Lemony Magic with Krug & Cycene

This summer Krug has curated a magical Michelin-starred tasting menu at Theo Clench’s Cycene in Shoreditch around this most uplifting and noblest of fruits, washed down with glasses of three cuvees - Grande Cuvée 171th Edition, Grande Cuvée 161th Edition, Rose 27th Edition.

Theo Clench heads up the Cycene kitchen, a restaurant by the Blue Mountain School, and is sharing his ethos of extracting optimum flavour from the simplest of ingredients.

Lemons were his inspiration for this ten course menu which marries classic techniques with inspiration from his global travels across Eastern Asia and Australasia.  

It’s the first year a fruit has been elected by Krug as single ingredient to celebrate, after previously paying tribute to rice, fish, the onion, the potato, the egg, the mushroom and the pepper. The lemon with its zingy character and electric energy was selected for the tension and balance it brings to a Krug Pairing.

Last week we were lucky enough to sample the first outing of this gastronomic adventure. On the rooftop, reached via a brain-bending floating steel staircase to the wisteria-clad terrace – we tasted comté gougeres, duck liver pate cubes dusted with red pepper powder and crab with genmaicha and kombu.

Moving downstairs to the kitchen, alongside the team of chefs hard at work, we were served a wafer thin sliver of 26-day aged bluefin tuna warmed on a slab of Himalayan salt, brushed with brown rice ponzu and doused in a foie gras emulsion. How do you eat YOUR tuna?  

The almost quaker-style room in muted yellow with an orchid and dried grass centrepiece was the setting for the rest of the night, where dishes included a cucumber and lime-dressed oyster, turbot with sake and lamb with wild garlic. A richly citric lemon posset ended the feast.

Krug have also created a fabulous book, The Zest is Yet to Come,  with a network of their favourite chefs from 25 countries, to celebrate the humble lemon, including Theo Clench who shares his recipes for Baked Lemon Cream and Lemon Confit.

The book reminds us, that while the four most common varieties – Meyer, Lisbon, Eureka and Bearss – may first come to mind, lemons exist in countless shapes, sizes, flavours and colours. The costly Buddha’s Hand, native to China, for example, emanates a lavender-like fragrance and is served for New Year to bring prosperity and good fortune.

Cycene and Krug are holding two more of these lemony dining experiences on Wednesday  July 11 and Thursday 12th, where guests can experience the joys of this menu combining Theo’s exceptional lemon-infused menu, paired with perfectly crisp summery Krug vintages.

Krug Single Ingredient by Theo Clench, priced £250 per person and paired with Krug Grande Cuvée 171th Edition, Krug Grande Cuvée 161th Edition, Rosé 27th Edition at Cycene, Blue Mountain School, 9 Chance St, London E2 7JB