Here’s a question for food academics. Why does food taste better in the colder months? Perhaps it’s nothing to do with the technology of cooking, but more the feeling you get from that back-to-the womb warmth in a welcoming dining room or the kick to the senses that lightens the miasma of a dark winter day.
So last February 2010 – purely for research reasons, you understand – I took myself off to the famously foodie island of Jersey. Its restaurants offer both quality and eclecticism. Dipping into the island’s culinary scene on a winter foray, my taste buds savoured everything from Indian fusion dishes from a classically trained French chef to a Polish cook bringing delicious global style to a great little café-beside-the-sea, all underpinned by some of the finest local produce I’ve come across.
I start at Saffron’s restaurant, overlooking St Helier from its first floor eyrie at the swish Hotel de France. There‘s an air of relaxed cosmopolitanism from the moment I walk into the wood-panelled bar, grab a slouchable chair and order up a fine amontillado sherry to go with the nutty nibbles while dipping into the menu. The theme is intriguing, spicy exoticism. Quail eggs pakora with lotus wafers perhaps, or Jersey lobsters cooked in different Kerala styles – sautéed with peppercorns, fried with chilli-flavoured fennel. Even the legendary Jersey Royals come glammed up with cumin and garlic ghee.
Unlike some chefs who take a fusion route, Philippe Maratier has the skill to pull it off. After training in France and earning his stripes at a Michelin-starred restaurant in Geneva, he arrived in Jersey in 1985, working for five years at the highly-rated Pomme d’Or before moving to his present kitchen.
Saffron’s dining room mutes formality with calm pale décor and tall white-shuttered windows. It’s a cool, classical space that contrast with some of the startling flavours served within – I adore an amuse bouche featuring tiny spoons of a delicious 12-spice powder creation with a gorgeous array of hot, sour and piquant notes, though I’m less sure of the pairing of cumin and oyster. But my main course of sesame seeded monkfish with veal ravioli disappears quickly off the plate.
‘Combining the skills of a classic French chef with Indian spicing creates something that is quite unique,’ says Phillippe as we chat after dinner. His bedrock, though, is local through and through.
Phillippe is a big fan of the local Jersey larder. Lobster and sea bass are year-round favourites, but like all good restaurants there’s also a strong seasonality to Saffron’s menu. ‘In winter, we have local turbot, bream and skate,’ he enthuses. But he also reveals less well-known Jersey temptations such as oyster and shitake mushrooms, plus zingy fresh herbs for the micro salad accompaniments to many of his dishes.
While Jersey produce has always been good, the island’s restaurant scene has changed, believes Phillippe. ‘People have become very aware not only of local provenance but also of high-profile island chefs like Shaun Rankin (at St Helier’s Michelin-starred Bohemia, a Maratier favourite on a night off).’ He also highlights diversity as a Jersey hallmark. ‘There are so many different influences – French, English, Portuguese.’
The last is embodied by Jose Fernandez, part of the island’s large Madeiran community, who chefs at The Trinity Arms, a cosy country inn tucked away in stone-walled lanes near Durrell Wildlife. Winter sunlight pours across my table in an inn that has it all: crackling logs in a stone fireplace, wood beams and a splash of fresh flowers. The adjacent bar area is equally complete in that reassuring, old-fashioned way, with its dark wood panels and vintage pub pursuits like darts and bar billiards.
Fernandez’s food, like the dining room, has a pleasing simplicity that clearly hits the mark, evidenced by full tables for a weekday winter lunch. A trio of meaty daily ‘Winterwarmer’ specials certainly suit a day that, despite the sunshine, still has some seasonal chill, and I opt for a huge serving of beautifully cooked grilled lamb chops with mint and onion gravy plus buttery Jersey Royals (what else?) – all for the price of a starter at one of the island‘s fancier spots.
Afterwards, I chat to Fernandez over a pint of lip-smacking Jersey Liberation Ale. A Jersey resident since 1993, he explains how he learned to cook at an early age, helping his mother with her work as a wedding caterer in Madeira before moving onto professional kitchens straight from school. Like every chef I meet, he too sings the praises of Jersey’s natural larder.
‘Even the beef in the burgers is Jersey beef,’ says Fernandez, impressively timing his words to coincide with the appearance of a quartet of fine-looking cows in the lush field beside the inn. He reels off other island favourites that end up as daily specials. ‘Scallops, sea bass and bream, veg from local farms, Jersey Black Butter, even mustards and pickles made here.’
Possibly the finest concentration of restaurants on Jersey happily occurs on the quayside of the picturesque harbour village of Gorey. The pier, overlooked by magnificent medieval Mont Orgueil Castle, is lined with pastel-hued period properties, pretty much all of which house enticing restaurants.
Luckily, I don’t have to agonise as I’ve been booked in for dinner at the aptly named Feast. I‘m soon ensconced in a buzzing dining room full of quirky touches from giant olive tin lampshades to artfully mismatched furniture. It’s all overseen with warm antipodean charm by New Zealander Annie Fenwick, who describes the operation as being about ‘unfussy food with great ingredients’.
Kicking off with a delicious starter of scallops paired with black pudding and pancetta, I stick to the marine theme with one of the day’s specials, pan-fried sea bass perched on top of a Jersey crab and prawn risotto. It is, as Annie says, unfussy – but it’s also very good.
Too full for dessert, I dive instead into the kitchen to meet chef Garth Marston – a chance to add South Africa to my international brigade of Jersey chefs. Despite the charms of his homeland, Garth has clearly fallen for Jersey, cooking here for the past nine years, the last two at Feast.
Garth’s liking for international flavours doesn’t blind him to the traditional classics. ‘Last night we had a French theme with cassoulet as a special,’ he says, ‘but I also like to mix in Asian and Italian influences.’ Again, seasonal Jersey produce is his bedrock. ‘We’ve had lovely pumpkins this winter, so I’ve used them roasted and for a lot of soups’ says Garth. ‘Crab and lobster have also been superb this season.’
Despite all the winter wonders being unveiled by these chefs, it’s hard to believe they’ve got the season right the next day as I head for my final pit stop on St Brelade’s Bay. The sunshine has me down to shirtsleeves, while the view has me grinning at an arc of wide golden sand rimmed by green-clad hills. And in pole position is Wayside Café.
It’s a perfect flip-side to the more upmarket historic quay-and castle charms I‘ve just enjoyed at Gorey – a beach café yes, but one with panache, from pastel walls and huge windows framing fabulous sea views to a menu that jumps intriguingly around the globe in consort with the world music playing in the background.
Is it to be seafood miso soup, Moroccan lamb, or saffron, chorizo and spinach risotto? In the end, I keep it simple with a starter of Jersey scallops perfectly seared and served with an exemplary sauce vierge, followed by beautifully cooked tuna fillet with Jersey Royals and a delicious caper-scattered salad.
The portions are so vast I have to wave the white napkin in surrender – a darn shame especially when I discover the chef has been mentioned in Michelin dispatches before coming here. But Martin Czechowski, one of Jersey’s growing number of Poles, sees nothing unusual in bringing top-class cooking to a beach café, echoing Cornish cousins such as St Ives’s Porthminster Café or Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen at Watergate Bay.
Though the international flavours on his menu reflect Martin’s belief that ‘food is like a journey’, he acknowledges that the waves of people pouring in throughout the day expect to see Jersey produce to the fore, from hot dishes to the café’s fabulous homemade cakes made exclusively with Jersey dairy produce. ‘Local people know what goes on their plate,’ says Martin simply.
It’s a view reinforced by my cabbie as I head for the airport at the end of my Jersey culinary odyssey. ‘It’s a small island,’ he says. ‘If somewhere isn’t up to standard word gets around very quickly.’ Like the word, I’ve been around very quickly too, but without the faintest trace of indigestion.
And, yes, after cosying up to the island’s food scene, I do reckon that everything tastes better in winter. But don’t ask me why. More research is required, methinks.