East, west and Australia's best

Good old Aussies. You can always rely on them to shake things up a bit. And chef Christine Manfield is doing just that at East@West. The revamped London restaurant just up from the Ivy is sure to get them talking with its ground-breaking menu (see page 42) and innovative wine list.

Restaurateur Chris Bodker (of Circus, Avenue et al) owns East@West, and Manfield's tenure there is the result of some serious persuasion on his part - she is hot stuff in Oz.

The site never quite worked as West Street, the venture's first incarnation; the bleakly minimalist space didn't help much. But following a gentle makeover that added a few Buddhas and some Thai script, and the introduction of some truly dynamite cooking, Bodker now has somewhere that's worth shouting about.

The food is fusion - "in its true form", says Manfield, who gets inspiration from South-east Asia, China and beyond. Flavours are big, and spicing even bigger - though chillies are handled with expertise.

Manfield is more than just a chef. She's the author of four best-selling cookery books, a broadcaster and lecturer, and a consummate traveller (Cambodia is next on her list). You can add wine enthusiast to that: Manfield always puts her wine lists together herself.

"I look at the whole package. It's about using all your senses," she says. While her wine lists in Australia focused on indigenous labels, in London she is looking across the board.

"I wanted to reflect a global presence, not just Oz," she says. "But I've had to learn a lot fast. I got in loads of wine from all over the world and just sat down and tasted through the lot with the menu."

East@West offers a wine match for each dish. The menu has two set dinners at £32 each - one called Delicious, the other Wicked - each made up of five savoury courses. If you make it to dessert, there's an à la carte list to choose from, with wines to match.

"I've always done that," says Manfield, "and it's particularly important when the food is new and strange. I wanted to get that whole comfort thing going and I want people to understand the whole synergy between food and wine."

The pairings are bold: Domaine de Triennes Viognier is lined up with black pepper chicken tea, watercress and enoki mushrooms; Gary Crittenden "I" Sangiovese is matched with spinach, green chilli and wild mushroom bean skin pastry and sweet chilli sauce; chocolate Jaffa truffle tart and a candied kumquat parfait gets Lustau's San Emilio PX. I told you - exciting stuff.

So what excites her? "After Oz, I'd say Spain. I love Albari¤o and the reds from Ribera del Duero," she declares. Italy and France also appeal. "Big, blowsy Chardonnays just don't go with this food - though younger, fresher Chardonnays work," she adds. "Big Bordeaux doesn't work either - there's just too much tannin. Though that's not to say you can't have some tannin with this food, as long as you use chilli astutely."

Shorts

Thai talking
Wines of Germany challenged Manfield's mate and fellow Aussie David Thompson, at London's Nahm restaurant, to give it his best to see how German wines would fare in a special tasting for sommeliers. The result? What we knew already: German wines make a great partner to spicy, sweet, South-east Asian flavours. Thompson uses wine-challenging ingredients such as palm sugar, ginger, chilli and pickled garlic in abundance, but we found wines from some of Germany's finest producers that not only stood up to these flavours, but enhanced them. Best matches were Satyr Brut sparkling from Weingut Lingenfelder in the Pfalz with the mandarin-dominated ma hor, and 2002 Rüdesheimer Berg Rottland Riesling Erstes Gew„chs, from Weingut Johannishof in the Rheingau, with grilled mallard duck salad and longans. Nahm's sommelier, Troy Sutton, reckons German Riesling and Alsace Gewurztraminer make up a third of all wine sales at the Belgravia restaurant. "Beyond that, diners are totally in my hands," he grins.

Cocktail push
Following a closer look at the cocktail market, S&N Retail has launched a cocktail campaign across 145 of its Pub Business units nationwide that saw a 33% leap in cocktail sales in just three months. Says Pub Business managing director Steve Richards: "Close monitoring of the market has shown that there is a niche that really needs exploiting." Cue a range of new cocktail menus that are, in his words, "cheeky, sexy and raunchy", with five levels of menu depending on each pub's cocktail-shaking experience, plus a training scheme for staff to learn how to make them properly, run in conjunction with booze educators Flavour. Just how Tom Cruise will it all get? "It includes tips from how to flame and flick bottles to how to put a cocktail station together," says Richards.