Lunch at The Merchant Hotel, Belfast

After I had finished my talk and panel discussion last Thursday I took myself and my travel sketchbook off to The Merchant Hotel. This is a 5 star hotel which houses The Great Room Restaurant in what used to be the Banking Hall in the Headquarters of the Ulster Bank in Belfast.

As many of you know I'm very fond of sketching food and in particular nice meals in different parts of the world.

Cherubs looking down on diners

I arrived about 1.30 and the restaurant was full. At first, it seemed unlikely I would be able to get a seat. However keen to enjoy some fine dining and a wealth of things to sketch I persisted and was rewarded with a table.

The banquette was very comfortable and the service was extremely high quality after a minor hiccup.

So here - in order - are my sketches and a photo or two.

All sketches were done 
at the Merchant Hotel, Belfast 

on Thursday 12th March 2015

 in pen and ink and coloured pencils 
in a Moleskine Sketchbook 
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

First my sketch of the cherubs decorating the tops of the walls around the room. I decided I liked the one with wings coming out of his head!

Next my starter which was a Seafood Ravioli

Seafood Ravioli, Portavogie Lobster and Irish Scallop Ravioli and Shellfish Bisque
Merchant Hotel 12 March 2015

This was a beige colour - but delicious! Next course was a dish of Roast Irish Cod Fillet with Ham Hock.

Roast Cod Fillet, Smoked Ham Hock, Saffron Potatoes, Chargrilled Leeks and Mussel veloute
at the Merchant Hotel, Belfast 12th March 2015
pen and ink and coloured pencils in Moleskine Sketchbook | copyright Katherine Tyrrell

and finally... my dessert - White Chocolate Parfait.

White Chocolate Parfait, Yellow Man and Orange Poached Figs
at the Merchant Hotel, Belfast 12th March 2015

Tea in the Great Room Restaurant

Corner of The Great Room Restaurant

I didn't get round to sketching my cup of tea at the end of the meal - due to the need to get to the airport - but it was beautifully served.

This is the link to an example of the Lunchtime Menu. (If I were to make a suggestion for one way in which they could improve - I love restaurants which update their menus on their website as fast as they do in the kitchen - and don't just leave the same menu up all year round)

You can find The Merchant Hotel in Waring Street, Belfast in the Cathedral Quarter.

You can find out about the history of the building here.

More of my sketches from Belfast

• Cicchetti at Coppi
• Sketching the Sessions at the Ulster Festival (tomorrow)

More of my sketching meals sketches

Cicchetti at Coppi

One of the highlights of my recent visit to Belfast for the Ulster Festival of Art & Design was the food which can be enjoyed in the vicinity of the Faculty of Art & Design.

On Wednesday lunchtime I enjoyed Fish and Chips while sat in a booth next to Dara Ó Briain at the Canteen at the Mac (I sleepwalked past!). The Mac is a new arts venue in Belfast - behind the Art School. It has fabulous looking and tasting food (here's the lunch menu). It tastes even better when you've had no breakfast because you were up so very early to catch a plane to Belfast!

Then on Wednesday evening after my talk, Julie Douglas and I met up with John Angel and his wife Megan and we went for a late dinner at Coppi in St Anne's Square, behind the Cathedral.

I did a super fast sketch of the Cicchetti I had for a starter - and then had a go with colour when I got home. Very tasty!  I followed up with Pork Saltimbocca Prosciutto, Roast Chestnut, Sage Butter & Bitter Leaf Insalata - but was too tired to sketch by this stage!

Cicchetti (pronounced “chee-KET-eeh”) are small dishes of food - not unlike Tapas - but Italian in origin and typically served in traditional "bàcari" in Venice.

Cicchetti at Coppi in Belfast 
(spelt incorrectly on the sketch)
Clockwise from left: Crispy Squid, Arrabiata Mayo & Lemon, 
Lemon Chicken Spiedini, Roast Pepper Salsa and Polenta Fritti, Candied Fennel, Goats Cheese & Balsamic

Plus I do like a restaurant which goes to the trouble of telling you which dishes are vegetarian, gluten free, contain nuts etc.

I've got a set of food sketches coming up next - from lunch at The Merchant Hotel on Thursday after my sessions were finished.

Reference:

• Coppi - Restaurant St Anne's Square, Cathedral Quarter, Belfast BT1 2LR
• Coppi - Menu
• Belfast: Coppi - TripAdvisor

Trinity Buoy Wharf

I've only just realised that I forgot to post my sketches from the Urban Sketchers London sketchcrawl at Trinity Buoy Wharf on 16 November 2014.

The prow of the red Lighthouse Ship at Trinity Buoy Wharf
- next to where the River Lea enters the River Thames
- with the Emirates Cable Cars in the background

As always the prospect of trying to scan an A3 spread across two pages in an A4 sketchbook has me thinking twice before doing so. In the end I tried photographing with my new iPhone instead - which wasn't perfect but has the merit of at least getting these sketches to appear here with minimum fuss!

The above sketch was done from inside Fatboys Diner - while Suzanne du Toit and James Hobbs sat the other side of the table. It was drizzling outside and a number of us took refuge inside the Diner!

Suzanne du Toit and James Hobbs sketching opposite me in Fatboys Diner

In the morning I was drawing Fatboys Diner - and the other end of the red lightship while testing my new Faber Castell Albrecht Durer watercolour pencils in my Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook (ie smooth surface and amenable to water washes).

This was the result - it's sadly unfinished due to the drizzle which started. I can cope with drizzle and have sat and sketched under an umbrella before now while using ordinary coloured pencils - but it's a bit fatal with watercolour pencils - they have a very unpredictable impact!

Fatboys Diner and the big red lightship - at Trinity Buoy Wharf
- I've used water on the red on the diner
- but the rest of the sketch is watercolour pencils untouched by water

Two things I learned:

• the Albrecht Durers work well with the Zeta Sketchbook when dry
• when the pencils are wetted, the saturation of colour is very good.

I need to try them again on a subject where there is more scope for colour mixing on the paper.

Lunch for one at the National Dining Rooms

This the lunch I had recently after I visited the new exhibition at the National Gallery - see Review: Facing the Modern - The Portrait in Vienna 1900.  I came out of the exhibition - in the basement of the Sainsbury Wing - found the lift and went up two floors to the National Dining Rooms

I sorted out my notes from the press preview and started my sketches of my Table d'Hote lunch. See National Dining Rooms menu [External website].  It came with a very nice glass of red wine.

Each is sketched fast in en and ink, then I colour fast using coloured pencils and finally I do a bit of finishing off at home - but it's not a lot.  The bulk is sketched in situ. For some reason I can't get the colour quite right on the first course and the background page colour is off.

Sweet Cured Devon Trout, Summer Beets, Wild watercress, Elderberry Vinegar
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Borders Grouse, Scottish Girolles, Stornaway Black Pudding, (Straw Fries and Liver Toast)
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Kentish Plums, Lavender Cream, Cobnuts and Wissey Honey
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

My tip for sketching meals

Don't try to include all of the plate.  There's no rule that says you can't crop plates out of the picture plane!

Sea Bream at the Portrait Restaurant

Lunch at Portrait Restaurant at the National Portrait Gallery - Main Course - July 2013
pen and ink and coloured pencils, 8" x 10"
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

These are a couple of sketches from a recent visit to the Portrait Restaurant at the National Portrait Gallery for lunch.  Sketching was VERY rapid!  Food was very good.  Exhibition was very good - see my Review: Laura Knight Portraits

• Starter (below): Air dried ham, figs, goats cheese, rocket salad and balsamic dressing
• Main Course (above): Sea Bream, Creamy Mash, Chorizo, Spinach, Confit Tomatoes

Lunch at Portrait Restaurant at the National Portrait Gallery
Starter - July 2013
pen and ink and coloured pencils, 8" x 10"
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

The Portrait Restaurant is open for lunch and dinner (2 courses £25) - and breakfast and afternoon tea - and has a fabulous view across the top of the National Gallery to the London Eye, Whitehall, the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben!

Ary's Warung in Ubud, Bali

I thought while I'm waiting for my new glasses, I could post some of my sketches from a long time ago.

 More to the point - I've never posted my sketches of Bali as a series!

The Japanese waiting for a plane
Ary's Warung, Ubud, Bali
5 May 1997
pencil in Daler Rowney hardback black sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

I've still got my sketchbook notes of my stay in Bali in 1997 and this is in fact the last day and very nearly the last sketch.

This was morning and lunch on the last day.

5th May 1997 Taxi down to masseur (Metari). Bought shirt for J and T shirt for me. Changed money.  Thai calamari salad, lemon grass tea and white cocolate cheescake at Ary's Warung.  Sketched interior.  

Venice has Harry's Bar and Ubud in Bali has Ary's Warung.

Looking at what it's like today, I'm rather glad I visited it back in the 90s before it introduced chrome and the starched linen!  It looks as it's changed a lot.

Back then it was cane, cane and rattan on the verandah which contrasted with the lush greens of vegetation outside where I sat, watching the world go by.  There was a constant stream of customers - although some waited rather longer than others such as the Japanese couple in the centre of this sketch who were obviously killing time before the journey to the airport.

This is what I wrote when I first posted on Making A Mark about this place

I sat in Ary's Warung on the main street in Ubud in Bali and started to draw some people while I had a pot of their lemon grass and ginger tea. And it just turned into one of those sketches where you order another pot of tea and then lunch as your sketch keeps creeping across the page until every last bit is filled. People came and went - which was a bit of a challenge - and the Japanese couple with their suitcases that I had started sketching originally finally left for the airport to catch their flight.MAKING A MARK: Ary's Warung 27 April 2006

What I do remember - across the years - is the lemon grass tea.  I think it had a sliver of ginger in it as well.  When I think of Bali now I think of the lemon grass tea - and I've never been made able to make it the way I had it there.  Must be something to do with the freshness of the lemon grass....

I'll see if I can get my sketches about Bali posted before I get my new post-operative glasses at the beginning of next month - at which time sketching can return to normal.

Address: Ary's Warung, Jl. Raya Ubud Kedewatan, Ubud, Gianyar, Bali 80571, Indonesia
Contemporary Reviews of Ary's Warung on: Trip Adviser | Lonely Planet | Frommers.

You can see other sketches from this particular travel sketchbook on my website at:

• Travels with a Sketchbook - Australia
• Travels with a Sketchbook - Bali

You can also see other sketches from different places in the Travels with a Sketchbook galleries on my website "Pastels and Pencils".

Cheese and biscuits at Fortnum & Mason

Yesterday I went to the Royal Academy of Arts for the press view of the Summer Exhibition - which opens to the Friends' Private Views tomorrow and to the Public on Saturday.

Cropwell Bishop Stilton with Chutney And Fortnum’s Cheese Crackers
pen and ink and coloured pencils, 8" x 10" in Moleskine Sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

 I have an annual tradition of crossing the road to Fortnum & Mason for a bite to eat after the exhibition.  One of the things I love about the Gallery Restaurant is it never matters what time you turn up - they have a menu for it!  (see the end for information about opening times and links to menus).

I had their Table d'Hote Lunch which gave me a breather between the Summer Exhibition and the Wildlife Artist of the Year Exhibition run by the David Shepherd Foundation.  It turned into a bit of an investigation of eyesight and sketching.

Sketching as eyesight testing!

I think I overloaded my eyes with visual information in the morning because I found it very difficult to sketch over lunch.  I started four but couldn't make much progress.  However I did learn something which will be helpful when it comes to prescription glasses.

First I think my eyes were crying out for a rest from looking!  I'm thinking it must be quite a lot for the brain to adjust to when you change vision very quickly (see Day surgery sketching at Moorfields Eye Hospital and Postoperative checkup at Moorfields Eye Clinic). 

 When I sketched at the post-op clinic last week, it was in the morning and I'd not been "looking" beforehand and my eyes were more rested - and as a result there were few problems sketching.  This time I'd spent a long time looking at lots of art in a fairly intent way during the morning and my eyes would have been very tired in any case - even if they hadn't had a recent operation.  Constant switching of focal length is very tiring even if your eyesight is perfect. However my experience yesterday was worse than usual (see a comparable lunch post Summer Exhibition)

Second, I know I was having problems with switching between  viewing the art on the walls and reading my catalogue with the "make do" magnifiers  I'm using while I wait for proper prescription glasses.  That problem will be resolved by having the right prescription - round about the beginning of July.

The view from my table
Gallery Restaurant, Fortnum & Mason 5 June 2013
pen and ink and coloured pencils, 8" x 10" in Moleskine Sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

I found it much easier to sketch the cheese and biscuits than I did the scene in the restaurant.  You can see that sketch on the right.  I think it's very "sketchy" but not in a good way!

The cheese and biscuits were probably much easier because the sketchbook was parked in front of the plate of cheese and biscuits and my eyes didn't have to adjust constantly for different distances

In the end I decided the problem with the sketching in Fortnum & Mason was probably down to:

• having to constantly switch between distance vision for viewing and near vision for reading during the morning and 
• not yet having the correct prescription glasses for the right distance.

It did also make me wonder whether reading glasses or computer glasses would be best option for sketching.

As a result I've decided I'm going to take my sketchbook with me when I go to get my eyes examined for my new prescription glasses!  Then we can measure out the length between eyes and sketchbook!

A cheeseboard
from a previous visit

Links to previous sketches at Fortnum and Mason:

• Tea at Fortnum and Masons after the Summer Exhibition
• Lunch at Fortnum and Masons (this is a previous post Summer Exhibition sketching session - compare the difference!)
• The Parlour Restaurant
• A Day out in Piccadilly

NOTES re. Venues

Royal Academy 245th Summer Exhibition 10 June — 18 August 2013
In the Main Galleries, Burlington House, Piccadilly
Sponsored by Insight Investment

Fortnum and Mason: The Gallery Restaurant, Ground Floor (overlooks Food Hall)  - entrance via Food Hall
Morning: Monday to Saturday 10am to 12pm | Menu (also applies in the afternoon)
Lunch: Monday to Saturday 12pm to 5pm; Sunday 11:30am to 5pm | Menu
Afternoons: Monday to Sunday 3pm to 6pm | Afternoon Tea Menu

Restaurant Nausicaa, Boulogne sur Mer - my last meal in France

Two sketches from my trip to France last year - and my final french meal!  I'm trying to fill in the gaps where I've missed out posting places I went to and sketches I did on my Painting in Provence trip last summer.

Today I'm posting my lunch at the Restaurant Nausicaa in Boulogne sur Mer and the view from the window.  This was the "get as close to the tunnel as you can and then stop and have a meal" meal!  The idea was that I'd leave myself with half an hour's journey to the Tunnel and I wouldn't need to have a big meal when I got back home which would be quite late.  Plus it was the last chance to indulge in French cuisine!

Lunch at the Restaurant Nausicaa, Boulogne sur Mer - 4th July 2011
11" x 16", pen and ink and coloured pencils
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

This meal continued to endorse my theory about the colour palette of chefs and the notion that chefs cook the food in the colours that they like! The dishes on the menu in my sketch are:

• L'Entree top left - Oyster, whelk and celery soup and croutons Soupe huitres et des bulots, veloute de celeri vert, petis croutons 
• Las Plat right - Grilled large prawns with a paella like creamy risotto and red pepper sauce Gambas grilles, coulis de poivrons rouges risotto crémeux au chorizo façon paëlla
• Le Dessert bottom left - Half-cooked chocolate cake Mi-cuit au chocolat

They were delicious!  I have a policy of eating one new thing every time I eat out in another country! Which is how I came to add a new food to my list of things I've eaten over the years - whelks (although I thought at the time that they were winkles).

I checked the menu and only the sauce with the main dish is what's on offer on the menu today!  Always good to see a restaurant that changes it's menu on a regular basis!

I switched between drawing the dishes as they arrived and then drawing the scene out the window as I waited for them to arrive.

My view from my table - the beach at Boulogne sur Mer
11" x 16", pen and ink and coloured pencils
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

I was sat high up next to a big glass window looking out on to the promenade and beach to the rear of the Nausicaa Centre - which is Boulogne's huge aquarium.  Small wonder that fresh fish and sea food featured on the menu!

The restaurant is actually independent of the Centre and I highly recommend it as a stopping off place to eat in the Pas de Calais for anybody facing a long journey when they get back to Folkstone. It serves excellent food and does not keep normal restaurant hours.

For the record the journey to the EuroTunnel was not straightforward as the satnav didn't understand the port and I missed the turning and then couldn't work out how to get back to the place where cars need to go to enter the Tunnel!  Calais could do with some better sign posts!

However it was nice to get back home and reach the end of my journey and a very long drive from Provence to London.

You can see

• more of my sketches from my trip to Provence and my drive there and back through France in the page at the top of this blog marked Provence Sketchbook 2011
• more of my sketches of meals by clicking on the labels:
• food sketch - this can be food in its raw form as well as food raw, uncooked and cooked.
• sketching meals - these include sketches of meals such as the one at the top of this post
• restaurant sketches - these include views from where I'm sat in the restaurant
• You can also see sketches of the interior landscapes of places to eat on my website

Links:

• Boulogne sur Mer on Wikipedia
• Restaurant Nausicaa

A Veduta Sketch of London on a sunny day

We're having a novelty week this week - hot sunny weather, blue skies and very little cloud.  It makes a change.

It is of course all due to end on Friday in time for the Olympics Opening Ceremony!

In the meanwhile, here's the view over the rooftops of the National Portrait Gallery and National Gallery last Sunday afternoon from the Portrait Restaurant on the Third Floor of the National Portrait Gallery.  I'd just attended a "Next Generation" session with teenagers and was in need of a cup of Earl Grey!

View from Portrait Restaurant 22 July 2012 3.30pm
pen and ink and coloured pencils in Moleskine Sketchbook

In this "veduta" sketch you can see - from the left:

• the clock tower housing Big Ben - now renamed the Elizabeth Tower (to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II)
• Portcullis House with the very prominent chimneys (which houses the offices of members of Parliament)
• Whitehall - the centre of government in the UK
• the Victoria Tower - at the other end of the Houses of Parliament
• Westminster Abbey where Kings and Queens are crowned and future monarchs are often married
• Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square - which also houses the Countdown Clock for the Olympics
• Millbank Tower near to Tate Britain
• the central dome of the National Gallery

Note:  A veduta is a view painting which were popularised by Canaletto and others.  I'm particularly partial to drawing views and vistas and hence I'm going to use "veduta sketch" to indicate a sketch of a complex view.

Lunch in the Portrait Restaurant

If I'm at the National Portrait Gallery for events in the morning and afternoon I try and have lunch in the Portrait Restaurant at the top of the building.  It has a fabulous view which I never get bored of and the food's not bad either (you can review the menus online - see links below) although not cheap!

Lunch at the Portrait Restaurant - June 2012
11" x 16" pen and sepia ink in Moleskine sketchbook

It's much used by people to meet up with friends, do interviews, do work etc.  On this occasion I got very distracted when I realised one of the people I was sketching was Jon Snow (look no face!)

I was making notes of the interviews I'd just done the award-winning artists and about the portraits I'd just seen in the BP Portrait Exhibition so on this occasions did not sketch lunch!

See my posts on Making A Mark

• Aleah Chapin wins £25,000 BP Portrait Award 2012
• Review: BP Portrait Award Exhibition 2012 (Part 1)
• Review: BP Portrait Award Exhibition 2012 (Part 2)
• Video of BP Portrait Award Exhibition 2012 - a walk around the exhibition with a handheld camcorder.
• A Profile of Aleah Chapin - includes a link to my video film of edited highlights from my interview with Aleah.

The opening hours are a bit odd - but then it is in a Gallery! I've quoted the current hours below

• Breakfast & Afternoon Tea
• Breakfast - Monday-Sunday, 10:00-11:00 (last orders to the kitchen by 11:30)
• Afternoon Tea: Monday-Sunday, 15:30-17:00 (last orders for the kitchen 17:00)
• Lunch & Dinner
• Lunch - Monday-Friday, 12:00-14:45 (last orders for the kitchen 15:00)
• Dinner: Thursday, Friday & Saturday 17:30 - 22:00 (last food orders for the kitchen 20:30)
• Pre-Theatre Dinner: Thursday,Friday & Saturday evenings, 17:30-18:30 (last orders for the kitchen 18:45)

Cornish Cream Tea at the Wallace Restaurant

Cornish Cream Tea at the Wallace Restaurant, Wallace Collection
11" x 16", pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils in Moleskine Sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Last Friday I was totally clueless. I trotted off to meet up with the Drawing London Group without checking the location, taking the print-out of the email or taking my mobile with me!

Which is how come I came to draw paintings of Venice by Bonington and Canaletto in the Wallace Collection (to follow in the next post) - while everybody else was sketching at the Museum of London.

Duh!

Anyway, I had a great time followed by a visit to the Wallace Restaurant (run by the omnipresent Peyton & Byrne) for a very late lunch which turned into a Cornish Cream Tea instead as they'd run out of the dish I wanted for lunch.

I'll get verbally shot if "he who must not be bored while I sketch" sees this!  Cream teas are banned - we're both on a diet!

The details are:

• on the left finger sandwiches with the crusts cut off (naturally!) - egg mayonnaise, tomato and cucumber, ham and smoked salmon
• a very nice scone and Cornish clotted cream and preserves (very nice!)
• Jasmine tea

As always I got some funny looks from the waiters while drawing this before eating.  I then progressively ate my way through it very slowly while getting the colours right.

It's a very pleasant way to spend an afternoon sketching........

Lunch Chez Guy in Gevrey-Chambertin

Lunch at Chez Guy in Gevrey-Chambertin
11.5" x 16.5", pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils in Moleskine Sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Yesterday it was frog's legs and today it's escargots - snails!

I had a giggle when I realised I could complete the set of unusual things the French are renowned for cooking.  After my dinner of "brown food" on Saturday night I continued north through Burgundy in central France and had a very fine and appetising Sunday lunch on 3rd July in the red splendour of the terrace parasols at a restaurant called Chez Guy in the centre of the village of Gevrey-Chambertin.

 I remember when I first started travelling through France being absolutely amazed at how the names of  wines which are well known all over the world often relate to what turn out to be small villages in France - completely surrounded by vineyards.  Gevrey-Chambertin is one such village on the Côte de Nuits in the northern part of the Côte d'Or which is worth driving down if you ever get the chance - I did a special detour to do so!  More about the village and the wine at the end of this post.

Chez Guy

The restaurant offers a number of options depending on how many courses you want to eat.  I had the Menu de Carte (Entre, Plat, Fromage, Dessert) - partly because one of my delights is to eat good French food and partly because the aim of the exercise was also to give me a good break in the middle of a long day's drive.  I hasten to add I had a very light meal when I got to my overnight stop at Epernay!

As I was in for the long haul I ordered a Sarah inspired Suze and tonic to drink while I read the menu and drank Badoit over lunch.  Such a sin to come to a restaurant in the middle of such good wines and have no wine to drink - however I was driving - c'est la vie!

Chez Guy Menu Carte
right click and open in new tab
to see much larger image

The Menu is in French however I got some help from the staff who were a lot friendlier than my experience the night before.

The courses were as follows (preceded by an indication of where they were in the above drawing:

• (top right) Amuse Bouche - two glasses of fresh light mousse concoction (avocado and shellfish?).  I know what the taste of my appetiser was at the time but have forgotten now
• (Bottom left) Fricassée d'escargots au beurre persillé, poêlée de girolles, sauce pesto (Fricassee of snails in herb butter, sautéed mushrooms, pesto sauce)  All I can say is snails are yummy!
• (top right) Filet de Bar, pâtes crémeuses au basilic, tapenades d'olives noires (Fillet of Sea Bass, creamy basil pasta, black olive tapenade) - a bit odd to choose fish on a Sunday in the middle of France however, while I wanted to enjoy my meal I was leaning towards the lighter courses so as to avoid feeling too sleepy after lunch!
• (centre bottom) Assiette de fromages régionaux de chez Gaugry, fromager à Brochon (Cheese platter with regional Gaugry, cheese Brochon) - this was a good range of local cheese served with decent bread.  The cheese was served on wood from a crate of local wine which added a nice touch which was only slightly cheesy!
• (Bottom right) Crumble de fruits rouge et rhubarbe, emulsion de thé vert, sorbet fromage blanc red berry and rhubarb crumble, emulsion of green tea, cottage cheese sorbet - a very light and refreshing way to end the meal.

My notion of cooks having preferred colour palettes is further upheld.  This one is a lot more colourful with ample doses of red, creamy yellow and green.

My bill including my suze aperitif, bottle of Badoit and a coffee at the end came to €52.50.

I did tackle a second sketch of my view, however - unlike Saturday night - I was so interested in the food that it hardly got a look in and is unfinished.  So here's a photo of the view from my table - taken at the end of the meal when the people at the other tables had left.

The view from my seat in Chez Guy

I sat on the outside terrace at the front of the restaurant, underneath a huge red parasol which provided good shade but cast a red tint over everything!  Trying to determine the colours of my meal was interesting and the photos are of no help at all!  It had to be done while I was there.  Hence the white dish of snails does not have the red colour cast it had while I was drawing and eating them.

Chez Guy - and a vintage pink cadillac in the centre of Gevrey-Chambertin

This is a photograph of Chez Guy complete with an amazing vintage Cadillac with enormous fins - painted dark pink - which turned up towards the end of lunch, parked right outside - on the bit which I thought appeared to indicate 'no parking'!  Out trooped a rather larger than life middle aged 'guy' and his large entourage which included children.  He was obviously well known at the restaurant and I spent my dessert and coffee wondering whether he was the owner or a local rock star with taste.

I'd definitely recommend this restaurant to anybody passing through the area - however do book ahead and arrive in good time - unless of course you're a passing rock star of repute!

The vineyards of Gevrey-Chambertin

Gevrey-Chambertin is located in Burgundy.  It's located on a limestone ridge about 12 km south of  Dijon and about 30km north of Beaune.  The village has just over 3,000 inhabitants and an awful lot of vineyards.  Its inhabitants are called Gibriaçois.

Premier Crus vineyards above Gevrey Chambertin

There are 550 hectares of vine "Pinot Noir" on a gentle slope which lies to the east of the wooded limestone ridge.  This area has nine Grands Crus (the highest level of classification of AOC wines from Burgundy) which lie to the south of the village and 27 Premiers Crus which mainly lie to the west of the village.  The best wine lies close to the limestone at the top of the slopes while the more ordinary wine which can also be labelled Gevrey Chambertin is on clay soil in the valley bottom.

It seems likely that the very first vines planted in Burgundy were planted at Gevrey Chambertin.  There's evidence from archaeological digs that there were Gallo-Roman vines planted in the area dating back to the 1st Century BC.  Pliny the Elder wrote about wine in this area!

Pinot noir grapes in July in Gevrey Chambertin

The next links are to a couple of Burgundy wine sites which:

• show where all the Grand Cru and Premier Cru sites are Gevrey Chambertin lie
• provide a detailed profile of Gevrey Chambertin and its vineyards

Links:

• Chez Guy 3 Place Mairie, 21220 Gevrey-Chambertin, France 
• Tel: +33 3 80 58 51 51
• Location on Google Maps - Chez Guy 
• Burgundy Report - Gevrey Chambertin - Village Profile - a very detailed listing and analysis of the vineyards, crus and producers associated with the village
• Château de Gevrey-Chambertin - on the outskits of the village
• Official Village Website www.ville-Gevrey-chambertin.fr 
• Telephone: 03.80.34.30.35
• e-mail: @ mairie.gevrey nerim.net 
• Area: 2746 ha 3120 inhabitants
• website of the commune of Gevrey Chambertin

More from The Provence Sketchbook (2011)

Les Quatre Saisons in Bourg en Bresse

Interior of Les Quatre Saisons in Bourg en Bresse

Dinner at Les Quatre Saisons in Bourg en Bresse was interesting rather than pleasurable.  I felt a little bit like I'd stepped into a 1980s time warp as I don't think the restaurant had been decorated or had a makeover in a good 25 years.

On the other hand the bright yellow tablecloths and blue walls made for a colourful sketch and made up for the fact that my meal seemed to lack any colour at all.

The chef contributed yet more evidence to my theory that chefs cook the food in the colours that they like.  This chef liked brown.  See my sketch of my meal below.

Meal at Les Quatre Saisons in Bourg en Bresse on Saturday 2nd July 2011

The menu was as follows:

• (top left) an Amuse Bouche  I have absolutely no idea what this was!
• (bottom left) Grenouilles a la verre et ciboulettes - I knew what the Grenouillles (frogs legs) were but was less certain of the ciboulettes (chives).  My first frogs legs - quite tasty and not at all chewy
• (top right) Volaille de la Ferme de Valaisant, creme morelles and Vin Jaune - this should have been tastier than it was.  The worst bit was that the fact that there was nothing that made it look appetising - wall to wall bland!
• (Bottom right) I think this was a Tarte Tatin with a very ordinary ice cream but forgot to make a note of the dessert having become totally disinterested in the food by this stage.  Lack of colour is a real turn off for me.  I'd switched my focus to my sketch of the interior which was Bright with a capital B!  You can always tell how good the food is by the relative merits of the sketches of the meal and the place where I ate it!
• (centre) The only spot of colour came with the petit fours!

My own impression was that the restaurant would be fine for people who spoke French well, liked a more traditional French way of cooking food and enjoyed discussing the food.  My French is limited and their English was virtually non-existent.  With no translation on the menu or from the waiter I had a rough idea what I was eating.  It's probably more accurate to say I had to opt for courses where I had an idea of what it was.  I'm not sure a single woman who doesn't speak much French was very interesting as a customer to them.  That's said in the context of having been in other restaurants in France where I've been very well looked after and had an enjoyable time despite the language barrier.

However this was in Bourg en Bresse which is not a tourist destination and it would be totally unreasonable of me to expect restaurants to cater for English tourists.  A shade more hospitality wouldn't have gone amiss though.  More colour in the food would have been even better!

The whole meal (including coffee but without wine) came to €42 which I thought was a bit steep.

What's really odd though is that my two worst meals of the entire trip were a short distance from Lyons which is supposedly the gastronomic centre of France.  Very odd.

I went to bed very much looking forward to my lunch the next day in Gevrey Chambertin in the Côte de Nuits in the northern part of the Côte d'Or, which is home to the vineyards which line the limestone ridge that is at the heart of the Burgundy wine region.

Links

• Les Quatre Saisons, 6 Rue de la République, France - 01000 Bourg-en-Bresse
• Phone 0474220186 | Fax0474211035

More from The Provence Sketchbook (2011)

Dinner and sunset at Le Mas des Vignes, Bedoin

Two more plein air sketches - of a dinner at a restaurant called Le Mas des Vignes with a fantastic view of a sunset.

Dinner at Le Mas des Vignes 30 June 2011

First the preamble.  On Thursday 30 June, I had a minor meltdown as I began to realise that the whole of France was about to take to the road at the weekend as the schools broke up on Saturday and their "grand vacance" was starting as mine ended.  I was due to start travelling back to England on the Saturday morning.

The bottom line was that getting a hotel room was providing to be very difficult.  The notion that it was something that I could do with ease from the house went out the window as soon the thunderstorm blew the broadband.

After 3-4 hours of phone calls and lots of pouring over my Michelin map and red book I finally got sorted.

I almost didn't want to look at their websites when I came down to the bar in town to access the wifi and post to the blogs. However it turned out that it seemed as if I had picked a good (although not cheap) hotel for Saturday night in in Bourg en Bresse and decent places to eat on both Saturday evening and Sunday lunch.  The latter was to be in Gevrey Chambertin on the Cote d'Or.

The shenanigans with the bookings blew out any attempt to go visiting places on Thursday as I was mentally stwed by the time I'd finished doing the bookings - so I decided I had very definitely earned dinner out!  I rang one of the restaurants which had been recommended to us and got a table.

Which is how I came to be sat on a rather breezy terrace at Le Mas des Vignes, on the Route de Ventoux just outside Bedoin, watching an absolutely stunning sunset.

I had the option of sitting indoors however I didn't want to miss the sunset and managed to collar a table which seemed to be in the most sheltered spot.


The sketch of my dinner is at the top of this post and the courses were as follows:

• Foie Gras de Canard en terrine, Fraicheur de Celeri et the Pomme Granny - the Fraicheur had ice crystals which was a bit weird.  I suspect it had maybe been sitting rather too near the back of the fridge
• L'Agneau aux Herbe de Provence, Risotto d'Epaule(?) de Sault et Petit legumes - the lamb was heavenly - absolutely delicious.  Not quite sure what the reference to Sault was - but they do have some fine food shops there.
• Les Fromages de Fermier, et affines par Claudine Vigier ail confit - the cheese seems to have come from the best cheese shop in Provence - La Fromagerie du Comtat in Carpentras.
• and petit fours with my coffee.

This was the meal when I began to notice that there was a pattern to the meals I'd been eating in restaurants - and this related to colour.  The Chefs seemed to have a distinct leaning towards certain colours as all my dishes harmonised around a harmonic palette.  Look back and you'll see what I mean.

This is a sketch of the sunset as seen from my table.  I sketched the food when it arrived and the sunset while I waited for the next course!

Sunset at Le Mas des Vignes on 30 June 2011 (first course)

and this is what it was like a little bit later!  I didn't have enough pencils in my toolkit to quite get the colour and intensity of the sunset as it set properly.

Sunset at Le Mas des Vignes

More from The Provence Sketchbook (2011)

Links:

• Le Mas des Vignes, Route du Mont-Ventoux, Saint Estève, 84410 Bedoin, France - watch out for the hairpin bend to access this restaurant
• Tel 0490656391
• Via Michelin - Le Mas des Vignes
• Trip Adviser - Le Mas des Vignes

Lunch at La Maison Jaune, St Remy de Provence

Lunch at La Maison Jaune, St Remy de Provence 29 June 2011
11.5 x 16.5", pen and sepia ink and coloured pencils in Moleskine Sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

One of the things I really enjoy about France is that you can go into a restaurant - on your own - for a four course meal like the one that you can see above - and nobody thinks you are the slightest bit odd.

However they might look twice when you pull out a sketchbook and proceed to sketch every course before you eat it - but that's what I like to do!

I particularly like going to restaurants with Michelin stars and it's an absolute rule of mine that I'm not allowed to visit France without eating in a restaurant with at least one Michelin star.

Which is how I come to have this post about Lunch at La Maison Jaune, a restaurant in St Remy de Provence which got its one Michelin star in 2008.  (This is the link to the Menus)

This is out of sequence re France but as I said this week I'm trying to get all my sketching of meals posted before I do my review of the year!

Back to 29th June - Sarah and I got up early so we could leave the house at 7am and get Sarah to Marseilles Airport by 9am for her flight home.

And then there was one!

Those who know me well will know that one of my perennial preoccupations while travelling and sketching is with visiting the places where people draw or painted.  That was the grand plan for this Wednesday.  I was to have a Vincent Van Gogh in Provence day with a nice lunch in the middle.

I'd already decided that it was stretching it to try and do both Arles and Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in one day so I opted for Saint-Rémy this visit as I'd been to Arles on a previous visit.

Hence the plan was to drive north from the airport, across the Crau Plain and the Alpilles to the town of St Remy de Provence where Van Gogh was committed to an asylum in the Monastery Saint-Paul de Mausole in 1889.  He  painted frequently in the vicinity of the hospital in the year or so he was in the hospital.

I wanted to drive across the Crau Plain because this was the place where Van Gogh did so many of his reed pen drawings of the farming of the countryside which I so admire.  I wanted to see if it was as I remembered it and whether one could see its potential for drawings.  Here's an example - Harvest - The Plain of La Crau, 1888 reed pen drawing by Vincent Van Gogh - done while living in the Yellow House at Arles.

Then I crossed the Alpilles - the white mountains which so often feature in Van Gogh's paintings while he stayed in this area eg in the background of his painting of cypresses ( see below ) which he painted while in the hospital

Wheatfield with cypress tree by Vincent Van Gogh
- the Alpilles Mountains form the pale blue background to this painting

View from Van Gogh's bedroom window in the Monastery Saint-Paul de Mausole

No sketches or photographs en route from either of these places as the road was not conducive to stopping - however as you can see I could take photos of the Alpilles from the Monastery.

One of the reasons I chose St Remy was because it was market day (closing at lunchtime).

I visited the Market, took lots of photos of yet more provencal food and flowers, had a lovely lunch (see sketch at top of post), visited the Van Gogh Museum in town and then visited the monastery hospital, St Paul de Mausole where Van Gogh lived for a year after becoming ill in Arles.

I'm going to deal with the visit to the Monastery in another post - so this is all about markets and food!

Here are some of the sights of the market.  Then I'm going to give you the menu for lunch.

La Maison Jaune, 15 Rue Carnot, 13210 Saint Remy de Provence 

Table setting on the Terrace

and so to the tasting extravaganza I had planned for the middle of the day.

I got to sit on a shady terrace with a tiled roof slight breeze in the hottest part of the day as I worked my way through five courses and listened to the market packing up - and then music being played down in the square.  It was very peaceful.

Lunch was extremely leisurely as I sketched, ate and coloured my sketches of the different courses - which were all stunningly good.  These were:

• Mise en Bouche - an appetiser (top left) gaspacho with mint, goats cheese and ham and an egg.  This set the tone for the whole meal given the level of attention given to each item
• Braised artichokes with Lomo Iberico and  air dried tomatoes - a wonderful combination and a chance for me to taste the wondrous loin of the Iberian Pig
• Roast Pigeon with Apricot Chutney Marmalade with a side dish of Fennel and Fresh Almonds - this was beautifully cooked and a wonderful balance of flavours,  Plus since I watched Masterchef recently I now know how fresh almonds are prepared!
• a selection of fresh and aged goats cheeses and ewe cheeses and rhubarb marmalade - I like goats cheese but there wasn't quite enough of a variation for me to make this the same standard as the rest of the courses.  Subtle rather than wow!
• Roasted Pineapple with ginger and vanilla, an amaretto granite and nougatine  This was wow! the variation in the tastes and textures was amazing and provided a deeply satisfying note on which to finish.

I was also rather pleased with the fact that I'd left enough room to get the whole meal on one double page spread.  No mean feat when you don't know what's coming or what it will look like!

You can see the menu proper (below) better on Flickr.  I found the restaurant and service to be excellent.  It was quiet at lunchtime but they apparently get very busy in the evenings.  I think I probably went at the perfect time for me. :)

Links:

• Four go Painting in Provence
• La Maison Jaune, 15 Rue Carnot, 13210 Saint Remy de Provence (location on Google Maps)
• Tel  04. 90. 92. 56. 14 | email lamaisonjaune@wanadoo.fr
• The restaurant is closed December and January.

Note:  Parking is in designated areas and the town is very busy on market day and it can be difficult to find a place to park.  The restaurant is right in the centre of the old town.  Hence if visiting one needs to park up and then walk to the old town - it's not far.

More from The Provence Sketchbook (2011)