Pictures: The Providores and Tapa Room in London. Peter Gordon (right) and Michael McGrath (left) with Christian G.E.SchillerMy daughter Cornelia Schiller Tremann graduated from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London with a PhD in late 2013. The annual graduation ceremony took place in July 2014. My wife Annette and I accompanied Cornelia and her husband Chris to London for the graduation ceremony. We celebrated the event at Peter Gordon’s Providores restaurant with a fabulous menu and wines from Framingham.
The Providores and Tapa Room is a top-notch restaurant and a wine bar, run by New Zealand’s star chef Peter Gordon and business partner Michael McGrath. The wine list is large and the wines are exclusively from New Zealand.
I picked The Providores for a number of reasons: I had been to the Tapa Room a couple of times, but never eaten upstairs at The Providores restaurant. Before moving to the London School of Economics and then to SOAS in London, Cornelia lived for 3 years in the greater New Zealand area, i.e. in Brisbane in Australia. The Providores and Tapa Room is located in Maryleborne (109 Maryleborne High Street), which is a very interesting area. For example, one of the new and hip 28-50 winebars is just around the corner.
See.
New Zealand Wine El Dorado in London: The Providores and Tapa Room
Wine Bars in London: Vats Wine Bar, the Cork and Bottle, the Providores and Tapa Room
The Place
The Providores and Tapa Room is a hip place divided into a restaurant (upstairs) and a wine bar (downstairs). Plus, there are a few tables on the sidewalk of Marylebone High Street.
Downstairs is the buzzing Tapa Room, with a large communal table. Breakfast is very popular here, in addition to the selection of excellent tapas. A long classic wood high counter table stands in the center of the Tapa Room. So, lots of chatting with people you don't know. Einstein-esque orange light bulbs hang from the ceiling. And an enormous Rarotongan Tapa, or ceremonial cloth from the South Seas, is covering one wall, hence Tapa Room. Tapa cloth can be found throughout the Pacific and is used either as a decorative piece, as a ceremonial floor covering at feasts, or in some cases as fabric for clothing.
Upstairs is the serene Providores, a classic dining room, where you order fixed-price menus.
Chef Peter Gordon
Gordon is of Maori descent and born in the coastal town of Wanganui, New Zealand. He moved to Melbourne, Australia, in 1981 where he worked for five years before travelling through Asia for a year, and then returned to Wellington, New Zealand. He is now based in the UK and New Zealand. In 2005, he was ranked as one of Britain's 100 most influential gay and lesbian people.
Peter Gordon: I love to cook creatively, and my excitement about new flavors and textures from all around the world defines that I create fusion cuisine. If you've visited any of my restaurants - The Providores and Tapa Room or Kopapa in London, or The Sugar Club, Bellota or dine by Peter Gordon* in Auckland - you'll already know something about fusion. But if not, you can get a primer in the Fusion section, or take a look at the Food page. I'm based in the UK and New Zealand, and I travel a lot, so I mean it when I say that the global pantry is my inspiration.
The Wines
The wine list is almost entirely from New Zealand and has well-chosen growers. If you do not like New World wines, do not go there. But if you are open to the wonders of the New World, your will find them there, right in the center of London. If you do not like wines from New Zealand, stay away. But if you like them, this is the place to go. I have never seen such a broad and deep selection of excellent wines from New Zealand outside of New Zealand. Naturally, the focus is on Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc.
In terms of wine by the bottle, there are about 100 wines on the list, with a sentence or so of explanation. The bottles are in the BP 30 to 40 range with some wines going for BP 20 and some for up to BP 60.
The Dinner
You could choose from a menu with about a dozen courses plus desserts. We went for the 4 courses option at BP 57. Here is what we picked.
The Framingham Wines
For the wines, we chose 2 wines from Framingham, a Riesling and a Pinot Noir. Annette Schiller and I had just met the cult winemaker Andrew Hedley of Framingham at the 2. International Riesling Symposium in Germany.
See:
Wines and Winemakers from Australia and New Zealand at the 2nd International Riesling Symposium, Rheingau, Germany
Framingham was founded in 1994; it is owned by Sogrape Vinhos. Annual production is 26000 cases. Riesling accounts for 8% and Sauvignon Blanc for 75%. Andrew Hedley, who overcame throat cancer, is the head winemaker.
The Providores and Tapa Room, 109 Maryleborne High Street, London, W1U 4RX
www.theprovidores.co.uk
www.peter-gordon.net
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