A new way of fund-raising for Haiti has recently hit the Putney area. The Putney Pop-Up Restaurants involves taking on fabulous restaurants, restaurateurs, showmen and chefs to produce a series of pop-up restaurants at the Phoenix Bar & Grill in Putney during March only. Chefs/restaurants involved include Matthew Harris, Bibendum; Rowley Leigh – Le Café Anglais; Atul Kochhar – Benares; Bruce Poole – Chez Bruce; Helen Puolakka – Skylon and many others.

It was lucky that Sandra had spotted the teeny weeny tiny article in the evening standard about this fund-raising event a few months ago as it certainly does not seem to have been well advertised. Word of mouth, however, has been more than enough advertising it seems if the fact that most of the events have been fully booked out anyway, including tonight’s Philip Howard (of The Square – a 2-michelin starred restaurant) meal which Sandra was luckily able to get us a booking for. Second nights for some of the chefs were also needed to be put on to accommodate their popularity. Luckily I was also able to get us a booking next week for Rick Stein (The Seafood Restaurant) so tune in for that review.

We didn’t try booking anymore because two meals is just about what I can afford anyway (starts at £60 with the food not including extras such as drinks, tea/coffee, extra fund-raising contributions and service)! Plus it would probably be not very fair to deny other people an opportunity to participate in this event.

The Phoenix is a lovely newly renovated pub about a 15-20 minute walk from Putney Bridge tube station. I joked to Sandra that most other people dining tonight would have likely caught a taxi or got driven to the venue! Ha ha! It has a nice little outdoor area but on this wet evening we were all dining inside. Inside gives the impression of being quite cosy as all the rooms (around about 4) are split up to fit between 5 up to 10 tables rather than being one big open space.

Sandra and I were the first diners to turn up tonight. We were greeted by Rebecca Mascarenhas, owner of The Phoenix, well-known restaurateur and organiser of the Putney Pop-up. It felt rather awkward really as number of chefs and the waiters were kind of standing gathered at the entrance (where there were a number of lounges as a waiting area) and they all turned to look at us as we walked in. We were about 10 minutes early so we thought we might have interrupted their preparations but they were more than happy to seat us. We were followed very closely by another group who I think were from some sort of special organisation as they were directed to another room which they didn’t fill with diners until the rest of the rooms were filled.

So, out of the £60 we were paying for food tonight £50 was going Haiti. I didn’t quite know how the drinks situation would work because there was a short wine list which including contributions apparently of 120 from Jancis Robinson, and contributions from Liberty Wines, Laytons and Bibendum Wine. I’m not sure that any of the wine money would go to charity but the £10 corkage per bottle on B-Y-O certainly does. Sandra thought it seemed a bit tight not to order a glass of wine (glasses averaged about £9.50) but since it wasn’t going to charity I didn’t think it would really matter. Not that I would normally order wine anyway!

Bread was plentiful tonight and because when we arrived it was relatively quiet the waiter continued to bring bread around at least 3 or 4 times until both Sandra and I had had enough. The butter was delicious! Mmmm!

The special charity dinner tonight consisted of four courses: an amuse bouche, a first course, a second course and dessert. Phil Howard’s menu seemed to be a cross between what they offered at The Square (e.g. the Smoked Loin of Venison with Beetroot Purée, Root Vegetables, Pickled Pear and Green Peppercorns which Sandra had for her main and the Brillat-Savarin Cheesecake with Passionfruit and Lime we had for dessert) or variations.

What I did notice about all the food that was served tonight, perhaps with the exception of the dessert, was how messy and not delicate the presentation was. I was actually expecting delicately plated dishes but if felt like most of them were plonked and piled on top of each other so when you look at the pictures the food doesn’t actually look all that great. I’m sure great care was taken with the presentation but they were not how I’d pictured how the dishes would come. They tasted great though so that is the main thing!

Our amuse bouche was a Salad of Beetroot with Eiswein Vinegar, Goat’s Curd and a Balsamic Cream. This to me was a disappointing amuse bouche in concept because I couldn’t count on my hand the number of times I’ve had this kind of combination in restaurants in 2009. The delivery, however, was a little more unique. The balsamic cream was a nice touch and I liked the fact the beetroot came in an assortment of colours! It was quite odd to pick up a pale square of something to find it was actually very strong tasting of beetroot!

Sandra and I had the same starter: Ravioli of Scallops and Langoustine Claws with Wilted Iceberg, Champagne Foam (aaaaargh!!) and Clementine. What an interesting combination to throw in the clementine! I really quite liked this dish even though, as I mentioned earlier, it looked to be a wonderful mess of flavours!

Where Sandra moved on to meet with the Venison for her next course I continued on with seafood with a Loin of Monkfish with an emulsion of spätzle (a type of pasta), Cauliflower, Salsify, Chanterelles and Truffle. Sandra loved her Venison. She said the smokiness of it was amazingly concentrated. I loved the intense mushroomy flavour of my dish – could it be that I can taste truffle at last (I’m still not convinced it was the truffle I was tasting … damn my inability to taste it!)

When our waiter was bringing out our pre-dessert we must have some sort of horrified look on our faces because he had cause to comment that we shouldn’t be scared! I think he thought we thought what he was giving us was our cheesecake dessert? Who knows! The pre-dessert was very cute. I loved the fried donut touch which I kept in my mouth as I ate the rest of the treat: vanilla yoghurt, blood orange jelly and blood orange mousse.

Dessert (the cheesecake)! Yum. Sandra commented that the orange bits tasted like the orange solero ice block! They really did! It was a nice dessert … more cheesecake would have been appreciated though. Heh heh.

At tea-time the push for the raffle tickets came. It was kind of weird – Rebecca came over and said would you like to buy raffle tickets? She didn’t say at first how much they were or what they were raffling so we were a bit confused! Turns out they were raffling vouchers for various restaurants. To be truthful at these fund raising events you could hardly begrudge buying a raffle ticket or two no matter what they were raffling off!

Additional treats were a take-away box of nougat and truffles which tasted like salted choc caramel truffles with a rice crispy shell. It was divine.

Its quite hard to be judging of an experience like tonight – one-off, staffed by volunteers (service tonight was a bit hit and miss e.g. none of our dishes were really explained to us), raising money for a good cause. However I reckon a good night was had by all and we couldn’t believe how quickly the night had gone. After a slight misunderstanding with our coats (buried under about six others it took us about 15 minutes to find them!) we were off.

How sad for the night to be over! … until next Tuesday then to see Rick. 😉