What better way to break the 2012 bubble than to recount a November 2011 visit at a true London institution and a destination restaurant. Yup after nearly four years of hot air, I finally made it to Chez Bruce in Wandsworth.

In my often narrow and simplistic view of the shadowy powers which have molded our idea of the template for london posh dining, I see two power players whose influence reaches across an association of restaurants. Glorious chefs have passed through these kitchens at some point in their career, and in a way, these breeding grounds are the bedrock for the progression of high cooking.

On one end of the stick, we have zen master Phil Howard with his double-macarooned lair – The Square. This is of course a story that is written to death about, since Brett Graham trained with Phil in the beginning days before they spun out the Ledbury, Harwood Arms, and Phil’s other diffusion restaurant, Kitchen W8.

The other is of course the highly respected (Chez) Bruce Poole whose 16 year old outpost in Wandsworth is still going and going but perhaps just beginning to look a tad long in the tooth. It still charms the pants off of most, but certainly not all of you. Bruce’s diffusion restaurants include La Trompette and The Glasshouse, both michelin starred and highly regarded in their own right.

If ever there was a formula for special occasion restaurants, then these guys have discovered it. Both men share a common connection, the silent partner who has helped shaped many a chefs career – Nigel Platts-Martin.

NPM’s ownership of starred restaurants stretches back to the old glory days when the site of Chez Bruce was formerly Marco Pierre White’s Harvey’s. I am bittersweet that I’m too young and so have missed MPW’s most dominant days. To me, he is mere urban legend. I only have youtube videos of him cooking for Albert Roux (whom he describes his proteges as his little bunny) to go on. In those days, Philip Howard was only just a precocious up and coming chef de partie in White’s flaming kitchen.

Moan all you like about NPM’s classic French fare, the bottomline is that these guys know what paying punters (that’s you) really look for in restaurants. And consequently, NPM’s restaurants turn profits. Solid cooking at 2003 prices, a shushed ambiance and a strategic neighbourhood location. Mid-level fine dining at its finest yes?

As Chez Bruce is the kind of special occasion restuarant, We thought it was apt selection for me and the missus’ anniversary. A Saturday lunch, I put a tie on to pay homage to a culinary giant. The prix fixe menu is impressively affordable : at £27.50 for three courses (£45 for dinner) , it’s simply unbeatable value for money in 2012 (Nov 2011). It reads like any classic French menu – divine, classy and a little lost in time. Which is good, the fantasy spirit of eating out is well and alive in Chez Bruce.

The starters.

Potato, chicken and thyme soup with poached egg.

The better half started things off with a starchy, gluey, rich potage, finished with poached egg. Cooked to a T, it was as potato soup should be. The missus approved.

Buckwheat pappardelle with braised hare, bacon and parmesan.

I chose the house made buckwheat pasta, which was expectedly al dente, with a nutty sting and a rather pleasant coarse texture, like sand in cockles. The rest of the dish was the forest of flavours it looked. Woody, familiar, rich and a cracking sauce. This was classic cooking at its best. One could say this recipe was boring, but then again, you can’t fault good cooking. Mastery of conventional food is as important (if not more so) than pioneering modern trends.

The mains

Shoulder, loin and hache of venison with spatzle, chestnuts, bacon and red cabbage (£5 extra)

Venison, three ways. Very rich, very sweet. After a hefty starter, this seemed a bit of a meat overload. The shoulder melted like candy floss, the loin was tender yet firm, flavours of onion and sage, and the chopped meatball was so sharp, it was nearing pungent. A good kind of pungent. I think that perhaps it could have done with less spatzle, which to me, tastes like wetted rice crispies, began to disturb the meat textures.

I can’t say I absolutely loved it, since it was a big plate of meat, veg and sauce. However, I did think that everything on the plate was well cooked. It was clearly the mark of a kitchen which has perfected their skills over the decades.

Roast rump of beef with shallot purée, cocotte potatoes and bourguignonne sauce.

The better half was impressed with her textbook roast beef, and so was I. It had the nostalgic effect, hearty, roasty and cooked to a perfect pink. Personally, I would have preferred to see just a little more blood, but preference aside, this came out just right. I thought the beef selected was top notch. The butter-flavoured fat on the beef was a sign that this was a good breed whose hide was well hung. My notes indicate that this was some kind of Devon Angus crossbreed which comes from the Westcountry. This isn’t something I’m familiar with per say, but given that it was a rump, it was rather tender, with fantastic natural concentration of flavour, and it made for an enjoyable plate of roast beef.

Benchmark roast beef, perhaps even a version of perfect roast beef. I’m a big believer in restaurants which can get the classics spot on. And I think this effort speaks volume about the skill of Bruce Poole’s team.

Dessert.

Pineapple cannelloni with lime and ginger syrup, mint granita and coconut.

I suppose this shaved ice dessert is Chef Poole bowing to the Nordic food trends, or perhaps it’s just a reworking of a regal ingredient in French puddings. Deconstructed pina colada? How about reverse pineapple tarte tatin? Nah, that’s taking the p.

It looked nice, a departure from the rest of the dishes. While we both liked it, shaved ice is not necessarily my favourite gimmick on a plate, be it a savoury or a dessert.

In fact, I’m curious when shaved ice transitioned in to ‘haute cuisine’. For me, shaved ice belongs in Asian (street food) desserts like Ais Kacang (literally for Ice Beans). Blocks of ice are milled in its shaven form using hand wound ice shaving machines , and then scooped into large bowls and served with syrup, sweetcorn, sago and red bean and other starchy things. It’s hugely satisfying if you’ve never tried one. And it’s been around for at least 50 years. It’s a mountain of colour and ice.

Prune and Armagnac ice cream.

Wicked. Classic. I love this. Let the nostalgia wash over. Ahh.

The ice cream was creamy, velvety and generously alcoholic. A prune on the side was absolutely seeping with brandy flavours, that one can only assume that Bruce had done it to demonstrate that he had allowed plenty of time for osmosis to take place when he soaked the prunes in brandy. I cannot fault this, I loved every bit of this ice cream. This was a bona-fide dessert.

On the topic of armagnac, I’ve taken an interest in this kind of brandy. Did you know that armagnac precedes cognac, but since they are less popular, it makes Armagnac the cheaper alternative. Quite conveniently, Berry Bros & Rudd – yes that venerable wine bod in mayfair – stock a particular family of armagnacs which go back two centuries. This is an area where I’ll invest some time in this year I guess.

But darn it, ain’t it such a Chinese thing to drink brandy. My dad drinks cognac. Louis XIII to be exact. What a cliche yes?

As much as the next generation of progressive cooking has taken over, these evergreen classic French recipes – butter, lardons and red wine – are still top notch. It’s a reminder and a relief to find that when you dine out, portions are still adult sized and fill the entire plate, and not served on a Chinese soup spoon.

We paid £ 85.78 for food and 2 glasses of wine , and we fell into a satisfactory snooze as we took the bus back toward the North of the river. Well, that just leaves The Glasshouse, and then I would have visited all of Nigel’s current portfolio of restaurants.

So as Gordon Ramsay is changing the direction of his business with the cheaper, less dressy bread street kitchen, Plats-Martin’s restaurants, in my view, stand the test of time with their prix fixe, no-nonsense French food. While New Nordic has undoubtedly influenced newer restaurant menus with lighter (and perhaps healthier and better looking) recipes, heavy meals like this still has a place for the lovers of old-fashioned eating out. While the table cloths were perfectly pressed at Chez Bruce, it really buzzed more like a bistro than a prolific stuffy affair.

If I can be quite frank, the meal was ordinary, but this is probably by design. That’s not to say that it was bad, far from it, it was a delicious meal, everything was well cooked. But the recipes feel mature, and definitely doesn’t come with the flash of younger (hungrier and triendier) restaurants.

I noted the similarities between Medlar’s food, and it was obvious that Joe Mercer Nairne’s cooking has its roots in Chez Bruce. But I think Medlar’s food is just bolder and more exciting.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the meal, the classic feel and it didn’t escape me that this is the epitome of the neighbourhood restaurant. Is it a destination restaurant? Yes, because of its history. No, if you’re seeking meat-fruit, nitro-blasted cucumber, vintage potato dust or yeast baked champagne lemon sole. But you already know that.

It’s straight up, finger-licking, double portioned French cooking, at reasonable prices, decent service and a charming room. Chez Bruce has aged gracefully into an icon fully deserving its place in the annals of history, but the old guard’s definitely still got it.

The Gist of It

Chez Bruce
French, £50pp
2 Bellevue Road
Tel : 0208 672 0114
Rail : Wandsworth Common

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This is the only time you’ll see the food menu, because these three items are quite literally all they serve. After Hawksmoor successfully ported the America’s favourite summer roll to the El Smoky last year, it was only a matter of time before the Russians would follow. Well it took them a while, but the good people from Goodman (who are imho still the capital’s best steakhouse(s)) bring you the first lobster bar in London. With burgers. And cocktails, designed by The Soul Shakers.

If Goodman attracts the mid-week fat banker stereotype (actually, I think they entertain more Chinese tourists rocking bling Vertus than city workers) , then Burger & Lobster is where the fat banker would take his family for a weekend meal. If I was 10, I could totally see myself bibbing up every Sunday with my family at this restaurant.

No really, I love this place, it’s basically premium fast food. So, you choose either a Beef burger, a lobster roll or a steamed/grilled whole Canadian lobster for £20. Every plate comes with chips, salad, clarified butter (with or without lemon) with the seafood and in-house pickles for the beef.

Grilled Lobster, chips, salad, £20.

When you visit, ask Dave Strauss (if he’s about) to show you the lobster tanks which they have specially put together in the basement to hold … tonnes of live, swimming critters. It smells really clean, like the great lobster prison, and it’s made out of.. er, some sort of polymer I think. It is quite breathtaking seeing so many lobsters in one place like this.

They kill the lobster (as humanely as possible) with a stunning machine called a Crustastun. Thus avoiding having to boil the poor crustacean alive or the mess in slicing it down the middle of his head with a cleaver. (Every time I slice a lobster in half, and the claws and legs let go of life as the knife goes in his head, believe me, a little bit of me dies inside).

Sigh. Ok, morality aside…

… just fucking wow man. You can’t beat fresh whole lobsters finished on a grill. Aside from mild smokiness, the distinctive, purely addictive natural richness of lobster is simply brilliant. The dense, chunky muscular texture of lobster meat is unmistakably delicious of course.

Lobster is the king of seafood (erm, maybe abalone, ok no, red garoupa) , it just has such fantastic natural flavour, you can almost eat it raw (and indeed some of you do) and it’ll still be the greatest, sweetest meat you could ever savour.

Oh right, and these are Canadian, I suppose they swim in the Atlantic, which would classify them as American Lobsters, I believe. I’m not sure if these are the same species as Maine lobsters. Who knows. B&L DO have Scottish Native Blues swimming in the tanks downstairs, but I don’t think they sell them for £20 a pop. Those probably go for more, and I think you’d have to ask Dave if you want to spend a bit more moolah on something a little more exotic.

However. The highlight of the restaurant is not the lobster. It’s the roll.

Lobster roll, with chips and salad. Also £20.

She is beautiful yes? You have to see this from the other side. It’s immense.

Look at that, haven’t they just stuffed this roll silly. Kapow. It isn’t an entire lobster, it’s about 2/3s and a claw. But my god, it’s an experience. Love it to bits.

The toasted roll is very light, crispy but still soft inside. Now I don’t know how it compares to America’s darlings, like say Luke’s for example, but for what it’s worth I do like this version. The mayo and butter moistens but does not overpower the meat, so you taste natural flavours rather than butter. But that’s why they’ve provided the clarified butter (with lemon) on the side, so you can dip to your preference.

It’s just a really great lobster roll, I could eat four of these in one go easily. And in fact, that’s probably my only gripe, that it’s so easy to eat this in four or five bites, that it ends prematurely, just when you start salivating. So I recommend you try to stretch it out by breaking the roll into smaller bits and savouring each bite slowly instead… or if your pockets go deep, just order two more rolls and give the burger a pass. I guarantee it will be one of the most exciting binge moments in your life. We did that on the first visit, it was great, just great.

This would be me and Mark‘s second visit, and it tasted even better then 2nd time around. As I said earlier, its so good, that if I look back years from now, I’m sure it’ll evoke memories etc.

The chocolate and lime mousse are both very good, especially the chocolate which has a bit of coffee in it. This is what the burger looks like , also £20, it is a good burger, but quite frankly, you are probably better off queueing for more superior ones at Meatliqour or Lucky Chip for half the money.

The cocktails are fantabulous of course, they are around £8-£9 which is competitive pricing, and I would recommend the Riesling Smash, which is German white wine smashed with apricots, pink grapefruit and Kammerling’s.

Ironic how easy it is for restauranteurs to take our money these days no? Plain lobsters, a bit of butter and chips are enough to get the job done. No that’s not true, some of us still like that fancy shit, besides I like wearing ties to restaurants, sometimes.

No seriously, you won’t find cheaper lobsters of this quality in a London restaurant. Probably. But really it’s just a great place to grab a delicious and easy meal while tanking up on equally delicious booze. Who knows if this operation is actually going to turn a profit or if it’s just a generous restauranteur fulfilling his social responsibilities in giving punters what they really want. If you grew up on lobsters like me (curiously, lobsters in Asia do not have claws and they make clickity noises) GO HERE. If you’re sick of having lobster noodles at MK/PL, then this will be a welcomed change. If you’ve never been curious, now is the time to try lobsters. When 2012 opens, go here before the queues start forming (no reservation policy strikes again).

Mark and I paid £65 for this meal: One lobster, one roll and two cocktails.

Happy Christmas folks, I’ll be eating sushi on a mountain somewhere in Taipei next week, tweet you then.

The Gist of It

Burger & Lobster
Lobsters & Burgers only, £20 for each.
29 Clarges street, Mayfair London W1J 7EF
Tel : 0207 409 1699
Tube: Green Park

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The restaurant took a while to finish – it’s at least a month late, and the private rooms are still awaiting the finishing details – but it finally opened, and my my, is it going to be a smashing success in 2012.

It seems to be fashionable these days for Spanish restaurant owners to pair larger scale restaurants for the full experience with a more modest – or shall we say more fun – sherry bar for the easy tapas and alhambras. If you cast your mind back to the boozy summer of sherry and half cooked pork, you’ll remember that José really was just the prologue to something much bigger to come.

And it is much, much bigger. If José was a cute baby taking his first steps into the dangerous world of hospitality, then Pizarro is all grown up 28 year old voluptuous Paz Vega all lips, puppy dog eyes and husky voice (Oh Paz Vega, wouldn’t that be a christmas to remember). Alright to be fair then, how about a 35 year old Antonio Banderas with his piercing stare, a Spanish guitar with brand new nylon strings and cat whiskers.

For background noise, the front of house chose Nina Simone tracks from (I’d like to think it was) her 1958 album titled ‘Little Girl Blue’. The ambiance is ever as elegant and smoky as Miss Simone was.

The decor is wood panel, brick and marble tops like José, except it goes deeper. A long communal table out front, and large round family tables at the back. It has low ceilings, and it feels a little like an Alpine cottage held up by Turkish stone pillars. The kitchen is open, and like José, diners can sit at the bar and watch Chef Pizarro work his magic. Pizarro’s design is more like a kitchen in a large villa than a London restaurant.

We visited at 3pm on a Saturday, and luckily for us, many of you were jammed into the teeny José sherry bar (my guess is to try it for the first time) and there were a few free spaces available. We rushed to the restaurant hoping to catch the kitchen’s last service, but then we realised that they open all day from 12pm to 11pm on Saturdays. José was behind the counter for service, I felt thankful – at last for Christmas, I will have a special meal cooked for me by a special chef.

Like José, this menu is seasonal and straightforward. There are two price ranges, the first 8 or 10 dishes are £6 to £7 and are classic tapas like Croquetas; Artichoke, cauliflower, soft cheese, walnut; Duck liver, capers, fino; Quail, romesco (Yes, I remember the awesome romesco from my visit to José ). Larger dishes are £12 to £15 such as Salted cod, potatoes, vizcaina; Lamb, lentils, radicchio. Naturally, jamon iberico is served here as well. They are supplied by Manuel Maldonado and if my guesses are correct, the legs of black pigs that once roamed the fields of Extramadura, incidentally, Chef Pizarro’s birthplace. Maldonado’s jamon are also sold in Selfridges, and so if you’re like me, you’ll know they are red gold basting in naturally secreted and fragrantly acorn scented pig-body oil. The only gripe when I walked past the kitchen, is that I saw that these expensive exposed half-shaven meat on the leg were not covered with the layer of fat and skin to keep it moist. I surmise that when they serve it, they cut away the dried bits from the top before serving the rest.

Let’s cut to the chase, small dishes..

Jerusalem artichoke soup, truffle oil, crispy ham or manchego, £5.5.

I chose crispy ham. Look at that, isn’t that just the most innocent dish you’ve ever seen. The soup smelled absolutely fantastic, obviously due to the fragrant truffle oil. Texture-wise, it was thick and gloppy, a little like congee, but with bags of natural umami flavours. Got to say, the crispy ham is a stroke of genius giving bite and seasoning to the rounded rooty flavours. It was a great wintry dish, so rich, so hearty, so warming.

Prawns, serrano ham, chilli, garlic, £7.5.

Oh my goodness, these were the sweetest little critters I’d ever tasted in London. It was so sweet, it may as well have just jumped off the boat. As I twisted the head off, red juices came rushing out – as carnivorous as it sounds – I sucked the prawn head dry, and I savoured every moment of it. Prawns this fresh would make any Chinese person want to either drown it in brandy or steam it (or both) because you really need not do much save to not overcook it to preserve all of its natural sweetness. Yummy.

Half-way through our meal, Chef JP came over to greet us, I had to ask where he got his wonderful seafood from. He said “In my 20 odd years of cooking, I’ve only trusted one fishmonger, and he is based in New Covent Garden. If he brings me hake, I’ll cook it, if he brings me red mullet I’ll cook it.”. I believe this mystical fishmonger is Murray’s.

Beetroot cured salmon, capers, egg yolk, £7.5.

I suppose this is home-cured salmon, and the fluorescent orange yolk is not that of duck or an irradiated chicken, but that of corn-fed chicken. It had to be superfresh to be eaten raw, and 24 hours after the meal, my tummy is not bubbly, which suggest it is indeed very fresh eggs.

In essence, this is salmon tartare. The addition of capers made sure of that. What can I say? It was brilliant, it was more than brilliant, the salmon tasted so bouncy, so fresh and so alive. It was so sweet, so juicy and so mellow. It was like the best sashimi I’d ever had, paired with the richest egg yolks I’d ever had. We asked for more bread to mop up the yolk. This dish embodied the entire simplicity philosophy Chef Pizarro was working toward. When you buy the absolute best ingredients you can get your hands on, and cook it well (or prep it well in this case), the result is returning customers and restaurant patrons. This is the kind of dish which will keep them permanently hooked.

The large plates.

Manchego canelones, silver chard, pine nuts, £12.

Canelones as in Cannelloni, rolled and stuffed pasta. I suppose this would be the Iberian version, and while my photograph may not show it above, it is served in a large cazuelas, probably 6in in diameter. Again, beautiful homely cooking here, great roasted flavours, fantastically rich melted manchego and great chopped silver chard. Can’t remember if there was bechamel inside. I think there was, but no tomatoes, it was all green inside. For £12, nice.

Hake, black cabbage, clams, £15.

The hake at José was basically fried and loaded with aioli, nice but too simple. This one on the other hand, was rustic and nostalgic. Clams and potatoes made for a broth that was soothing, therapeutic, gosh I could just imagine as this rolled out of the oven – it smelled gorgeous. The fish was top class obviously, simply pan-fried and still flaky inside. We asked for yet more bread to ensure we wiped all the juices off the terracotta. Marvellous cooking.

Chocolate, toast, caramel ice cream, £6.

We ended the meal with a whipped and sticky dollop of chocolate (richer than a mousse) served on a thin toast and a fabulous caramel ice cream, and washed it all down with a smooth and sweet oloroso. I guess there was a little salt sprinkled over it and it summed up the natural wholesome goodiness that is José Pizarro’s cooking.

We paid £59.50 for the food and this time, I put down 10% service charge, £6. Well – it was a faultless meal. We loved everything which was put in front of us. It was also fab value for money, and the restaurant had a magical ambiance.

As you know, I love Cambio de Tercio, and earlier last month I visited Capote y Toros and asked Abel (Lusa who owns CdT) if he had visited José’s new place yet. This time around, I asked José if he knew Abel, and obviously he did, and he said many, many years ago when he first came to Britain, he had asked for a job with Abel – someone who he still respects he says. Abel is still going with CdT and eventually expanded with 3 more tapas bars to CdT. José went on to oversee the genesis of perhaps the greatest tapas restaurants to grace London – the Brindisas. But it is only now that José has reached what I believe is the height of his career with José and Pizarro.

The missus loves José, I think Cambio de Tercio still holds much sentimental value for me (given the amount of money I’ve spent there over the years). Of course, Alberto Criado’s modern style couldn’t be more of a contrast to José’s more rustic cooking. Both are ace chefs obviously and I think it’s great that London have both men choosing to cook in our beloved city. At the end of the day, I do think Pizarro will become a future classic. I’m sure there are millions of Brindisa lovers out there, I believe they will appreciate Pizarro’s latest work.

Bermondsey Street is blessed to have such fabulous restaurants in the neighbourhood. Along with Zucca, the sleuth of good looking coffee shops, it’s possibly the best area to hang out on weekends. I wonder what house prices are like in the area, these days.

The greatest strength of Pizarro is the quality of ingredients. Google the blogs, and take a look at the food which comes out – everything looks so vibrant and fresh that it can only be delicious. The seasonal simplicity is like being invited to a close friend’s house with her mother doing all the cooking. The nostalgia makes Pizarro the perfect weekend restaurant.

One might argue that top quality produce needn’t much cooking, but I think you still need a deft hand to bring out the natural shades of flavour correctly. Of course, we already know that Pizarro is an accomplished chef, everything comes out perfectly seasoned, piping hot and just excellent. This is only the second week of service, and if I can level some criticism, is that the communication between staff isn’t that smooth as yet. We had to keep reminding the waiters to bring the bread, which they frequently forgot, and timings are a little erratic between plates. These are probably just growing pains which they will work out the system once they oil all the cogs. Otherwise, the waiters had the right attitude, they were friendly and accommodating.

It’s easy ambiance, it’s just so comfortable being in here. It is evident José wants his customers to feel at home here. They’ve got a rack of magazines and daily papers and a copy of his book Seasonal Spanish Food. I love Prufrock, but I might have to spend a couple of boozy Friday afternoons reading a signed copy of his book (which I should return to buy) and tucking away his rice pudding. The bar is open all day, everyday I believe.

I shook his hand and thanked José after the meal. I told him Pizarro is going to be a hit. His grandfather would certainly have been so proud of this restaurant named in his memory. It was nearly 4.30pm, the kitchen was still cooking, there was no letting up really, people continued to stream into the restaurant. The man was visibly tired after a long day (not to mention the long night ahead) , but you could see that he was proud of his little labour of love. After all, it was beginning to take on the same enthusiastic soul as its creator.

Well done to the man from Extremadura.

The Gist of It

Pizarro
Spanish. £40pp
194 Bermondsey Street, London, SE1 3TQ
Tel : 020 7378 9455
Tube: London Bridge

Sharing : The Picky Glutton ; Butter is Better ; Rocket and Squash ; London Tastin’ ; Chopstix 2 Steaknives ; London Unattached ; Kavey Eats ; Tehbus

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The time has come to reflect on what’s been yet another crazy year of restaurant collecting. Just when I thought the burgeoning number of openings in 2010 were overwhelming, 2011 came and smashed 2010 out of the park. There was literally something new to try every week.

There’s more diversity than ever from this year’s round of openings and non-openings with ‘street food’ coming of age and the no booking policy becoming the norm. I think eating out is still expected to be a special occasion, but now it’s done more regularly, more spontaneously with less formality and with costs spread out across more meals.

With that, I think it’s fair to say that 2011 is the year that ‘fine dining’ died and came back to life as a caricature of itself. This was epitomised with the baffling 2nd update to the Bib in the fall (or I should say, releasing 2012′s revision six months ahead of schedule). It has only done damage to the credibility of their vaunted macaroons.

Looking at what’s coming in the pipeline, 2012 looks to only build on the momentum of 2011. At this rate, one wonders if there will be a point where we will hit critical mass. Maybe shitty restaurants will become extinct, someday, who knows. I think its safe to say that the general quality of the mid-level restaurant in London has upped in standard tremendously this year. Just look at what the high street holds these days: Byron, Jamie’s Italian and soon Union Jacks. Nandos still holding its own however.

We start the 2011 list with the biggest restaurant opening of 2011.

11. Heston Blummenthal’s Dinner.

I left 2010 clasping onto a reservation at Heston Blummenthal’s much anticipated debut London restaurant, aptly named Dinner. It opened to much fan fare, has garnered glowing critiques and of course scooped up its first michelin star. Ten months on, I still struggle with the return visit. Just like Fat Duck, it is nearly impossible to book a table, there’s at least a months lead time and even if you do manage one, you’d be lucky to get one at a sensible time slot.

My meal was nothing short of amazing. It’s the best restaurant in London. Potentially. It’s grand without being pretentious. It’s posh without table cloths. It’s three michelin starred cooking applied to century-old recipes. It’s wacky, but down to earth hearty, it borrows the best of The Fat Duck and the Hind’s Head to create the perfect modern restaurant.

Some have bemoaned the fact that it’s not the food theatre of The Fat Duck, but its half the money, and for almost twice the food. I admire Ash and Heston’s restaurants for their obsession with getting it right 100% of the time. These guys are not artists, they’re mad scientists. It may seem like a rather cold assessment, but the real secret to their success is that their food is always superbly cooked, using techniques that have been thoroughly well researched and experimented upon. I’m sure they could compile whole theses on specific genres of cooking. Rightly so, Heston’s books make for intriguing reads. His chapter in searching for the perfect steak and chips taking him across America to NY strip joints is an inspiring account to say the least. His triple cooked chips are still the best fried potatoes in this country. It’s Kaizen, it’s the strive toward perfection and it is scarily delicious. In 2013, it will carry three stars. If the bib still exists in 2013 that is.

Dinner review here

10. The Corner Room.

I met Nuno Mendes when Viajante was just a pipedream and he was still cooking at The Loft, before it became a platform for emerging chef-artists. I wish I’m half as cool as he is. “It’s Vi-a-JAN-tey, with a J. I’m Portuguese.”. Strokes the Jesus beard and a flick of his fringe. He is the antithesis to Heston’s nerdy mad scientist, he is the vision of a manic artist revelling in his most creative period of his nomadic career. I am so glad for his michelin star with Viajante, but I am more glad that he has decided to breathe life into The Corner Room. This is a significant restaurant. It was once the breakfast room for the Townhall hotel’s guests, but now it is London’s worst kept culinary secret.

Sure its no booking policy mean that on weekends food comes out tardy, inconsistent, which can be an absolutely let down after a pain in the arse of a long queue (but not before getting tanked up on martini sours at the downstairs bar). During quieter times however, the corner room really comes into its own. With a bit of breathing space, the young chefs from downstairs Viajante are given the chance to rise to the occasion to turn out stripped-down cooking that is reticent and thoughtful. It really is like a solid B-side which may not be as popular, but that you love it for its uniqueness.

The results are heart warming dishes which are breathtaking, marvellous, simple and freed from the pomposity of Viajante’s prerequisite threatrics. The Iberico pork loin with Portuguese bread pudding is a genius dish that you must try – it works equally for brunch or for dinner. This is an unplugged acoustic set of smoother sensations, like Bread & Wine or Rochelle canteen, its the explicitly bare act of nourishment that makes this restaurant such a romantic proposition.

The Corner Room review here

9. Meateasy, Meatliqour and Lucky Chip.

I failed to make it to Honest Burgers in 2011. So we’ll reserve that for 2012. If you’re still a burger skeptic, come out of your hole – it’s time your world felt a step change. But before we talk patty, let me just say this : Meateasy was the best pop-up restaurant in 2011. It set up shop in a still-refurbishing pub in New Cross Gate, it was dusty, shabby and barely standing but this pop-up had the genuine bon vivant spirit which restaurateurs could only dream of imbuing their restaurants with. Just take a look at this:

Truly atmospheric, truly wondrous and incredibly beautiful. This is why we pay to eat out. This pop-up encapsulated all the feel-good elements of the business of modern hospitality – this one had everything punters wanted, it was just so dastardly cool. Their connectivity with social media, their democratic burgers, fries and wings, their cocktails served in jam jars, their youthful exuberance, everything about it was compelling, eating here made me forget the world was falling from the sky outside. Truly, a historic moment in London gastronomy no?

And yet, it is so fleeting, it has gone as quickly as it came. I went to Meatliqour which does well enough to recapture much of the darkly shabby crack house ambiance, but unfortunately it feels terribly like nothing more than a good museum reconstruction. The burgers are still classic Meat Wagon, but the rest of it is just too loud, too dark and a bit of a painful mess. Don’t take it the wrong way, obviously if you’re new to Meatwagon, Meatliqour will still blow you to smithereens. Personally, Meateasy was never meant to be replicated, it was a landmark moment in time. Besides, the back of Debenhams was never ever going to replace New Cross Gate for true atmosphere.

London burger cooking techniques have become so intricate, that if you pool all the blogs together, you would be amazed as to how much goes into making the ‘perfect burger’. From the choice of bun, meat to fat ratio, choice of cuts, length of ageing time, fixings, type of cheese, steaming, grilling … I couldn’t keep going because I’m no expert. But I can show you what burgers in London look like today:

The Meatwagon

The Meat Wagon Cheese burger: Best fucking cheeseburger in London.

The Lucky Chip

The Lucky Chip Bill Murray’s Aquatic Life Surf n Turf Burger: Best fucking burger in London, period.

But you already know that. If you don’t, then its time you paid a visit to Meatliqour, The Lucky Chip in Netil Market, or if you want a blow by blow introduction – then you need to speak with Daniel Young on BurgerMondays.

Reviews here: Meateasy , Lucky Chip.

8. Roganic.

The London arm of Simon Rogan’s Northern gastronomic empire is home to a precocious talent, namely Chef Ben Spalding. A brilliant young chef whose CV is as glittering as they come – stints at Per Se, Royal Hospital Road and The Fat Duck. His cooking is creative and exciting. There’s a marathon ten course taster, a la L’Enclume. Their signature potato dish is one of the best things I ate all year – a perspective bender considering I never knew potatoes could ever be a main course – and one of the more dazzling long menus I’ve sat through all year. There’s an emphasis on quality of produce here, much of which are sourced directly from Rogan’s own farm. This is one restaurant which I would heartily recommend you try the full ten course experience. It will be £80 well spent, believe me.

Ben is probably the best young chef working in the city right now, he is already displaying acute skillz at Roganic, but I think he’s still got bags of untapped potential yet. The best thing about these kind of restaurants are that chefs continue to tweak their taster menus to grow and evolve them into fuller experiences over time. Remember when Brett Graham was an up and coming talent? Which reminds me, I am due for a return visit very soon.

He sometimes still hosts supper clubs at The Loft Project, but I think once Roganic runs its two-year pop-up course, you might want to keep an eye out for where Spalding will land next.

Roganic review here

7. Copita.

Just when you thought small plates were dead…

.. this one really took me by surprise. I love this place. Opened by the guys who own Barrica, this little tapas bar is more bar than tapas. Portions are tiny, there aren’t even any proper tables to sit down in, aside from stools and bar length table tops, and it doesn’t take reservations either. But the cooking is a bold departure from the norm, there is lightness, creativity, nuts, citrus fruits and a whole lotta truffle in their dishes. The slow cooked, custard-like duck egg with a touch of orange (i think) is a dish you only dream about in restaurants, the cod throat and clams were simply euphoric, and their Tom Jones beef tartare hand-chopped with sprinkles of truffle was mince beef heaven. There is a twist in every single recipe, a surprise with every mouthful. This is fantasy cooking, and one of (if not actually) the most exciting (of) openings in 2011.

Copita review here

6. Mishkin’s and Spuntino.

I have spent more money in Russell Norman restaurants this year than anywhere else. We already know that Norman and Beatty had managed to peer into the minds of punters and deliver what they really want with Polpo, but they’ve taken all the lessons learnt with their Italian bacaro and morphed it into a non-prohibition speakeasy in Spuntino. The combination of universally accessible (greasy) diner grub (grits, egg, cheese and truffle toast, sliders, mac & cheese, filter coffee) and a stonkingly electric vintage ambiance (artificial aging with the decor and vintage depression era folk music) makes it the perfect anti-restaurant to dine in. It’s just a really trendy place to eat in, it’s a stroke of atmospheric genius which is almost as good as Meateasy.

So then they took all the lessons learnt with Spuntino, took the time machine back into fifties America and brought back a tarted up version of a sort of American diner that served diner food, with a Jewish accent. Again more of the same accessible everyman grub which you can pick up with both hands, like their take on the Reubens sandwich (let the debates rage) and their enhanced steamed beef and onion sliders. But therein lies the beauty of Russell Norman restaurants, where he reminds us that ordinary food (like sandwiches, mince meat, soup and fried fish) is still ordinary but it doesn’t mean it can’t still be delicious. For me, 2011 belongs to Beatty and Norman. I just can’t stop spending money at their restaurants. I suspect there is more to come from this duo in 2012. Well at least I want them to re-invent another eatery, I’m hoping they will do a bistro.

Reviews here: Spuntino , Mishkin’s

5. Jose / Capote Y Toros

Ah..the sherry bars. Isn’t it ironic how things come in and out of fashion?

Jose Pizzaro aka Mr Ex-Tapas Brindisa is back with not one but two establishments both in Bermondsey Street and both do not take bookings. Earlier in the year, he opened the tiny alcohol focused sherry bar ‘Jose’ – which I love – and last week, he opened the more food focused Pizzaro – which I haven’t got to yet.

On the other side of town, the other Spaniard with a culinary empire – Abel Lusa – who already owns the fantastic (and my all time fav) Cambio de Tercio, opened his sherry bar, Capote y Toros. Both are classical and rustic, the former has lighter recipes and lets the ingredients speak for themselves, and the latter has most of its food cooked with sherry it serves, which includes a value driven sherry flight for £12.50. Both are great places to unwind.

Reviews here: Capote y Toros , Jose

4. Seoul.

I have to celebrate a local, and this year the local I want everyone to try is Seoul in Finchley Road. It’s a Korean BBQ restaurant, but all their meats are available at an indefinite 50% discount. This place is unrelentingly affordable given the quality of their food. I’m happy to see that it is packed during the weekends, which it should be. Take the bibimbap for example – absolutely massive with heavy shavings of raw beef. The quality of food is just about on par with Koba, but it’s half the money. If you find yourself stuck in my part of town, don’t think twice, just go eat here.

Seoul review here.

3. The Sportsman.

It was the most memorable staycation I had this year. The original gastropub turned destination restaurant located on the fringes of Kent is one of the best loved – and most highly rated – restaurants in this country. The cooking is absolutely first class, vibrant and as wholesome as the sea and greenery that surrounds it. I’m told that everything Chef Harris puts on a plate is either caught from nearby or grown in his garden behind the restaurant. The best egg custard tart I’ve yet tried, more like egg-mousse than cream. This is a real pilgrimage for food tourists. There’s about a 2 to 3 week lead time to book a table, try and grab one on a weekday to catch their taster menus and if you’re thinking of a B&B in Whistable, I recommend The Pearl Fisher.

The Sporstman review here

2. Prufrock Coffee, Leather Lane.

We know about the Prufrock flatwhites, and we know that there is an entire undiscovered universe when you force hot water through grounded coffee beans. And we know Gwilym Davies makes great cofee with milk but more importantly without it. Having a great product, boundless knowledge and skill is one thing. Transferring that talent (and employing people with similar gifts) into a cavernous warehouse-like cafe seems like a great lifestyle commitment to one’s craft. For that, I am a total fan of Prufrock.

I cannot tell you how much I love this place. This is my favourite coffee shop in town. I visit nearly every Friday afternoon and I make sure I have at least one brew, one flat white and that I tip at least a flat white’s worth. I’ve seen it go from being virtually empty to virtually full-up every Friday. It’s a great place to read, to work on blogs and I’ve seen creatives conduct successful meetings in here.

The space is just brilliant. There’s nothing as expansive as this in the city. It’s like a temple for worshiping coffee. Actually scratch that, the baristas here know their beans so well, it is more like a university for coffee. Kinda like a modern day Penny University, yes? Yes, you remember Square Mile’s brief but fantastic pop-up with the brew bar too don’t you. Prufrock have a brew bar, and fancy water dispensers that can deliver hot water temperatures to the 2nd decimal point.

While they can do ‘fast’ coffee if you need to run with your trendy flat whites, I recommend you clear out an hour of your busy afternoon schedule to sit, relax and appreciate a slow session with brewed coffee. It is fact that coffee needs to be cooled to allow the flavours to manifest properly. Believe me, watching a barista prep a cup of brew is mesmerising stuff. They will weight and then ground fresh coffee, measure the water temperature, time the filtering with a stopwatch, and if you ask for a siphon, you’ll witness water appear to defy gravity and magically turn itself into coffee. There are more discernible flavours in coffee than there are in wine, and the buzz you get after a few cups of coffee is …quite a high. They are also one of the few coffee-men experimenting with cold brew coffee, a la stumptown in NYC.

Obviously there are other places to get the brew bar experience, like Tapped & Packed which I included in my round up last year, but while I love T&P, I love Prufrock more. A coffee shop by coffee lovers for coffee lovers, and for others who like hanging out in coffee shops too.

Prufrock Coffee review here

1. Medlar

Every year I take great pleasure putting together these lists, but I can never really pick one as my absolute favourite of the lot. This year is different, I love Medlar. This is my restaurant of the year.

Maybe I like abit of old fashion decadence, but just look at these dishes:

Duck egg tart with red wine sauce, turnip purée, lardons, young sorrel and sautéed duck heart

This dish was a revelation! It better still be on the menu, it should be Joe Mercer Nairne’s signature dish.

Crab raviolo with samphire, brown shrimp, fondue of leeks and bisque sauce.

And both are just the starters! Chef Joe is formerly the sous at the venerable Chez Bruce, and the other co-owner, front of house David O’Connors is formerly of The Ledbury. Their restaurant feels distinctly like a Platts-Martin production – Value driven (£25/£40 prix fixe menu) , stunning but classical (and rich) French cooking in a low-profile and comfortable ambiance. I went to Chez Bruce – but the review won’t be ready till after this is written – and I think Bruce Poole would be extremely proud of his protege’s work. The food is brilliant and the front of house are visibly hardworking and genuinely impassioned about their labour of love. I think they know they’re onto something special with Medlar. Dare I say, it may have surpassed Chez Bruce in nearly every department.

Medlar review here

…famous last words.

And there you have it – 11 of the most memorable experiences of 2011.

Other places deserving a mention : Brawn, Opera Tavern, Chabrot, Odette’s, Galoupet , GELATORINO (great gelato! They do zabione as an ice cream!) and I really need to revisit The Bull & Last.

Things I wanted to, but won’t do till next year : The Cut, Delauney, Young Turks, Le Gav and maybe Hedone just so I can prove myself wrong.

I love putting these lists together – its so easy to be gushing and effusive. Don’t you just love it when a man uses every adjective in his limited vocabulary to explain how much he loves to eat? I hope you haven’t yet seen through the thick of my hot-air & bullshit, and that you see the funny side to our shared past time.

I sincerely think that London (and Great Britain) is becoming a true culinary destination. The identity of the London restaurant may be a curated mish mash of cuisines from around the Europe (and America) , but there is a movement, a spirit, a soul and a serious addiction in spending money to eat better.

As ever, I am always indebted to you folks who continue to read my stuff. I passed 1.5 million hits this month, and I long lost track of how ever many of you subscribe directly to my RSS feed. But really, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. After 3.5 years, I’ve grown a little weary but it hasn’t dented the love for visiting restaurants. I may have slowed down a little this year, but I only keep going knowing that you folks still take my opinion with some weight and a heavy pinch of salt.

To the many restaurant owners and chefs who have had the displeasure of putting up with my candor, my ego and my sometimes misplaced knowledge of cooking – I firstly apologise and then applaud you. You are the entrepreneurs driving the industry forward and at the end of the day, I am merely one of many a salivating fan waiting to take a bite out of your next creation. So please keep up all the great work, and lets all spend our way out of this fucking depression. Onward we march toward the new year, with an ever expanding waistline and merry abandon. Bon appetite folks, and don’t hold back on the eggnog.

K.

ps, before I forget..

Number 0, an extra special mention – Made in Camden

I cannot believe I left out Made in Camden from my initial round-up of 11. I completely forgot about it! A real injustice I have to say, because this is a restaurant that thoroughly deserves London’s attention. Essentially, this is a cafe with a mightily over-achieving kitchen.

I have visited at least 7 times since I first wrote about it in February. It’s small plate food, but because of its low-key atmosphere (and reasonable pricing) , it is easy to keep going back for solid meals. Josh Katz is the man in charge, he previously trained with Yotam Ottolenghi, so his cooking is a little mediterranean, like NOPI, but it is also Pan-Asian, Japanese, almost Nobu-like (tempuras, miso sauces, chilli). Ultimately his dishes are a dazzling array of world flavours which sound ambitious on paper, but in practice its fusion cooking that work surprisingly well. Good fusion food is a rarity, great fusion is virtually non-existent, Josh manages to tame all these flavours which should’t come together on the same menu and it is the kind of talent, I am certain would intrigue Peter Gordon and perhaps make him feel a little jealous. The food at MIC is the level which Kopapa and Nopi ought to be at.

I asked Josh to bring back his version of the Momofoku pork buns, with any luck, we might see it back on the menu again in 2012, just in time for your visit.

It is a little surprising such fabulous cooking is found at the modest cafe/bar/waiting area/departure lounge? at The Roundhouse in Camden, but if you can get past the nonchalant environment (and the wait for some dishes) you will be rewarded with some of the most intriguing cooking in London. Let me put it this way: A kitchen that can churn out perfectly risen, light-as-whiffs-of-cloud souffles (On par with Kerridge’s mango souffles in the 2* Hand & Flowers) injected with an intense guava syrup centre is an indication that these guys know how to cook serious food. GO.

Made in Camden Review

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Who comes up with all this fiction just for a restaurant? This is the persuasive language Oliver’s people have generated for his latest project:

“Ours is a union of ideas, traditions, and of people.”

“Where wood-fired flatbreads meet great British flavours.”

Lookintomyeyeslookintomyeyes.

What’s with the wonky name – why not just call it Union or Union Jack. Is this meant to be ironic? I don’t get it. The ambiguity with the plural form (or misplaced punctuation) is the restaurant equivalent of the 2012 Olympics logo.

In spite of the spin, this really is just a pizzeria. It’s billed as some kind of ground breaking bastardisation of the humble Italian pie, by the hand of Jamie’s very Bri’ish style and nicknamed as Flatbreads. As if one could reinvent something simply by calling it something else. I do like the ‘Gary Baldy’ biscuit, however. I’d like to think these concepts were the result of a complicated brain storming session by a think tank of consultants locked in a meeting room and eating nothing but pizza to precipitate ideas.

Back in the real world, this union is a partnership between Jamie Oliver and Pizza Maestro Chris Bianco. This Central St Giles location being the pilot for a upcoming franchise, which (presumably) pending the success of this branch, will spread throughout London and the rest of the country in the next couple of years.

Bad naming aside, I think the rest of this restaurant however is brilliantly conceived. The decor is spot-on. Few restaurants come in pink, this one is so colourfully retro, it feels like a fifities diner which has been lifted out from Archie comics. I especially like the cinema billboard style overhead menus above the open plan kitchen. Speaking of which, you can sit by the bar and watch the chefs stuff the wood-fire ovens with bubbling pizza dough. Picture this : solo dining, malted milkshake, by the bar, reading 1Q84 Part III. And then Betty Draper walks in wearing a neat black and blue pokka dot, body hugging, knee high dress with a big blue bow as a belt. She decides to locks eyes with you, as she undoes her elbow length white gloves. (Huh?)

It’s clear that Jamie’s people have astutely noted the current trend of un-ceremony and retro flair. This place is so back to the future, so infectiously a happy place, that you can’t help but smile when you come in. Service was so terribly friendly and forward that I just wanted to give my waitress a big hug every time she brought me some food. She was blonde, was very nice to me without crossing waiter-customer lines and she may have fooled me into believing it was.. love.

By-Catch Fish Fingers & Tartare Sauce, £5 with Roobarb & Custard, £5.50.

The Captain would’ve been proud of these fish fingers, flaky, crumbly, can’t say they were best but they were nostalgic with gooey batter coating the undersides of the crust.

The real eye-whopper was the roobarb and custard – great drink! I can hardly believe it contains alcohol, but apparently it is made with Chase’s Rhubarb Liqueur. That’s a distillery in Hereford which makes vodka from potatoes which they grow themselves. An interesting story, they sold their first bottles in 2008. For this liqueur, they laced their vodka with rhubarb from the area. The rest of the drink was finished like a spritzer with Union Jack’s in-house apple and cinnamon drink. It’s like an apple strudle flavoured cream soda! Addictive.

Flatbread, Oxtail & brisket, slow braised in Worcestershire sauce, Sparkenhoe Red Leicester, watercress & fresh horseradish £12

Ah, here we go, the flatbread. Well, well, isn’t she a sight for sore eyes. The Betty Draper of pizzas, look at those beautiful burnt spots and the perfect oval shapeliness, the tussled watercress with flaming red stems. Is your blood racing yet? The flatbread was still sizzling when it came. Freshly grated horseradish produced stinging eye-watering fumes and breathing in all the flavours nearly knocked me out. The dough is somewhere between the juicy Franco Manco dough and the powdery Pizza East semolina base, I liked it fine. Generous flosses of tender oxtail and brisket with full bodied winter stew flavour was extremely pleasing. I have to say, the sharpness of the melted red leicester did give the impression that this was not just a pizza, but that it had beenlocalised as an ‘English’ pizza. I gobbled it up very quickly, and I really wanted to have another one.

Retro Arctic Roll, £4 and Home made Earl Grey Tea Ice Cream, £1.50 per scoop.

Oh man, pure nostalgia. This was a treat for me when I was growing up. I think my mum bought the Bird Eyes ones which came with this cream flavoured ice cream centre and thin swirls of jam. This version is just as frozen, but has additional swirls of chocolate ice cream. The blackberry jam it came smothered in, with was very good, but the frozen pudding was no where close to replicating my favourite memories.

The home-made earl grey tea and biscuit ice cream, on the other hand, was bloody fantastic. It’s frozen cream tea and biscuits! Served in a frosted copper ice cream cup! Also retro! The best £1.50 I’ve spent all year, this is the dessert of the year for me.

But here’s an idea, an alternate version of the artic roll with the excellent earl grey tea ice cream. I recommend they call it “Kang’s flamin’ tea flavour arctic roll”.

I paid exactly £30, plus an espresso. Service was at my discretion so I put in an extra £2.

Ok I admit. The think tank wins. The British theme is a charmer, I’m totally into the Union thing now. The flatbreads are of excellent quality, and the British toppings do work. Oxtail, horseradish work just as well as egg and potatoes on pizza. I think that stronger English hard cheeses when melted produce some game changing flavours, as compared with relatively mild mozzarella. I am intrigued with the potential of the other choices. The Old spot with pork shoulder, quince and stilton sounds like it could be immense. So too the seafood option of cornish sardines with fennel.

His other partnership, Barbecoa was shambles, but this one is going to be a winning franchise. It’s very likeable and upbeat, I predict Union Jacks invading the high street, and eventually superseding Pizza Express.

The Gist of It

Union Jacks
The Flatbread formerly known as Pizza. £25pp
4 Central St. Giles Piazza
LONDON
WC2H 8AB
Tel : 0203 597 7888
Tube: Tottenham Court Road

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Given the circumstances, I sincerely believe this is the best thing between buns I’d yet come across.

But first let us be properly acquainted. Reader meet Lucky Chip’s weekly burger special “The Bill Murray Life Aquatic Surf and Turf”. She is an aged beef patty with a (new) sesame bun, partnered with a fried soft-shell crab, guac, spring onion, spicy mayo, sweet chilli ginger sauce and processed cheese. She’s worth £9.

Yes, I thought so too, how could purists ever love such a criminally tainted patty which has laid with a creature from the deep blue sea? After one bite, any lingering doubt was erased. I was completely convince: this wasn’t just a great burger, this was a sexual experience.

As you know, Lucky Chip, like Meatwagon, utilise the steam-the-patty-and-fixing under a metal cloche technique, which allows all the flavour-concentrated steam to re-condense within the patty, leading to the satisfying and sloppy mouthful. However, I was most impressed with how the guac, the syrupy sweet chilli drizzle and soft shell crab complimented the already potent beefiness of the patty. The burger had this great textural quality that held together real well, a little like the way it feels when you sink your fingers into kneading bread dough. An incredible experience with much razzle and pop – proof that sometimes more really is merrier.

We also ordered their chips with cheese, and it was exactly as we remembered them – some of the best chips in London, if not the planet. Let’s go with the planet. Shame they ran out of truffle oil however, they offer it as a free of charge option.

Well, its been almost six months since I was last here, I thought they were already great then, but they are on fire now. Whatever it is they’ve done to tinker with their patty and cooking methods, they’ve done it. They’ve reached that rarified airspace reserved for high flying captains of their respective industries. Dare I say, they’ve surpassed the trail blazer whose shadow has loomed over them ever since they opened shop in Kensal Rise earlier this year.

I really wish they’d come back to KR, it’s only ten minutes on the bus for me, but there’s probably no chance now that they’re more or less permanently hooked into the grid at Netil Market. Making the way there is still a hellish experience. The last time, we huddled under a plastic tent as the crazy summer rain poured down. This time, the perils of al fresco dining in winter came in the form of blast-chiller winds on a deceptively sunny Sunday afternoon. Killer winds. Besides, London Fields is not exactly the easiest place to get to.

Was it worth it? Oh yes, it’s worth freezing your nuts and nipples for, because once you take the first bite out of that gorgeous patty, whatever nagging life issues you are trying to push to the back of your brain will fall away. Time will slow down, butterflies will flutter from your arse, a rainbow will crack in the sky, the perfect sakuras will spring from the earth, wind chimes will play in the background.

There is social proof that Lucky Chip are on the way to stardom, like Burgerac’s five star review for example. It also reveals that the improvements to the patty and buns are real, as they’ve opted to switch their supplies from Ginger Pig to Walter Rose. The improved flavours probably due to longer hung beef, cut from cattle with inherently better genes, ie from GP’s longhorns to WR’s half-angus breed. Or maybe the mince-to-fat ratio has been tweaked, choice (or mixture) of cuts altered, seasoning, ratio of bread crumbs, etc. But lets not speculate and just be in awe of the superiority of the product. Whatever tweaks Lucky Chip have made under the hood, is yielded fine results.

I’m told this Bill Murray burger is one of their ten weekly specials, and so the next time this comes around will be either the week starting on the 9th or 16th of Jan 2012. Mark your calendar (better yet call them to double check), because you really don’t want to miss this.

At the time of writing, this week they are doing the DARYL HANNAH FILLET-O-FISH. Take a look, it’s a monster.

I think it’s time we dethrone Meatwagon. Don’t get me wrong, I thought Meateasy was the best pop-up in 2011, and I think they’ve done a good enough job in trying to recapture the essence of it with Meatliquor (it is too dark and too loud in there, however), but I firmly believe that their burgers are now second to Lucky Chip’s.

So I hope Ben and Comar go on to achieve great things in 2012, I hear he’s trying to solve the hellish al fresco experience with some sheltered space near by.

The Deets

Lucky Chip
£6 a burger
Netil Market,
Westgate Street
London Fields,
E8 3RL
Ben – 07795816355

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Damn it, he’s done it again.

(He being the elusive blurryman with the fire red scarf, and thick brown rim specs, aka Mr Cool.)

And here I thought that Da Polpo was the last cherry atop this tiny empire. They are back, this time around, Norman, Beatty and Oldroyd give us a glimpse of something a little Jewish. It’s deja vu because Mishkin’s is like that other off-shoot hobbyist lightbulb moment which Russell Norman had brought to life. Remember that ..the truffle egg toast, the ground beef sliders, the speak-easy-esque ambiance?

You know how much I love Spuntino, I was so excited with this project, I decided to book a table on the first official day of service. 50% off for the previews.

As usual, Russell is on scene for day one service (yeah… I’m pretty sure I was there for first day service at DaP and Spun as well) to greet us. So new, the paint is still drying, but this time around, things sure look much tidier.

The decor possess the now classic Norman touches : there’s the rectangular bar, the Victorian ceilings, dangling lamps, the brick walls. It’s like an American diner but all grown up, bringing some Madmen slickness to the indie feel. Its Spuntino in a red blazer with beige docker trousers and polished brogues. Floors are decked out with black and white tiles, the naked brick walls are paired with cream lime green panels and there are now diner booths kitted out in flame red leather. Toward the back, there’s a small crack of a skylight a la Da Polpo (but sans view of a church) , and there’s a reconstructed vintage BBC sound booth, complete with a rewired ‘on-air’ switch which makes a very intimate private room for two. Seriously cool.

The quirky little details in his restaurants are an integral part of Russell’s restaurants. This is his smartest restaurant yet, this one has the shiniest steel bar table top. It’s the Russell Norman show in full technicolor, and I think I may like the ambiance here the best.

The food here is the most varied yet. Styled like a vintage diner menu (typewriter fonts and laminated to protect against greasy fingers) it includes some classics from the sister restaurants like meatballs, mac & cheese, baby gem salad, but its the sleuth of Jewish-esque dishes which pique interest. Brick Lane Salt Beef, chopped liver with schamltzed radish, pickled herring beets tartar, whitefish & spinach knish …and meatloaf!

Obviously, I couldn’t try everything, so you might read about this again. I skipped breakfast and took Mark – a like-minded voracious eater – and started out with half sours; Pickled cucumber but in half the time, so mellower and sweeter.

Cod Cheek Popcorn, 7.

Wow. What is that fragrance? Lime I think, and something spicy, was it jalopeno perhaps? There’s some unidentified green zest on the cheeks. The crispy light batter was uplifting stuff, cheeky tender soft balls of cod flavoured..popcorn. Say bye-bye to deep fried calamari rings – Cod cheek popcorn is the future.

Chicken Matzo Ball Soup, 5.

Aka Matzah balls which are eaten during Passover, but more significantly, it’s Jewish chicken soup. Obviously, Jewish cuisine is undiscovered territory to me, and unfortunately I’ve not been lucky enough to be invited to try a Jewish home cooked recipe either. but for what it’s worth, I liked this cloudy chicken broth. Hearty, rich flavours of chicken stock, bits of celery and carrot. As for the giant matzo ball the size of a child’s fist: fluffy rather than leaden, and not unlike a sponge that’s soaked up all the liquid, making it juicy to bite into.

So first impressions for the matzo ball virgin : Soul charging chicken soup apt for lunch or a light supper for the wintry days ahead.

Reuben on Rye with Pastrami, Sauerkraut, Russian Dressing & Swiss Cheese, 9.

Ladies and gents. Introducing your next favourite sandwich. Before you skip my rambles below, I’ll summarise : it’s a fucking great sandwich. No gimmicks here, just a fucking great sandwich.

Yes, the asking price seems a little dear at £9, but you get your money’s worth – the sandwich is so wide, you have to hold it with both hands. That’s right babe, two handfuls.

So the Rueben’s sandwich. There are supposed to be a few variations to this classic sandwich invented either in Omaha in the 20′s by Reuben Kulakofsky, a Lithuania-born grocer, or by Arnold Reuben at his New York deli, Reuben’s, around 1914. Here in London, the only time I’ve come across mention of this sandwich is at Reuben’s in Baker Street. Unsurprisingly, that place also does Jewish food.

Now this is all very new to me, I’ve never had a Reubens sandwich before, so I can’t really hold a meaningful debate about authenticity or variation.

For this particular version, it’s stuffed to the brim with gently pickled sauerkraut and thinly feathered pastrami, glued together with melted swiss cheese and sandwiched between rye that’s crispy on the outside, and doughy on the inside.

I loved the egg truffle toast, but I took a one bite out of this, and it turned the memory of the truffle toast into a distant and queasy haze. The pastrami was akin to a boiled ham, like parma ham which had be through a bamboo steamer. I liked that nothing was too sharp, too sour or too salty, and that bread …fucking hell, it was fucking good. I don’t know if I’ve written this in a review or if it was a tweet, but I’ve always loved the Polpo grilled ciabattas. Doughy centre and crispy exterior (when toasted). This rye was along the same lines.

An enormously hearty and enormous sandwich. It’s really a great sandwich, it’s simple pleasures, anyone can appreciate a great sandwich, this is a great sandwich and I could easily have this for lunch everyday.

Oxtail Cholent with Barley, Beer & Beans, 9.

The Cholent is a Jewish stew, eaten on Sabbath and usually slowly cooked overnight. If you like oxtail, you’ll love this, the gelatinous bits were tenderly slipping off that tailbone.. and down my throat with minimum chewing. Mmm. This one had Tom O written all over it. Slow-cooked and stewed labour of love, not unlike his squid ink and ossobuco efforts.

So stewed beans (feel free to slap me for saying this, you purist) …this is like Jewish cassoulet right?!

All Pork Big Apple Dog… dragged through the garden, 8.

This is the first time I’m eating a big apple hot dog. I don’t know if Mishkin’s are the first restaurant they are supplying, but you lot love this stuff and so I’m going to have to agree, it’s a great sausage. I double checked, it did say all pork. Served in a baguette, and dragged through a garden of sauerkraut.

Also a pretty massive portion.

‘Supersized’ double 3oz Steamed Beef Pattie with Onions & Swiss Cheese, 8 (5 for the single 3oz).

Looks familiar right? It’s like the ground beef slider in Spuntino on the outside…

…but they’ve tinkered with the pattie on the inside. Quite a lot of tinkering.

They grill the pattie over a bed of onions (with the bun) and this allows the onion-infused steam to bubble upwards and seep into the meat. That is of course my idiot’s interpretation of pattie cooking. There’s a photo which the Mishkin’s kitchen tweeted a few weeks ago which show how they do it.

To the end customer, this translates to a sloppier and juicier experience. There’s less grease and more water content, dare I say it feels healthier, purer, concentrated and boy was it beefy. Boiled beef flavours. I think onions and melted swiss cheese contribute to the soft flavours, like the dishes before it, it’s not too sharp or sour.

Have I said it yet ? Fucking great pattie, especially with the soft, damp bun. It’s the evolution of the greasy Spuntino slider into a juice monster.

The meatwagon burger is great, so is the lucky chip burger and they are all steamed in some way – and I’m no burger expert of course – but my forecast is that this will join the burggerati top list. Let’s wait for Daniel Young and Ibzo to weight in their opinions first.

What’s next hey? Sloppy Joe’s perhaps? Too easy?

Bananas Foster, 5.

We ended the meal by sharing a caramelised bananas and vanilla ice cream. We also had two cocktails, I think I had a cucumber martini. The bill came to £75.44, but as there was a 50% discount for the preview (thanksgiving?) weekend, we only ended up paying £39.94. Don’t roll your eyeballs yet, I practice what I preach, you’ll hear about my subsequent visits to Mishkin’s again and I will pay full whack for it.

Between myself, Mark and our better halves, we’ve probably been to Spuntino two dozen times, a dozen times to Da Polpo, maybe another dozen to Polpo, but only once to Polpetto. We both love Spuntino to bits, we just think it’s a greatly executed idea. The ambiance is just great. I didn’t really think Norman could top that effort, but this one is so wildly evolved – food & ambiance – and such a well thought through that I actually believe Mishkin’s is their best iteration yet. So after five round, they are getting really good at this.

If Spuntino is leather jackets, beaten up and greasy John Travolta, then Mishkin’s is the slicked hair, pressed suits, top hats and kodak safety film vibrance of Donald Draper’s moddish Sixties American dream. This is fine tuning of the hobbyist projects they had with Spuntino. What was a genius idea is now a template for a new genre. Mishkin’s is an extrapolation of that template to bigger production values.

The way Norman’s team are launching restaurants are a little like the way Apple update generations of their products. They don’t actually generate new ideas, but they have the ability to spot something potential amazing and then tweak it, and mould it into something unashamedly appealing.

On the surface Russell’s restaurants adhere to the same overall vision, but there are little details, little ideas, minor tweaks which are ever so slightly improved from one diner to the next. It would appear their idea of what constitutes the perfect uber-cool haunt is well defined. New developments just go into massaging a better shape of its reality.

The recipes are almost always democratic reworkings of classics, prices are always competitive. There’s the ever-present dimmed soho ambiance, a vital sprinkle of cool powder and all these little details which make the holistic experience of eating out a lot of fun. We need these type of accesible restaurants which are easy going, trendy, sociable and welcoming. I can’t say I’m not a little inspired to be like him when I grow – he’s made a reality of an intelligent, fantasy restaurant.

Undoubtedly, Russell’s sensibilities have affected new openings – Ducksoup comes to mind – restaurants are embracing walk-ins, putting away the table cloths and making sure that their restaurants are buzzy places to eat in.

I went to Le Chateaubriand recently – arguably Paris’s coolest bistro – and I think Russell Norman is our Iñaki Aizpitarte. These octopus restaurants are timeless and nostalgic, complex yet indifferent, delicious genius but also bafflingly basic. They are living and breathing entities which many love for atmosphere as much as for nourishment, but those of you expecting some kind of religious experience will definitely be disappointed. These restaurants are not about worshipping provenance as you run your fingers across starched table cloths, they are about celebrating the everyman dinner. There’s nothing wrong with that of course, there’s a time and place for everything after all.

As a restaurant observer, I love this shit so much, I’m still foaming at the mouth after 2000 words. We are living in the age of a trend-setter, so hat tip to Russell the creative tornado and Chef Tom O – This one is the coolest yet. So now that they’ve conquered cocktails, small plates and the American diner, I wonder what they will reinvent next. The French bistro perhaps?

PS: More photos on my flickr page.

The Gist of It

Mishkin’s
Jewish. Kinda. £25pp
25 Catherine Street, Soho, WC2.
Tel: 020 7240 2078 < THEY TAKE BOOKINGS!
Tube: Covent Garden

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Here’s a list of good things I expect from a good bistro:

1.Good soup
2.Good steak
3.Good frites
4.Good tartare
5.Superhot waitress

I recall a highlight reel of what the Glasgow arm of this luxury out-of-town hotelier is capable of, during an episode of Don’t tell the bride. They took the tour through the banquet room, the room for the exchange of vows, the grounds. the venue was so slick, the bride cried knowing her man would never plan their wedding there. Of course, I don’t watch that show. It just happened to be playing in the background as I was shaping my manly deltoids at the gym. Obviously.

There are fifteen Hotel du Vins up and down the country from St Andrews to Brighton, none are in London, but presumably all of the hotel restaurants resemble some version of bistro du vin. As of writing, there are two Bistro du Vins in London; one is next to the shit-hot Duck Soup Soho, and the other currently occupies the site where one of the best London bistros died – Bjorn van de Horst’s Eastside Inn.

You do remember Eastside Inn don’t you? That was nice French food. Bistro du Vin doesn’t punch at that level, but in many ways that’s a good thing, because really the formulae that’s being applied – competitively priced, traditional French bistro affair, enomatic-preserved wines by the glass and really big and comfy leather seats – is the template for the mid-range restaurant of the future. Think of the day when the high street restaurant, the Zizzis, The Stradas and Cafe Rouge’s of our beloved city start serving steaks good enough to challenge Parisian bistros. Oh who am I kidding, that day won’t actually ever come, but places like Bistro du Vin are pushing us closer to that reality. I’m not sure how Hotel du Vin feel about this image I am suggesting about their London outposts, that they are the herald of a new restaurant franchise, but really HdV should take it as a compliment. If we’re going to reboot the standard restaurant, it may as well look like this. There’s oysters and steak tartare, terrines and grilled fish with butter and potatoes. There’s also a Josper in the kitchen, cheese supplied by La Cave a Fromage and serious Scotch and English beef. Add that to an orthodox bistro menu that simultaneously appeals to the masses and easily replicated, should equate to a good business model.

Soup du jour, £6.95.

My twitter feed suggests this was a haricot veloute with slow braised oxtail. I didn’t take notes during the meal, but I’m pretty sure I remembered this to be quite delicious. They even stylised it by pouring the soup out from a small porcelain jar like they do in Ramsay restaurants.

Donald Russell Onglet with frites and bearnaise, £14.50.

The steak was a beautiful medium rare, tender and flavoured like the charcoal embers it had briefly laid atop in the Josper. I was freakishly surprised how well the hanger steak came out. I was even more surprised when I had the frites, crispy, potato-ey, a little oily and buttery, the hallmarks of fucking great frites. I was bowled over when I dipped the beef in the bearnaise. It was a great bearnaise – egg and butter and egg. A solid steak and chips, it epitomised the very idea of bistro steak. For £14.50, I could easily have this for lunch every week.

Pork cheeks with gratin potatoes, £16.50.

Soft, melty layers of pork cheek, the heavy red wine jus was delish, but really I was so jealous of the onglet staring at me as it wrapped itself around the lips of the other half. That lecherous piece of red meat. The potatoes were real nice, you know all butter and oil, so rich it made me queasy, evoking an old-fashioned sense of pleasure, mmmm.

The kitchen nightmares-proof menu is applause-worthy, their selection of wines by the glass are admirable, and their cheese deals are good. We paid £59.85 for this meal which included two glasses of wine.

On a separate occasion, I popped back in to try their £8 cheese platter with a glass of £8 Burgundy. I have to say I was treated to a pretty robust selection of French and English cheeses. Served with truffle honey and a plate of oat biscuits. For £8, it’s decent value. Great brie de meaux.

Actually for my 2nd visit, I was duped by the £12.50 unlimited cheese deal – cheese only becomes unlimited if you order it WITH a meal, as opposed to it being the meal itself. It would have been a great idea for a late Saturday lunch – sampling every conceivable in season cheese they had hidden in their stash – that bit isn’t very clearly written on their website, but perhaps an unlimited deal for cheese monsters may be something for the decision makers at BdV to consider. Come on Mr Hotel Executive, how much unlimited cheese do you really think one person actually eat on an empty stomach, let alone after a meal of buttered potatoes?

We’re getting close to that time of the year again, and if you’ve only just been anointed by your boss to put together your team xmas lunch, then you might want to give BdV a call. My forecast is that you will be able to negotiate a pretty decent £25 per head that will please everyone including the food nerd on your team who you suspect to be a closet food blogger with a fig obsession, and has Jay Rayner as his iPhone wallpaper.

The Gist of It

Bistro du Vin Soho
French, £35pp
36 Dean Street, Soho
Tel: 0207 432 4800
Tube: Piccadilly Circus

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I continue to be amazed by the lack of internet champions for this terrific neighbourhood restaurant. Maybe that’s the problem, that Odette’s is so well nestled within its neighbourhood that it deserves to remain a secret and not be paraded around the internet like yet another ice chips and beetroot trend that becomes dangerously out of fashion the moment it comes into vogue. Conceptual nonsense has no place in Odette’s ; This restaurant mainly involves a hardworking and a fairly young chef – coming into his prime – who passionately slaves away in his kitchen (most days and nights, if not every) to craft one of the most delicious Anglo-Franco menus in London. His six course taster is ‘merely’ £50, reasonable considering the category of restaurants, Odette’s is in competition with. It is also open everyday.

Since the last time I was here 15 months ago, it seems the restaurant had undergone a small facelift. Gone are the flowery green wallpapers, and soon to go, I’m told, are the brass chandeliers. Regardless, the space is still terribly romantic, given that this part of Primrose Hill is quite scenic itself (local residents own gorgeously groomed pets) ; It is my opinion that these kind of restaurants are becoming a rarity. Odette’s has character, authenticity and a hardworking chef/owner – just the right blend of factors to produce romantic secret suppers.

A couple of sundays ago, I attended the last of Bryn’s sunday supperclub dinners in 2011, a four course meal that sought to combine beer and truffle. This wasn’t an exclusive bloggero one-night-only special pop-up which punters can never get to. The supper club didn’t happen at an unlicensed location, nor did it take place at The Loft, instead, it took place in a bit of a private dining space toward the back of the restaurant. I took Mark and we sat with about 10 or so patrons who were a mixture of Bryn fans such as myself, and a table of chefs, whom we assumed were Bryn’s pals in the business.

The restaurant newsletter here mentions what they lay on every so few months. These supper clubs are like seasonal one-off three coursers which he lays on over the course of a Sunday evening once per quarter, ranging from £50 to this one at £85. I also think it is a pilot program of sorts for him to test new recipes. Our test group were subjected to an unorthodox pairing of beer and truffle, two items in hospitality which rarely find their way on the same table at the same time.

After a glass of bubbly, the chef himself came out to greet his supperclubbers and gave a short monologue about the evening’s theme, his inspiration behind the dinner and to shed some light on the genesis of the meal. It’s always illuminating having the chef speak about his ideas, I was obviously in chef heaven, he came across as he does on TV, someone incredibly down to earth and genuine, but also you could sense his passion for cooking in the way he talks about food. Besides, it’s always a rush to have the main man come out from behind broilers to shake hands and receive backslaps from patrons. Shortly after the presentation, Bryn headed back into the engine room and not long after, the first course came flooding out.

Salt Cod Brandade, Green Beans & Truffle.
with Kirin Ichiban, Japan.

I don’t think I’ve ever tried the ‘Premium Press’ version of Kirin before. Anyway, here’s a reference to The Beer Journey‘s description of the Japanese biru – fizzy, pure and delicately sweet, easy drinking stuff that was redolent of biru brewed with koshi-hikari (only the best rice for sushi). Generous shavings of summer truffle (I think) covering a fluffy rendition of brandade with appetising flavours of salt and cod. A spoonful of cod and potatoes, a swirl of kirin – from a glass – and a sniff of truffle : Well won’t you believe it – they sure work well together. If flavours worked like ice cream cake, then the truffle would be analogous to a layer of clotted cream ice cream layered atop a chiffon of beer.

Roast rump of Welsh beef, pomme Ana & truffle
with Quilmes, Argentina.

A stronger beer to tackle a more muscular set of ingredients. The rump was beautifully pink, a little chewy as is expected for rump, but slow-cooked enough to mellow out the textures to a tender chew. Robust beefy flavours as expected of Welsh (black I think) beef, but the real highlight were the crisp crusted buttery layers of sliced potatoes. Truffle and potato on the same plate make for a very classic case of umaminess. I was glad it was not overdone with too much of either ingredients. I know this because, I sat through a truffle meal at Terres de Truffes in Paris, in which the main course was a boiled potato, a creamy truffle sauce and overly-generous shavings of truffle, which was flavour overkill. This on the other hand, was a flavour-rush.

Anyway, a classic effort, one that was beautifully executed and had managed to brilliantly balance out those big flavours. Besides, how can anyone not like truffle, beef and beer right?

Whipped goats cheese, truffle honey
with Cusquena, Peru.

Whipped with cream, and honey from nearby Regent’s Park, soaked in perigord. A copper saucepan contained more of the truffle infused honey, in case we couldn’t get enough of the good stuff. Mmmm. The beauty of any meal with truffle is obviously the smell, especially with a hot, steaming dish. To me, truffle is that initial whiff of rooty fragrance, after that, the brain seems to acclimatise to the strong smell and it never gets better than that very first hit of flavour when the dish comes to the table. I gobbled up the cheese and licked the saucepan dry.

Carpaccio of pineapple, truffle
with Leffe Blonde, Belgium.

Sliced pineapple soaked in truffle syrup, served with pineapple sorbet. Like the goats cheese, the truffle infusion was more of a complimentary accent, rather than a full on concentrated experience. The result was a unique savoury edge to the sugary pineapple syrup. This tethered on the edge of sensible flavours – a little bit like eating brie with chocolate.

After the meal we chatted briefly to Bryn, I told him how much I admired his work, stopping short of asking him to sign my manboobs. He told us of his plans to strip down the tensions associated with classy meals, in effect to make his restaurant less intimidating and a more comfortable place to eat. I suppose he was trying to articulate that he wanted to make it even more neighbourly and create an even friendly atmosphere than it already possesses. We also asked him about expectations for a Michelin star, and he told us that while it would be a nice to have, he really is more interested in satisfying return customers than chasing accolades. Mark and I did both agree that he deserves one and the only reason he probably hasn’t been granted one, is his sole proprietorship. His cooking is already way up there. This kind of food isn’t the deeply philosophical, it’s just delicious.

I will reinterate what I said last year that and I believe that Bryn Williams is currently one of the most exciting young chefs today. More importantly, he is building the very foundations of a landmark restaurant. Remember the days when the Ledbury was a one-star off-shoot backed by Phil Howard and fronted by a young gun ? That was only three years ago, and look where Brett is today. I believe Bryn is travelling along the same trajectory, and I suspect we’ll hear much more of Odette’s in the years to come. And if you don’t write about him, then at the very least, I will continue to champion Bryn Williams.

The Gist of It

Odette’s
British, £60pp
130 Regent’s Park Road NW1 8XL
Tel: 020 7586 5486
Tube: Chalk Farm

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Banana skin. I was suggested to try the ‘Ocre Rouge’, a Pinot Noir from Dions (as opposed to Burgundy) and I had come to the conclusion that this was a quirky little devil of a wine. The finish and its tannin structure was akin to banana skin, a first and a rather interesting peculiarity. The same could be said of the terribly cramped environs of the new Soho opening which has captivated Twitter’s appetite. Not only are they the latest restaurant to operate a no reservation service, they have gone the extra mile to install a record player on premises, inviting returning patrons to share their vinyl collection with everybody in the room. Ducksoup is either a genuinely hip place to dine or at the very least a good pretender. It is in keeping with the presumption that Londoners are still very much in love with the idea of less is more when eating out. Think Brawn, Spuntino and Rochelle Canteen throw in a Kitchenaid, then splashed across Fernandez & Wells. Et voilà.

The brains behind this genius are ex-Hix, chef Julian Biggs ( I think he is the beardy one) , Clare Lattin and Rory McCoy, collectively have managed to make the genre of uber-cool and understated, easily egalitarian yet decidedly British restaurant, feel refreshed once again. I really like the name, obviously it is not named after soup, but it gives the entirely random but accidentally on purpose impression, yes? (Yes Kang, keep up the bullshit). Might it have been a homage to a Marx Brothers film, I wonder.

Like many of today’s savvy restauranteurs, the key to conquering market share is online presence. Ducksoup are well equipped of course, already making all the right connections on twitter, (very usefully) posting their daily changing menu on their tumblr. That saves me the trouble of having to snap a photo of their menu. People are tweeting about them, forums are intrigued by the idea of this restaurant, half the battle with restaurants – in my opinion – is appealing to the masses. Once you get it in the prospective diners’ mind that your restaurant is ‘the place to be’ , you are half way there to enticing free wheelin’ hungry gluttons to your restaurant. Whoever Ducksoup have paid to brand their restaurant, I think they have done a bang up job with the subtle campaign.

So lets rewind to my first visit, a late 3pm lunch (high tea?) on the 14th October 2011, to some of you, it may be significant, because that’s also the day we queued up for the iPhone 4S. Yes, heckle as you do, what can I say? I’m a victim of the times, I queued up and paid my dues to the Cupertino empire, and then promptly trotted off to Soho for a late lunch to fondle my new gizmo. Since then, I’ve discovered what anaddictive app Instagram is. Take it from me that the camera on the new iPhone is so good, it alone is worth forking out £500 to replace any ageing point and shoots.

Tomato bread, olive oil, £3.50.

Snap. snap. I was expecting baked foccacia with bits of dried tomato, but instead, this was more like a stew, or perhaps a panzanella made with fresh instead of stale bread. The keyword here is fresh : This bread salad was really wholesome, juicy stuff. I don’t know what tomatoes they used, but I could tell you now, that they were plump.

Lamb cutlets, lemon, salt, £14.00.

Bony. Really bony, is this all the food £14 buys these days? I could pardon the low value for money because these were some of the best lamb cutlets I’d had in a long time. Again, I don’t know where the sheep were from, but they were fragrant, juicy, interestingly a little gamebird like, well seasoned and well fried.

Creme Caramel, £5.00.

What? A fiver for baked milk and eggs? Somebody’s having a laugh. Overpriced and not that well made, could do with more caramel sauce.

My first visit was intriguing enough, that I felt compelled to go back to try it again. I enjoyed the cosy atmosphere well enough, and whoever served me that day, she made me fall dangerously in love… with the restaurant. After meal one, it was pretty obvious this place was not another Russell Norman copycat, because it was rather expensive. I paid £35 for three plates of food plus a glass of white wine. I did admire the sheer quality of produce, while cooking was minimal, I felt it was the work of deft hands.

And so, I went back a week later. As you can peer into the ktichen, and if I am not mistaken, I believe I spotted an (ex?) Zucca chef in there. Can someone confirm? A she.

Chopped raw bavette, toasts, £7.

Fucking great tartare. The meat was beaten to a mince, which meant slithery, soft and smooth going down. Again, I thought ‘wow what great produce’ managing to taste visceral and lively, who knew a bashed bavette could be so tender? Most of all however, it was expertly well seasoned, I’m supposing garlic, salt, onion and capers (and obvious the egg yolk) , that if they were to turn it into a burger, it would turn out to be a pretty sterling patty. Fancy that. Bavette Burger, with Brioche and Ovinsardo. And ducksoup chips. They could sell that for £14.

Fritto Misto, £14.

A langoustine, artichokes, sliced orange, seabass and two slices of scallop, all fried. At first I thought “bloody hell is this it?” (Yes, I talk to myself a lot). The equivalent makele samak at Yalla Yalla gets you a mountain of seafood at half the price, but then I cut into the seabass and all memories of shitty seafood fried to a crisp were banished. The fish…amazing. The langoustine …fresh , but it were the queenies which took my breath away. I cut them down the middle and found a reassuring translucent centre, clap, clap, I applaud a kitchen that understands the importance of never overcooking. The scallops were some of the juiciest mollusks I’d ever had. My mum would have loved it. In fact, the restaurant had so much confidence in its produce that the other mains were simply raw queenies and raw langoustines.

And so we are back to the Pinot from Dions. I was certain of it now, it was definitely the taste of banana skin. This time round I avoided the pudding, but still forked out £30 for the meal. I did not have the Fucking Hell during either visit.

I am overwhelmed by the quality of produce, the seasonal menu may not read well, but I think it is a mark of sure-footed focus and even in its beginning days, Ducksoup is already a rather refined product. Because the space is really just a bar attached to an overachieving kitchen, the ambiance can become quite a bit chaotic. For instance, I was solo dining at the far edge of the bar which was also used by staff to consolidate orders and take card payments, I couldn’t hang my coat, so it stayed on my lap through the meal and at times, it felt like eating on a moving bus. Then again, if you are willing to eat standing up at Jose, this will not be an issue. I think we may be witnessing the derivation of a certain genre of restaurant. What shall we call it ? The soho diner perhaps. It feels cool, it is obvious that people come because it makes them feel exactly that. It’s not a bad thing of course, there is nothing wrong with feeling cool when eating out. In some ways, it reminds me of when Polpo first opened.

So my verdict is that Ducksoup is a solid 3.5 titanium stars out of 5. I think cooking is precise and disciplined but honestly, the recipes are banal, so don’t come here expecting fancy antics. Ducksoup is a no bullshit establishment. I’d like to think it is serving food that its chefs would cook for themselves at the end of service, which is the source of its appeal. The produce is of exceptional quality, if they can keep up the standard of sourcing, I think they will win many fans.

But I feel that they could have eased off the pricing during year one. £5 for small plates and £12 for large ones would have made more sense. Perhaps the ingredients are already quite dear, I don’t know, but I can’t keep up £30 two plate lunches when I know I would only spend a third less at a Russell Norman. I recommend avoiding the creme caramel until they pump more effort into something that is actually worth five pounds.

So, Soho is becoming a great place to eat isn’t it? There are now so many unique options for nourishment nestled amongst our beloved tourist traps. Superb noodles? Koya. A slice of America? Spuntino. How about some trendy beans from down under? Flat White. Tart up for some vintage fayne dining ? Gauthier. Simple everyman burger? Darth Byron. The best roastduck in Europe? Four Seasons (debatable of course). And introducing fried oranges and your personal LPs : Ducksoup.

The Deets.

Ducksoup
Egalitarian. Italian, I suppose. £35pp.
41 Dean Street W1D 4PY
Tel: 0207 287 4599
Tube: Piccadilly Circus

Stir the soup: TimeOut , A lot on her plate , Richard Godwin , The Skinny Bib

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