July Newsletter
Welcome to my July updates.
A joyful month to cook with the last of the spring bounty and the prime of summer ingredients heading towards us.
A recent trip to Tuscany rekindled my love affair with tomato and melon salad - simple, but made ever more potent with slightly underripe melon and soft tomatoes, or vice versa. However, don’t have both super ripe. You need balance, you see. And this needs a strong salt element to make the salad more than the sum of its parts.
Try salted almonds or ricotta salt, plenty of great olive oil, and some wonderful dried wild oregano and leave it alone to do its thing for at least an hour.
Happy cooking
Adam x
For the month of July
Where I’ve been eating
New openings
Recipe of the month
What I recommend…
Wine of the month
Worth one’s salt
National Restaurant Awards
RACA fundraising Banquet
Where I’ve been eating
Bar Valette - Shoreditch
What an utterly delightful meal. A cheery place, by the team behind the much lauded and exceptional Clove Club. This place is owned by Isaac and cooked by a chap called Jake. Inspired by the streets and eateries of San Sebastián.
I don't venture east enough. I should.
This is what a great neighbourhood restaurant should be: generous, honest, great value and accessible with tip-top sourcing, product-focused cooking and a wonderfully intriguing wine list that clearly has its big brother to thank for.
We drank wine from Jean-Marie Guffens, dined on babajauns, buttermilk chicken and salty (as they should be) gildas.
Turbot on the bone and lemon sole a precursor for one of the best chocolate mousses I can remember eating.
If this were south, I'd be in so much I’d have a table named after me.
Go support a local, private operator cooking with heart.
If you are lucky Jake will cook his polish meatballs for you…
Thank you team @ Bar Valete
EXE Restaurant - Verona
No sooner had we landed than lunch was upon us. When in Rome, or in this case, Verona. I chose this place for the eight of us to settle into the pace of Italy.
EXE is the sister to Michelin starred EXE on the roof.
The cooking here is simpler and more classical, not a tasting menu in sight!
My tortellini in brodo was exceptional. As was the ‘crème pattiserie’ ice cream, which baffled slightly but its freshly churned texture was incredible. I turned the last few mouthfuls into an affogato.
The soup inspired me to cook the same dish and a porcetta later that week.
New openings
Brasserie Constance
Constance is now live and I couldn’t be more proud of this space we have created on the riverfront.
Here is a link to book and receive a glass of fizz on me!
Just pop ‘AdamsTreat’ in the ’Anything else we should know?’ section of your online booking to receive.
Please note this code is valid up to and including the 31st August 2025. The code is valid for one glass of fizz per person upon arrival, when booking online for lunch and dinner. Please specify in your booking notes if you would prefer a non-alcoholic fizz option.
Brown’s Breakfast
We serve breakfast at Brown’s - in Charlie’s Restaurant of course, and mighty proud of it I am too.
But I have now created a second breakfast in The Drawing Room with a more contemporary and seasonal take. Yes you will find my take on a bacon sarnie here, as well as crab muffins with a poached egg. Eggs albemarle, and a sausage and egg muffin. My porridge brûlée also features.
Daily from 8am - 10.30 am.
If you forward this newsletter in when making the booking you will receive a ‘Mayfair bun’ on us for later… limited to 33.
Please note this code is valid up to and including the 31st August 2025. The code is valid for one bun per booking, when booking online for breakfast. Please note there is a limited number of Mayfair buns produced each day, so this is a first come first served offer.
Trinity Outside
Outside continues to supply London with some of the best sandwiches to be had!
Follow on Instagram - @TrinityOutside
Recipe of the month
Constance Walnut & Rye Tart
I love this tart. A cross between a treacle tart and a date and walnut cake. Don’t refrigerate and do serve with lots of pouring cream!
What I recommend…
Here are a couple of books that you won’t cook from but they will inspire you to cook and leave you dreaming of days in the kitchen in Sicily with a pinny and a pasta machine:
Blood, Bones & Butter - Gabriella Hamilton
A masterpiece on the story of opening Prune in NYC and so much more.
A Waiter in Paris - Edward Chisholm
Bought for my son, from whom it comes highly recommended. I haven’t read this yet. He loved it.
My Life in Food - Albert Roux
A wonderful read and great to be indulged in a time pre-Le Gavroche. The making of a truly great man.
Finding Freedom - Erin French
Another example of how kitchens and cooking can offer healing and growth for some with struggles.
A remarkable, gripping story.
Wine of the month
Has to be Rosé. I’m a not a huge fan of Provençal rosé, that thin, sweet juice that is often endorsed by a celeb… heaven help us.
Here’s a rosé that is for food, a true food pairing wine, round and balanced and utterly delicious. Marsannay Rosé from Burgundy - the only village allowed to make a red, white and a rosé under its name.
and if the endorsement matters this wine is named after my very own daughter Rosie!
Reserve a table Upstairs to give this a try!
Worth one’s salt
Much talk of salt. Did you know we contain 250g of salt as humans, which is always being replaced and replenished. Even more so if you run or sit in on Clapham Common during the summer!
For me salt is the difference between good and great cooking.
I use Maldon sea salt. It has a light salinity and I have used it for so long that I trust and know its potency.
There is a sweetness to Maldon also that I love.
But any good (natural sea salt will be best) and best avoided is sodium chloride from the shower salt isle at Tesco.
My tips on using salt to best effect:
• Brine fish in a 10% brine water for 10 minutes.
• Cure salmon fillet in 50% of the fish weight for 24 hours.
• Season steaks one hour before cooking.
• Salt tomatoes well and allow them to bleed out, using the liquid to make a delicious dressing.
• Do sprinkle gently on a soft chocolate mousse! See my video on Instagram on chocolate cremosa with olive oil and sea salt.
National Restaurant Awards
And lastly a huge congratulations to my team at Trinity for being heralded as the NUMBER FOUR best restaurant in the UK at the National Restaurant Awards. Amazing achievement.
Royal Brighton Pavilion Fundraising Banquet
Friday 21st November 2025
6pm - 11pm
Very excited for this one.
The incredible team at The Royal Academy of Culinary Arts are hosting a beautiful, meticulously crafted six course menu at the Royal Brighton Pavilion this November.
Myself, Benoit Blin MCA, Frederick Forster MCA, Adam Smith MCA, John Williams MBE, and Lisa Goodwin-Allen will each be cooking a course.
Reserve a space whilst they’re available, you’re in for a treat.
Thanks as ever for your support of my online work.
Here is where you can find my team and I ‘IRL’.
Happy cooking
Adam x