Jean-Georges Vongerichten is talking flavours: ginger, chilli and lemongrass with mushrooms as a filling for spring rolls; miso and grapefruit with chicken; cinnamon and vanilla for a warm rice pudding; coriander pesto with steak; a lime-spiced mix of salt and sugar for dipping fresh fruit…
It is as if his eight-year absence from the London restaurant stage has dissolved into one of his signature aromatic broths and we are back in 1995, when this most un-French of French chefs first bowled into the capital to launch Vong in the Berkeley Hotel, his reputation as a wizard of daring, vibrant “East meets West” flavours sweeping before him. Born in Alsace but based in New York, classically trained in Michelin-starred restaurants but steeped in the flavours he discovered while cooking for five years in Asia, he was a liberating force. Who else would pair capers with raisins, or foie gras with ginger and mango?
In the intervening years, Vongerichten has poured his energy into restaurants around the globe, building on the New York successes of the flagship Jean Georges, the iconic Mercer Kitchen and Spice Market in the Meatpacking district. “I need to stay excited about cooking, and I’m always discovering new flavours on my travels,” he says. “But people want to come back to restaurants and find their favourite dishes, so sometimes it is easier to open a new restaurant than change the menu.”
He has returned to our capital for the opening of the UK version of Spice Market in the W London hotel, Leicester Square, right in the heart of Chinatown. And he’s very happy to be back. “Just look at the view from the windows,” he says, indicating the row of restaurants and supermarkets. “It’s such a funky place to be. I talk about duck and I can see roast ducks hanging in the windows. I need some napa cabbage or some fish sauce and it is all outside my front door.”
It couldn’t be more fitting, since Spice Market takes its inspiration from the street markets of South-East Asia. “I have cravings for Thai street food,” says Vongerichten. “I grew up with great ingredients in France, but when, at 23, I was sent by my mentor, Louis Outhier, to cook at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Bangkok and was first exposed to the stalls in the markets, it changed my way of thinking completely.
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“I can’t live without chilli and ginger. Once you taste those flavours, there is no way back. Street food is still the best food there. Around the temples and schools, the trolleys have the most amazing ice creams and coconut cakes. Or somebody will be cooking crab, and they don’t give you the recipe, but you memorise the flavours, then come back to the kitchen and try to create a dish inspired by the tastes and textures.
“You can’t reinvent food. The food groups are the same – fish, poultry, game – but the role of a chef is to say: ‘Let’s bring a different dimension to it and surprise people.’ It might only take a few ingredients, the simplest combinations. The other night I went to J. Sheekey. There I had some langoustines with mayonnaise and horseradish sauce. With the mayonnaise the langoustines were good; but when I mixed the horseradish into the mayonnaise, the flavours took me to a new level. The challenge is to make every bite equally exciting, and to create those cravings for dishes that make you keep wanting to come back for more.”
Spice Market, 020-7758 1088; spicemarketlondon.co.uk
Jane MacQuitty’s wines to match
Fragrant, spicy, sweet-sour Thai dishes are best enjoyed with tart, juicy whites and pinks that have some natural sweetness to offset the wealth of flavours. Opt for a new Italian pink, 2010 La Prendina Estate Rosé (Marks & Spencer, £7.99), whose lively, ripe, plummy spice and rich fruit are perfect. Purists will want a white wine for the shrimp cakes and their demanding, herby peanut sauce, so plump for Spain’s verdant, spicy, green pepper-stashed 2010 Marqués de Riscal Rueda Blanco (Majestic, £7.99, or buy two for £6.39 each).Finally, with the creamy, perfumed rice pud, go for the zesty, crystallised 2007 Concha y Toro Otorio Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc from Chile (half bottle, Tesco, £6.29).