He cooks like he looks

It had been a long time coming. But here is the balcony scene at last and it’s in stereo : she is singing from one and he is watching from another. Marina Laslo is beautiful and Russian, currently appearing in Russian Romance at the Barbican’; Jean-Christophe (having just sent flowers to her dressing room) is beautiful and French and has perennially been doing things in the kitchen that Casanova did to a quiet week-end in Venice.

Never was a metaphor more needing to be mixed : dubbed the ‘ladies chef’ who cooks ‘the most wild and imaginative food’ from the heart, what J-C has done for puddings, with his spring of warm caramel, or with his 5 hour oxtail…well, put it this way, his sex appeal is no less acclaimed, chronicled and generally official than his recipes.

But while he professionally times things ‘to perfection’, how will Marina rate it ? Having ended his affair with Marina last September, will J-C pull off the double after first ditching the long-suffering Joanne Maynard ? Or will the arrival of two more musketeers, namely Simon Webbe and Colin Farrell, bring another twist into an already breathless tale of 18 or 19 Century dimensions ? For his is indeed a story that has had everything.

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The new Elizabeth David ?

How does she do it ? Angela Hartnett is one of a rare breed, being neither a loud nor a noted ‘personality’ but having established herself, reputation entirely intact, well before she shot to national attention on TV. Even then, in the inner inferno of Gordon Ramsay’s “Hell’s Kitchen”, she was credited with nothing more exciting than ‘tough but fair’.

While it has been said often enough that she was the first woman to take charge of a 5 star hotel kitchen, or the only woman to be in the Gordon Ramsay stable or one of the elite of women to be Michelin-starred etc, how well known is it that she has opened a Chef’s Table at the Connaught which is situated right at the centre of the kitchen ? It seats 10 people and it must be the most fitting symbol of what she has achieved on both sides of such significant walls.

But her latest venture,a Tapas and Sherry menu at the Bar at the Connaught, is a big clue to the How and the Why of her success ( her most recent laurel being the chance to compete,against Bryn Williams of Wales and the Orrery, for a part in the Queens 80th birthday celebrations).

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