Girls Dinner @ Cuissons

Underneath Waterloo station in the Vaults are tonnes of happening things, including Cuissons ‘pop down’ in the Kitchen and Gallery, there until January 2016.

Cabbage never looked so good!

The only sign for the way in!

Pop down – literally!

As Citymapper decided the best way to get to the vaults was to teleport through the floor of Waterloo station we ended up a little late for our special lesson with cocktail maker Emilie, but we still had the cocktails…

This was the Tarte Tatin with a spoonful of caramel on the side.

We got a special deal as Nudge members for pre dinner cocktail lesson (which we missed ?), 2 pre dinner cocktails and a special post dinner cocktail, in addition to the standard ticket price including a four course menu.

I took my friend Andrada along to share the experience.

The menu for the evening. The cultured butter was amazing with the fresh bread!

Cuissons is an immersive dining experience – basically this means that the diners can get fully involved in the plating of the food (not the cooking though – we weren’t allowed in the actual kitchen!)

Here’s Andrada helping with the first course of braised cabbage.

A full spectator experience – adding the chorizo

The finished first course – amazing braised cabbage with dehydrated cabbage, chorizo and lemon oil.

This tasted amazing – best cabbage dish I’ve ever had – they braised it in a chicken stock, except for the vegetarian version of course! And all the little extra touches add up to make a flavoursome and substantial dish.

Plating the next course up – starting with lovage purée:

This had cucumbers in with it – vacuum packed with the skins to keep the vibrant green colour.

Blow torching the mackrel to ensure crispy skin!

The final played fish course – with pickled daikon and micro herbs.

The crispy skin worked well against the softer texture of the lovage purée and the various vegetable flavours – pickled and unpickled went well with the mackrel’s more robust flavour.

Half way through the meal – for the meat course there was a lot more prep and items on the plate:

Various veggies, some fresh and some pickled (the fermented veggies – pickles are big here, they make all their own and jars are scattered around the place!) and of course roasties!

The brisket – slow cooked beef with a crust including horseradish.

The brisket was served with a coffee plunger of beef tea – a tasty beef stock that served as a gravy/soup – it was delicious!!

The beef was beautifully cooked – however I wasn’t sure about the fermented veggies – they were better in the beef soup!

Next up was the dessert, a chocolate confection – not quite mousse or cake – with unusual savoury flavours including olive oil and salt….

Plating up chocolate dessert

The dessert finished before we dug in – I found that the savoury flavours added interest to a very rich dessert, they really worked well!

This was our special bonus dessert cocktail – part of my nudge perks! Emilie explained that it was a collaboration between the kitchen and the bar – coconut panacotta with booze soaked fruit and a coffee plunger with alcoholic hot chocolate, including cherry liqueur.