tasted and that superlative phrase really does not do it justice, because the complexity of the flavours was immense. I am sitting here wishing I could eat it for breakfast. I had to finish my wife’s chocolate dessert and it was so lovely and so rich it left me troubled that I did not order a whole one for myself.
Maria Elia, please come back and your book, Smashing Plates, is on order with Amazon.
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