Jeremy Lee celebrates 100 years of Quo Vadis with Service Works
100 years of Quo Vadis, wow! How are you feeling, is there an immense pressure to maintain the restaurants legacy and history?
There is no denying the quiet amazement at Quo Vadis turning 100.
The centenary of the last of the great Italian restaurants is a very great gift due mostly to an amazing crew who work tirelessly to keep the façade, the rooms beyond and the food prepared and served from the kitchen as fresh and as lively as can be.
As Sam Hart once said, the devil is in the detail and we have a magnifying glass on every last mote of Quo Vadis as often as we possibly can.
How do you stay classic without calcifying, what does a modern Quo Vadis look like and how do you honour the past whilst moving forward?
Oh gosh, with a foot in the past, a foot in the now allows us to explore a wealth of Italian regional cooking and into this weave an approach most modern, with regional and seasonal British cooking for dishes on a menu that is inured in produce, simply prepared fresh every day. The joy of many boxes on the menu takes folk at the table on a journey that can be as simple or as elaborate as wished.
The Henderson’s are hosting the second of the centenary celebrations at Quo Vadis. How would you describe your longstanding relationship with the family and how do you compliment each other in the kitchen?
One of the many great joys, and chief among them are the great friendships, struck up over the years that endure with a great love of food, cooking and eating with each other in restaurants and at home. Margot and Fergus are cherished and loved so very deeply, not just because they are utterly splendid but also have restaurants that are ever foremost when pondering where to eat.
Quo Vadis and friends invites Lee Tiernan, Olia Hercules and more to celebrate 100 years of Quo Vadis, how do you choose who would be best to collaborate with?
When it came to creating the QV100 list of centenary legends series, Fergus, Hector and Margot were there at the toot for the loveliest day in the kitchen and the most delicious and joyous dinner. They are at the very heart of restaurants in London and beyond.
Adding to the series was Lee Tiernan in January for our Burn’s Night, celebrating a decade doing so and who we love equally and delight in joyously. Olia and Joe are dear friends and we are thrilled they are cooking together having cooked separately at Quo Vadis previously. The list is extraordinary and there are many names we would love to add and are scuppered by the one simple fact there are only 12 months to even a centenary year. Sighs deeply.
Tell us about Monte Vesuvio, what is it, what’s the history of the dish and what makes it so great?
Monte Vesuvio came into being as we began putting centenary dishes on the menu each month of the year, one on the a la carte and one on the pudding menu.
With a large nod to the zany confections that used to appear on menus, particularly at Leoni’s Quo Vadis when it was first created, a meringue is filled with rhubarb cooked with blood orange and kumquats, heaped with cream, a scoop of blood orange sorbet and a scoop of vanilla ice cream then strewn with pistachios on a moat of vanilla custard. A paen to Sicily with a Yorkshire accent. Playful and delicious equally, it takes its name from the blood oranges grown on the slopes of Mount Etna but we cheekily took Vesuvio instead.
