July has been a whirlwind month! It’s unbelievable that the team has been flying so far this summer with numerous indoor and outdoor events. Firstly we had a new lunch tasting menu with some new inventive dishes like Terrine of black leg chicken, Herb crusted bream and Spiced coconut mousse which tantalise and tickle the tastebuds . Head Chef Hari and our sommelier Jacques paired the dishes with wines from as far as Santa Cruz in the USA to the Loire valley in France.
We are also now open on Saturdays for lunch so enjoy a leisurely respite in the glorious old Westminster library. The perfect accompaniment to this relaxation- our brand new Pisco Punch!
July also saw us involved with wine and cookery demonstrations at the Imbibe Magazine Show at Earls court on 13th & 14th July. Our wine expert Laurent Chaniac and Head Chef Hari Nagaraj thrilled the audience with tastings and innovative pairings of wine and modern Indian cuisine.
The Cinnamon Club helps preserve National Treasure
Our neighbours at The Cinnamon Club, St Margaret’s Church Westminster urgently need £2 million for renovations and restorations. So on July 14th, the College Garden of Westminster Abbey provided a spectacular setting for an evening summer reception for 500 generous guests aiming to raise essential funds for the appeal. The church has been colloquially known as “the parish church of the House of Commons” since 1614 and guests from all political parties, including first-time MPs, together with residents of Westminster and distinguished friends of the Organising Committee attended the Gala Reception to raise funds for the Appeal.
The Cinnamon Club as a responsible neighbour supported the appeal and the event by catering for 500 guests to keep St Margaret’s in sound condition.
Leuka Mini Masters- Dougray Scott announces in his speech that The Cinnamon Club is ‘The Best Indian Restaurant he has ever visited- in the world!’
On a normal, everyday July morning Dukes Meadow in Chiswick became a hotbed of activity. The small neighbourhood golf course was descended on by trucks, sports cars, music stages, champagne and more celebrities than you can shake a stick at. The event, supported by Esquire Magazine and hosted by Dougray Scott is a day of golf, music, cocktails and dinner (by The Cinnamon Club, of course) attracted Tim Henman, Lee Byrne, Damien Lewis, Rob Brydon, Hugh Grant, James Nesbitt who played on the 9 hole course- stopping at each of the holes for a ‘refreshment’.
This was hard work, and the participants and celebrities were all rewarded by a delicious 4 course dinner provided by The Cinnamon Club. The event was a huge success, raising money and awareness for Leuka, a leukaemia charity based at Hammersmith Hospital http://www.leukaminimasters.com/
Find your Feet Charity
Tuesday the 20th July marked the 50th Anniversary for the Find Your Feet charity hosted at Dockmaster’s restaurant. Head Chef Abdul Yaseen along with other top chef’s Atul Kochhar, Cyrus Todiwala OBE and Navin Bhatia showcased their cooking ability in an attempt to make a difference in the world. Lamb mince kebab and Karnataka style stir fry pork created by Chef Abdul Yaseen was absolutely to die for.Not only the food was amazing but there was also an auction where Masterchef Dhruv Baker auctioned himself to cook for £6000. All the proceeds from the event go to their new project which aims at recuperating lives of 50,000 families by improving their harvests, setting up small businesses and accessing vital services such as clean water, healthcare and education by year 2011 based in India and Malawi.
Tags: Find your feet charity, Leuka mini masters golf tournament, St margarets church appeal, summer tasting menu
Author: Priyanka
Jun
15
Tags: food festival, taste of london, taste theatre
Author: Priyanka
It’s hard to imagine but WGS in Singapore has been going for 14years now…Obviously it’s Chef Armin Leitgebs a great celebration of Singapore’s love of gastronomy, and 12 of the most unique chefs from around the world are invited to participate in the two week extravaganza organised by Peter Knipp and his team every year.
Needless to say when it was an honour to be invited to take part in this year’s celebrations as a Masterchef . I was hosted by the legendary Indian restaurant Rang Mahal where our tasting menus were served for a week and among other things, there was a hands-on cookery masterclass for 24 people and a charity dinner for 350 guests in aid of Community chest. Thanks to Peter’s efforts, I believe circa 600000 SGD were raised from the evening which is fantastic by any standard anywhere in the world!
It was a true celebration of world food and gastronomy and an experience to meet and interact with chefs like Greg Doyle and Grant King of Peir restaurant in Australia, Bruno Menard from L’osier in Japan, Andrea Berton of Ristorante Trussardi Alla Scala in Italy and Lai Yau Tim from Tim’s kitchen in Hong Kong. It was great to see our very own Alex Chow from Kai restaurant in Mayfair also there!
Interestingly it wasn’t just about international guest chefs raiding Singapore…it was very good to see that the entire restaurant fraternity in Singapore was just as excited about the event and well and truly backing it with everything they’d got. Generally speaking the quality of restaurants and dining out in Singapore is of a quite high standard and I was very impressed by the spread laid out at some of the events I got a chance to attend. My humble house, Les Amis and Majestic House particularly impressive!
Lau pa sat or Long Beach- Pepper crab or S’pore Chilli Crab?
With tonnes of mise-en-place to prepare for our various tasting menus there wasn’t much time to get to try all the local delicacies, so Awanish, James and I decided to scour the squeaky clean streets of Singapore and try all the hawkers that would remain open or serve after mid-night!
One such late evening was spent at Laupasat with serious discussion over whether the pepper crab was better or the chilli crab! Another was spent in Clarke Quay trying out the famed Singapore chilli Crab at Jumbo restaurant… the discussion remained the same!
Pamela Tan , our friend and guide in Singapore seemed to find it all quite amusing and so insisted we try the Long Beach restaurant, one that is credited with creating the famed chilli crab, on the way back to the airport!
The jury is still out on which of the crab dishes are better…
Volcanic Ash
When I first heard on Thursday that flights were disrupted , I didn’t take it seriously thinking things would surely be back to normal by Sunday ( when I was supposed to be flying!)
No way were the governments let the entire economies come to a virtual stand-still, certainly not when things were so delicate! How wrong was I??!!
Couldn’t believe my luck but there I was! Well the positive is that I got to attend FHA ( Food Asia ) exhibition that week and also had the most amazing opportunity to attend Ferran Adria’s workshop!
So all in all, it wasn’t all bad at all and truth be told, there were worse places to get stranded in!
Tags: celebration of world food, charity dinner community chest, chef Armin leitgebs, cookery masterclass, indian restaurant rangmahal, volcanis ash, World gourmet summet singapore
Author: Vivek
May
27
I’ve often said I’m fed up of clichéd Indian images of snake charmers, sadhus and city slums depicting India. When it comes to it , India does luxury better than anywhere else in the world.
Rajvilas, the Oberoi Hotel in Jaipur put India on the global luxury map when it opened in 1997 and was awarded Tatlers’ Best Hotel in the world in 2001. There have been several hotels and resorts since that have pushed the envelope but none quite as ambitious as the recently launched Maharaja’s express in India. Its India’s first pan-Indian journey that lets you travel through different states and see places that would almost be impossible to see without the train. All that action –packed adventure and discovery without the niggle of packing, un-packing and driving to airports every day.
Whilst luxury is quite relative and personal, this is certainly one of the most unique ways of travelling in India and experiencing its culture, cuisine and people as I found when I was asked to join the train on one of its inaugural journeys.
No matter what, train journeys invoke a special feeling in most people and one can’t help falling into its charm. For me it brings memories of these journeys I’d taken as a child along with my parents on trips and vacations, getting to know people, make new friends, share tea, snacks and often meals.
Maharaja’s Express is no different, it does all of this and lots more! Even for a seasoned indo-phile such as me, it often surprised me with something new that I hadn’t experienced before. Quite like an epic novel which you find new meanings from, every time you read it, India does the same to me. A new discovery, realisation or meaning each time.
Tags: luxury India, Maharaj Express, memories, new discovery, Oberoi Rajvilas, Tatler's best hotel
Author: Vivek
Jan
11
I am really excited having just returned from my first ever shoot over the weekend. We went for a day of pheasant shooting in Hopes, just south of Edinburgh. Hopes is set in 11500 acres of moors among some of the most breathtaking landscape I’ve ever seen. Not to mention the slightly sore right shoulder from having fired far too many shots to get my solitary kill- a partridge! The first one of my life, it was very special. If I were to bring it back with me and put it on the menu, it would have to be the most expensive partridge in the world selling for £1000 a portion.
Only because I used up so many cartridges to get the one bird!
I’ve always enjoyed cooking with game when it’s in season in UK, we’ve had all sorts of game on our menus over several years and won numerous awards (including UK’s best Game Dish -2009 for our famed ‘Oisin’ Red Deer). It amazes me how versatile game can be, it has an incredible depth of flavour, handles spices really well, its extremely good for you and sustainable, it ticks all the right boxes, yet is so under-utilised in most restaurants.
Offering game on the menu gives us a point of difference and immediately sets us apart from other kitchens, and so we started using it on our menus. But the real reason that I like to experiment so much with game in our restaurants is that in India, despite our rich heritage and tradition of cooking with game, we’ve lost all those recipes because of a complete ban of any type of hunting. It’s been like this since 1947 and over the years, entire generations have grown up without having seen any game dishes in their life. My experimentation with game cooking in UK is an attempt to revive, recreate and sometimes re-imagine a genre of Indian cooking which other wise would be lost completely.
I’ve been wanting to go on a proper shoot ( not shooting clays) for a number of years now but hadn’t got round to it, it only made sense to see what goes on before these beautifully plucked and oven ready birds are delivered to us neatly packed in crates. Jamie Morrison, one of our investors and a friend of The Cinnamon Club always said it would be an experience I would enjoy and I was thrilled when I finally got round to it.
I must admit that going on a day’s shoot in Scotland was very different from what I had imagined reading books on hunting in India! For one, there were no jungles or woods. There were no elephants either and there seemed no apparent danger of being eaten alive by a man-eating tiger! What we had instead was a very organised shoot with a game-keeper who seemed to know exactly where we’d find the birds, an army of young men from the neighbouring villages to act as Beaters, another army of Picker-ups with their dogs to bring back the ‘kill’, a couple trucks to move them along, 9 guns, and several hundred cartridges (I used most of them).
Best of all, there were certain ground rules that I was most impressed by, you wouldn’t shoot any ground game, wouldn’t shoot grouse ( since we were out to shoot pheasants and partidges), you wouldn’t shoot anything flying low, don’t shoot if you cant see the sky…I know there is much talk about cruelty and possible ban on hunting in UK as well, but it was a revelation for me to see how much of a sport it still is. A school of thought feels, like any other sport, as long as both parties have a fair chance, hunting is OK. In my opinion, most if not all of what is shot ends up on the plate and is eaten, it’s even better!
A series of 6 different drives shooting pheasants and one last drive for partridges in different parts of the estate spaced out between breaks for elevenses and sumptuous lunch served in a beautiful log cabin in the midst of the mountains…I know it does not sound like a bad life at all! Actually it wasn’t, I haven’t really been on any other shoots but I am told it only goes down-hill from Hopes. Yet, I look forward to the next one with much anticipation!
Tags: Game, Grouse, Hopes, Jamie Morrison, Pheasant, Red deer, Scotland, Shooting, Vivek Singh
Author: Vivek
Happy New Year! It’s only the 4th but the holidays already seem a distant memory. If you are feeling the January blues coming on, head down to see us. We’re back to our normal hours now so why not start the day with a calming Indian breakfast? We’re open from 7.30am so there’s plenty of time to browse through the broadsheets before heading off to the office or if the thought of getting up in the dark is too much to bear, head along later (we serve breakfast until 9.30am) – either way, inject some spice into your day and banish those blues!
Tags: Breakfast, January blues, Uttapam
Author: Alison
The Cinnamon Club wishes you a very happy and prosperous New Year. We hope to see you soon!
Tags: Happy New Year
Author: Alison
Firstly, I hope you had a wonderful Christmas! Just a quick note about our opening hours from now until the New Year. We are closed today (26th), 27th and 28th December then we will be open for dinner only on 29th, 30th and 31st December. We will close again for New Years Day 1st January, we are open for dinner on the 2nd January and then it’s business as usual from the 4th January.
Tags: New Years Day, New Years Eve, Opening Hours
Author: Alison
Game at The Cinnamon Club
Have you organised a Christmas party yet? We have a fabulous new seasonal menu for parties over 8 people.