• Privacy policy
  • T&C’s
  • About Us
    • FAQ
    • Meet the Team
  • Contact us
  • Guest Content
TLE ONLINE SHOP!
  • TLE
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Opinion
  • Elevenses
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • Film
    • Lifestyle
      • Horoscopes
    • Lottery Results
      • Lotto
      • Thunderball
      • Set For Life
      • EuroMillions
  • Food
    • All Food
    • Recipes
  • Property
  • Travel
  • Tech/Auto
  • JOBS
No Result
View All Result
The London Economic
SUPPORT THE LONDON ECONOMIC
NEWSLETTER
  • TLE
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Opinion
  • Elevenses
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • Film
    • Lifestyle
      • Horoscopes
    • Lottery Results
      • Lotto
      • Thunderball
      • Set For Life
      • EuroMillions
  • Food
    • All Food
    • Recipes
  • Property
  • Travel
  • Tech/Auto
  • JOBS
No Result
View All Result
The London Economic
No Result
View All Result
Home Food and Drink

Hate it or love it, dinner at RIGO is a unique experience

RIGO is “a tale of chef Gonzalo Luzarraga’s culinary journey”, avers the restaurant’s website. Discovering the word “journey” on any restaurant menu, I’d generally rather take the direct route from the top of the Eiffel Tower to the ground. Without a parachute. Onto a mattress of those spikes that would always poleaxe Sonic the Hedgehog. […]

Jon Hatchman by Jon Hatchman
2018-03-21 12:46
in Food and Drink, Restaurants
RIGO
FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmailWhatsapp

RIGO is “a tale of chef Gonzalo Luzarraga’s culinary journey”, avers the restaurant’s website. Discovering the word “journey” on any restaurant menu, I’d generally rather take the direct route from the top of the Eiffel Tower to the ground. Without a parachute. Onto a mattress of those spikes that would always poleaxe Sonic the Hedgehog. But that’s not the case with this Parsons Green restaurant.

Piedmontese for ‘journey of rigorous research’, RIGO opened last summer, drawing on Chef Gonzalo’s experience with chefs such as Alain Ducasse and Walter Eynard, plus skills learnt from his Grandfather – making bread and pastry as a child. Unassuming from the street, the restaurant is well lit and modern, in keeping with the food. The Chef Patron is on hand, this evening, and can be seen cooking in the small open kitchen. In addition, General Manager and Head Sommelier Frederico G. Dadone is also here, providing expert pairings to accompany Gonzalo’s tasting menu, with a prominent focus on orange and natural wines. (An a la carte menu is also available). Elsewhere, the service is very polished; generally omnipresent but not asphyxiating.

As for the opinion dividing food served, the cooking at RIGO is splattered with such unequivocal modernism, each dish seems like a work of contemporary art: but without the confounding pomposity. While many chefs attempt and inevitably fail to put their own, successful spin on fine dining, Luzarraga is currently tearing up the rule book – quietly setting the culinary world on fire from his tiny restaurant in west London. Above all, the food served provides concrete evidence that fine dining needn’t be imperiously stuffy, outdated and unexciting. In fact, dinner at RIGO is the most unique I’ve enjoyed in months.

Rigo 'Wild Enoki'

Dinner starts with a round of snacks. Spanish style snail croquettes feature finely-diced flesh that’s pungent with garlic: compacted, breaded and also deep-fried. This is a far cry from the oft grim Anglicised perception of slimy lettuce botherers in crash helmets. A tripe-based snack, also defies convention. Notorious for it’s texture, tripe (like most offal) has an unglamorous reputation in Britain. This particular wedge of stomach lining, however, has been boiled, dried then deep-fried – adapting a crisp texture, similar to honeycomb – but with intense bovine flavour that won’t be found in any of the cow’s prime cuts. Mortadella ‘ice cream’, on the other hand, features compressed pork and is served on an edible cone.

A loaf of sourdough follows, accompanied by butter which harbours the meal’s first use of anchovy. Perhaps needless to say, the brackish thud of finely chopped anchovy works tremendously with the otherwise unbothered whipped butter and warm bread. Next, a spiny sea urchin shell is served on a cradle of salt, concealing the fresh, clean echinoderm and bagna càuda with a whisper of fermented milk which tastes far less offensive than it sounds. One of the best dishes sampled, ‘Wild enoki’ is a risotto, of sorts; but without rice. Instead, dried enoki mushrooms are finely chopped and cooked similarly, harbouring intense flavour impeccably matched with aged Parmigiano and fistfuls of fresh black truffle.

Rigo pork

Another celebration of anchovy, a mound of al dente pasta is aesthetically simple – made with an ancient heritage wheat variety, no less – scattered with anchovy and fermented yeast powder, instantly liquefying on the tongue in place of sauce. Pluma of Cinta senese
(‘Tuscan pig’) is confidently served medium-rare, elegantly plated amongst spears of broccoli, an oyster and daubs of silky parmesan puree. The meal finishes with, perhaps, Gonzalo Luzarraga’s most controversial flavour combination. A bowl of chestnut cream is topped with caramelised and crushed popcorn, like sawdust. These two flavours work in harmony, but I’m not sold on the crowning rocher of porcini mushroom ice cream. Petit fours of black garlic-spiked chocolate truffles dusted with bitter cocoa powder, on the other hand, are a pleasant surprise.

 After dinner, Gonzalo Luzarraga escapes the kitchen and chats about the menu with contagious passion. It’s instantly clear the chef relishes his (mostly) excellent food; and RIGO is all the better for it.

RelatedPosts

M Restaurants put regenerative farming on the map with carbon-neutral beef

Revealed: Top 50 Gastropubs in Britain for 2023

Sour grapes? Gaucho launches new wine series

Searcys celebrates 175th year by serving 175,000 glasses of Champagne

RIGO’ can be found at 277 New King’s Road, London, SW6 4RD.

RELATED

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/food-drink/restaurant-review-the-square-mayfair/29/01/

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/food-drink/review-launceston-place/06/07/

 

Subscribe to our Newsletter

View our  Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions

Trending on TLE

  • All
  • trending
Abdollah

‘Rescue us’: Afghan teacher begs UK to help him escape Taliban

CHOMSKY: “If Corbyn had been elected, Britain would be pursuing a much more sane course”

What If We Got Rid Of Prisons?

More from TLE

Ecommerce; the ticking timebomb

Former homeless person has been crowned London’s top bus driver – because he never stops smiling

Chancellor refuses to confirm if first Budget will adhere to Tory fiscal rules

Wealthy businessman convicted of drunkenly groping a woman on tube to pay £4K compensation

A third of British super-rich are under tax inspection

3 British Golfers to Watch

Climate change increasing risk of simultaneous natural disasters

Film Review: Hearts Beat Loud

EuroMillions Results for Friday 6 January 2023 Tonight’s winning numbers

Coronavirus UK – Idris Elba says he has tested positive for Covid-19

JOBS

FIND MORE JOBS

About Us

TheLondonEconomic.com – Open, accessible and accountable news, sport, culture and lifestyle.

Read more

Contact

Editorial enquiries, please contact: [email protected]

Commercial enquiries, please contact: [email protected]

Address

The London Economic Newspaper Limited t/a TLE
Company number 09221879
International House,
24 Holborn Viaduct,
London EC1A 2BN,
United Kingdom

SUPPORT

We do not charge or put articles behind a paywall. If you can, please show your appreciation for our free content by donating whatever you think is fair to help keep TLE growing and support real, independent, investigative journalism.

DONATE & SUPPORT

© 2019 thelondoneconomic.com - TLE, International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London EC1A 2BN. All Rights Reserved.




No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Entertainment
  • Lifestyle
  • Food
  • Travel
  • JOBS
  • More…
    • Elevenses
    • Opinion
    • Property
    • Tech & Auto
  • About Us
    • Meet the Team
    • Privacy policy
  • Contact us

© 2019 thelondoneconomic.com - TLE, International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London EC1A 2BN. All Rights Reserved.