Maybe news of Via Stelle has reached you by now, but if not here's what they are in a nutshell: meals designed by fine dining chefs around the world, produced in a central kitchen in Shanghai, boxed up and delivered to you for reheating and ~plating~.
Sure, there are nice PR photos, but what do the meals actually look like in real life? Here's a diary of our attempt at a casual dinner party for four.
4pm: The boxes arrive. The shifu who delivers them is very friendly, and cheerfully tells us that to keep our microwave settings to 'medium' – and to be sure that we keep the boxes in the fridge and eat everything on the day.
He says this all in Chinese, so there may have been things we missed, but we threw caution to the wind and set up camp in our kitchen. Also, the instructions are on the box in English so our panic was premature.
4:10pm: Assembly time for L'Espalier's grilled beef tenderloin with truffle potato puree, glazed shitake mushrooms, roasted baby carrots and grilled scallions (RMB158). Step by step instructions are included on the box, and inside, each packet is labeled really clearly. We feel a little less nervous that our 'guests' (read: roommates) won't be disappointed.
4:15pm: Plating time. At first, this was easier said than done – guess the chefs make it look easy. Nevertheless, we persist, and we end up pretty impressed with our first result: beef tenderloin with creamed potatoes, scallion, baby carrots and mushrooms.
4:18pm: One tip with this dish: once heated, open the bag and let the tenderloin rest for at least 3 minutes afterwards. This will stop the meat from releasing its juices. Tip 2: stir the potato purée really well before plating.
Notes on the flavor: these potatoes aren't kidding around. They're super delicious, nearly stealing the spotlight from the beef tenderloin. Overall, good wintery flavors. Wish we had a glass of Burgundy.
4:20pm: Dish number two. This time we're giving Lord Stanley's pork belly with apple puree (RMB98) a whirl. Again, anxiety pangs about the fancy plating on this one.
4.23pm: Nevermind. Nailed it.
4.25pm: Wow. This dish really surprised us with how easy it was to put together. The pork belly is very fatty (though the top still has a bit of crunch to it), but they do balance it with lots of tart, acidic flavors from the pickled radish and elderflower dressing.
You can tell somebody who knows what they're doing designed this dish (i.e. not us). All in all, our favorite dish and the most fun to plate.
4.30pm: Grilled young pork loin with herb 'porridge,' baby bok choi, green onion, carrot and sweet 'n' sour mint sauce (RMB118), you're up. Definitely one of the quickest dishes to plate.
4.31pm: Herb porridge is more risotto-ish than your standard Goldilocks breakfast. Crispy pork belly, when is that ever not a good idea?
4.40pm: Last one: beef short rib with confit potatoes, pickled oyster mushrooms and red wine sauce (RMB128), another one from Frank McLelland at L'Espalier. What even is a confit potato?
Turns out these are itty bitty rolls of micro-thin potato. Ever eaten a Fruit Roll-up? Consider these the fine dining version.
Final thoughts: plating turns out way easier than we thought. Or maybe it just seems that way when you're in a controlled environment with all the elements conveniently pre-cooked for you? We discovered that each box comes with its own pair of chef tweezers after we'd finished.
Overall, the dinner party was a success, the roommates are full, and burdened only with washing up four plates. Nobody was fooled that we cooked it all ourselves, but maybe that says more about us than Via Stelle...
Press "Read More" to discover the Via Stelle menu, or extract the QR code below
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