No Excuses

Photographed in Dijon: my kind of sport.

An entry-level Burgundian Pinot Noir from critically respected wine and spirits firm, Jean Claude Boisset bored me. Despite the marvellous year ('05), it was insipid, dilute and generally lacking depth of field in the flavour spectrum. Beautiful packaging, dull contents. Like looking inside an empty palace.

*

I have read in a day, Marco Pierre White's autobiography, 'Devil In The Kitchen'. A moreish and entertaining insight into the pursuit of (other peoples) pleasure at near massochistic expense.

It seems that the Three Star Chef (who achieved this accolade without properly visiting the Michelin Guide's home turf) has a literary lightness of touch. Sadly, his current consultative standpoint means that these days he rarely intervenes in kitchen life. A recent-ish visit to his Mayfair property, Mirabelle [CLICK for previous review, then scroll] revealed a tacky, lack-lustre, poorly managed basement of bromidic-banality. I think this glitter-ball obsessed culinary artist should consider a more practical, precise return, if only to matters of thorough staff training. At Mirabelle, employees were were woefully ignorant of even his nationality...

This is unlikely, however - he is the latest gastrosapien to be lured by pixels (see him in ITV's forthcoming Hell's Kitchen).