How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Arroz Bomba

A week away in Summer Scotland. A restorative trip of exhilarating scenery, fresh seafood, cagoules, fine whisky, Irn Bru, Tennants, haggis and halcyon Highland hospitality. Back in the Big Smoke & ready for a big toke of new dishes, old wines and silly jokes. We welcome you to the weekend and the Quality Wines newsletter.

A fine choice of meze to start the week: fava from the foothills of Mount Kyllini, imbued with its volcanic minerality, is blitzed & peppery with EVO, a classic melitzansalata finished with feta & sumac and, a ripe watermelon salad to go with your clip on cloth, taverna kitty, Auntie Katarina & litre of retsina.

Indulgent egg yolk tagliatelle is ensconced in girolles & courgette flowers cooked in butter and doused in Parmesan. Decadence, thy name is dairy.

An arroz bomba of Alicante is powered with prawn stock, paprika & saffron, finished with a pokey allioli. A selection of king prawns, mussels & cod cheeks all thrown in for good measure, a big Balearic bruise up.

Rabbit legs are marinated in cumin, bay, thyme & paprika and roasted. A sauce of the juices is thickened with the beast’s liver with red waxy potatoes cooked in amongst it. There’s more than one way to cook a Coney. A rather fine fino en rama & a out of this world oloroso work a treat, do ask.

SET LUNCH £29 for 2 COURSES or £35 for 3 COURSES.

From the seller a brace of Tempier with some age stick their necks above the parapet, an under flor oxidative Austrian oddity, 3 bottles of Chateau Clous Eau, a raft of lambrusco, a rare oeil de panthère and a glut of new champagne hit the list, it’s the perfect time to get pissed.

‘The same boiling water that softens the potato hardens the egg’

See you all soon.

Marcos, Nick & the Team.