Three comforting Barbary Coast recipes for darker, colder evenings

1. Lifestyle
2. Food and Drink
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Head chef Ian Coogan shares three bright, comforting dishes from The Barbary – chermoula sea bass, zhug-butter scallops and a rice pudding brûlée – perfect for early sunsets and colder evenings

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There’s a particular kind of comfort cooking that feels right as we slide into the darker end of the year – not the heavy, deep-winter stuff, but dishes that bring warmth and brightness just when the afternoons start disappearing at 4pm. Food that feels restorative without being stodgy, and a bit escapist without requiring much from you.

That’s exactly what these three dishes deliver. The wild sea bass, with its crisp skin and vivid chermoula, brings a hit of citrus, herbs and gentle heat – the kind of lift you want when the day seems to end before you’ve even had lunch. The grilled scallops, barely kissed by the pan and finished with zhug butter, are all fragrance and indulgence in a way that makes even a midweek dinner feel special. And the rice pudding brûlée is comfort dressed up: nostalgic, creamy, crackling with caramel and the sort of dessert that quiets a table the moment spoons go in.

They come from The Barbary in Notting Hill, where head chef Ian Coogan – formerly of Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s ABC Kitchen and ABC Cocina in New York – has been shaping a menu that pulls from Barbary Coast flavours and London appetites alike. His cooking is bold, bright and generous, built on spice, acidity and just enough richness to feel like a treat.

Together, these dishes offer the perfect kind of seasonal comfort: uplifting, unfussy and exactly right for early sunsets and colder evenings.

Wild sea bass with chermoula

The chermoula will keep in the fridge for a week if covered with a thin layer of oil on top. Do try and find wild seabass as they have a much better flavour. We serve a whole seabass butterflied, but you can also do fillets instead.

Ingredients:

For the chermoula sauce:

30g garlic, peeled

2 bunches coriander, leaves and small stems, coarsely chopped

15g green chili, chopped into chunky pieces

75g extra virgin olive oil

1 preserved lemon

5g cumin

Salt to taste

To serve:

2 wild butterflied seabass (you can ask your fishmonger to do this for you) or 4 fillets of wild seabass

Neutral oil, salt, lemon juice

Method:

1. Blitz the garlic, green chilli, and preserved lemon with olive oil in the work bowl of a food processor. Once the garlic, chilli and lemon have broken down, add the coriander and cumin and blitz until you have a chunky paste. Season with salt to taste.

2. Prepare the seabass by very lightly scoring the fillets on the skin side. This will help the fish cook evenly and the skin crisp. Rub the fish with oil, then season with fine salt. Heat a pan over medium-high heat, then add a little oil, followed by the seabass skin side down. Cook the seabass on the skin side until it is 80 per cent cooked through and the skin is golden brown and crispy, then flip it over to the flesh side just for a minute.

3. Season the flesh side of the seabass with lemon juice (you want to keep the skin nice and crispy so don’t add lemon juice on top of it) then plate on top of the chermoula sauce.

Grilled scallop with zhug butter

These are a really easy quick start to any meal. You can make the butter in advance, roll it into logs in clingfilm and store in the freezer. It’s also good on white fish, chicken or steak!

Ingredients:

For the zhug butter:

100g butter, room temperature

1 bunch coriander, leaves and small stems, coarsely chopped

20g green chillies, chopped into chunky pieces

20g garlic, peeled

25g lemon juice

5g cumin, ground

Salt to taste

To serve:

8 scallops in the shell (you can ask your fishmonger to prepare these for you, but keep the shells to cook the scallops in!)

Neutral oil, salt

Lemon wedges

Method:

1. Blitz the coriander, chillies, garlic and lemon juice to a fine paste before adding the butter, cumin and salt to taste. Mix to combine.

2. Lightly season the scallops with neutral oil and salt before grilling on one side to get nice caramelisation. Remove from the heat and set aside. Place a tablespoon of butter in each shell, then place the seared scallop on top. Place the shells directly on the grill and cook until the butter is melted and starting to caramelise around the edges and the scallops are cooked. Serve with wedges of lemon for squeezing over on the side.

Rice pudding brulee

A great recipe to have in your back pocket as you can make the rice pudding base and change the fruit to whatever is in season at the time! It's lovely chilled in the summer or warm in the winter.

Ingredients:

For the rice pudding:

450g whole milk

150g single cream

75g pudding rice

40g caster sugar

2 pods cardamom, lightly crushed

For the raspberry jam:

150g raspberries, fresh or frozen

50g caster sugar

1 lemon, zest and juice

To serve:

Rice pudding

Raspberry jam

8 raspberries, halved

Demerara sugar

Method:

1. Warm the milk, cream, sugar and cardamom until simmering, then add in the rice and bring back up to a simmer. Cook over low heat until the rice is nearly cooked through (20-25 minutes), then remove and cover with clingfilm, touching the surface so it doesn’t form a skin. Cool to room temperature, then remove the cardamom pods and chill in the refrigerator.

2. Combine raspberries, sugar and lemon zest in a pot and bring to a simmer. Cook until the fruit has broken down and is lightly thickened. Once cooked, remove from the heat and add the lemon juice. Cool before using.

3. Divide the jam between 4 ramekins, then top each with 4 raspberry halves. Divide rice pudding between the ramekins, levelling each off so the top is nice and flat. Cover the rice puddings with a generous layer of sugar, then blowtorch slowly so the sugar melts and caramelises.

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