‘I want BERTHA in my kitchen’
Jay Rayner
Jay Rayner reviews The BERTHA in the Observer Magazine
I’ve experienced what she can do, and what she can do is very pleasing indeed… Without BERTHA I’m not entirely sure my lunch at John Doe, just off London’s Portobello Road, would have been worth writing to anywhere about, let alone home.
With her, a set of humble ingredients were allowed to present the best of themselves. She’s that most admirable of things: an enabler. I won’t lie. I want BERTHA in my kitchen.
After all, who wouldn’t want a serious chunk of bespoke wood-fired oven?
‘Out of BERTHA’s belly came some really good stuff...’
Giles Coren
Giles Coren reviews The BERTHA oven in the Times Supplement
Out of BERTHA’s glowing belly came some extremely good stuff. We had rare slices of deer haunch, smoky-ferrous and purple, served with veal bones split length-ways so as to dress the lean meat of the wild beast with the rich marrow fat of the farmed. Clever Hip.
Previous to that we’d had tender, gently grilled little roundels of octopus on a plate studded with pungent aioli blobs and chickpeas, and some young leeks slowly roasted in ash that showed great depth and fruitiness under a lentil and tarragon dressing. And best of all a handful of seared duck hearts on toast with the deglazing sherry juices drizzled over them.
