April Bloomfield delivers a cookery demonstration at Ballymaloe Cookery School.

April Bloomfield burst on to the New York culinary scene with her cooking at the  gastro-pub, The Spotted Pig in the West Village. Her food is a fusion of the comforting food she remembers from her childhood in Birmingham in England and the Italian influences she picked up cooking at the River Cafe in London and further influences gleaned at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California.

 There are dishes on the menu such as her Sheep’s Milk Ricotta Gnudi with Brown Butter and Sage and Char grilled Burger with Roquefort Cheese and Shoestring Fries that might provoke a riot by her admirers in the city if they were to be removed.  Reading the menu is like slipping under the softest down filled duvet – Pumpkin Soup with Sage and Faro, Squid Stew with Fennel, Creamer Potatoes and Aioli – it’s all gorgeously comfortable. Don’t be fooled though. This is all extremely considered and well thought out food, beginning of course with impeccable ingredients. While training at the River Cafe in London, April tasted a walnut pasta dish and was completely blown away by the taste, the simplicity, the purity – the beauty. That moment has influenced her cooking ever since. So you won’t find foams or smears here, because April’s food doesn’t call for those. Nothing is done for show; it’s all done because it is correct. If an ingredient is not appropriate, it won’t be on the plate. It is in this “ simplicity” that her art lies and as great painters will attest to, the less strokes of the brush you make, the more perfect they need to be.

Aprils New York cooking has expanded to the kitchens at the Breslin Bar and Dining Room and the John Dory Oyster Bar, both located in the Ace hotel. Her most recent venture has taken her to San Francisco where at the Tosca Cafe, she has received rave reviews.

In this cookery demonstration from the “ queen” of New York cooking, you can expect fabulous, seasonal, stylish, cool and above all, delicious food.