Recently in Simon Rogan Category

The AA has announced the shortlist for the 2012 Chefs' Chef of the Year award, with 15 of the UK's most celebrated chefs up for the title.

The prestigious accolade is voted for by all UK establishments holding AA Rosettes and this year's shortlist includes industry heavyweights such as Michel Roux Jnr, Sat Bains and Claude Bosi.

Other chefs nominated for the award are former Catey Chef of the Year winners Angela Hartnett, David Everitt-Matthias and Pierre Koffmann, as well as Michelin-starred chefs Jason Atherton, Daniel Clifford, Simon Rogan and Tom Kitchin. Tom Aikens, Richard Corrigan, Nigel Haworth, Michael Wignall and Jeff Bland complete this year's shortlist.

"For the AA Chefs' Chef Award a shortlist is drawn up annually of AA Rosette chefs who have made a strong impact and have positively influenced other chefs, both in the eyes of our inspectors and based on feedback we have received from the industry," said Giovanna Grossi, AA hotel services group area manager.

"They will have shown continued commitment to their profession and be worthy of recognition for their performance over the past year."

While establishments are able to add nominees to the shortlist, previous winners are of the award are excluded. Former winners include Michel Roux, Heston Blumenthal, Marco Pierre White, Gordon Ramsay, Raymond Blanc, Marcus Wareing and Andrew Fairlie.

The AA's Chefs' Chef Award will be presented at the AA Hospitality Awards on 24 September at the London Hilton Park Lane.

Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck has retained its place as the UK's best restaurant in the Good Food Guide but other chefs including Simon Rogan, Sat Bains and Jason Atherton are starting to redefine ideas on what makes a great restaurant, according to the guide.

Blumenthal's three-Michelin-starred Fat Duck in Bray, Berkshire, has retained its perfect score of 10 out of 10 in the 2012 edition of the Good Food Guide, while a number of other establishments have scored an almost perfect nine out of 10.

They include Rogan's Michelin-starred L'Enclume in Cartmel, Cumbria, and Restaurant Sat Bains in Nottingham, which have ranked in second and third place of the guide's list of the Top 50 UK Restaurants respectively.  

Elizabeth Carter, consultant editor of the Good Food Guide, commented: "Simon Rogan is all about pushing boundaries, changing perceptions and forging links between nature and the kitchen. His cooking is a revelation from start to finish."

Rogan said he was thrilled with the result. "This means so much me and the team - coming second in the country with a 9/10 score is unbelievable," he said.

Jason Atherton's Pollen Street Social in London has come in as the highest new entry in the top 10, landing in eighth place less than six months after opening. Carter described Atherton as a chef whose pace-setting invention was a triumph.
 
Meanwhile celebrity chefs continue to be recognised in the Good Food Guide's top 10, with Gordon Ramsay's flagship in London's Chelsea ranking in fourth place, Raymond Blanc's Le Manoir aux Quat'Saison in Oxfordshire in sixth place, and Marcus Wareing at the Berkeley in seventh place.

"The Good Food Guide 2012 showcases what has been a fascinating year for dining in the UK.  The dining scene across the country is vibrant, with some supremely talented chefs serving innovative food which is winning our readers' hearts - there is much to be excited about," said Carter. 

The most memorable thing about Massimo Restaurant & Oyster Bar is not the food but the prices, according to AA Gill.

The Sunday Times food critic experiences a forgettable meal the restaurant at the Corinthia Hotel, which he describes as one of the most staggeringly expensive restaurants in London. The bill for two was £189, which is utterly undeserved," he complains.

Meanwhile Lisa Markwell, writing in the Independent on Sunday, is impressed by the perfectly judged menu at Roganic, Simon Rogan's two-year pop up restaurant in London's Marylebone, where a tasting menu is served only.

"One stand-out dish is Kentish seawater-cured mackerel with Regent's Park elderflower honey, broccoli - dehydrated and puréed - and shallots, which is a triumph of textures and flavours that plays on the tongue," she enthuses.

Scarborough may be down on its luck, but at least you can enjoy a life-affirming meal at Italian restaurant Lanterna, says the Observer's Jay Rayner, while the Sunday Telegraph's Zoe Williams finds the views more impressive than the food at Mark Sargeant's Rocksalt in Folkestone, Kent.

In London, the Metro's Marina O'Loughlin says Nuno Mendes's Corner Room at the Town Hall hotel in Bethnal Green offers the chance to experience what would otherwise be known as haute cuisine in pleasingly offbeat, informal surroundings.

The London Evening Standard's Fay Maschler says Galoupet, the first London restaurant by the owners of the Château du Galoupet vineyard in the South of France, brings a touch of Provence to Knightsbridge.

French restaurant Medlar in London's Chelsea is reviewed twice this weekend, with AA Gill and John Walsh both agreeing that the food offer is excellent.

In the Sunday Times, Gill says that despite hideously bright light fittings the food is surprisingly good and offer great value. "The food is really unexpectedly good, and at £25 for three courses, for a lunch of this quality, the best value anywhere in Chelsea, which almost makes up for the lights," he says.

Meanwhile, writing in The Independent, John Walsh is equally impressed by Medlar but finds something constrained and buttoned-up, dainty and polite about both the food and service. "One can take formality too far," he says. 

The London Evening Standard's longstanding restaurant critic, Fay Maschler, reviews Roganic, Simon Rogan's two-year pop-up restaurant in London's Marylebone where a tasting menu is available only. She says: "Ten courses at £80 (despite intrinsically low food costs) seems too much money and too much time spent, though the kitchen will presumably speed up as it beds in more firmly."

The Sunday Telegraph's food critic, Zoe Williams, is underwhelmed by French bistro Chabrot. While it looks authentic and tastes authentic, a meal at the Knightsbridge restaurant is not entirely convincing, she says.

Finally, The Observer's Jay Rayner says global menu all too often ends up as a mess on the plate but Anna Hansen at the Modern Pantry makes it a virtue.

Michelin-starred chef Simon Rogan is to open a "two-year pop-up" restaurant in London.

The chef patron of the critically acclaimed L'Enclume restaurant in Cartmel, Cumbria, has taken over a site in Marylebone and will reopen it in the spring.

Rogan has taken over a remaining two-year lease on the site on Blandford Street, which was previously occupied by Michael Moore, and is thus calling the restaurant a "two-year pop-up".

Head chef at the yet-to-be-named restaurant will be Ben Spalding, who recently joined Rogan at L'Enclume and previously worked at Restaurant Lipp in Gothernburg, Sweden, as well as Michelin-starred London restaurants L'Autre Pied and Rhodes W1. The food offer will be similar to that at L'Enclume.

Rogan and partner Penny Tapsell opened L'Enclume in Cartmel in 2003. Within a year, they had been awarded a Michelin star, a Newcomer of the Year Catey and a rarely awarded 10 out of 10 from the Times restaurant critic Giles Coren. Last year L'Enclume was awarded the AA's top award of five rosettes for it's "groundbreaking cuisine that is inventive and innovative".

Rogan, who opened his second restaurant, Rogan & Company, located minutes from L'Enclume in 2008, first hinted of his intention to open a restaurant in the South of England in 2006. He told Caterer then: "I want more people to sample my food. It seems you get success and recognition a lot quicker in the South."

UPDATE: Simon Rogan's London restaurant will be called Roganic and open on 1 June.