Innovative dining experience Six by Nico has announced the launch of its brand-new tasting menu, inspired by the bustling, gastronomy paradise of Shanghai and the Huanghe Road. Available from 2nd September to 22nd September 2024, each dish is inspired by the stirring streets where history, tradition, and modernity collide.
Head chef and owner Nico Simeone, previously of Michelin-starred Number One at Balmoral, founded his concept restaurant in 2017, where every 6 weeks, the 6-course tasting menu changes and is inspired by a different memory, place, or idea. Nico’s newest experience, “Shanghai,” takes you to the depths of the city’s vibrant food scene, with mouthwatering dish after dish complete with wines expertly paired alongside.
To Start:
To prepare your palette for the delicacies ahead, you can choose from 3 aperitifs based on timeless cocktails blended with oriental flavours such as lychee liqueur or jasmine tea-infused gin. I opted for the Jasmine Tea Martini, a bright and citrusy drink that brings an elegant touch to a simple martini.
Other choices include the Shanghai Spritz – the popular choice among my fellow diners – made with lychee liqueur, dry vermouth, prosecco and soda, as well as a Plum Wine Sour, a mix of Japanese Umeshu Plum Wine, Bourbon and bitters.
Alongside these there are a selection of fusion snacks such as the sesame lobster and prawn toast, which was delightfully crispy, topped with a shellfish emulsion, or classic shrimp crackers and warm sourdough bread with a spiced red miso butter.
Snacks are light and well-priced between £5 and £9, but don’t fill up on these as the main event is yet to start!
The Main Event:
The Shanghai tasting menu is available with or without wine pairings and boasts a delectable range of oriental-inspired dishes: first up, the Mantou Steamed Bun, a dumpling filled with tender and flaky char siu beef and soaked in a Gaotang broth, swiftly followed by a Xian Mushroom Pancake topped with fried Enoki (a gilled mushroom) and Togarashi dressing.
With the second course came our first wine pairing, a Merlot – Cabernet Franc from the foothills of the Pyrenees. Rich and intense, it’s not an obvious pairing with a light and vegetarian dish, but it brought a level of delicious sweetness against the salty Togarashi dressing.
Next, crispy chicken leg with a spiced peanut satay sauce and honey and soy glaze. Perhaps the most flavourful of the dishes for me, the chicken is tender and moist and is paired excellently with a Romanian rosé offering aromas of red fruits, cherries, and strawberries to cut through the spicy Satay.
Course four is the most interesting: a seaweed cured coalfish, served with a hot and sour soup. This dish acts as a bit of a palette cleanser, with less clashing flavours and complexity than the others. This is also served alongside another wine, a BorgoTana Bianco from Nico’s very own Amalfi Coast collection, with elegantly balanced acidity to accentuate the meaty fish.
A glazed pork belly dish follows, and you can choose an optional add-on course of barbecue-glazed Mandarin spareribs (if you’re still feeling peckish!). Finally, dessert is served: a refreshing palette cleanser in the form of a stem ginger crème with toasted coconut sorbet, lime leaf, and lychee gel. This was certainly a refreshing, light end to the marathon of dishes, served with a chilled Lambrusco alongside.
Of course, the entire menu is available for vegetarians, with crispy tofu, aubergine, and turnips replacing the chicken, pork, and coalfish, however, the vegetarians do have to forsake an optional add-on course.
Overall
Six by Nico’s latest tasting menu certainly transports your taste buds, and for the very reasonable price of £50 per person (an additional £38 for the wine pairing), it’s an affordable fine-dining experience for Central London.
Each wine’s tasting notes, region and grape were explained in depth by the team, as well as each dish and the way they complement each other. If you’re looking for a whistle-stop tour of one of the foodie sights of the world, then Six By Nico‘s Shanghai menu is a hit.
For more information visit: sixbynico.co.uk
All images courtesy of Six by Nico.