I went out for dinner last night as a birthday (and it turns out, promotion) celebration. It was at the properly swanky – 26th in the world – Clove Club in Shoreditch town hall. Whilst sipping on some Welsh Sparkling Rose (because National pride is occasionally a thing, even in these bleak times), I decided to give myself the night off from blogging to just sit back and enjoy the 9(ish) courses with paired wines.

Alas, this was not to be. The food was exquisite, and the wine pairing was to another level. It was so good that I’ve not only decided to blog about it, but jump the queue of previously planned posts to blog about it right now! I’m not going to go into reviewing individual wines (except when I do). I’m just going to squee about how good the pairing were.

Due to a rather unhealthy thing where I didn’t go on holiday (which thankfully, I’m getting over!), I’ve had rather more of these sorts of meals than most people on my income/age have. I used to spend my holiday money on going out for dinner. I’ve had plenty of matched wines. These were easily the best I’ve had. The food and wine were both amazing anyway – but I’ve never experienced the two lift each other quite as much as happened last night. The other times it’s come close it has been matching french wine with french food. This was matching Asian inspired food made with very British ingredient with wines from all over the world. A particular stand out had to be a raw scallop dish with a really crisp orange wine – they just worked so well together. It is also amazing because I’ve now found out what nice orange wine tastes like. Orange wine is nom. Serving an amazing blended sherry with the cheese course was awesome too.

The other incredible booze related part of the evening was having a century old wine.

109 years old.

It was a madeira from 1908 (m’dear, It’s really a very good year… I will try my hardest to not pepper this with Flanders and Swann quotes. I may not succeed). It’d been aged in oak for 80 years and then continued to be aged in glass until bottling. I wonder what happened to the barrels and what’s ageing in them now?! It wasn’t paired with anything, but was actually part of the food. We were first served an amount of it that you’d expect to be served for a wine that old, and instructed to try in (YAY!) but leave some in the glass. It was sweet, it was rich, it was for want of a better description – all of the nom. Having had our tiny taste, it was then supplemented. With soup. They gave a duck consume (which I’d imagine already tasted incredible!) a HUGE lift by pouring it into the glass where the madeira (m’dear) had been.

There’s also a bar there, which I will 100% be visiting very soon. Especially as they apparently serve the snacks from the restaurant – I really want to see what their cocktails are like, and I want the cured mackerel snack.

Sorry for the rambling, even less structured than usual post. I’m just a little hung over and a little excited.

Clove Club
Shoreditch Town Hall
380 Old Street
London