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Alan Jones is the Almeida restaurant’s head chef at just 28 |
Menu? Let Alan spell it out for you
Alan Jones, precocious head chef at the Almeida Restaurant, tells Simon Wroe how his mum inspired him and the story behind his innovative ‘edible’ dishes
BENEATH his jovial, soft-spoken exterior, Alan Jones must be brimming with confidence.
The Almeida’s new head chef, just 28 years old, is cooking for a 100-cover restaurant in London’s gastronomic heartland, Islington.
If he didn’t have enough on his plate, Alan has now upped the ante even further with an experimental, seven-course “edible menu” alongside the classic and modern French à la carte selection.
To cap it all off, in a stroke that would have made Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll regular visitors were they alive today, the menu is an acrostic – each dish must begin with one of the letters in the A-L-M-E-I-D-A title, in the correct order and in season.
Let me read you the poem that I ate: Asparagus, Langoustines, Mullet, Epices du canard (spiced duck), Iced champagne, Devonshire blue cheese, and Almond Tart.
Madness? Genius? Alan certainly has the courage of his convictions. Fortunately for diners, he can cook too.
“It’s something a bit more exciting,” he explains during a break in service, “though it can be really hard to find food that starts with the right letter!
“You have your doubts about whether you’re going to cut the mustard, but we’re progressing nicely.” Alan’s obviously doing something right. On the night of our dinner, actor Helena Bonham Carter arrives with a group of seven.
Born in Bristol, Alan left school at 16. He always wanted to be a chef, and his mother’s cooking inspired him to learn. He got an apprenticeship at the Marriot Hotel before his mother gave him permission to move to London when he was 19.
A stint at the Criterion followed, where he came under the watchful eye of Marco Pierre White.
It was there and at his next kitchen, Howard Jones’s opulent Mandarin Oriental restaurant in Hyde Park, that Alan honed his skills.
Each of the courses at the Almeida is a riff on a single quality ingredient, handled in several different ways to demonstrate the breadth and scope of his abilities.
Asparagus is green, white, and chilled in a soup-like velouté; langoustine beignets and poached tails come with a teriyaki-style sauce; mullet is grilled and part of the thick bouillabaisse underneath.
Duck tartare has notes of Chinese five-spice, as does the perfectly cooked duck breast, while the accompanying confit foie gras melts in the mouth.
Champagne takes many forms: a sorbet, a granité, and a jelly laced with summer fruit.
All of it is washed down with two fine house wines from an extensive, 300-strong list: the Domaine Ribante (£15), a fresh sauvignon blanc, and a Domaine St Bernard merlot (£15/£4).
After five courses, the variations on rich, pungent Devonshire blue cheese nearly proved too much, but the excellent pastry skills inherent in the sables, gougères and fondant persuaded me to finish it. Almond tart came with ice cream and foam.
So what does his mother think about his success in London now?
Alan smiles. “She’s come to live with it.”
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