L is for Legendary

Some restaurants exist that are really perfect in my eyes yet the magic, the why, is hard to pinpoint. These last two months I’ve eaten some really perfect meals in various establishments, all with varying accolades and aims. My sister will say that this is a very typical Tori thing to say, I tend to lean towards exaggeration and elaboration. I’ve had a lot of “best meals of my life” and a lot of “most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten” moments but I am a huge romantic I think and this lends towards an overbearing, some maybe would say oppressive, love. A love for eating, for enjoying, even more so when my friends are involved in this spectacle.

For this month’s Alphabet Soup, I will try to tone down my exaltation because I know it will embarrass the recipient more than a lot, but a few days ago I ate at La Légende in Sauveterre-de-Béarn and it was a perfect day.

Luke was my chef, alongside Hattie, last summer during our season at De Puta Madre in Biarritz and he has since retreated to the back country. A small hour away from the Villa where we once all lived, transitioning from traditional Basque red and white houses into a more Northern style countryside, very almost feeling English. The village itself is quaint without feeling twee and apparently is home to many a character, including the water man who roams around with large bottles of water in his precariously open rucksack and one in hand. A river runs below the medieval battlements and when the sky is clear you can see all the way to the Pyrenees.

The restaurant, run by Allistair Bellahsen, is a converted terraced house with three floors and a little patio facing the church. The open kitchen sits in the middle of the ground floor allowing a theatre of movement to accompany your meal. A wood-fired stove replaces any induction hob and renders even more impressive the food that comes across the pass.

The ingredients all come from the local region, and they actually do, meaning no sugar, no black pepper, no olive oil. A challenge that many a talented chef would find qualm with I think.

Crispy matchstick potatoes with fried pigs’ ears and baby sage started us off. The pigs ears sliced to match the shape of the potatoes and weirdly, but deliciously, had a texture of Walkers French Fries crisps, sort of puffy and hollow. Pâté de campagne with pickles and oyster mushroom croquettes followed. Wild garlic pasta with white asparagus, hazelnuts and a house ricotta. Lamb and fagots with mint sauce, polenta, chickpeas and red beans.

We sat outside for pudding and cheese, a yoghurt cake with honey and kiwis, and a digestif. Perhaps it was the beaming March sunshine, the pregnant reunion of last season’s family, or watching a friend look totally fulfilled by their job and vice versa, but it was a pretty perfect lunch. Falling asleep to murmurs of chat in the back of the Defender as we passed through the tolls on the road back to Biarritz, full and very happy.

Next week, I am going to eat in another legendary restaurant. In a serpentine turn of events, along with my bosses, I am going to eat at Noma for dinner next Tuesday. I can’t really believe that I am able to write that, it hasn’t really sunk in that I will be going to a restaurant that has been repeatedly named the best restaurant in the world. The legend factor of Rene Redzepi is unparalleled and I cannot wait to see what is in store. I am in equal parts full of greedy anticipation and fear. Nervous to be disappointed by the expectation. But, as Tori of one year ago wrote, the aphrodisiac of expectation is spurring this on to be a most memorable moment, whatever happens!

Shopping list for you

• Patrick Melrose novels - one in and I’m hooked

• New Bon Iver today is the best present

• To becoming a better cook

• Annoyingly useful phone hack

• Haven’t yet been but want to go

Thanks again for subscribing to and reading Alphabet Soup, it is a continual joy for me to write this newsletter and to have people read and respond to it. This year has been a busy one and is definitely not slowing down, so I will be pausing my paid subscriptions but I will be back on a fighting schedule before you know it!