How pickles have taken over the London restaurant scene

Acid house: the pickle shelf at Scully, in St James’s, which is stacked with chef Ramael Scully’s homemade relishes

London is in a pickle.

Across the capital chefs are dusting off their Mason jars and creating exciting new dishes with preserved ingredients: from green pickled peaches to champagne-soaked leeks.

Fermented foods are now more than just relishes — in many restaurants they’re the main event. At Scully in St James’s, former Ottolenghi head chef Ramael Scully puts pickles and preserves at the centre of his cooking. This week he’s pairing aged beef with leeks pickled in olive oil, salt and prosecco. The leeks are then slow-cooked in whey to make them silky and creamy.

As diners enter the restaurant they’re greeted with a working display: shelves of brightly coloured jars of pickles, syrups and preserves. Scully has to open the jars every two weeks to stop the fermenting contents from exploding.

“I use the pickles for layering flavours,” says Scully. “To add texture and boldness to certain dishes.” He pickles green strawberries for the tomato and coconut salad and his current special, white sprouting broccoli, has been left in salt brine for 12 hours, preserving the nutrients, colour and flavour before it is charred on the grill.

Pickles are also used for sweet dishes — the popular Piura Procelana chocolate sorbet incorporates pickled blueberries. “It’s great because you can use produce that isn’t in season by preserving it in either salt-brine or by pickling,” says Scully.

Meanwhile, Pickled Fred, which opened in Shoreditch last year, has a whole allotment of pickled veg: highlights include coconut-braised pork with pickled mushrooms, lamb kofte with honey-pickled radishes and grilled octopus with pickled red onion.

At Tufnell Park institution Del Parc, owner and chef Steve Morrish uses pickled cucumber in a number of his dishes: served up with mahama, a wind-dried tuna, and smashed avocado, chilli and dill, or in air-cured beef with crème-fraîche, wasabi and pickled cucumbers. The current menu also includes a pickled kumquat chutney as an accompaniment to baked cheese.

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Morrish says he can sense a “big movement” in pickles: “They last a long time and there are health benefits.” Indeed, fermented foods are packed with probiotics which help to maintain gut health, while vinegary pickles can lower your blood sugar after meals.

There’s a DIY dimension to the trend. Morrish makes his own vinegar and says people should get creative at home. “I don’t like waste, and pickling is a great way to use up vegetables.”

Finally, at Little Duck Picklery in Dalston, even the cocktails are getting the acid treatment. There’s a fermentation kitchen on site as well as a shop, wine bar and all-day restaurant. Stop by for your daily fix of kimchi or kraut, available to buy loose, or try its take on a Bloody Mary using the liquor from fermented kimchi.

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