Glassé hosts exciting experiment: Wine and Japanese food pairing

Saturday, 14 December 2013 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

By Marianne David “Wine and food,” says Martin Straus, sipping on his drink seated at the outdoor deck at Glassé, “is one of the great joys of life”. Wine and food tasting is “not an exact science, it’s all part of the fun,” he tells the Weekend FT, shortly before leading a wine and food pairing event at Glassé on Wednesday. “With our wine tasting events, we want to show people how to pick food and select wine which go well together.” An interesting evening

The well-attended event saw four kinds of wine from Italy, hand-picked mainly from the Piemonte region, and Japanese dishes from Glassé being experimented with, resulting in a very interesting evening in a beautiful setting. A transitional lounge bar serving new age Japanese cuisine, Glassé boasts an eclectic selection of cocktails and a new-age Japanese inspired menu, compiled by its Nobu trained Chef de Cuisine. Its protruding deck, mezzanine style layout, diverse range of seating, two VIP areas and floor to ceiling glass walls make it a very stylish lounge bar. For the pairing event, the first wine of the night was white – Gavi, Dezzani, Piemonte, Italy, DOCG – with Cucumber Wakame Salad and Geso Caraage; followed by Rosé – Rosé d’Anjou, Reserve des Lye, Loire Valley, France, AOC – with Dragon Roll and Teppanyaki Prawns. Third was a red – Côtes du Rhône, Montalcour, Rhône Valley, France, AOC – with Grilled Salmon Teriyaki; followed by Dolcetto, Montiero, Piemonte, Italy, DOC and Teppanyaki Beef. The food was beautifully presented, full of flavour and absolutely delicious, while Straus talked and walked us through the tasting experience, having first informed those present that the professional tasting glasses from France being used were carefully shaped to open up the wine when it is swirled around the glass. Wine culture

Straus, CEO and Head of Studies at British Food & Beverage, is a professional wine and spirit educator with 40 years of experience. Speaking about the wine culture in the country, he says: “First of all, Sri Lanka, in terms of its market development, is where the UK was 25 years ago, but it’s moving much more quickly. There are still people here who don’t understand wine; the culture is very much drinking spirits – particularly whiskey, arrack, etc.” Straus says he’s been to various dinners of many types here and men in particular tend to drink whiskey heavily before a meal and then don’t tend to drink with the meal. “There isn’t a culture of drinking wine with food here.” Pairing wine with food When pairing wine with food, Straus says he looks behind the label to what is in the wine and looks carefully into the dish, since the main ingredients of the dish probably aren’t the main match with the wine – it’s the other ingredients. “Nowadays food flavours are quite complicated. Dishes that are sweet conflict with dry wine. Spice, particularly chillie, conflicts with tannin, which you find in Cabernet Sauvignon. It means that it’s much harder to match Cabernet Sauvignon, yet it’s a very popular red here. It works very well if you go to London Grill and you have a steak – that’s fine. But when you taste it with the spicy cuisine of Sri Lanka and India, you have to think about different matches,” he notes. However, you can match spicy foods with very expensive wines for a good match, he says, recalling how he went to a restaurant show in London a few years ago and tasted five top champagnes with Indian street food. “It was wonderful. I didn’t believe it would work. We tasted the wine before the food and we tasted the wine with the food and yet the wine was still as good as ever. The restaurant is called The Cinnamon Club. They have food and wine matching every night. They do a tasting menu, which is 60 pounds, and the wines cost another 60 pounds. They are sold out every night.” Things changing fast While Straus doesn’t see that culture coming up here yet, he says things are changing fast. “There is an Indian restaurant in London with two Michelin stars. So the opportunity is there. The rate of change in Sri Lanka is very fast.” Straus is a national Executive Committee member of the Institute of Hospitality, the professional body for the industry based in the UK, and he was also the Chairman of the Panel of Judges this year at the Marie Brizard Bartenders competition. Pix by Lasantha Kumara