Hot Dinners popped down to Mayfair this week for the launch of the Chef Season during which a number of top chefs will join forces with Atul Kochhar to come up with a new fusion bar menu for Atul's Mayfair spot Benares every month.
The first chef to take part is The Modern Pantry's Anna Hansen, who when we met her was still flushed from her trip to Buckingham Palace to pick her up her MBE. "I spent a day with Prince Charles on Valentine's Day," Hansen said, before adding that she was "very chuffed" to have been so honoured.
"If you love any of the dishes, they're mine - if there's a problem, they're Anna's," joked Atul who was clearly enjoying the novelty of having another chef in his kitchen. And for her part, Hansen said she'd learned a lot about new spices so the partnership has obviously been a fruitful one.
The end menu has six dishes from each chef, together with two cocktails from the featured chef - we tried the Japanese Collins with mint, yuzu, sake and cloudy apple juice which kicked the night off nicely. You can pick three dishes each for £21 and for our money, the best were Anna's Persian spiced lamb cutlets with smoked anchovy and dried lime salsa and Atul's Chili garlic tandoor salmon with kumquat chutney. Anna's truffled Jerusalem artichoke and parmesan with sumac lavosh was pretty special too.
Anna Hansen's menu will be at the bar at Benares until 5 March when she'll be followed by Richard Corrigan, David Thompson (Nahm) and Nigel Haworth (Northcote). We hear they're also in talks with Tom Kerridge and Ken Hom - it would be great if those two come off as well.
