I went to Casa Jondal in Ibiza a few weeks ago, which a lot of people think is the best restaurant in the world. Head chef Rafael Zafra has worked alongside Juan Mari Arzak and Ferran Adrià and won two Michelin stars at 27, it sprawls across cool sand, in dappled shade, on a beautiful beach, it’s lunch only and you cannot get in. At all.
But I haven’t written about it because of the prices. It’s all right for James Blunt or Gary Lineker, whom I saw there (not together). Or the assorted megawealthy whose tottering yachts bobbed on the horizon. It’s a bit pouty, a bit selfie-obsessed. Slightly too many young women in skimpy bikinis hanging off men old enough to be their plastic surgeons but, my God, they can cook.
There was a red prawn carpaccio described as a “homage to El Bulli” that I will never forget; a skillet of 12 tiny unweaned lamb chops fried with cubes of potato; a whole spatchcocked chicken; a page of “especiales de caviar” (rare at a toes-in-the-sand chiringuito); armfuls of ice-cold rosé (plus an ’05 pomerol); and the best dish I have ever eaten anywhere, or ever will: a huge paella pan of crispy sliced potatoes and fried eggs with a whole smashed lobster, chilli, garlic and parsley. It’s a Balearic classic, apparently, but it can’t ever have been done better than this.
I took photos, I made notes, I loved the service, I got drunk, I swam in the sea, I was both deliriously happy and kind of angry (as places I can’t really afford always make me) and when I got home I thought, actually, you know, I cannot review this because if I tell my readers what it cost, they will never speak to me again.
“It’s northern Italian because Iwan Wirth’s grampa came from there (before upgrading to Switzerland)”
DAVE WATTS
But rich people on holiday have to eat too. Which brings us to Bruton in Somerset. As it has brought the likes of Stella McCartney, Alice Temperley, Phoebe Philo (the flaky pastry heiress), Sam and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Sir Cameron Mackintosh, George Osborne and at least one of the Corrs. Oh yeah, and Hauser & Wirth, “the world’s most powerful commercial art gallery”, says The Times, “with an empire that stretches from London to Zurich, via New York, London and Somerset”.
Hauser & Wirth also owns lots of restaurants through its food subsidiary, Artfarm. I hope that’s right. I do not always fully grasp the complexities of the myriad ways the super-rich choose to own things, but I once wrote that a London restaurant was owned by Hauser & Wirth when in fact it was owned by Artfarm, which is owned by Iwan and Manuela Wirth, who own Hauser & Wirth, and got in terrible trouble with their lawyers. Or possibly accountants. Nobody wants to be telling the taxman at the end of the year, “We don’t actually own these restaurants,” and have him reply, “Well, Giles Coren says…”
So there is a gallery here, both inside and outside, with huge things that I take to be artworks dotted around the lawn. There is also a lovely farm, Durslade, which is owned, the internet says, “by Hauser & Wirth, specifically by Manuela and Iwan Wirth”. And a new northern Italian restaurant called Da Costa, which used to be Roth Bar (which has now moved), that is owned by Artfarm (not Hauser & Wirth) but serves plenty of Durslade beef, which I hope it gets a decent deal on from Hauser & Wirth.
Beef carpaccio: “Very pretty, served under chopped radishes, cucumber, capers, dill, rocket and petals”
DAVE WATTS
It’s northern Italian because Iwan Wirth’s grampa originally came from there (before upgrading to Switzerland) and it’s actually illegal to open an Italian restaurant in the UK without having at least one Italian grandparent whom you always think of when you eat Italian food and to whom you have opened the place in homage.
I got the train to Castle Cary for a million pounds and then a cab for two million, as I have done in the past to review such places as Osip, At the Chapel, Roth Bar & Grill and Margot Henderson’s Three Horseshoes, and in no time was sitting in a lovely courtyard garden surrounded by herbs and shrubs, with my toes in the gravel, sucking on a cold Greco. That’s a wine, by the way (short for greco di tufo), not a sculpture by the Spanish Renaissance artist, although you can probably do that too.
There is a magnificent sort of steampunk Italian wood-fired kitchen from which local girls emerge with menus and specials and other important stuff written on wooden chopping boards of all different sizes. No Italians here, as is correct and proper. The produce is all very local too, from Durslade and the surrounding land and waters — the days of flying in exotic Italian meat and veg are alive and well only in the Russian-fancied grand-a-head megajoints of Mayfair. This place is doing it right.
“I’d never had canerdeli, which turned out to be a kind of bread dumpling similar to the German semmelknödel”
DAVE WATTS
The cooking is not ambitious, but it’s pretty good. There is a nice, tight, imaginative menu with some dishes I’d never seen before. I had never, for example, had canerdeli, which revealed themselves to be a kind of bread dumpling similar to the German semmelknödel (or Ashkenazi kneidl). And these were sploshed with a strong cheddar fondue (northern Italy can get pretty alpine) with a dark green, wonderfully chlorophylly spinach sauce. Rich and hearty and fully in keeping with the wonky farm kitchen vibes of the interior, if not the sunshine and greco going down outside. It was £16 for three of these wee bread balls, though. Which is quite a lot considering it comes from a peasant cuisine where £16 would more likely have been expected to feed the family for a month.
• Read more restaurant reviews and recipes from our food experts
“Durslade Farm beef carpaccio” was very pretty, though the word “beef” is tautological. They should know that, of all people, as the dish is named after an artist famed for the deep reds of his paintings and cannot be made with anything else. The slices were totally round, possibly just seared at the very edge for a second as each one had a greyish corona (although that could just have been air contact prior to slicing), and served under scattered chopped radishes, cucumber, capers, dill, rocket and petals.
The risi et bisi (pea and pancetta risotto) was also very pretty: a pale summer green risotto bubbling with the brighter green of peas of all different sizes (no bag of Birds Eye frozen omnipeas here), and the pancetta was generous. But it was very salty. I love salt; I believe in salt. But I wonder if here they had salted the risotto right up to the very edge of what is palatable but reckoned without the high salinity of the pancetta, which took it rather over the edge and lost the sweetness of the peas. Then again, it only whetted our appetites for more of the excellent nebbiolo from Lombardy laid on us by one of those fun, erudite, relaxed young sommeliers you wish were one of your mates. And not just for his access to booze.
Bigoli in salsa, that classic of the Veneto that is rarely seen outside it, was strongly flavoured, chewy and rustic and I’m not going to complain about saltiness when it’s long pasta in a sauce of anchovies and wild garlic. But they could, perhaps, think of applying a lighter hand here too. Although the farm shop venison sausage with creamy polenta was spot on for seasoning, the rambunctious sausages mellowed by the cool, bland, creamy corn.
“A creditable tiramisu”
DAVE WATTS
We were a bit full for the pure-bred Durslade wagyu sirloin, which was a shame as it was the first purebred wagyu they have raised and killed (they’ve been serving crosses up to now). I have never gone out of my way for wagyu; I am not entirely clear what the benefit is supposed to be. But this was a decent steak. My mate took most of it home with him for the kids (he said “dog”, but I think he
was joking — it’s £57). There were smoked potatoes with salsa verde and Tenderstem broccoli with all of that, a creditable tiramisu and finally a bill, with those two good bottles, for just north of £400.
What? Oh, do shut up. You wouldn’t get a Fanta for that at Jondal.
Da Costa
Durslade Farm, Bruton, Somerset (01749 467880; da-costa.co.uk)
Cooking 6
Service 7
Location 8
Score 7
Price £100/head not including booze