Innovative wine & food pairing menus?

Food & wine
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For an “ends in a zero” anniversary dinner, we’re shortlisting London restuarants with innovative wine paired tasting menus, ie, fun somms who are happy to pair funky, reductive, fortified, oxidised wines. With or without stars.

I recall using this post years ago! Any reccomendations or good experiences recently? Thanks.

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Trivet is a-la-carte but they have a really interesting list and wine-centric front of house with some interesting options / recs

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I’d second the recommendation of Trivet. Chef and somm both ex Fat Duck. But Trivet is much more casual and welcoming.

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Thanks to both of you. We’ve booked Trivet and looking forward to it.

Researching this was suprisingly difficult. Pairings tend to be presented like a “service” to support the set menu, versus showcasing the wine pairing equally to the food. Had I found one menu that approached this differently, I’d have booked straight away.

So, no shortcuts here. But perhaps the start of a fun longer term project!

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Hope you enjoy Trivet!

I’m not a somm but I guess they like to have the flexibility to change the wine pairing menu based on stock, customer preferences and any short-term changes to the composition of the dishes they are picked to match with (say a last minute change to the accompaniment or sauce due availability). A long way from London but I noticed on a recent visit to one of my favourite restaurants - Andrew Fairlie in Scotland - they offer three different wine flights at different price points to accompany the tasting menus and have the individual wines for each flight printed in the menu booklet on the day to help you choose - although they’re not listed on the website.

Here’s AF’s selections:

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Thanks for sharing this. I’m not a somm either; I did one restaurant wine list but had to keep it rather commercial (we did get creative license with spirits pairings).

You raise a good point on availabilty of ingredients, especially these days in UK. Were a set menu not too seasonal and very successful to minimise change, I always thought it’d be fun to continuously refine the pairings across 2-3 pairing styles. And the a la carte would be more of a playground with new wines/new dishes.

I like the AF approach, I only saw one upgrade pairing option while researching. Would be fun to see someone take a punt and show a “Wine Nerd Flight”. I’d book straight away.