Anyone with pretensions to being a foodie is into three things right now: seasonal eating, locally grown produce and gardening. So Petersham Nurseries Café in Richmond has truly caught the Zeitgeist. It opened two years ago as a tiny adjunct to the nursery, serving only 15 people at a time.

Now it serves 120 — including the likes of Mick Jagger, Madonna and Ben Goldsmith, the financier and environmentalist — and earlier this year it won the Tatler Restaurant Award for the Most Original Restaurant.

If the restaurant is fashionable, it’s not entirely due to chance. The head chef, Skye Gyngell, is also a food writer for Vogue. Gyngell grew up in Australia, then worked her way around the kitchens of Sydney and Paris before moving to London to work at the French House, followed by the Dorchester with Anton Mosimann.

Her recipes for The Times all include sherry, a hot trend right now. “Sherries have a stronger base than most wines and therefore they form an incredible root combination,” she says.

“They work well in dressings, lamb, beef and pork and in desserts and ice creams. They are so refined. I didn’t understand their beautiful nature. They are sweet to dry to deep.”

Fino is a dry sherry. Pedro Ximenez, Skye’s favourite, is a sweet dessert sherry, rich and full bodied, and oloroso is a medium sherry that has several layers.

Ingredients


Serve with a chilled wine glass of manzanilla or fino.

This idea comes from the pairing of fritto misto and soft polenta seen so frequently in Venice and its surrounding area. White polenta is, in my mind, far superior to the more commonly found yellow polenta. Its flavour is far more complex, yet richer and mellower. The warm sherry butter brings out the flavour of the seafood and polenta together perfectly.

Serves: 4
For the polenta
Half a cup of white polenta
2 cups of water
40g unsalted butter
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
For the sherry butter
2tbsp good quality sherry vinegar
60ml Fino sherry
6 peppercorns
1 shallot, finely minced
A sprig of fresh thyme
175g unsalted butter, cubed and cold
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
For the squid
4 young, tender squid, backbone removed and rinsed under cold running water, pat dry
A little mild olive oil

METHOD

Bring the water to a simmer in a medium-sized, heavy-based saucepan. Stir in the polenta and continue to stir until the water returns to a simmer.

Reduce the heat until the polenta splutters only occasionally. Cook uncovered for 40 minutes, stirring as needed until thickened but still fluid. Stir in the butter and season to taste.

Set aside in a double boiler while you make the butter and grill the squid.

Place the sherry vinegar, sherry, minced shallots, peppercorns and thyme into a smallish saucepan. Place over a medium heat and cook until the sherry liquid has reduced to no more than a tablespoon.

Strain, discarding the peppercorns, shallots and thyme.

Return the strained liquid to the pan and place over a very low heat and whisk in the butter piece by piece. Continue whisking until all the butter has been added and the sauce is smooth and homogenised. Season to taste and set aside while you grill the squid.

If you have a grill in your kitchen, turn it on and allow it to get as hot as possible. If you don’t have a grill, place a non-stick pan over a high heat. Add the olive oil.

Season the squid generously with sea salt and black pepper.

When the oil is smoking, add the squid and cook without turning for 1 minute. Turn and cook for a further minute on the other side. The squid should be golden brown but still very tender.

To serve

Spoon the polenta on to a plate, pile the squid on top and pour over the sherry butter. Serve piping hot!


Petersham Nurseries Café: 020-8605 3627

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