Restaurateur plans "nosebag" supper - FT.com In London, novelty is everything for a certain type of foodie. Now, if they dare, horsemeat is on the menu. Next Friday evening, restaurateur Oliver Peyton will host a "nosebag" supper club at his National Café in central London, which will feature British horsemeat from a farm in Nottinghamshire. There will be no lasagne and no burgers: this will be the horse, the whole horse and nothing but the horse. Mr Peyton pitches his equine supper, which costs £25 a head, in defiantly gourmand tones. "We're going to do tartare," he says of the starter, "with a mixture of two cuts and soda bread breadcrumbs so it'll have a crunch to it." The chopped meat will be topped with a hay-smoked duck yolk. And to follow? Horse sirloin baked in salt lick, served with charred King oysters, celeriac and crispy shallots. The "photo finish" pudding is caramelised carrot cake, oats and cream, and apple granita. Mr Peyton is a self-confessed "agitator," making a point about consumer perceptions of horsemeat. "[It] hasn't had a fair crack of the whip," he says. Having eaten horse in various forms in Umbria, Toulouse and Modena, Mr Peyton believes "people have forgotten . . . that horse is a high-quality meat to eat. I can see it in high-quality restaurants, no doubt in my mind. He notes that it is a "rich, dense meat, so you don't need a lot of it" but is still confident that horse could become a "small part" of dining out. If the tartare plates are scraped clean next Friday, Mr Peyton might think he is on to something. But the menu proposition of "horse" will be a hard sell in a country that lost its taste for the meat more than half a century ago. In France, where the remaining boucheries chevalines still sell horsemeat just as other butchers sell beef and pork, it follows that horsemeat is not a wildly unusual sight in restaurants. Otis Lebert, the owner and chef of Le Taxi Jaune, a bistro in the third arrondissement of Paris, has been serving the meat for the past 12 years. He declares that "horsemeat will definitely become part of haute gastronomie sooner or later . . . it is a taste everyone likes." He buys carcasses whole from a supplier in Belgium and has learnt to use many different cuts: it takes about three weeks to get through a single horse. On the (far from equine-only) menu at Le Taxi Jaune there are two horse dishes, both about €20 - braised cheeks, slow-cooked in red wine for eight hours, and pan-fried horse heart. Nevertheless, even in France, Mr Lebert admits to feeling that his horse cuisine has been somewhat "in the shade" until recently. Mr Peyton, meanwhile, has to put the finishing touches to his supper plan, including solving the pressing problem of whether he can source horse jerky in time to serve it as a snack. The wine list is much easier. I can't see big clarets with it. I would definitely be hitting the medium reds. A Côtes du Rhône, or possibly Burgundy.