Scott's
Head chef Michael McEnearney is conducting a quiet revolution at Scott's restaurant in London's Mayfair. The Australian-born former executive chef at Pharmacy has been shaking up the traditional menu at the 152-year-old restaurant since he arrived 18 months ago, reinterpreting the classics, bringing in new tastes and flavours and attracting a new type of customer.
But it's a slow evolutionary process, he explains. "I've been here for a while now, but it's only recently that we've had success," he says. "The menu when I got here was just about old food, and we needed to serve up some old and new dishes to be successful. It's good for the customers, for the staff and the brigade.
"We're making the menu appeal to a broader range of people and trying to educate them at the same time. We're not just doing the old traditionals like fillet of sole Murat, which has been on the menu since the thirties, but are adapting them while introducing new dishes."
It's all part of the Scott's makeover since owner Brian Clivaz, of the private members' club Home House fame, bought the restaurant from Groupe Chez Gérard in 2002. A refurbishment was followed by the recruitment of McEnearney, whose early culinary years were spent at Sydney's renowned Rockpool restaurant before he came to the UK in 1996.
The old favourites are still there for the diehards, of course. Scott's famous fish pie remains untouched, along with oysters from the Duchy of Cornwall, Loch Ryan, West Mersea and Strangford, lobster and young elvers, sold for only a few weeks of the year in April.
The restaurant's eels, however, often regarded as the best in London, have been reinvented. Classically, eels are served in a knot, but McEnearney's version is in terrine form. It's made with layers of smoked eel, grated horseradish, soya beans, grilled red pepper and baby beets and wrapped in leeks.
"I deconstructed the traditional dish and gave it back in a different way," McEnearney explains. "I don't try to complicate a dish, so what I put into it I believed complemented the eel."
By far the most complicated dish on the menu, according to the chef, is the dressed crab starter, based on the classic dressed crab dish but adapted to add some "oomph". There are three versions of dressed crab on the plate, to be eaten in order. The first is made Thai style, with a green mango and papaya salad and a chilli lime dressing and cooked with a braised pork and caramel sauce. The second is a trifle of jelly of tomato consome with avocado mousse with crab, crème fraîche and chives. The final version is a crab tart, in a vermouth cream reduction, hollandaise sauce and puff pastry.
There are Asian influences throughout Scott's menu. The steamed cockles are cooked Japanese style with black bean sauce, Korean bean paste and black bean paste, sake, mirin, and distilled wine vinegar. They are accompanied by red peppers, ginger and shallots, coriander and spring onions. New dishes also include Oriental mushrooms, which are marinated local mushrooms served with a salad of daikon, tahoon, sishu and affila cress and while truffle oil.
Another new entry on the starter menu is the venison carpaccio - a favourite of McEnearney's. "It's so rare to see something this raw in a classic English restaurant," he laughs. "To think the old duffers would eat that would be unheard-of a few years ago."
New main courses include red curry of mallard with quince. The duck is pan-fried, then confited and served with a slice of quince, in season at the moment. "I soak it for six hours to bring out the colour and pectin. Then it can take the spice," McEnearney says.
Fillet of beef with Stilton and ginger also receives an Eastern influence. The sauce that accompanies the beef and braised celery hearts is made from ginger, stock, miso paste and mirin.
John Dory, on the other hand, gets an Indian touch - pan-fried, then wrapped in thin wholemeal pastry, served with lentil dahl, spinach and yogurt.
"If you think of English food, there's been an influx of cultures over the last decade," McEnearney says of his choices. "It would be a mistake not to represent those on the menu and we're making the menu applicable to everyone."
Not that the traditionalists should feel neglected. Sole Murat is still on the menu, although tweaked to include globe artichoke and diced potato cooked with pan-fried tomatoes in a tomato sauce.
Scott's Restaurant, 20 Mount Street, London W1K 2HE, Tel: 020 7629 5248, e-mail: bc@scottsrestaurant.co.uk
what's on the menu
Jerusalem artichoke soup with white truffle, £8.50
Baked scallops with garlic, dry-cured bacon and thyme, £17.50
Twice-baked goats' cheese souffl‚ with rosemary, £9.50
Roast halibut with chicory and swede, £19.50
Scott's famous fish pie, £15
Lobster steamed with a tamarind broth, £35
Apple tart and vanilla ice-cream, £6.50
Scott's famous lemon tart, £6.50
Grand Marnier and blood pudding souffl‚, £9.50
