Sunday Telegraph from London, Greater London, England • 69

the the the the the the the the the I a a a a a a a THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH MAY 9 1993 REVIEW 17 A funny spot for a restaurant Tom Jalne raises an eyebrow at some eccentric dining locations TWENTY favourite years summer sport was the Ministry list of Historic Buildings under threat, available on the market. 'Here's a "This chapel's better." about a pumping station?" Chapel or pumping station located, we would mount the bike and pay a visit. Of course, we never looked at anything that money. No, it was the ruins offered for almost nothingthat excited our curiosity. And as we cast our sensitive eyes over our 30th heap of crumbling masonry, we would dream: a restaurant here, a suite of guest rooms there.

It is the basic economics of the restaurant business that them into the most unlikely situations. I am down to my last penny; I can cook; I have a building I cannot use: bang in a restaurant. I was reminded of all this by news that one of our favourite fantasies, a 250ft Gothic tower, at Hadlow in Kent, up for grabs again, this time at £1 million. When we were negotiating (about 1972), the late Bernard Hailstone, portrait painter, was owner, and happy were the hours of trying to secure crumbling decoration for less than five thou. Now all it needs is for someone to come up with a L'ESPRIT RESTAURANT The Arena, Stockley Park, Uxbridge 573 7333); £25 for dinner.

AS YOU turn down the broad highways of Stockley Park, the last thing you expect to see is a restaurant three knives and forks in Michelin, no less among the eerily translucent office blocks. The business park, north of Junction 4, M4, used to be one of London's rubbish tips, until they landscaped it and put up some hi-tech metal-and-glass offices. At the centre of workworld is the Arena: a spiralling affair, bounded by car parks and duck ponds, containing pool, squash courts, gym, hairdresser etcetera. Jewel in the spiral crown is The winningly through S- like choices such as scallops served with crab pancakes and a Chinese five-spice sauce; with smoked salmon grey mullet with ginger and fresh coriander; and. duck with Thai red curry sauce.

In fact, the chef does perfectly decent meals not brilliant, but they might well ease a commercial deal made beyond the pond. FOOD AND DRINK PHOTOGRAPHS: SIMON MILNE MARKWICK'S 43 Corn Street, Bristol (0272 262658); MARKWICK'S in Bristol (right) might seem just another cellar dining-room, but closer inspection reveals its earlier function as a. safety deposit. All the cages, the double-locked gates and inner defences against prying eyes and fingers remain, giving a slightly Sadist to the framework of dining. This visual byplay is but gilt on Stephen Markwick's gingerbread; he is an ace cook and might just as well do it in a tent as a city monument, for people would still flock for his fish soup, cucumber fritter with and sour cream, guinea fowl with apples and calvados, and chocolate souffles.

The many shades of pale Robert Joseph continues his vinous odyssey with white wines, explaining how they manage to taste anything between gooseberry-tart and treacle-sweet late-picked wines apart from those places, principally Germany, where all but the best wines are sweetened with a little unfermented grape juice. The key to whether a German wine is naturally sweet the label. Sweetened wines, misleadingly call themselves a term covering most German wine, including Liebfraumilch while sunripened ones will be designated in ascending levels of natural sweetness from Kabinett and to Auslese, Beerenauslese and If Trockenbeerenauslese. a sweet German wine, beware the words trocken and halbtrocken, which respectively mean the wine is "dry" and "half dry whatever the ripeness of the grapes. Some grapes are far more suited to sweet wine than others.

You can make dry wine from Muscat and Riesling; both are at their best when picked THY Muscadet? Why, WV for Soave, that Liebfrau- matter, milch or most inexpensive Spanish white wine? Why do people whose tastebuds appear to be in otherwise perfect working order persist in spending more than they on drinking wines which, all too often, taste of almost nothing Now, before the letters pour in from aggrieved winemakers in the Loire, Veneto, Germany and Spain, I will readily admit that there are perfectly tasty examples of all of these wines, but my experience of ploughing through hundreds of the dullards prove that they are the rare exceptions to my rule. Most are to wine what big, pappy tomatoes, giant strawberries and frozen battery chickens are to food. No, this week, the focus is on white wines with flavour kinds of flavours. After all, white wines vary in style far more than reds. Most obviously of course, there is the matter of sweetness.

Red winese with the Liebfraumilch-sweet exception Piat d'Or and a few Russian and Italian oddities are almost all basically dry; whites range from bone trocken Germans, whose only role is to save you having your teeth scaled professionally, to late harvest versions as sweetly concentrated as a bowlful of candied fruit doused in treacle. SWEETNESS MAKING top-quality sweet wine is a labour of love, often poorly rewarded by late20th-century sophisticates, who have been bludgeoned by style and health fascists into a belief that sweet wines are naff and fattening. If your tooth is not and you eschew puddings, an antipathy towards sweet wines is understandable; if you enjoy fruit tarts and there's little excuse for not relishing their liquid equivalent. Sweetness wine comes, hardly surprisingly, from the natural sugar in ripe grapes. Most white wines have a natural alcohol level of between 12 and 13 per cent.

The Sauvignon grapes used to make Sancerre and the Chardonnay used for white Burgundy usually have a tough time getting or 11 per cent, so their producers have legally. to add a little sugar to the vat simply to make a dry wine with an adequate level of alcohol. In other words, northerly regions such as Burgundy and the Loire are far from ideal for sweet wine-making. In theory, it would seem far more sensible to leave that job to producers whose grapes grow fat in warmer climates such as those of Greece, Spain and southern Italy. Unfortunately, these easy-tomake wines never achieve the flavours to be found bottles from regions in northern Europe, where the grapes struggle to ripen.

In these cool countries, winemakers wait until their neighbours have picked their grapes in Sauternes the harvest can be more than a month later than in nearby St Emilion and, ideally, wait fruit to be affected by benevolent fungus known as botrytis noble rot, which will give top quality sweet wines their extra dried apricotty flavour." The noble rot does not always appear and, besides, some producers only want to These are made from make semi wines. late. Neither Sauvignon nor Chardonnay single-handedly makes top class dessert wine, though the former is the essential ingredient with Semillon in the blend which produces Sauternes. FRUIT RETURNING to dry white wines, these can be made in a number of styles. The most influential factor, apart from the climate, is, naturally, the variety of grape.

Grapes such as the Muscat and Riesling produce grapey, MAXINE ROGERS MAXINE tous Chardonnay can taste of anything from mango and pineapple to burnt butter and hazelnuts, depending on where it is grown and how it is handled. If you do not like fruity wine, all you have to do is look made from tastines grapes such as the Melon de Bourgogne, from which Muscadet is made, the Garganega and Trebbiano of Soave and the Airen of Spain. THE WINE IDENTIKIT Bouvier Marques de Murrieta Ygay Reserva 1987 (Victoria Wine, £7-99). 1989 Bouvier Trockenbeerenauslese (Unwins, £8-90 half- bottle). Classic, old fashioned Rioja of a style which is rarely made The Bouvier is an ordinary grape more usually eaten than drunk.

In nowadays. The flavour is the antithesis of the Sauvignon; tangily Austria, however, it is often allowed to succumb to botrytis, the noble nutty dry wine with loads of oak. If a bottle of Burgundy tasted like rot whose da a flavour can be tasted here in its pure, this, you might think it past its best, but the slightly oxidised style is luscious state. great late harvest German wine would have more precisely the way Spaniards and traditional Spanish wine fans love it. complex flavours and a bigger price tag.

Serve very well chilled. 000 3 550 01 333 Scheurebe Sauvignon 1992 Dienheimer Tafelstein, Scheurebe Kabinett, Bruder Dr 1992 Delegat's Fern Hills Sauvignon Blanc (Sainsbury, £3-99). An Becer (Safeway, £4-99). A wonderful, recently developed grape ultra typical example of New Zealand Sauvignon, demonstrating whose wines smell and taste of grapefruit. As a Kabinett, this is off- how the Kiwis are beating the winemakers of the Loire at their own dry, but do not let that put you off.

Try it as a well chilled aperitif and game. Tangy, gooseberryish, quite dry but not aggressively so; you will find that tangy, grapefruity flavour really refreshing. refreshingly mouthwatering without a trace of oak. 50 2 33 NO 3 Chardonnay Riesling 1991 Domaine des Deux Ruisseaux, Chardonnay, Vin de Pays d'Oc, 1991 Leiwener Klostergarten Riesling Josefinengrund Fortant de France (Thresher, £4-99). A soft, modem French example of (Safeway, £4-69).

Typical of the Mosel region, and the Riesling, this grape with alternative creamy, apple pineapple flavour but no evident oak. A which is often at its best there. Ripely packed with floral, honeyed, first- class to duller and pricier Macon Villages. grapey flavours. Quite sweet; perfect with any kind of fruit dessert.

03 DE KEY: FULLNESS FRUIT OAK SWEETNESS RICHNESS 0 SPICY PERKINS BAR BISTRO The Old Railway Station, Plumtree, Nottinghamshire, (0602 373695), OFTEN, if the location is sufficiently unexpected makes up for many failures at the stove. But if you were to say that about Tony Perkins in Nottinghamshire, he would be justifiably ratty. Perkins Bar Bistro (left) is that nirvana of all anorakwearers, railway station. And there are trains, though not often: they only use the track for test-bedding. But I think Tony Perkins is more interested in French country cooking that's what people eat there.

Chicken with tarragon; poached salmon Duglere; pigeon with orange sauce; or loin of lamb with onion sauce. But when conversation flags, the railway station plus conservatory gives something to chat about. PETERSON'S RESTAURANT The Tower, Sway, Hampshire (0590 683034); £22 for dinner (no lunches). (081- TUCKED between the New Forest and the Solent is a tower, built in 1879 by a retired Indian judge named Peterson. His intention was to be buried below, while a lantern above would shine out as a beacon ever after.

They put a stop to that, but the tower (below left) survived. After two decades of restoration, the current owner, Paul Atlas, has turned it into a restaurant with four guest rooms above (only 90 steps to room 4). Early reports (the restaurant started in July, 1992) of thoroughly modern cooking by Neil Rippington and Jason Timms have been enthusiastic perhaps location helps, and the air of reckless adventure that infuses the enterprise. Red mullet sweet pepper and olive salsa, scallops with mushrooms, venison with raspberry vinegar sauce, or beef with port sauce and celeriac sound as entertaining as they are said to taste. Consumers' Association.

Tom Jaine is editor of The Good Food All prices for three courses, including wine and coffee. ANDREW PALMER The only way to create fruity flavour in naturally neutral grapes is to make full use of cooling equipment in the winery to reduce the temperature of fermentation. If a wine smells and tastes of pear drops (like most modern Vin de Pays des de Gascogne), it was almost certainly made in this way. The effect is attractive in young wine, but fades with age. RICHNESS aiming for fatter, richer wines have to use riper grapes, preferably varinay, Semillon and the eties as the Chardonfucks Pinot Blanc of Alsace and Italy, and allow them to develop greater flavour, possibly by fermenting them in barrel and allowing them to undergo the natural secondary fermentation which transforms appley malic acidity into the creamier lactic acid.

Another way to achieve a biscuity richness like that of mature, Champagne is to leave the wine in contact with its yeast for a while. This is the method used to make Muscadet sur lie, and is common in Burgundy. Even the best looks can be enhanced with a little judicious make-up; for winemakers, the most readily available cosmetic is the flavour of oak. Once upon a time, new barrels were expensive items to be bought or made when old ones fell apart. Quite naturally, the newest casks were used for the best wine in the cellar, but not because they were thought to bring flavour.

Today, in wineries throughout the world, producers know that the vanilla taste of new oak seems to hit tastebuds other flavours fail to reach. So where a few years ago, only the finest Chardonnays tasted of oak, now even the cheapest are unmistakeably woody. way get that oak into the wine is by fermenting the juice in new oak barrels. This is, 'however a costly exercise, with barrels costing up to £200 for which hold just 300 bottles. Which explains why budgetconscious makers discreetly make do with oak chips and even large teabag-like sacks of oak powder.

Some grapes like the flavour of oak more than others. Sauternes, made from Semillon and Sauvignon, has an affinity; Riesling seems uncomfortable in a new barrel, Chardonnay and oak seem to be made for each other; so close has the relationship between grape and barrel become in this case that their flavours are often confused. So, oaky, dry white Bordeaux or Rioja is easily misidentified as white Burgundy or Australian Chardonnay. I have all sorts of mixed feelings about the ubiquity of oak. Sometimes I regret the way that it is making so many white wines taste so similar.

Then I remember all those featureless glasses of Soave; at least the oaky wines taste of something. Next week: fizz and fortifleds Shy: though collectors are strictly monitored, they are still targets for 'antis' ROGERS appley wines; the the Pinot Gris (grown in Alsace as the Tokay-Pinot Gris and, in Italy, as the Pinot Grigio) and the Viognier of the all produce dry stuff that is so aromatic that you might swear it to be sweet. The Sauvignon Blanc and Chenin Blanc are less spicy, but more fruity, with flavours, respectively gooseberry and apple. The Semillon is the peachiest of grapes, while the ubiqui- Shelling out for an egg in the hand OAK NLY the heavily salaried can afford to go to work on an egg these days. A gull's egg that is.

At around £10 for six, they are 20 times the price and about half as big as a size-4 hen's egg. "Worth every penny," said one besuited young banker met buying them in Selfridges. Every penny of each, that is. "The flavour is unique," he told me. "Very rich, and slightly fishy but fresh, like shellfish." I'm not quite sure can see what all the fuss is about.

At least, I think I can see it: I'm not so sure that I can taste it. For the appeal of gulls' eggs is, in my view, largely visual. The egg, varying from skyblue to misty grey-green, and blotched with chocolatey brown, is certainly an eyepleaser. Nor is its beauty merely shell deep. Peel a lightly boiled (two-minute) egg to find the pearly opalescence of the white, and the deep sunset orange of the yolk.

Scramble a few (three per person) and the rich intense colour is enough to stimulate any palate to the anticipation of pleasure. Add to this the indubitable aphrodisiac of price, and perhaps the gourmets' excitement can begin to be understood. Those who gather gulls' eggs remain somewhat bewildered by the gastronomic palava. Eggs have been collected and eaten locally for centuries now a free and nutritious feast for those who were prepared to scout the salt marshes of East Anglia and the Solent, and bear the squawking, aerial molestations of the aggrieved parents. But elevation to the gourmet's table, and the turning of a tidy profit by professional dealers, is a relatively recent phenomenon.

"I like them," said a collector second Solent, "but the difference between a gull's egg and a hen's egg seems marginal to me." Marginal to the tune of I asked him. "They're never selling them for that!" he exclaimed. In Are gulls' eggs worth all the fuss? asks Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall fact the price has come down since the beginning of the season (mid-April) availability has increased. Selfridges is now giving away gulls' eggs at 99p a throw. It turns out the collectors sell the eggs for a mere 9p each.

like to pass on the name of my collector friend, so that you can give gulls' eggs a whirl without taking out a mortgage, but he didn't want me to print his name, and refused even to be photographed for this article. There is a fine of up to £2,000 for the theft of wild birds' eggs For the price of gulls' eggs is high in trouble as well as money. In Victorian times, and up until the Second World War, it was plovers' eggs which were the sine' qua non 1 of the society picnics of the early Summer Season. avidly were their nests plundered, that by the Fifties the plover was deemed a threatened species, and in 1954 the collecting of its eggs was made illegal. The black-headed gull was groomed and marketed to fill the space.

"This is a very controversial business," explains the collector, "especially the last couple of years. It's the 'antis', you see. The problem is, they think every egg we take amounts to a dead gull." It is a belief that has led to some unhappy incidents. One dealer decided to get out of the business this year he was fed up of having the tyres on his car let down by antis. Another, still in business, had "BIRD KILLER" daubed on his van in red paint.

Fortnum and Mason, that epicurean Mecca on Picadilly, no longer sells gulls' eggs. According to a press officer, "there have been accusations of illegal taking of eggs, and complaints to the RSPB. Right or wrong, we don't like to be associated with that." The collectors feel the protests are founded on ignorance, and perhaps a kneejerk reaction to a trade which seems to exist only for the benefit of an elite. "In fact," explained the Solent collector, "we look after the nesting sights very carefully. The gulls are like chickens: they continue to lay until you stop taking their eggs one egg every two days.

We take each egg as it appears, leaving any nests with more than one egg in it, as they may have been partly incubated. We stop collecting in plenty of time to allow them to raise a clutch. Then they will lay three or four eggs and sit on them until they The husbandry of the gull colonies is undertaken in consultation with the Department of the Environment in Bristol, which issues licences annually to approved collectors. Locally, the operations are overseen by conservation officers. James Venner, of English Nature, looks, after a large gullery the Beaulieu estate, also on Solent.

He believes that the collector's intervention actually does more good than harm. "All they are really doing is delaying the hatching of a brood by a few weeks. This is very much in the gull's interest, as early broods have a tendency to be washed out by the high spring Venner is empowered to deal severely with unlicensed collectors. The Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981 imposes a fine of up to £2,000 for the theft of wild birds' eggs. And that's per egg.

In the light of that possibility, perhaps Selfridges is offering a bargain after all..