There is a slight bustle within the cream-and-gilt eating room at Raffles, Mauro Colagreco’s London restaurant, as I settle in to benefit from the five-course menu. Glasses of one thing that appears like champagne bubble gently on the tables, however what I’m consuming will not give me a headache. Colagreco is the newest chef within the capital who has determined to supply a “sober” or “non-alcoholic” wine pairing.
“Non-alcoholic pairing is one thing we have drawn consideration to within the 4 months we have been open,” sommelier Vincenzo Arnese tells me as I sip Thomson & Scott’s dealcoholized glowing chardonnay. The development in direction of not consuming alcohol is gaining momentum. Participation in “dry January” continues to extend. This 12 months, within the United States, 21% of folks took half, whereas within the United Kingdom extra folks took half than within the final 10 years mixed. And it isn’t simply in January. Generation Z is popping its again on alcohol and youthful individuals are extra doubtless to not drink.
Arnese tells me that their non-alcoholic pairing is vegan, gluten-free, and alcohol-free, somewhat than simply low-alcohol. And to design it he threw the rules out the window.
I strive a “lettuce”, Colagreco’s signature dish (with cockle sauce and vermouth). If you go for the wine pairing, it’s accompanied with vermouth, however within the case of the sober menu, it comes with a Seedlip Garden 108 gin cocktail infused with peas and mint, paired with non-alcoholic vermouth, infused with marine succulents and seasoned with lovage oil.
To accompany the chocolate and burnt rosemary ice cream for dessert, there’s a cocktail made with Crossip, a non-alcoholic various to whiskey. “Sometimes we’re impressed by the dish; If there’s a star ingredient, we spotlight it. Other dishes are mixed with drinks,” says Arnese.
At Michelin-starred restaurant Sollip in London Bridge, basic supervisor Vita Gargiulo says non-alcoholic pairings have been simply as well-liked as wine pairings, break up 50/50. Here, all non-alcoholic pairing drinks are made in-house. “Everything could be very very artistic. There is at all times a tough ingredient, however you must attempt to make it match, like a puzzle.” Gargiulo factors out that with wine there are established guidelines and with non-alcoholic pairing it’s the similar concept. “You need the drink to pair properly with the meals, however you should utilize virtually something within the kitchen.”
A starter of noodles with squid is accompanied by candy pear juice, with a contact of fermented pear. Creating a non-alcoholic pairing is extra laborious than uncorking a bottle of wine, Gargiulo says. “We thought our mullet dish would pair properly with a Tom Collins cocktail, so as an alternative of gin, we used juniper berries infused for 3 days; “The kitchen makes cranberry syrup and we combine it right into a cocktail.”
Sober pairing is often cheaper than with wine. At the Colagreco restaurant it prices 70 euros, in comparison with the 146 it prices with wine. Other London eating places providing non-alcoholic pairings embrace Da Terra, The Water House Project and La Dame de Pic. The institutions affirm that it’s not solely teetotalers who select sobriety. It all has to do with the tendency to cut back. “Six completely different glasses of wine with one meal is an excessive amount of,” says Gargiulo. “If there are two folks, they’ll select one of every and examine; It’s all half of the enjoyable.”
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