There are worse ways to mark the arrival of autumn than being handed a Negroni and invited to sit down.
Galvin Restaurants has put three seasonal menus across its London and Essex restaurants making autumn look considerably more appetising than the weather forecast suggests.
At Galvin La Chapelle, in the City, the £49 Autumn Table begins with a choice of Negroni, low-alcohol NoGroni or Aperitif Maison, accompanied by duck liver parfait with Moroccan spice and Muscat grapes, and Comté gougères with mushroom ketchup.
The cooking is broadly Mediterranean in temperament, but the ingredients have been allowed to remain British. Charred Cornish mackerel comes with kimchi water and whipped feta; the alternative is Dorset crab raviolo with beurre blanc, for another £15.
Then comes slow-cooked venison with juniper and bagna cauda, or, for £20 more, Dedham Vale aged beef with fried oyster and miso aubergine. Dessert is either caramelised Delica pumpkin and clementine tart or a baba au tiramisu designed for sharing. There is cheese too, because autumn is not the season for restraint.
Down in Spitalfields, Galvin Bistrot & Bar is taking a rather more democratic approach. Its £29 feasting menu is designed for the sort of meal where nobody is in any particular hurry to leave.
There are olives and padrón peppers if you want to get things going, followed by jambon de Bayonne or burrata with fig and hazelnut pizzetta. The main event is a 40-day-aged Dingley Dell pork T-bone with nduja and pumpkin, served with fries and truffle aioli. Alongside it comes mussels saganaki with barrel-aged feta and chorizo.
Dessert is tiramisu or Basque cheesecake with chocolate sauce. In other words, nobody has confused “seasonal” with “worthy”.
At the Galvin Green Man in Essex, the proposition is simpler and perhaps more appropriate to the time of year: go to the pub.
The timber-framed Chelmsford restaurant has a two-course Autumn Table for £19.50, or three courses for £23.50. There is Blackwell Farmers Moccus salami, smoked haddock rillette and pickled kohlrabi, followed by Suffolk chicken with borlotti beans, cavolo nero and salsa verde.
Dessert is white chocolate panna cotta with granola and blackberry.
It is the least complicated of the three menus, and arguably the one that needs the least explanation. A walk through the Essex countryside, a fire, a plate of chicken and beans, something sweet at the end. Autumn doesn’t always require a tasting menu.
Across all three restaurants, Sipsmith has supplied a signature Negroni, with an alcohol-free version for those who would rather keep their head for the journey home.