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Archive for April, 2010

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House of Faith

Friday, April 30th, 2010

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Quintessentially Music teamed up with CAA (Creative Artists Agency) and Quintessentially Soho at the House of the St Barnabas, to showcase an intimate, one-night-only acoustic gig with British singer-songwriter-starlet, Paloma Faith.

A mixture of music industry figures, Quintessentially Members and competition winners, made up the 85 attendees on this wonderful summer evening. We were welcomed with champagne and canapés in the chic Garden Room before heading next door to Paloma’s 8.15pm performance in The Chapel.

Accompanied by a pianist, guitarist and a backing singer, Paloma performed an amazing selection of six stripped-back hits which included ‘Upside Down’, ‘New York’ and ‘Stone Cold Sober’. But it was her stand-out rendition of ‘Sexy Bitch’ that really showcased her vocal and artistic prowess.

Paloma looked her usual stunning self in a stand-out, broad-brimmed hat and black & white dress; performing with consummate ease and flawless vocals, absorbing the audience with her engaging and bubbly personality in between tracks. Stunningly lit and with exceptional acoustics, The House of St Barnabas Chapel provided an incredible backdrop for this intimate set.

Elliott Rampley & James Bath

To be kept aware of future Quintessentially Music events please email elliott@quintessentiallymusic.com with contact details and any particular artists of interest.

To learn more about Quintessentially Music, please visit quintessentiallymusic.com

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Living the dream at the Monaco Grand Prix

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

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Monaco has long been regarded as a playground of the rich and famous, a special place where glamour and super-charged thrills meet head on. Boasting princes and princesses, rock legends and movies stars, sporting heroes and business tycoons, Monte Carlo is the beating heart of the Riviera Principality.

The Monaco Grand Prix, a premier highlight of Europe’s social calendar, is fast approaching and attracting in its wake the finest yachts, fastest cars and the glitziest of celebrities, all eager to be part of the extraordinary atmosphere. The roar of F1 engines; the lavish parties that go on until dawn; the luxury and splendour of the world’s finest hotels – who could resist the spell of Monte Carlo?

Rising above the dazzlings lights and sweet noise of the promenade stands the elegant and chic Hotel Metropole. This beautiful setting welcomes the most prestigious of Monaco’s guests; the hotel’s opulent atrium with its elegant glass dome sets the tone and each suite has been perfectly redesigned to retain its traditional feel with an added touch of the modern. For the ultimate racing weekend, go for the Azur suite; here, hedonistic bliss awaits, and you will also be at pole position for spectacular views of the race, the suite being located right above the Grand Prix circuit!

You might also want to sample some of the stunning fare. The Yoshi Restaurant was recently awarded its first star in France’s coveted 2010 Michelin Guide and offers an exquisite blend of classic and innovative dishes enhanced by nuanced flavours and fresh produce from Japan.

Without question, the ambience and contemporary feel of the ethereal Hotel Metropole make for the most unforgettable and scintillating F1 experience – an experience you just can’t afford to miss.

For more information, please see www.metropole.com.

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Keeping It Real

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

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The Old Vic’s new production of Tom Stoppard’s play The Real Thing is the first major revival since Stephen Dillane and Jennifer Ehle played the playwright Henry and his actress wife Annie at the Donmar in 1999. Rather than Ehle, we have Hattie Morahan and Toby Stephens replaces Dillane. Both are very good.

The play has sensibly not been updated from its 1982 original setting (though apparently a discussion about VCRs has been deleted), and the central themes of how a brilliant, witty and charming man can still find himself having to grow up from his literary Peter Pan existence and confront the realities of life and love still resonate as truly as they did in earlier productions.

Annie Mackmin’s fluent, lively and often hilarious staging does an exemplary job of bringing out the elements which many other productions might ignore, such as the meta-theatricality of the whole conceit – the play begins in media res with a hugely mannered extract from Henry’s latest, House Of Cards, and continues with extracts from ‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore, which Annie is appearing in, and even rehearsals of the dire agitprop play by a left-wing former soldier, Brodie, that she champions and that Henry is dragged into rewriting.

There’s also a beautiful counterpoint to the comedy in the sense that virtually all of the characters – including Henry’s first wife Charlotte, splendidly played by Fenella Woolgar, and his daughter – find themselves abandoned and alone at some point. It’s a fascinating conceptual reading of the play, which, without making it sound unduly ‘difficult’, closely unifies it with Stoppard’s lifelong interest in language, games-playing and dramatic inversion.

This is a thoroughly compelling and intellectually satisfying reading of the play that foregrounds both the wit and the poignancy, with a more bittersweet account of the ending than I’d ever imagined from the text, or from other productions. The Monkees’ ‘I’m A Believer’ might be on the soundtrack, but what Henry and Annie presume is open for debate.

For more information, please go to www.oldvictheatre.com.

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Taking the bull by the horns

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

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Last night I found myself dining out in Chelsea’s Cambio de Tercio. I’d been to the restaurant as a child and the memory of that salty jamon iberico had lingered many a year later, so it was with great delight that I revisited London’s most successful Iberican restaurant.

And I wasn’t disappointed. The fare was the tastiest and most memorable I’ve had in several years, paying homage to traditional Spanish methods with nods to that most tantalising of culinary techniques; molecular gastronomy. We started with a dainty portion of delicately spiced salmon tartar topped with a tiny portion of smoked ice cream! When the two combine, the authentic flavour of smoked salmon is the final result – and ludicrously tasty at that. Paying homage to the more conventional Spanish menu, we were then presented with patatas bravas and jamon croquettes, both of which melted in the mouth and were just the right size to excite the appetite for the following guinea fowl and monkfish courses.  We finished with a white chocolate mousse with passion fruit and home made petit-fours.

I insist that proprietor, Abel Lusa, join us for pudding. Complementing him on a menu perfectly balanced between tradition and creative flair, he tells me that one in ten customers turn their nose up at the smoked salmon. “It’s too much for them”, he says, “but I would rather risk it for the sake of that remaining nine. There’s no fun in going to a restaurant and paying to have the same old steak and chips every time.”

Whether it was the wine, or the familial atmosphere, I found myself kissing the owner on both cheeks as we left.

For more information, please visit www.cambiodetercio.co.uk.

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Upper Crust

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

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Up and coming playwright Laura Wade’s latest work, Posh, caused a stir (and a run at the box office) before its first performance due to advance word that it would be a comprehensive demolition job on the ‘new’ Conservative Party, particularly their ever-controversial involvement with Oxford’s notorious Bullingdon Club. This is partially true, but the play is more complex and nuanced than that.

Set mainly in a rural gastropub in Oxfordshire, the action revolves around a group of ten young men who make up the Bullingdon-esque Riot Club. Their dinners revolve around copious quantities of food and booze, followed by a ritual trashing, and then decamping to a club to get royally ‘chateau’d’. Unfortunately, this time round, there is more at stake. Members of the club (including Harry Haden-Paton’s smooth aristo Harry, David Dawson’s suave gay intellectual and Leo Bill’s aggressively nasty class warrior) are not only fighting amongst themselves, but are starting to feel threatened by the way in which there doesn’t seem to be any place for them in modern society. Tensions will build, involving the gastropub’s owner Chris (Daniel Ryan) and his daughter Rachel (Fiona Button), and nobody will leave innocent.

How you respond to the play will depend on many things, but Wade has absolutely nailed the demotic of the upper-class argot, and allows the characters to be witty and intelligent as well as thuggish and repulsive. Especially in the first half, there are many properly good laughs, both with and at the characters.

The performances are all excellent, with Bill, Hadden-Paton and Dawson the stand-outs – on stage for nearly all the play and interacting with zeal and brio – but everyone is good, with Ryan, as the put-upon pub landlord, grounding the antics in recognisable humanity. Lyndsey Turner’s staging touches are at once brilliantly inspired and baffling – the barbershop quartet renditions of R ‘n’B hits over scene changes, for instance. But it’s a clear and fluid production, and mostly gripping throughout. It’s probably 20 minutes too long, but this is still another Royal Court triumph, and, in the midst of the most socially divisive election for 50 years, all too timely.

Until 22 May. Royal Court, Sloane Square SW1. www.royalcourttheatre.com

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The Darker Side Of Chocolate

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

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If ever there was anyone deserving of the title ‘diamond in the rough’, it is surely William Curley. The Chocolatier’s Chelsea store has all the touches of a long-established heritage business so it is with great surprise that I am met by a young Scot, raised near Fife, whose path into the industry was formed by his reluctance to take up woodwork at his technical college, instead choosing to study cookery.

As I arrive to meet Curley, I notice I’m not the only one seeking to steal a few minutes of his time. Two photographers linger around the shop waiting to start a shoot, and I have the time to take in the vast selection of chocolates available. Whilst the store also serves as a patisserie and ice-cream parlour, the chocolates steal the show. But forget sugar and spice and all things nice; these are unmistakeably grown-up treats for true connoisseurs.

The majority are dark with flavours even I haven’t heard of before, and I’ve had my fair share of chocolate over the years. There’s a tremendous Japanese influence, with flavours including saki and apricot and wasabi, and Curley confesses that in the rare occasions that he can be dragged away from the store, he travels to Japan, the home of his wife, Suzue, and a land of culinary concoctions to inspire his palatte. When I ask him about his choice of rare flavours, he says that “if you want to be at the top, you need consistency but you must also keep evolving.”

Curley uses predominantly dark chocolates to ensure that the complex flavours are not overpowered by a sugary aftertaste. He tells me that he doesn’t add sweeteners of any kind to the chocolate, and prefers to let the flavours speak for themselves. This they certainly do, and performing the statutory tasting on the box he offers me at the end of our interview has all the excitement and complexity of a wine-tasting session.

For more information, please visit www.williamcurley.co.uk.

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