Fluid Eating's Review of Bar Shu
Bar Shu, the finest Sichuanese restaurant in Europe, opened in the heart of London's Soho district in 2006 to general critical acclaim. Jan Moir in the Saturday Telegraph called it 'the most exciting restaurant to open in London in an age'; Caroline Stacey in the Independent said it was 'an outstanding arrival'; and Evening Standard critic Fay Maschler wrote that it had completely changed the face of Chinese restaurants in the capital. Bar Shu was shortlisted for Time Out’s best new restaurant of 2006.
Bar Shu specialises in the authentic flavours of Sichuan Province, China's most thrilling culinary region. Sichuanese cuisine is famous for its fiery spiciness, but also for the sheer variety of its tastes. Think of sweet-and-sour Gong Bao prawns with a dash of chilli, a gentle lotus root salad, or sizzling chicken served in a lip-tingling pile of chillies and Sichuan pepper.
Their team of Sichuanese chefs use seasonings specially imported from China to conjure up dazzling tastes that you won't find anywhere else in London. Their consultant, award-winning food-writer Fuchsia Dunlop, keeps an eye on the menu, and leading wine consultant Peter McCombie has designed a wine list that complements the flavours of the food. (Updated 03/09/2008)
Bar Shu Food & Drink Menus
Listed below are few sample food and drinks items available at
Bar Shu. These lists are not enhaustive, but are instead designed to give you an overview of the venue's
offerings and assciated prices.
The food of Sichuan province in southwest China is one of the world’s great cuisines. Its most famous characteristic is its fiery spiciness, which comes from the liberal use of chillies and lip-tingling Sichuan pepper. But hot and spicy is only part of the story. Sichuanese chefs are legendary for their ability to combine many different tastes into exquisite complex flavours. Some of these are robustly spicy, while others are delicate and teasing. And the use of chillies is so inventive that their taste never palls. In China, they say the variety of flavours used in Sichuanese cuisine is so dazzling that ‘each one of a hundred dishes will have its own, unique taste’.
Bar Shu want to bring you the best of the authentic flavours of Sichuan. So look out, among others, for the seductive ‘fish-fragrant’ combination of pickled chillies, ginger, garlic and spring onion, the addictive fieriness of ‘numbing-and-hot’ flavoured dishes, and the refreshing tones of a ‘ginger-juice’ sauce.
Bar Shu Food menu
The wine list has been compiled with the assistance of Peter McCombie, Master of Wine. He is one of the country's leading experts on matching wine and food. You can choose to match or contrast:
*A highly flavored dish is more likely to be complemented by a strongly flavored wine.
*Warming 'sweet' or 'earthy' spices will suit the contrast of a dry, more acidic wine - perhaps white, perhaps red, but don't forget the versatile rose.
* The refreshing sharpness of some ingredients like vinegar needs refreshing acidity in the wine to balance.
* Chilly can make tannic red wine seem harsh so you might prefer soft fruity reds.
Bar Shu Drink menu
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