Last Friday I trotted off merrily to Golborne Road to begin my Gastrotour of Portobello. I never ever venture into West London so it felt like an exotic epicurious safari. The Gastrotours are the brainchild of Celia Brooks Brown, a food writer and cook who used to live in the area, and now runs half day tours of all the secret hotspots that you wouldn't know unless you were a local (there are also tours in Marylebone and Borough). Any day that begins with a coffee and a Portuguese custard tart (from the Lisboa Patisserie) is a day that's already started off just fine in my opinion.
The clothes and bric-a-brac market was in half mode when we started.
Garcia's Deli was our first stop-off - it's been in the area 50 years and is run by the grandson of the original owner.
Who knew canned tuna could be so pretty?
Celia holds out a platter of cheeses. I am forced to restrain myself from snarfing the lot.
The jamon iberico (furthest left, out of focus, duh) was insanely good. Fat melting into your mouth, all acorny and delicious.
I took home some of the air-dried tuna (back row, in the middle) and had it with avocado and lemon juice on baguette. Hell yes.
One of Garcia's oh-so-charming workers...
Next door is a cafe where we sampled some gazpacho (cucumbery and slightly sweet, perfect for a summer dinner party)...
...and churros and chocolate, which apparently is a breakfast dish in Spain. I would sugar crash and burn by about 9.10am if that was my breakfast. (Not pictured: samples of tortilla, paella).
Next stop: The Spice Shop. Like being in a souk, all savoury smells and weird gnarly looking things that could blow your head off.
Yes, I sniggered at the packet below.
Moving up the road, we came across flower and vegetable stalls.
And so on to a paired cheese and wine tasting at Jeroboam's in Elgin Crescent. I usually assume wine people are snobby but the chap who served us was lovely, pointing out various ways of tasting the wine and highlighting why they chose the particular cheeses. (Celia's pouring below).
Argentinian Malbec and something nice and crisp from the Languedoc. Both yummy.
Manly cigars for sale.
I'm embarrassed to admit I've completely forgotten this nice chap's name. But he's gone off to work in their Belgrave Square shop, so stop by if you're in that neck of the woods.
Getting into antiques territory now.
And our final stop, at Melt chocolates. They make almost all their truffles, bonbons, and caramels on site. Michael is the chocolatier on duty that day (there are three others) and he demonstrated the tempering process, and we tried all sorts of different origin and cocoa percentage chocolate.
Celia highlighting the deliciousness of everything!
Tempering the chocolate.
The crowd gets restless waiting for a taste.
Cocoa pod and cocoa nibs.
Everyone was terribly accommodating when I asked for portraits. Thanks Michael!
The Melt shop was beautifully laid out, with these gorgeous flowers in full bloom.
The mistress of ceremonies also kindly posed for me. Thanks for a wonderful morning, Celia! I can't recommend the Gastrotour highly enough - mine was a present and I think it was a terrific one.
2 comments:
Oooh, you're very good, Katherine Leedale. And I a not just saying that.
Sounds well cool. Quite a thorough blog that.
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