London & Madrid Food Adventures: Coque, Kol and Muse by Tom Aikens

On my recent trip, I tried some great new restaurants, and here are the highlights of three tasting menus that I really enjoyed, Coque in Madrid and Kol & Muse in London

Coque: I had a fabulous time at this restaurant. Run by three brothers (one is the chef, the other somm and the other takes care of front of house), I love how you travel around the restaurant, which is beautiful, as you eat, so it becomes not only a delicious food experience but also a quite immersive one. Here’s what we ate:

Cocktail Room
- Galician oyster with jalapeño essence and frozen pearls of Bloody Mary
- Corn and black sesame crystal with chickpea miso, avocado and foie gras flakes

Onix
- Marrow of cured Iberian Ham with sea urchin and Osetra Caviar
- Geleé of 5 Jotas Acorn-fed Iberian Ham cane

Wine Cellar
- Red wine polyphenol macaroon with fermented garlic and Torta del Casar (these macaroons might have been one of the best of the night)
- Pedro Ximénez grape, crisp, liquid and acidulous

Sacristy
- Psyllium leaf with wild bull steak tartar in old mustard sauce
- Sausage of wild bull with oak wood smoked butter

Kitchen
- Pickled rock mussel with rambutan, pecan nut and freeze-dried tomato peel
- Iberian pork pluma in blond paprika marinade with sherry vinegar

Lab
- Home-smoked wild salmon with Jaral de la Mira herbs
- Salted wild sea bass with aromatic herbs from our Agrolab

Dining Room

Translucent pink tomato gazpacho with mint foam Roasted basil and spice infused Moorish cherry tomatoes
Iced pistachio blossom, olive gazpachuelo from Campo Real Osetra caviar with pistachio foam and craft beer Alhambra Rose Petals – this was not only gorgeous but absolutely delicious, one of the top three of the night
Pea fibre pods from our Agrolab with mole verde poblano Velouté of pea with onion and alder blossom – another beautiful and delicious bite

Quisquilla de motril with spicy corn ice cream, white coconut garlic and green curry slush with lime gel and freeze-dried maize – this might have been my favorite of the night
Pedrosillano green chickpeas with pesto, Ultzama sheep’s milk flower veil, Parmesan whey and basil pearls
Blue crab with king crab txaka and sea urchin coral air Spicy habanero chilli americana, shallot with crispy celery and jalapeño

Honey-roasted walnut tart, cauliflower cous cous, cured egg yolk with ponzu Aubergine sauerkraut with salted mackerel, toasted pine nuts and sherry pearls
All i pebre of eel from our Valencian Albufera, port of Catarroja, with Iberian bacon, seaweed paper and smoked eel sorbet
Juicy suckling pig with crispy skin, crackling with Sichuan pepper and molasses sauce. Saam of trotter with lemon grass and sour fruit – the only negative thing i might have to say about this restaurant, is that there is so much food, by the time we got to the cochinillo we were stuffed and probably did not savour it as much as we should have

Beetroot crystal with blood orange sorbet and yoghurt foam Tuber Melanosporum ice cream, rosemary caramel and pecan nut
Smoked sheep’s milk with flambéed blueberries
Sweet carousel of petit fours – we got to go to the new store for the petit fours to complete the whole tour!

One of the best parts of the meal was getting the honor to taste this insane amazing port

Kol – Kol is a mexican restaurant using British ingredients. If that sounds weird you are correct, it was weird but it was also kind of cool and inventive, and I had a really good time with it. Here’s what I ate:

Small plates – these were probably the highlight of the day for me
- Lemon bam aguachile, sea arrowglass, scotch bonnet
- Wild bass caemila, blue corn, magnolia
- Blue mussel oblea, new potato, wild garlic

JERICALLA – Meadosweet, chioggia beetroot, caviar

NICOATOLE – corn custards, broad beans, geranium, green strawberries
TACO – langoustine, smoked chilli, sea buckthorn – such a great way to serve langoustine, highlight of the meal

CEVICHE scallop sweet cicely, larch roe – i enjoyed the liquid nitrogen effect

TETELA – portwood asparagus, mushroom, quail egg, courgette, green mole – this should not work but it does perfectly

ZACAHUIL – chalk stream trout, hemp, nasturtium, kelp- This might have been my second least favorite dish. IT was good but a bit too heavy and too bland at the same time

CARNITAS – confit potato cheek, cabbage, sungold tomato salsa – i loved the concept of this. I did not love the execution. As not a huge pork eater, I like my carnitas, shredded and melt i your mouth. These were knife cut and full of fat and just not my taste.

NIEVE- jalapeno, sorrel,mezcal – the perfect palate cleanser

TAMAL – brown butter corn steamed cake, buttermilk, strawberries – I love that tamal is translated in the menu as corn steamed cake – its a fabulous name for one of my favorite foods and here it does not disappoint. It’s more envuelto than tamal here, but still delicious.

Muse by Tom Aikens The last tasting meal spot to share. I love the decor of the place and the inventiveness of the presentation, the menu presentation was so cute. In general the food was good and I really enjoyed it, just not memorable. We liked it all but nothing that we would remember days later. For this type of food I would go back to Clove Club and Lyle’s way before coming back here. My favorite part was the really good gluten free bread I got. Here’s what we ate: