Smashed at the Weekend #12

Brilliant beef, stunning seafood, mesmerizing mezcal and an object lesson in pubs

Welcome to the weekend, I hope you’ve got some food and drink-related treats lined up. I’ll be heading to one of Brighton’s best restaurants, The Set which is celebrating its 10 anniversary with a menu of old favourites. At home, I’ll be trying out some Jack’s Creek Australian Wagyu X Steak (they have not sponsored this newsletter but I’m open to offers of course) which has just gone on sale at Ocado. The Wagu/Black Angus cross has won the World’s Best Steak at the World Steak Challenge for the past two years in a row so I thought it might be worth investigating. I’ll report back. It might be rubbish, who knows, but at least the spuds will be good. I’ll be serving it with Adam Byatt’s version of gratin dauphinoise which he demonstrated on his YouTube channel. He seems to be posting a lot recently, maybe inspired by the success of Fallow on the platform, which recently passed 1 million subscribers.

There has been much celebration in my house about the return of Top Chef, now in its 22nd season. The location for the peripatetic competition for American professional chefs this year is Canada. Head judge chef Tom Colicchio is an outspoken critic of Trump so even if the choice of Canada is merely a coincidental middle finger to the Hocus Potus, I’m sure Colicchio is relishing it nevertheless. You can watch Top Chef on the same day it airs in America on Hayu.

(This edition of Smashed at the Weekend is free but if you’d like to support my work you can use the button below to buy me a coffee via ko-fi.com)

Continuing the US theme, I’ll also be getting a preview of Love, Charlie, the 2021 documentary about the legendary but troubled Chicago-based chef Charlie Trotter that’s finally getting its UK streaming release on 14 April. I’ll be posting a full review nearer the release date but I think it’s going to be a must-watch for anyone who enjoyed Chef’s Table or has an interest in the development of global gastronomy. You can watch the trailer below.

Something to Eat: Bricco e Bacco, London

They do lots of things well at Bricco e Bacco, the Sicilian restaurant that opened its doors on Charlotte Street in 2021. They cook caponata for 10 hours until it’s a sweet and sour flavour bomb. They make top notch pasta and serve it with a deeply flavoured ragu. They’ve got service down to a T; restaurant manager Dino has that knack of being able to make first timers like me feel like regular customers. But what Bricco e Bacco are really good at is steak. No surprise when you learn that the family have been carnezzieri (butchers in the local dialect) by trade since the 1930s.

Co-founder Roberto Bergamotti

The hint was in the glass-fronted meat aging cabinets that take pride of place in the window, and then the menu arrived with nine dry-aged steak options, all aged on the bone and designed for two to share. They ranged from UK Shorthorn at £110 per kg to Japanese A5 Wagyu priced at £60 per 100g - you don’t really want to see the price per kilo spelled out do you? Our Rubia Gallega (£160kg) from Galician cattle that graze for up to 12 years was first presented to us raw and then returned from the kitchen where the beautifully marbled meat was shown some heat and returned to us sliced, scatted with sea salt and rosemary and sitting on a hot pink Himalayan salt plate that we used to cook each piece to our liking.

The stakes are rated on the menu out of five for marbling, softness and flavour with the A5 scoring five on all counts. Our Rubia Gallega scored three for marbling, three for softness and five for flavour and that suited me fine - not too fatty, with good texture and a wallop of intense meatiness. We didn’t leave much room for desserts, which wasn’t a huge problem as the one thing Bricco e Bacco are not so great at is puddings. I could hardly get my spoon through a ‘Cannolo Siciliano’ and the traditional ‘Cassata Siciliana’ ricotta cheesecake went mostly uneaten. But no matter - after such high steaks, the pudding stakes were low.

The Details
Bricco e Bacco, 11-13 Charlotte Street London W1T 1RH.
020 7419 9682; briccoebacco.co.uk
Smashed dined as a guest of Bricco e Bacco.

Something to read: pub by Phillip Howell

Part of Bloomsbury Academic’s Object Lessons series that covers everything from hotels to shipping containers, pub is a small but perfectly formed book that aims to look beyond the myth and nostalgia of the British pub. By treating the pub as a series of objects, Howell ‘takes the pub apart and examines its constituent elements, from pub signs to the bar staff to the calling of "time"', and explores it’s hidden aspects including ‘corporate control, cultural acceptance and exclusion, and the role of the pub in communities’. If that all sounds a bit serious, never fear; Howell approaches his subject with wit and a lightness of touch. Along the way you’ll discover that there really is a pub called The Case is Altered and compares the hostelries on a pub crawl to The Stations of The Cross. A must read for anyone who wants to understand why the pub has played such an important role in British life.

Use the following affiliate link to buy this book and help support Smashed:
pub by Phillip Howell
£9.99, Bloomsbury Academic

Something to Cook: Seafood recipes from chef Ari Kolender

Ari Kolender is the chef/proprietor of Found Oyster and Queen St. Raw Bar and Grill in Los Angeles. The following recipes are from his first cookbook, How to Cook the Finest Things in the Sea, published by Artisan on 24 April.

Tomato and Anchovy Bread Pudding

With little effort, canned tomatoes, bread, and butter are tossed together and baked in a skillet until crispy and caramelized, then garnished with a blanket of anchovies. The result is something like a buttery, acidic, umami-laden Southern pizza that you can eat with a spoon. Tomato pudding is a classic Southern dish, but this version is inspired by the one from the now-closed iconic Charleston restaurant Hominy Grill.

SERVES 8

Two 28-ounce (794 g) cans whole peeled tomatoes
14 ounces (400 g) fresh or day-old crusty bread, such as sourdough (about two-thirds of a large loaf of bread)
3 tablespoons salted butter, melted, plus 1 tablespoon at room temperature for the skillet
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
One 3.3-ounce (94 g) jar or two 1.73-ounce (49 g) cans good brown anchovies
Parsley leaves, for garnish

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) if you have convection, or 425°F (220°C) without convection.

2. Pour the tomatoes into a large bowl and crush them by hand until they have a rustic, chunky texture.

3. Tear the bread into roughly 1- to 11/2-inch (2.5 to 4 cm) rustic pieces. Add the bread to the bowl, along with the melted butter, sugar, kosher salt, and about 55 twists of black pepper. Mix it well with your hands, until all of the tomato juice has been absorbed into the bread.

4. Grease a 12-inch (30 cm) skillet with the room-temperature butter, making sure to get the bottom and walls. Dump the bread mixture into the skillet. Gently shape the mixture into a relatively even layer, so that it is touching as much of the walls of the skillet as possible to create a crust, without pressing or compacting it.

5. Transfer the skillet to the oven and bake until the top of the pudding is rustically charred and the sides are caramelized, about 1 hour.

6. Let the tomato pudding rest for at least 15 minutes to settle and cool off before serving.

7. Garnish the skillet in an even layer with whole anchovy fillets, then sprinkle it with parsley leaves and finish with more black pepper.

8. Serve it warm or at room temperature, scooped onto plates.

Swordfish Cavatappi With Cherry Tomatoes, Mint, And Fresh Chiles

This pasta salad is a riff on a puttanesca, served with seared swordfish fillets, lots of aromatics, fresh chiles, and fresh herbs. Since swordfish freezes well, it’s a great fish to keep in the freezer. You can even make the sauce and sear the swordfish in advance. After that, you can just open a bottle of wine and hang out until it’s time to boil pasta and throw it all together. Serve this dish at room temperature on a hot summer night, but because the leftovers keep really well, it’s great cold out of the fridge, too.

SERVES 4 TO 6

2 swordfish steaks (5 ounces/140 g each), about 2 inches (5 cm) thick
Kosher salt and coarsely ground black pepper
Espelette pepper
Smoked paprika
3 tablespoons plus 1/2 cup (120 ml) olive oil, plus more for drizzling
1/2 cup (70 g) small-diced yellow onion
1/2 cup (65 g) small-diced fennel
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1/2 jalapeño, seeded and thinly sliced
6 oil-packed brown anchovy fillets
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 cup (120 ml) red wine (whatever you have on hand)
One 28-ounce (794 g) can crushed tomatoes
1 pound (450 g) cavatappi or strozzapreti pasta
1/4 cup (40 g) drained capers
20 Niçoise olives (see Note), pitted and halved
2 cups (10 ounces/280 g) cherry tomatoes
1/4 cup (60 ml) fresh lemon juice

1. Liberally season the swordfish fillets with kosher salt, black pepper, Espelette, and smoked paprika.

2. Heat 3 tablespoons of the olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat until just starting to smoke. Gently lay the swordfish fillets (away from you, to protect from splatter) into the pan and cook them to medium (118°F/48°C internal temperature), 2 to 3 minutes per side.

3. Transfer the swordfish to a plate to rest (you want to save those resting fish juices in the plate for later).

4. Heat the remaining 1/2 cup (120 ml) olive oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat until shimmering. Add the onion, fennel, garlic, jalapeño, anchovies, and pepper flakes. Season with salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is translucent, about 3 minutes. Add the red wine, increase the heat to medium-high, and bring to a bubble. Reduce the heat and simmer until the wine is reduced by half, about 2 minutes. Stir in the crushed tomatoes and a pinch of salt, reduce the heat to medium-low, partially cover (crushed tomatoes like to pop and sputter across your stove), and simmer for 10 minutes.

5. Bring a pot of nicely salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook to al dente according to the package directions.

6. Meanwhile, cut the rested swordfish into 1-inch (2.5 cm) pieces and return them to the plate with its juices.

7. After the sauce has simmered for 10 minutes, add the capers, olives, cherry tomatoes, and lemon juice and cook, stirring occasionally, while the pasta cooks. Taste for seasoning and add salt if needed.

Excerpted from How to Cook the Finest Things in the Sea by Ari Kolender (£30, Artisan Books). Copyright © 2025. Photographs by Justin Chung.

Use this affiliate link to pre-order this book (release date 24 April 2025) and support Smashed.

Something to Drink: Inmigrante from Alma Bar, London

Alma is the tequila and agave bar beneath the glamorous fire dining South American restaurant Sucre in Soho. Exposed brickwork, dark wood and plush seating create a modern speakeasy feel, accentuated by AI artworks and live DJs. Signature drinks include the sweet and sour Luz de Lima with Patron Reposado tequila, Olmeca Altos Plata tequila, rhubarb liqueur, pear purée, vanilla syrup and lime juice; Pina Nueva with Mijenta Blanco, green Chartreuse, Fair Chipotle, pineapple juice, coconut cream, agave and chilli syrup and the Inmigrante.

Glenn Gicquel - Bar Manager at Alma says: ‘The Inmigrante’s name is inspired by the ingredients used in its making. With Mezcal from Mexico blended with Aperol and Italicus from Italy, this cocktail delivers a smoky yet citrusy and zesty flavour, complemented by a dash of sweetness from the vanilla syrup. It’s a well-balanced drink aimed at those looking for a complex and flavourful cocktail.’

Ingredients:
30ml Ojo de Dios Joven Mezcal
20ml Aperol
10ml Italicus Rosolio di Bergamotto
10ml Vanilla Syrup
20ml Fresh Lime Juice
3 dashes Ms. Better’s Bitters or Egg White

Method:
1. In a cocktail shaker, combine Ojo de Dios Joven Mezcal, Aperol, Italicus, vanilla syrup, fresh lime juice and Ms. Better’s Bitters.

2. Add ice and shake vigorously for 10–15 seconds to chill and aerate the mixture.

3. Double strain into a chilled Nick & Nora or martini glass for a smooth, refined presentation.

4. Garnish with an edible flower or sprig of rosemary for an elegant finishing touch.

5. Serve and enjoy!

The Details
Alma, 47b Great Marlborough Street, London W1F 7JP
020 3988 3329; sucrerestaurant.com/london/alma
@almabarlondon