Our Catherine heads down to ultra-chic Farm Girl on Notting Hill’s Portobello Road for a gaze into the middle ground between mindfulness and healthy food.
Rating
Cuisine
Holistic, healthy and straightforward food that’s gluten, refined carb / sugar free.
In A Word
Graceful
Appeals to
Health-conscious types who don’t compromise on taste – and need more variety than plain meat and veg.
Trend jumpers and curious foodies with possible/probable Buddhist/Eastern leanings – and some disposable income.
Anyone looking for an idea of what Mindful Chef’s food boxes are like in the hands of a highly capable chef (…try before buy?)
The Ambiance
Despite anyone grumbling to the contrary; first impressions count – and Farm Girl makes one hell of an impression. It’s a small, but perfectly formed space, lit by candles and fairy lights, where baskets of fruit and vegetables adorn shiny tiled walls.
Guests sit at a few small four-person tables and two long sharing tables in an L formation. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the main reason and I love supper clubs so much is you get to talk to variety of different people.
The table decorations are incredibly pretty – glass bottles, moss and roses sit atop Penguin books and are surrounded by a string of blue – tinged fairy lights.
Among the chatting crowd, Mindful Chef founders Myles and Giles mingle, explaining the recipe box firm’s concept – happily answering any questions.
The Food
The boys preach: everything in moderation and portion control. On that vein our welcome drink is a cocktail; The Great British Shake Off – British sloe gin, lemon juice, a lemon twist, rosemary and sparkling wine. The tartness of the lemon lifts the sweetness of the sloe gin.
The menu for the evening showcased twists on dishes from the wide selection that Mindful Chef deliver (note: they deliver the ingredients – you do the cooking).
First up is a Vietnamese pho, served with crispy tofu on a courgetti nest. Good pho should be warming; like a hug from the inside. This does just the trick. The courgetti instead of typical noodles is ingenious – still filling but guilt-free. This is accompanied by 2015 Acustic Blanc Acústic Celler – a wine supposedly with notes of gravel in the taste (!).
Next up is pan-fried monkfish, rainbow of beetroots and herb oil. As a rule, I am not a fan of beets as I find they overpower a dish. The monkfish is a delight, firm-textured and meaty and the subtle herb oil is all the flavour it needed. The highlight of this course is the wine, 2015 Gruner Veltliner Hochterrassen Salomon Undhof, which successfully drowns out the taste of beetroot.
That is followed by hanger steak served with pumpkin puree, baby chard and jus [Ed: …well, there goes the Buddhist pretext]. The meat is cooked to perfection; mildly pink on the inside, and despite not in a million years considering pumpkin as an alternative to sweet potato – I am now a convert. The wine of the evening for me is the 2015 Cotes Du Rhone Rouge La Dame Rousse Domaine de la Mordorée that accompanied this dish. Elements of dark fruits and peppery undernotes delight the palate.
Dessert is cupcakes from Pearl and Groove on Portobello Road which are so decadent and sweet – but amazingly gluten and dairy free. Which in my book means guilt free.
The Verdict
When I think about excluding dairy or gluten I tend to conjure awful mental images of deprivation and austere taste sacrifices. Mindful Chef, through their menu boxes (and book to be published later this month), show you how to ‘do’ healthy eating.
Done right (as it is here), it can be full of flavour, great taste and something you look forward to cooking. No revelations there.
The Details
More details on Mindful Chef and their menu boxes can be found here: https://www.mindfulchef.com/