We sat down with head chef Carl Noller to ask him about the new Olive Press menu. You can view the new menu by clicking here.
So what’s changed on the menu, chef?
We’ve added some great new dishes, changed around some others and kept some of the favourites – it’s a menu that embodies authentic Italian cooking, but with our own spin on things and dishes that combine locally sourced produce and influences with a Mediterranean flair. The new Chorizo Scotch Egg, for example. Some of the other new additions include a couple of grills such as sea bass al cartoccio and Spatchcock Chicken, starters like beetroot cured salmon and some new pizza and pasta dishes.
Which of these new dishes are diners choosing?
The sea bass is proving really popular. It’s called en papillate or al cartoccio, a style of cooking food in a parcel. The dish is presented to the diner still in the parcel and then cut open at the table side. In this case the dish baked in the oven with white wine, butter, fennel, capers, new potatoes, a little bit of chilli and cherry tomatoes and a knob of butter. The butter cooks through the sea bass, steaming in its own juices and leaves you with a wonderful sauce at the end.
There are some other great fish dishes on the menu – what’s most important when working with fish?
There’s the beetroot cured salmon and spiced whitebait dishes on the starters, crayfish and lobster risotto, pescatore pizza and, new to the grills section, whole baked bream. That’s a great dish, cooked with a combination of stone baking and chargrilling and served with fresh salsa verde and chargrilled lemon. The most important thing with fish is it’s got to be fresh, as fresh as possible, and sustainably fished. We try and source the majority of our fish locally and most are caught on day boats around the fleetwood area. We’ve worked with our main fish supplier, Chris Neve, for the past 20 years.
You mentioned risotto, what’s your approach to making that in the restaurant?
Risotto should have a loose consistency so that it falls flat on the plate, not stuck together in a mound. We never use cream in our risotto, instead a traditional recipe using cheese and butter. Wine, garlic and shallots to start, and then Carnaroli rice because it’s more starchy than arborio, allowing for a higher viscosity.
Pizza and Pasta are Italian dining staples: can you tell me about those?
Our pizzas are made with a fresh pizza dough cooked at a really high temperature – 450 degrees celsius – and we stone bake them for a light, crisp, evenly cooked base without burning the toppings. I love pizza when it’s authentic and simple, but I also love to try out new flavour combinations – the fattoria tartufo, for example, its ingredients of prosciutto, mushrooms and truffle oil work really well together. We’ve changed up the pizza menu quite a bit, but if your favourite isn’t on there, ask and we’ll see what we can do: we’ve given the ducks a rest, but can always bring them back!
With pasta, we use wonderful fresh pasta. It really makes a difference, it’s like chalk and cheese. Fresh pasta holds the sauce a lot better and has a wonderful taste and texture.
Finally, chef, which dishes would you pick off the menu if you were dining?
That’s a difficult one. I think I’d have to go with the chorizo scotch egg to start. I love scotch eggs, properly cooked with runny yoke, and this new chorizo version has been getting a lot of compliments. Either that or the beetroot cured salmon. For mains, right now I’d either pick the pea and broad bean risotto or the spatchcock chicken depending on what mood I was in! The spatchcock chicken is great, it’s studded with garlic, then brushed with olive oil, rosemary, sea salt and chilli, before being stone baked and finished on the chargrill for that great taste. It really depends on what mood you’re in, and there’s a lot of different types of dishes on the new menu.
If you have a question or comment for Carl, join in on the discussion below, tweet at us @OlivePressUK or send us a message on Facebook.com/TheOriginalOlivePress. You can find Carl on twitter – following him @Carl_Noller.
