Ritz pioneers cocktail pairing menu

Colin Field, head barman of The Ritz Paris, and John Williams, executive chef of The Ritz London have collaborated on a daring five course cocktail pairing menu.

Launched at The Ritz London last week and running until Valentine’s Day, the project between the pair was three months in the making.

Working collaboratively, the duo devised a five course menu in which the flavours in both the dishes and the cocktails were specifically chosen to complement one another.

Field came up with the idea after being inspired by a similar food and cocktail matching experience he enjoyed in Paris.

“I think we will start to see more food and cocktail pairing menus emerge in restaurants. At first John’s dishes featured too many ingredients, which made it very complicated to craft complementary cocktails around them, but when he pared the dishes back it worked,” Field told the drinks business.

“I’ve approached the task like a journey, beginning very subtly with a twist on a vodka tonic and building up to a crescendo in the pigeon dish where both the food and the cocktail are of equal power. Then on the final dish I believe the cocktail takes over,” he added.

Last month, db predicted that food and cocktail pairing was set to take off in London this year, with bartenders increasingly taking a seasonal approach to cocktails.

Joining The Ritz in 1994, last April Field collaborated with mixologist Ago Perrone on a week’s residency of Bar Hemingway at The Connaught hotel in Mayfair.

The food and cocktail paring menu is priced at £160 per head and runs until 14 February.

Click through for a slideshow of the five different food and cocktail pairings.

Crab cocktail with spiced avocado and radish paired with a Russian vodka and soda with cucumber and pitaya

The crab cocktail is definitely the star of the show here: rich, unctuous, indulgent and thoughtfully textured with the crunch from the radish, the cucumber-scented vodka soda played a refreshing supporting role, whetting our appetite for the feast that followed.

Langoustine with spring vegetables and morels paired with a Champagne cocktail featuring Nihonshu Junmai Daiginjo saké

Colin Field created this saké-laced Champagne cocktail for Sofia Coppola in 2003 at the Park Hyatt in Tokyo while she was filming Lost in Translation with Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson. The umami-rich effervescent cocktail brought out the salty, saline notes in the pretty langoustine dish.

Fillet of turbot with baby leeks and morels paired with lemon infused Sipsmith gin, Lillet and orange bitters

My favourite cocktail of the evening, Field’s idea of adding lemon to Sipsmith brought the gin to life, encapsulating the Italian Riviera in a glass, giving the meaty turbot and its punchy morel broth a welcome citrus lift. Serving the cocktail in a wine glass made it all the more convincing as a match.

Roast pigeon with celeriac, walnut and grape paired with Armagnac, Antica Formula and chocolate bitters

Field is clearly turning up the power here, in his crescendo moment where the food and cocktail are of equal power, the spicy, warming, wintry Armagnac with its bitter chocolate finish complementing the earthy, gamey flavours in the walnut-flecked pink pigeon.

Hazelnut semi freddo paired with a non-alcoholic orange, lemon and ginger cocktail and ice-cold XO Cognac

For his final trick, Field played with texture and temperature, the zingy orange, lemon and ginger potion pairing perfectly with the intricate hazelnut pud, turning it into an exquisite orange chocolate and salted caramel ensemble, while the ice-cold XO Cognac ended the evening with a bang.