A STROGANOFF RESURGENCE

~ Posted by Isabel Lloyd, February 15th 2012

In the January/February issue of Intelligent Life, the chef and food writer Simon Hopkinson talked us through his method for cooking beef stroganoff. Though strog’s combination of steak strips, sour cream, paprika and mushrooms had, he said, been a staple of British restaurant dining in the 1970s, over the decades it had fallen out of fashion and off the menu.

Did he speak—or write—too soon? This year’s biggest restaurant opening in London so far has been the Delaunay in WC2, the new offering from the team behind the Wolseley. Its combination of all-day cafe dishes in opulent surroundings has set critics to full gush (“a paragon”, “terrific”, “zooms to the top of my list” etc). And guess what many of them picked out as a particular treat? Beef stroganoff, cooked, according to its head chef, “with shallots, a touch more sweet Hungarian Paprika than 'normal', a hint of smoked paprika, sour cream, double cream, chestnut mushrooms, and brandy”.

One strog does not a fashionable supper make, however. So I did a bit of research. Even setting aside the capital’s many fine Polish and Russian restaurants—where you can expect to find it as a matter of course (or courses)—there are signs of a strog resurgence. The Drift Bar in EC2 has it as part of its winter flambé menu; Brasserie Blanc in EC2 says strog has been a top-ten seller “since its introduction”, and Eastway, a New York-style brasserie in EC2, carries it as a “signature dish” on its à la carte menu.

The sharp-eyed will have noticed that all of the above are in the depths of the City. Perhaps it takes a dish as hearty as beef with soured cream to wash the taint of money from your mouth. Or perhaps bankers, like the rest of us, are just longing for the certainties of the past. Yearning for the 1970s? Not a good economic indicator.

Isabel Lloyd is deputy editor of Intelligent Life