Against a pristine white table cloth, already combed clear of crumbs twice, expensive stemware glints under a shower of designer spotlight. In the glass, a deep straw-yellow cuts a stark contrast, its golden reflections offering intrigue and aura. The theatre accompanying the arrival of the tasting menu’s latest beverage befits the venue’s two Michelin stars.
Its origin story and pedigree have been neatly packaged and passionately recited. Delivery is expertly paced for Torbay prawns in a long pepper emulsion are on their way, joined by a touch of bronze fennel. The stage is set. What do you think? Grand Cru Burgundy? Perhaps something from a prestigious Californian estate? Or a trendy skin contact wine?
Rather, it’s a milk oolong tea from Mr and Mrs Hsieh’s one-acre farm in Taiwan’s Nantou County. It has been chosen for its delicacy and ability to marry and complement the opening shellfish. Issac McHale, who opened up The Clove Club in London’s Shoreditch area in 2013, prefers to serve them raw, for these tiny prawns ooze the kind of sweetness found in Japanese Ama-Ebi. It’s a choice enhanced by the tea’s restrained notes of umami, butter and fresh flowers.
Mr Hsieh is a second generation tea maker whose family have been growing and processing tea for over 50 years. This inter-generational respect for the cultivation and production of tea encourages McHale and The Clove Club to present this artisanal heritage with the kind of deference we’d normally reserve for top wines from the cellar. Back at the table, the oolong’s complexity begins to unfurl - sweet flowery scents with notes of salted butter and cream.
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The Clove Club is widely regarded as one of the best restaurants in the world. It has made the 50 best list every year since 2016 and boasts a decade long presence on the city’s fine dining scene. Over the years owner and chef Isaac McHale has refined its proposition, crafting a venue that places ingredients at forefront of it proposition. There are flashes of personality - nods to his Scottish heritage and professional journey - but the seasonality of fresh British produce defines the menu.
Signature dishes include buttermilk fried chicken, raw Orkney scallop with hazelnut, clementine and Perigord truffle, warm haggis buns, and dry aged pork. A tasting menu from this year includes mouth watering ideas such as smoked Wiltshire trout in almond milk cream, lamb rib with turnip, seaweed and calves tongue, and a potato jam and mousse with coffee meringue.
While McHale and his team are known for tasting menus of integrity and authenticity, the hard and soft drinks menu deserves attention. Suffice to say, the wine pairing is front and central to the restaurant’s identity, with a list boasting almost 1000 different bins. You don’t get two stars without it of course, but the last eight years have seen a growing emphasis on the soft pairing, and with a global trend towards no and low alcohol culinary experiences, the Clove Club’s efforts in this area are coming into focus.
McHale reflects that “we’re seeing that guests want to drink and enjoy themselves, without ending up drunk”. It’s an important reminder that a serious soft pairing need not engage only the abstainer. Tea can help punctuate a wine pairing without clashing. Head Sommelier Emer Landgraf observes that for those that want wine with their food, but find a full pairing excessive, “ a successful approach is for guests to indulge in the full tea pairing, but share a great bottle on the side. That way they can watch it change in the glass over the course of the meal, but apply their curiosity to enjoy the gastronomic pairing of the teas.”
Reflecting on the challenges of polishing the overall experience, McHale says that tea was the only thing beyond wine that provided a level of sophistication that could remain appealing over the course of a multi-hour gastronomic journey. “We decided to move away from other juices and non alcoholic beverages for a couple of reasons. Firstly we felt that the subtlety of tea was a better compliment to the delicate courses, but also, we were conscious that over 10 or 11 courses the calories just start to pile up, particularly with juices.”
Landgraf elaborates that “we found that tea was the only thing that came close to matching the body, acidity, tannin and subtlety of flavours that we’d get from a traditional wine pairing.” In some cases, tea arguably provides a better accompaniment, particularly with challenging ingredients such as asparagus, artichokes, chocolate, and spicy foods. For example, there is growing awareness that certain green teas pair with both cooked and raw fish, as well as a variety of vegetables. Darker oolongs can be well suited to shellfish, crustaceans, and green vegetables. Roasted black teas may be unusual and harder to find, but can be robust enough to join pork or smoked fish.
As vast swathes of the fine dining scene start to grapple with the concept of no and low alcohol pairings, The Clove Club is benefiting from long term supplier partnerships that can lend expertise on this front. Tim D'Offay of Postcard Teas is one such support and says “The Clove Club has been instrumental in perfecting ambient tea pairings as a way of having a complex non-alcoholic pairing for fine food. Isaac himself really loves tea and the whole team has worked much more closely with us than any other restaurant.”
One of D’Offay’s selections is a black tea from Yakushima, an island off the south coast of Kagoshima that celebrated protected UNESCO World Heritage site status. Mr Watanabe and two other friends founded the tea estate around 2010 to make the most of Yakushima’s pristine environment. The estate is famed ecologically and is free of all pesticide use. Although Watanabe-san mainly produces sencha and other forms of green tea, he does make low volumes of this fruity black tea. Similar in profile to some Sri Lankan black teas, it has a slightly malty, grape-like taste, along with a soya bean note that we sometimes find in Japanese blacks.
Greg Springer, commercial director of Tregothnan Teas, is another independent supplier and says “tea pairings are fantastic and are often overlooked. For too long tea has been neglected in favor of coffee. However, the subtlety of tea and the breadth of flavours make it a beverage that pairs as well as some of the finest wines. Quality is key, but that's not to say there isn’t value in understanding why a builder's brew pairs so well with a bacon sandwich.”
One of his most memorable selections is a Manuka tea. It can be served with a smoked lamb rib, terrine of turnip, and mint gel. Complex, it has notes of lemon grass, ginger and cinnamon with a menthol-like finish and diffuses a brilliant gold in the glass. McHale enjoys the versatility it provides. “Our Manuka tea has some amazing spice components and we love to play around with this. It gives both aromatic and sweet spice notes and we enjoy matching this with spicy dishes.” At the production end Springer is proud of its heritage. “Manuka is amazing and has been growing at Tregothnan for over 150 years!” Usually found in New Zealand and sometimes called the Kiwi Tea Tree, it is best known for the honey that comes from hives placed in its shadow.
Tregothnan is a country estate in Cornwall, in the south west of the UK, and covers almost 700 hectares. The family home of Lord and Lady Falmouth, and the home of English grown tea since 1999, the company has grown to over 28 linear miles of tea with an annual harvest of tens of tonnes making it one of the largest tea gardens in all of Europe. Exports land in over 30 countries, with a growing presence in the U.S.
There are no wrong answers when it comes to tea pairing. Although it makes sense to look at natural flavor synergies - mint with chocolate or red meat, lemon verbena with fish for example - experimentation can pay off. Creativity is often key to maintaining clever pairings in a menu that transitions through the seasons. Springer says “you are rewarded for thinking outside the box. A smoked Earl Grey combined with shallot and garlic can make an amazing glaze for a steak, fresh leaves in tempura batter are wonderful when served with scallops.’’ He also suggests black teas where umami is at play.
Emer Landgraf, who has been able to follow the various iterations of the soft offering over the years, notes that it’s not as easy as it sounds to get right. “It makes most sense with the lightness of the starting dishes, but definitely becomes more of a challenge as you get to the fattier dishes and richer sauces”. Elegantly bringing it all together is the simple ideal. McHale illuminates further. “What you want to happen in your mouth is to feel the different layers of taste and flavours of both tea and food, without them clashing.”
Experiencing premium teas at their best requires serving them at ambient temperatures. They should be poured from a bottle or decanter into glasses at a temperature that doesn’t trigger condensation. Clear glassware enhances the color, undoubtedly part of the theatre. As the ambient tea warms up, the aromas (and even structure) will change subtly, but these shifts are small compared with the dramatic changes seen in hot and chilled cold brew tea. This makes serving ambient tea a much more reliable partner in a fine dining context.
Tea pairings may be increasingly prominent, but McHale is keen to point out that they’re not chasing fads. Landgraf concurs. “Ultimately, our pairings are designed to enhance what Isaac is doing in the kitchen. The food is the primary offering, and the beverages are there to support.” Chef’s parting words to his guests are “I try to present the best we have in this country, at this very moment in the season, cooked in interesting ways that best showcase them, with garnishes inspired by my food memories and travels”. These motivations reverberate through the beverage program to create a boundary pushing drinking experience and a very contemporary, international offering.
