Автор: karymsakov_qq4zn395

As drinking habits change, top restaurants are getting creative. 

Sometimes known as a ‘half-and-half,’ the hybrid is a bespoke drinks flight alternating between wine and a non-alcoholic (NA) alternative — from 0.0 percent ABV wines and juices to sparkling teas and homemade ferments. And it’s gaining popularity at select tastemaking restaurants around the world.

“Younger generations aren’t drinking in the same way [as older generations],” claims Micah Melton, culinary director at Alinea in Chicago. “Not drinking is a little less stigmatized.” While Alinea offers a full NA pairing to go with its experimental tasting menu, the hybrid option is more of an off-menu alternative. “A lot of people will get halfway through a wine pairing, and think, ‘That’s enough,’” says Melton. “So, we offer a mix and match as we see fit.”

For the most part, this alcohol-free pairing was designed to mimic the alcoholic offering — drinks were chosen for their resemblance, in taste or look, to the wines. But, as more guests dabbled with ‘sober curiosity,’ the drinks team got creative. “Sometimes we home in on a flavor in a dish and make a whole drink out of that, or for others we would single out an ingredient we thought a dish was missing,” Melton says. “We have a whole bar team for NA drinks.”

Another pioneer of the half-and-half, among other things, is Iris, the boundary-breaking restaurant in the middle of a Norwegian lake. Managing director Sebastian Torjusen says they see a homemade NA option as an opportunity for heightened flavor-matching. “It’s not just about reducing alcohol consumption, but adding an experiential dimension. Our non-alcoholic pairing can be designed and brewed to offer more than wine can. There are a few more tangents to play with.”

The hybrid menu showcases established producers — including Villbrygg, a Norwegian company making ‘soda for grown ups’ — as well as house-made fermentations using local ingredients.

In London, Cycene’s hybrid pairing, created by sommelier Douwe Steyn, is similarly experimental, and combines low-intervention wines with house-made ‘softs,’ from fermented kombucha to juices. Most interesting of all, though, is the glass of honeyed yet almost sour-tasting malted milk to accompany dessert. Given the heavy, syrupy characteristics of the more-common dessert wine, a glass of dairy doesn’t feel too wild. A restaurant’s creative potential is no longer just about what’s on the plate — it’s in the glass, too.

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The Reservation: The biggest restaurant in Kingly Court is cooking with Spanish heart. 

How could a Basque-inspired fine dining restaurant by an El Bulli alumni be inside of Kingly Court, a bustling market-style food hub in the middle of London’s heaving Soho?

Fear not, you are in the right place. Alta is here – right at the end of Kingly Court, in a huge two-storey unit with space for up to 100 guests. Once you’re through the doors, that Soho bustle dies down and Alta beckons. 

Opened in late September by chef Rob Roy Cameron, Alta takes its inspiration from northern Spain, both in its culture and its cuisine. Everything is cooked over open-fire, imbuing a smoky line throughout the menu. It feels warming and full of soul. Although the continent guides the menu, Cameron looks closer to home for ingredients: pork is from Dorset, beef is from the Lake District, and seafood is from the southwest coast. Wines are mostly European, and the vermouth on tap is Spanish, but ciders are from across the UK. 

Alta forms the second restaurant in the growing Mad Restaurants group, which launched with Japanese spot Moi earlier this year. United by a fondness for theatrical live-fire cooking – albeit from different continents – Mad restaurants are billed as being not just great looking restaurants, but also ones that care about ingredients and culinary culture. In a London where the big restaurants typically lean into vibes over food, Alta feels like evidence that you can have the best of both worlds: enough seats to go around and a menu you want to keep coming back to.

Must order: The quirky sardine empanada.

What to drink: A pine martini to start.

Best seat in the house: A table on the ground floor, with views of the kitchen.

Chef

Cameron was born in Botswana and trained in South Africa before spending a decade working and learning in Spain. Here, he worked at El Bulli – the now-shut but still legendary home of molecular gastronomy – and was a key player in the opening of 41 Degrees in Barcelona. In London, he most recently ran the kitchens at popular but short-lived Mayfair spot Gazelle. After a few years of pop ups and residencies in the UK and beyond, Alta marks Cameron’s permanent return to the London restaurant world. 

Menu

You don’t need to concern yourself with what is and isn’t on the menu, as I am confident that I (admittedly very heavily guided by the team who were not afraid to give a firm “No,” when I apparently requested the wrong dish) have perfected the perfect Alta order. 

Naturally, you’re getting the getting the bread and butter, but with it you’re having the sweet, tangy, crunchy house pickles; the mini marquez sausages in tangy Pedro Ximenz saucy; and a plate of the chicharron – great hunks of puffed up pork skin all but built to scoop up the garlicky, brilliant orange mojo rojo sauce they sit on.

You still haven’t even hit the starters (come to Alta belly achingly hungry): for this you’re having the pasta-like tendrils of squid wrapped up in smoky vizcaina sauce and the ingenious sardinine empanada, complete with a fish head and tail poking up boldly through the pastry.

You have permission to slow down at mains, if only to save room for the Basque cheesecake for dessert: share the 35-day aged rib eye – which, although described as medium rare, is cooked more medium and comes with your own vat of salt to dispense as you please. Have a glass of the novel iced cider with that cheesecake, and congratulations: you have completed Alta.

Interiors

Alta is an enormous restaurant – the biggest in Kingly Court, in fact. Included in that 100-cover stat is a private dining room for 12 and a year-round al fresco terrace. On the first floor, a huge stainless steel bar and an open kitchen – complete with a massive grill – form the focal points of the space. The kitchen and bar admittedly take up a lot of room, and the tables can feel quite close to their neighbors (but that is Soho for you).

The design is intentionally undone: tables are neat but linen-less and deliberate cracks of plaster on the wall create an industrial feel. It creates a relaxed atmosphere – the food is grown up and confident, but the team are open for a joke and a chat, too.

alta-restaurant.com

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