Ottolenghi

Amy and I are in Yotam Ottolenghi's restaurant ROVI in London. Our server pops over and pours us glasses of tap. We ask if Ottolenghi is hanging around.

"I just started working here," she replies. "I don't think I'd know him if he walked in the door."

"Don't worry, we know what he looks like!" I say, a little too enthusiastically.

Our server walks away ... probably to call security.

She returns with the definitive answer, "He's not here. The kitchen staff tells me he comes in every once in awhile." She pauses to measure her words carefully. "They say he's very enthusiastic."

Yup. We are in the right place.

Vegetable Luv

Everything about ROVI screams enthusiasm ... from the pile of Ottolenghi cookbooks up front that you can browser at your table, to the hundreds of jars of pickled vegetables on a fully visible shelf in the back, looking like a big edible Monet painting.

Yotam Ottlenghi loves vegetables and he wants you to love them too. And you will. Ohhhhhh yeah you will.

Everyone remembers their first Yotam Ottolenghi cookbook. Mine was Plenty, you know the one with the roasted eggplants sprinkled with roasted thyme sprigs, za'tar and juicy little red pomegranate seeds on it. It looks like an entire garden plot staggered woozily into your kitchen and threw up.

Your first thought was "that looks interesting, but WTF is it?"

Its called a vegetable. It's good for you.

And what's weirder ... it tastes good too! You take a big ol hunk of pita and drag it through that eggplant, buttermilk and spices and pop it in your mouth. It is tangy, warm, creamy, and crunchy. That is good eatin', my friend. And no animal was sacrificed in the process.

Since then I have collected most of his cookbooks. The batting average of them is very good - I would say about 90% of the things I tried turned out fine. The problems I have mostly spring from trying to source the ingredients - curry leaves, rose harissa, and jerusalem artichokes being the biggest problems. Oh, and sometimes his recipes are very involved.

But here at ROVI, no such problems exist. Someone else has stocked the pantry and executed all the steps. Here you can order the dishes from the cookbooks and see how they're really supposed to taste. You think it was good in your home kitchen. Wait 'til you try it here.

Onions

In an Ottolenghi restaurant, you are encouraged to share plates tapas-style and this was good advice. Amy and I took turns sliding vegetables onto our little serving plates, popping a bite into our mouths, closing our eyes and being transported to some magical land. Then we would compare notes.

You should've heard the conversation. It's like we were talking in emoticons.

Cooking videos and cookbooks often talk about layering flavors, and that's always confused me. Until now. It's not a cooking technique, although in the context they always manipulate food to get that effect. Layering comes out in the eating. You pop a bite into your mouth, and first you feel the texture of everything. Then the char hits you. Then a little sweetness maybe. Then the character of the main vegetable. A warm feeling in the throat. Nothing is in the background - you taste everything that you see - but you don't see it all at once.

The flavor of the dish reveals itself slowly. Or perhaps you notice things more slowly. You don't want the bite to end, and you are hanging on for dear life.

What are the ROVI chefs cooking for us tonight?

• Asparagus grilled with miso beurre blanc, chili jam and wild garlic. The Wild garlic is a trendy thing here in Europe, and it's grassy but with the mildest hit of garlic flavor. Oh and they have these little toasty garlic shavings, crunchy and sweet - the kind I can never make at home because I burn them.
• Burrata with aleppo chili courgette (the UK term for zucchini), cherry blossom vinegar and marjoram oil. The burrata is a mozzarella cheese ball with cream on the inside, but that description doesn't really do it justice. It was impossibly creamy.
• Duck with caramel and clementine sauce. That sounds pretty weird, I know. It's not the same caramel in a Mars Bar. It's a very thin sauce, with that bitterness that caramel has. And European duck ... well, it's a totally different beast than American. It's like beef, and it's not tough or stringy at all, and just a little hint of gaminess. It's medium rare. You're not going to see that in America, which likes to torch their game birds beyond recognition.

But lemme talk onions a second.

Now I do love onions, so any onion dish has a good head start with me. However, onions being the backbone of just about every dish in my repertoire (I go through at least a pound a week), means I don't appreciate just how good they are by themselves. I certainly don't want them raw. But giving them star status is a tricky business.

The grilled tropea onions were mind-meltingly good.

A tropea onion comes from a certain region in Italy. They are just a little red and look like a shallot, but bigger. They are famous for their sweetness, but these onions kicked up the sweetness a notch with burnt honey and soy sauce, and a little goat cheese.

This is going to sound weird, but if you like toasting a marshmallow, setting it on fire, blowing it out, peeling off the burnt skin and eating just that (leaving the gooey white center behind) ... you will love these onions.

I adore dishes that surprise me. Here they are, just little humble onions. They are not trying to show off. Yet, I will never forget them.

Keep Your Fork, There's Dessert

A kitchen staffer comes over with a little dish and says, "Happy Birthday!"

Amy and I glance at each other and say (rather stupidly, in hindsight), "It's not our birthday."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Bye!" He disappears in a flash. We try to see what was in his hand as a birthday gift. It looks small and chocolatey. Amy would have given it to me, I'm sure.

C'est la vie. We settle for dessert.

• Rice Pudding With rhubarb. The UK loves their rhubarb, and they pickle it, preserve it, infuse it in gin. You see that dark carmely layer on top? That's like creme brulee. You crack your fork through it like a ice-topped puddle. Yup.
• Ricotta Crostata It's a little cheesecake-like tart with homemade ricotta on the inside. And flowers. Gotta have the flowers.

When we finish our dessert, the server brings over a third dessert, "The chef wonders if you're interested in this." We peer at the plate in her hand with awe and wonder. It is:

• Pumpkin Puree Fritters doused in a coconut milk dotted with bits of mango and tangerine.

Why do we get this free dessert?

Clearly because Ottolenghi loves us.

He loves vegetables, that's true. He loves writing. He loves people sharing food in a communal way. He loves Rose Harissa. He loves color and texture and subverting expectations about it.

But all good food is cooked with love. That is why your grandmother's fried fish tastes so good - even if it comes out of a Groton's box. It is a goopy fact, but true.

Ottolenghi loves you and me.