Photography Fun at Goode & Wright

One of my key blogging resolutions for the year was to dramatically improve the photography on SilverSpoon London. I always admire my fellow bloggers’ beautiful and artistic photography and I really hope to emulate some of their skills one day. For example, Miho has a fantastic eye for detail, Jasiminne uses light so creatively and Amanda’s photo’s have beautiful composition. One blogger who I particular admire is A Lady in London, Julie’s photography is so vibrant and she really knows how to bring a place to life.

If you’ve been following me on twitter and reading my blog, you’ll know that I recently invested in a new camera. The camera is very much a joint investment for myself and Mr S as we used some of our wedding money to buy a really good one. Our Nikon D750 is our new favourite toy and it’s something we really wanted to have for our safari this year. and in the future to document the lives of all the little spoons that we hope to one day…

I’m not a photographer, or even particularly artistic and at the moment I’m keeping the camera in auto mode but I’m practicing shooting every day objects around the house, studying other blogs to understand what angles give the best pictures and I’m planning on attending some DSLR workshops.

I’ve already taken the camera out by myself a couple of times, to Kettner’s and the Mondrian, but when I was invited to Goode & Wright it was the perfect opportunity for Mr S and I to practice some food photography. Having seen photos of the food at the bistro on both The Londoner’s blog and Gary Berry’s, I knew it was the opportunity to get a few good snaps on a date night for myself and Mr S.

A delicious and very pretty plate of bread and butter kicks off our meal. Mr S and I happily munched away on this first offering while he enjoyed his beer and I sipped on a glass of Sauv Blanc.

The restaurant itself is intimate and cosy with chequered tiles on the floor – it felt like we’d found a little bit of Paris in Notting Hill. The owner told us he wanted to freshen the place up a bit and get rid of the wood panelling, so there may be changes afoot.What are your thoughts on photos of restaurant interiors? I often include them on my blog so my readers can get a feel for the place, but actually a photo of a room is a little odd as there’s no subject to fully focus on.

Instead I prefer including details…

….or a wine collection. I find these details give a flavour of the restaurant that is a little more interesting than a shot of the room.

And this one of me shows the restaurant’s rustic wooden panelling but also injects some personality. It’s always nice to see the face behind the blog! I don’t like it when Mr S takes flash photos of me…but our new camera gives lovely clear photos in low light and there’s no need for an unflattering flash.

For starter we shared a pumpkin and nduja ravioli with salt baked onion and tarragon. If you’ve never heard of it nduja is tasty spicy Italian sausage that I’m seeing more and more on menus. The onion was lovely, it was slow cooked and caramelised so it was very soft and sweet with no bitter after taste. I love the fact that the camera had picked up every little detail from the plate…with my old camera I may have needed the flash in here and that would have created shadows all over food.

Our second starter was charred octopus with dill and apple. The octopus had a gorgeous smoky taste and it was perfectly cooked which is something difficult to get right with this seafood dish…I’ve had chewy or mushy tentacles on my plate…not nice. The apple was soft and sweet and actually tasted more like a peach. Not a combination I’d had before but one that worked very nicely.

We’d asked the owner about the duck egg in a basket with chorizo that we saw on the menu and he bought it over as an extra for us to try.

Now this was a pretty hearty dish, basically an egg baked into brioche. It reminded me of eggy bread that we used make at university after drunken nights out! It was a delicious comfort food but a very heavy dish and I just had a taster because I wanted to save room for dessert. I’d actually suggest this as a main course brunch dish, perhaps with yoghurt and fruit on the side as it was very big for a starter.

My red mullet was a good choice for a dish with hearty wintery flavours but wasn’t too heavy. A charred beetroot sat on top of the mullet in a light tomato stew. The fish was maybe a little too cooked for my liking but it was a lovely combination. I love the composition of this photo too…with the side dish of potatoes in the foreground and the bowl of fries in the background so that the main focus is on the mullet.

Sadly the light was not really my friend and there was a yellowish ting to the photos. Does anyone know if there’s a way of filtering this out? I always prefer to review restaurants in daylight but obviously this isn’t always practical.

And the fries at Goode & Wright are quite possibly the best fries I’ve had in London. Perfectly crisp with a touch of herbs sprinkled over them…soooo moreish. Now, I’m aware I need to learn how to use Photoshop or Light room. At the moment I just use the simple tools that come with iPhoto. I’ve lightened this picture up and increased the contrast so that the individual fries come out more but the photo is still rather yellow unfortunately.

A fruity mille-feuille was Mr S’s dessert choice. But there was only one thing I wanted…I’d seen a particular dessert come out of the kitchen a couple of times and that was what I was going to have…

The chocolate mousse with honeycomb on top…but I only had it for the photo opportunity of course 😉

Thank you Goode & Wright for a really fabulous meal, very personal service and for providing the opportunity for Mr S and I to practice our photography skills!