Mezcal-cured worms and cricket chilli oil: Why restaurants are ditching beef for bugs
Sorry, did you say worm?” I practically splutter at Leonard Tanyag, executive chef at omakase bar Juno. He’s just casually mentioned that the piece of tuna nigiri in my mouth is garnished with ground mezcal-cured agave worm. Like it’s no more interesting than regular seasoning. I thought it took a lot for an ingredient to surprise me these days – clearly, I was wrong.
The poster child of fussy eating growing up – I’d pick onions out of everything and performatively retch at the sight of broccoli – now I’m eating a dehydrated, powdered version of one of my least favourite creatures. My reformed eating habits have long been a source of amusement for my parents, siblings and long-suffering friends.
But still, worms are on another level of the omnivore scale. In my defence, it wasn’t in the press release; in fact, not much at all is mentioned about the bug offering at Juno, the new-ish omakase bar hidden behind a curtain on the first floor of Mexican-Japanese restaurant Los Mochis in Notting Hill. That’s by design, Tanyag tells me. “You wouldn’t talk about salt and pepper and things like that. It’s just another ingredient, and we’re trying to normalise it a bit.”
I suppose that at an intimate six-seater counter – the smallest in London – they’d also like to be out of spitting range. Tanyag laughs mischievously; waiting until the last possible moment to divulge his secret ingredient is also deliberate.
