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Wine list of the week: Voyage with Adam Simmonds
Douglas Blyde embarks on a visit to Voyage with Adam Simmonds at The Megaro Hotel in King's Cross. While there, he considers whether the non-alcohol pairings actually surpass "their vinous counterparts". The post Wine list of the week: Voyage with Adam Simmonds appeared first on The Drinks Business.
Douglas Blyde embarks on a visit to Voyage with Adam Simmonds at The Megaro Hotel in King's Cross. While there, he considers whether the non-alcohol pairings actually surpass "their vinous counterparts".
Unveiled in time for the hopium-laced optimism of the 2012 Olympics, a moment when London briefly fancied itself a pageant of pan-continental harmony rather than the over-leveraged real estate theme park it would become, the mural on the Megaro Hotel in King’s Cross was pitched as a love letter to urban vitality. What it more closely resembled was the unfortunate result of locking four international graffiti romantics (trading as Agents of Change) in a Dulux warehouse with a cherry-picker. 150 litres of emulsion, 160 of spray paint, and the approximate self-belief of a tech start-up CEO went into the camouflage, later described by the King’s Cross Conservation Area Advisory Committee as having “knackered” the Georgian façade “like an unwanted tattoo.”
However, behind this polychromatic eyesore lurks a lesson in subtlety: Voyage with Adam Simmonds. Inside, Giles Coren petulantly found “all the miseries of the Scandi kitchen, laid out like crossword answers” and a cocoa bean infusion so bleak he declared, “I have given CPR to a cat” and still preferred the latter. Yet Hot Dinners insisted the menu was “very well put-together... [revealing] real skill,” while Luxuriate Life assured us that the dishes, though monosyllabic on paper, arrived via a parade of backstage graft and table side theatre.
Next came lightly roasted Scottish lobster with razor clams, palourdes, cockles, squid, and a sea urchin granita, finished with spreading kelp broth. Gentle and marine, it met Domaine Laroche, Chablis 1er Cru L’Essence des Climats. The only flaw lay in the bowl’s rim, which made drinking the last of the broth impossible without a straw.
Then, celeriac, salt-baked, roasted, and fermented, with shiitake, green walnuts and Périgord black truffle, finished with celeriac broth. Sweet, earthy, comforting. We learned, to some delight, that GM, Julie Doumer, herself from Périgord, had never liked truffle until this dish. It paired brilliantly with a roasted buckwheat infusion from, of all places, Armenia’s Gegharkunik region.
A surprise course: veal sweetbread with salt-baked and raw kohlrabi, black onion purée, chicken and yellow mustard seed sauce, and a bright parsley purée. Classical and rich – the sort of dish you imagine served beneath a chandelier the size of a Fiat. Like Simmonds himself, it spoke of old-school cool.
The main: aged venison, sous-vide but still bouncy, cloaked in buckwheat, coriander and black juniper, with roasted beetroot, petals, blackberries, parsley purée and sauce. Let down only by Maison Altisolis’ overly chirpy Santenay and a clunky Montepulciano d’Abruzzo from Tocco, which blunted its clarity.
Realised by the hands of sous chef, Liz Totkov (ex-Mauro Colagreco at The OWO Hélène Darroze at The Connaught, and Fat Duck), a nimble sea buckthorn sorbet arrived, framed by semi-dehydrated carrot, fresh mandarin and purée, paired with a strawberry-kissed, non-alcoholic Chardonnay grape juice by Alain Millat, decanted like Montrachet – a bright decrescendo.
Totkov also shaped the exceptional koji pearl barley ice cream with hazelnut ganache, chestnut and hazelnut creams, and jasmine kombucha-compressed pear. Alongside, a nutty drink of the excellent Lyre’s Dark Cane, hazelnut and chestnut extract, maple syrup and amaretti – a clever, boozeless alternative.
To close: a non-filtered, organic cacao bean infusion from Grenada – delicate, complex, dark-chocolate-meets-red-wine, but without the bitterness – before a splendid pork fudge. It had nothing to do with giving CPR to a feline, and everything to do with balance. A final, rich twist in a voyage charted with intellect and restraint.
Unveiled in time for the hopium-laced optimism of the 2012 Olympics, a moment when London briefly fancied itself a pageant of pan-continental harmony rather than the over-leveraged real estate theme park it would become, the mural on the Megaro Hotel in King’s Cross was pitched as a love letter to urban vitality. What it more closely resembled was the unfortunate result of locking four international graffiti romantics (trading as Agents of Change) in a Dulux warehouse with a cherry-picker. 150 litres of emulsion, 160 of spray paint, and the approximate self-belief of a tech start-up CEO went into the camouflage, later described by the King’s Cross Conservation Area Advisory Committee as having “knackered” the Georgian façade “like an unwanted tattoo.”
However, behind this polychromatic eyesore lurks a lesson in subtlety: Voyage with Adam Simmonds. Inside, Giles Coren petulantly found “all the miseries of the Scandi kitchen, laid out like crossword answers” and a cocoa bean infusion so bleak he declared, “I have given CPR to a cat” and still preferred the latter. Yet Hot Dinners insisted the menu was “very well put-together... [revealing] real skill,” while Luxuriate Life assured us that the dishes, though monosyllabic on paper, arrived via a parade of backstage graft and table side theatre.
Drinks
Drawn from a flocculently textured list by Milanese consultant, Adriana Valentini, fizz by-the-glass ranges from the blotter-dry Bruno Paillard Première Cuvée Rosé Extra Brut MV (£24/125ml) to Delavenne Père et Fils Grand Cru L’Île Demi-Sec (£22), dripping with 32 grams of sugar per litre. By the bottle, the sparkling selection meanders across continents with the blind faith of a 1990s backpacker – from Unico Zelo Sea Foam (£60), a citrus-charged Vermentino pét-nat from South Australia, to Hundreds [sic] Hills Hillside No.3 from Oxfordshire (£98). Indeed, the proofreading reads like it was done under the influence of the cloudier end of the cellar – we are treated to wines from “Drouhir” made with “Syarah” under “Bionynamic” conditions. Still wines by-the-glass begin at £8/125ml with Bruno Lafon’s Languedoc Pinot Noir – a wine which shares only a surname with the Lafons of Burgundy, much as Aldi shares a business model with Harrods. At the other end, Xavier Monnot’s Puligny-Montrachet 2022 (£36) offers genuine Burgundian class. The bottle list flirts with affordability in the vanishing £40-50 bracket – a habitat under threat in central London. Here, the Tbilvino Qvevris (a pleasing Georgian amber), a soft-spoken German Pinot from [Balthasar] Ress, and a Carménère-Malbec by Morandé (each £42) stand out as well-spent money. Elsewhere, logic wilts: a half-bottle of Château La Coste rosé is £49, while the full bottle sits at £69. The 42% surcharge for moderation appears to defy the Drinkaware campaign – the less you drink, the more you pay. The list peaks with Michele Chiarlo’s Barolo Cannubi 2019 (£250) – a wine with the gravitas to justify its ransom. But then comes the baffling £225 for Coudoulet de Beaucastel 2015 – not the Grand Vin but the warm-up act priced like Lynch-Bages’ long lost twin. Once service is added, you could land a case in bond for the same figure. Downstairs at Hokus Pocus – a brassy cocktail bar disguised as a Doctor Who set – Grzegorz “Doc” Chudzio Reyes fat-washes Bourbon with wagyu, chases it with house lager, and narrates the whole thing like a Victorian mesmerist. Despite PR attention, it might still be one of the capital’s best-kept secrets.Dishes
Simmonds, who also oversees the neighbouring Spagnoletti – home to filetto lardato with pane carasau, and grilled octopus with salmoriglio, potato and taggiasche olives – began his culinary journey not in a Cordon Bleu cockpit but a scullery in Leighton Buzzard. From there, he passed through the great kitchens of Le Gavroche, The Ritz, and Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons - vital checkpoints on the road to Michelin. At The Greenway, he earned three AA rosettes in under a year, then stars at Ynyshir Hall and Danesfield House. In 2022, he diverted from haute cuisine orthodoxy to co-found Home Kitchen in Primrose Hill – a noble, if precarious, venture employing people with experiences of homelessness, which he came near to experiencing. Now, within the former Magenta, in the chromatically overloaded Megaro Hotel, where suites feature “raw concrete” walls and carpets mimicking burnt rubber, according to Trendhunter, we voyage once more with Simmonds. His thick glasses and deliberate tattoos seem more composed than the off-putting mural which clings to the façade like a warning sign. And then the plates arrive – careful, clever, adrift in expanses of shapely porcelain. Simmonds, alcohol-free since 2017, takes special interest in the non-alcoholic pairings at Voyage. We opted for a mixed selection, explained by Bordeaux-born, Seb Vanarie (ex-Mere by Monica and David Galleti - RIP). Lunch began with a buckwheat scallop tartlet and nasturtium, followed by a meaty Brittany oyster, selected after seven origins were tried, with compressed Granny Smith, raw white asparagus, tapioca pearls, and oils of sorrel and wood. Its match: an end-of-season olive leaf infusion from Naxos, harvested from 500-year-old trees - an elegant, grassy, slightly oily opener.
Next came lightly roasted Scottish lobster with razor clams, palourdes, cockles, squid, and a sea urchin granita, finished with spreading kelp broth. Gentle and marine, it met Domaine Laroche, Chablis 1er Cru L’Essence des Climats. The only flaw lay in the bowl’s rim, which made drinking the last of the broth impossible without a straw.
Then, celeriac, salt-baked, roasted, and fermented, with shiitake, green walnuts and Périgord black truffle, finished with celeriac broth. Sweet, earthy, comforting. We learned, to some delight, that GM, Julie Doumer, herself from Périgord, had never liked truffle until this dish. It paired brilliantly with a roasted buckwheat infusion from, of all places, Armenia’s Gegharkunik region.
A surprise course: veal sweetbread with salt-baked and raw kohlrabi, black onion purée, chicken and yellow mustard seed sauce, and a bright parsley purée. Classical and rich – the sort of dish you imagine served beneath a chandelier the size of a Fiat. Like Simmonds himself, it spoke of old-school cool.
The main: aged venison, sous-vide but still bouncy, cloaked in buckwheat, coriander and black juniper, with roasted beetroot, petals, blackberries, parsley purée and sauce. Let down only by Maison Altisolis’ overly chirpy Santenay and a clunky Montepulciano d’Abruzzo from Tocco, which blunted its clarity.
Realised by the hands of sous chef, Liz Totkov (ex-Mauro Colagreco at The OWO Hélène Darroze at The Connaught, and Fat Duck), a nimble sea buckthorn sorbet arrived, framed by semi-dehydrated carrot, fresh mandarin and purée, paired with a strawberry-kissed, non-alcoholic Chardonnay grape juice by Alain Millat, decanted like Montrachet – a bright decrescendo.
Totkov also shaped the exceptional koji pearl barley ice cream with hazelnut ganache, chestnut and hazelnut creams, and jasmine kombucha-compressed pear. Alongside, a nutty drink of the excellent Lyre’s Dark Cane, hazelnut and chestnut extract, maple syrup and amaretti – a clever, boozeless alternative.
To close: a non-filtered, organic cacao bean infusion from Grenada – delicate, complex, dark-chocolate-meets-red-wine, but without the bitterness – before a splendid pork fudge. It had nothing to do with giving CPR to a feline, and everything to do with balance. A final, rich twist in a voyage charted with intellect and restraint.
Last sip
As lunch unfolded, it became clear this was not merely a voyage through a menu, but a passage steered by a man who has undergone a profound recalibration. Five years ago, his life hung on the edge of cocaine addiction. Today, the bullishness has ebbed. In its place stands a quieter, more composed figure – a chef of nuance. And, for once, non-alcoholic pairings, an unfiltered extension of his palate, perpetually surpassed their vinous counterparts. Perhaps the venue should note its strengths and rise as a tea house?Best for
- Non-alcoholic pairings
- Deep chef’s counter
- Harmonious dishes
