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

Did you enjoy reading this? You can subscribe to the Newsletter. Alternatively, you cansubscribe to the RSS feed.

I love food blogs for the personality behind them, and for its ever-evolving nature. However keeping up with the frequent updates can be overwhelming for new readers who simply want a summary of the best recommendations. So I wrote this page down for their benefit, mainly places I love and would revisit.

Think of this as a condensed version of all the critical moments in my discovery. No guide is ever definitive, and this one is far from it. It is alive and it will change as the landscape of food. I hope that you will find this a pleasant introduction to the world of London dining.

The Scene. May 2011

Boy it’s been a while since my last update. That last time was in August 2010, and by gosh, so much has happened since. Which is probably the entire point of any guide, in that it is and should be as dynamic whatever flavour of the seasons are. I for one, am currently going through a routine weekend craving for steak burritos.

This year, we’ve had a number of great openings, and many (if not all) of which are worth a pop. Some are on this list obviously. Lately, I’ve gone off the idea of collecting experiences that are in the Michelin guide, not to say that it’s irrelevant, but that it’s seems less relevant in eating out.

Restaurant Collecting
—
3 Michelin Star : £100 plus.
2 Michelin Star : £70 to £100
1 Michelin Star : £55 to £65

Generally speaking
—
Posh restaurants, old institutions : £70 for three courses
Middle of the road, competitive : £45 for three courses
Budget restaurants : £15 to £25 for three courses

Thermometer
—-
Fish and Chips £7 to £10
Gourmet Burgers £9 to £18
Chicken Rice, One plate meals £6 to £10
Sushi £3 to £8 per nigiri
McDonalds Cheeseburger 99p [Is the Big Mac Index still applicable?]

Home restaurants morphed into supper clubs and became pop-up one offs, which has established a market in its own right now. Prix fixe menus are a regular fixture in almost all restaurants, the burger has grown tremendously over the months and brewed coffee is here to stay. Heston has finally opened in London, and I no longer live in West London. I think foodblogs and dead tree critics have finally found their corners on the internet.

And I think restaurants have accepted table side snapping as the norm now. Oh mate, I remember the days when it was taboo worth accosting the diner for.

Keeping up to date

In the new world of social media, there are a number of critics and serial restaurant bloggers who write about the latest restaurants in town. Naturally, I am an avid fan of restaurant critics as I regularly follow their conquests and feel that the wealth of experience professional critics offer give a rounded viewpoint of placing and benchmarking restaurants in their respective cuisines. Equally there are a host of food blogs which provide an alternative and more personal angle on similar subjects. I believe that a saturation of view points is only a good thing as it will ultimately give the prospective diner a more complete gauge of whether a restaurant will be a good fit or otherwise. Food is subjective after all. London based sources I wholeheartedly recommend:

Le Critics
Marina O’Loughlin for Metro
Fay Maschler for Evening Standard
AA Gill for The Sunday Times
Jay Rayner for the Observer
Guy and team at TimeOut London

Restaurant Bloggers
Miss GT and Mr B at Gourmet Traveller
Critical Couple
XXX at Bellaphon
The Epicurean
Young and Foodish
Miss C of Gourmet Chick
Douglas Blyde at Intoxicating Prose

Personal favourites

Spuntino

American, £25pp
61 Rupert Street W1D 7PW
No phones, no reservations.
Tube: Piccadilly Circus

The third of Russell Norman’s magnus opus, and this may just be the best one yet. Moving away from the Italian baccaro theme and toward the American speakeasy, both in ambiance and in food, and the result is a convivial atmosphere and dishes like truffle egg toast, ground beef and bone marrow sliders, peanut butter and jam sandwich, as a pudding. Some Polpo-like dishes make cameo appearances too of course, but the sum of this restaurant’s parts is far more brilliant and refreshing than anything that has come before. Folks, this one is special. Filter coffee only, and lots of spirits which are worth reading into… Read more.

Made in Camden

Fusion, brunch, cafe, bar and free wifi. £20pp
Chalk Farm Road NW1 8EH
Tel : 020 7424 8495 Tube: Chalkfarm

Many dead trees have been dedicated to the launch of Ottolenghi’s new restaurant in Soho, NOPI, and while I think the food at NOPI is brilliant, I also think it’s a little expensive, and just a little too glam for everyday. But I feel that this little cafe at the Roundhouse, run by Josh Katz, deserves it’s time in the limelight. Katz had previously stinted with Yotam in his previous life, and so maybe that’s where the Medi influences can be traced back to, in his cooking. The food are tapas like, but have surprise selections such as his take on Chang’s Momofuku pork bun. I’ve been back about four times now, and I really do think it’s wonderful cooking. A real gem, especially in this part of Camden, and well worth a visit. Read more.

Cambio de Tercio

Spanish, £50pp ; 7 Course taster menu £37.
163 Old Brompton Road SW5 0LJ
Tel: 020 7244 8970
Tube: Gloucester Road

I’ve been visiting this restaurant since 2003, and glad to say that it is was going strong in 2010, and still riding the waves in 2011. Simply the finest Spanish restaurant in London, in my opinion, probably deserves at least a michelin star just for the sheer quality of food. I’ve never had a bad meal here and it comes with my highest recommendations. Read More.

Sushi of Shiori

Japanese, £45pp
144 Drummond Street, Off Hamstead Road, NW1 2PA
Tel: 020 7388 9962
Tube: Warren Street

I never thought such a fabulous labour of love would ever exist in London, this tiny sushi bar can only accommodate nine people, is run by a husband and wife team, but the sushi is as good as you will find in London. The chef is ex-Umu, and is a artist with the knife, who has probably decided to keep his restaurant small, so that he can wow his diners as they watch him prepare dinner. If you love sushi, or would like to be introduced to it, this is the place to go. My favourite Japanese restaurant in London… and it still is, even considering the genius of Yashin. SoS is unique because the whole dining experience is so personal. And the food is fab. Read More.

Goodman City

£45pp Steakhouse Maddox Street W1S 1QH
Tel: 020 7499 3776 Tube: Oxford Circus

and

11 Old Jewry EC2R 8DU
Tel: 020 7600 8220 Tube: Bank

As a red blooded male, I love meat sweats. I frequent Goodman on a regular basis and this is my go-to restaurant for proper steak. There are two realistic choices for London steak, Goodman and Hawksmoor. I prefer this Russian owned restaurant for the sheer choice of meat, in particular the Nebraska Prime USDA beef. NZ Wagyu, O’Sheas Irish Beef and Scotch are also on their menu. They also have their own ageing rooms on premises and the vaunted Josper Grill for extra smokiness. There are two Goodmans now, the original at Mayfair, and another one that’s only open for business on Weekdays in the City. Both are great. Read more on Mayfair and City.

British Favourites

Dinner by Heston Blumenthal

British, £60pp
Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park
66 Knightsbridge, London SW1X 7LA
Tel: 020 7201 3833 Tube: Knightsbridge

I think Dinner might be better than Fat Duck. I liked my visit to the FD, but therein was the problem, it felt like a restaurant which you could never revisit. The ending was just too climatic. The theatrics, fun, on the 1st visit, but it is a play I don’t want to see again. FD wasn’t for a nice dinner, it’s a show. Dinner, on the other hand, is a bloody good dinner. Ashley Palmer-Watts, Heston’s right hand man, leads the kitchen. One could argue that the approach here is anti-Fat Duck, proper three course portions, hearty and real food. The Alice in Wonderland sensations are bubbling beneath the cooking, but is kept well in check, and I feel it strikes a happy medium. I prefer feeling heavy after a meal. Dinner is much like a souped up version of Hind’s Head, the triple cooked chips are on the menu, but so is the porridge, still green and superbly delish, but made with cod cheeks instead of snails. Most of all, this is a restaurant you could revisit to eat greatly food, and genuinely have a good dinner. Could well be one the greatest restaurants ever to grace the Capital, and definitely one of my favourites. You MUST visit. More here.

Brawn

British-European wine bar, egalitarian. £30pp
49 Columbia Road, E2 7RG
Tel: (020) 7729 5692
Tube: Bethnal Green

The funky East London follow-up to the all singing and all sharing Terroirs is simply fabulous. The quality of the foraging, the amount of meat on the menu, and the modestly decorated and hugely relaxing space is just brilliant. Can we call it French tapas? Or perhaps Anglo French tapas? A wine bar too? Just give this a go, it’s very good. More here.

Odette’s

British, £40pp ; Set Lunch £18 for 3.
130 Regent’s Park Road NW1 8XL
Tel: 020 7586 5486
Tube: Chalk Farm

I don’t understand why there is so little publicity about this charming restaurant in Primrose Hill. Bryn Williams is a brilliant chef, and six years on, his turbot dish which eventually made it to the Queen’s 80th bash, is national treasure which deserves to be savoured. I don’t know what it is about the room that has made a lasting impression, maybe it were the flower patterns on the wallpaper, or dangling lamps, or that it was mostly green, but it is one of most characteristic dining rooms in London. This little restaurant is special. Read more.

Golden Hind

£12pp British 73 Marylebone Lane W1U 2PN
Tel: 020 7486 3644 Tube: Bond Street

I went to Geales once for their highly produced beer battered haddock, good, but a tad too expensive. Fish and chips are suppose to be cheap. I am indebted to Helen for introducing this Marylebone favourite. Fish are fresh catch delivered from Grimsby, daily. Chips are a little soggy and the mushy peas are forgettable, but the battered cod is just what the doctor ordered for Friday lunch. Read more.

Harwood Arms

British, £40pp
27 Walham Grove, London SW6 1QR‎
Tel: 020 7386 1847‎
Tube: Fulham Broadway

I am including this recent Michelin crowned superpub by default, because I think it represents an important milestone in the London restaurant scene, and for British cuisine in general. The menu is respectably affordable, and the venison scotch eggs are probably the best you can find, this side of Fulham. I don’t think it deserves a Michelin star to be quite honest, however, the food is honest, and honestly fantastic. Read more.

Great Queen Street

British £30pp
32 Great Queen Street Covent Garden, WC2B 5AA
Tel : 020 7242 0622
Tube : Covent Garden

I love this place, it is perhaps the epitome of a ‘gastropub’, the menu rotates on a daily basis, there is an emphasis on British produce, recipes are reticent, but cooking is superbly refined and well executed. Brown crabs are used on toast, and the minute steak is the perfect alternative to a Sunday roast. I just love the unpolished wooden floors, and Burgundy walls. Read more.

The Macaroons

Viajante

Well Travelled Portuguese, £25 for 3, £60 for 6, £85 for 12. *
Patriot Square E2 9NF
Tel: 020 7871 0461
Tube: Bethnal Green

I seriously think that Nuno Mendes; foraged-from-around-the-world cuisine is groundbreaking, a game changer and a wonderful addition to London scene. If he keeps up his mad genius, I think he can rival Noma’s status. I believe he represents the next generation of superb breakthrough gastronomy. There is something very special brewing in Bethnal Green. I have been watching his development very closely, and on return visits, the zen kitchen is getting better at their method of minimalistic cooking, and perfecting their myriad of creative dishes inspired by world cuisines. And they even managed a star this year. Read more.

Semplice

Italian, £75pp *
10 Blenheim St W1S 1LJ
Tel: (020) 7495 1509
Tube: Bond Street

Semplice produces simply fabulous Italian cooking. The restaurant belongs to a legacy of an previous time, when Italian fine dining was the fashionable, as opposed to the younger, sleeker and ultimately cheaper Italian cucinas which have sprung in the last couple of years. Nevertheless, you shouldn’t overlook this gem, their Milanese risotto with saffron and bone marrow is a thing of heavenly beauty and the twist on the good ol’ tiramisu with coffee, is fun. Read more.

Gauthier

French, £80pp *
21 Romilly Street W1D 5AF
Tel: 020 7494 3111
Underground : Leicester Square

Alexis Gauthier spent a decade establishing Roussillon’s reputation as one of the finest French restaurants in London, and this dude has loyal followers. His current venture, the eponymous Gauthier is his brainchild and his labour of love. His dream restaurant, and perhaps a dream to many as well. I love it, from the ring the door bell to enter, to the cramped townhouse setting (in Soho), it is just a nice restaurant to eat in. While I thought his signature truffle risotto, and his take on the Louis XV were both formidable, those who’ve actually been to Monaco, say that the former Duccasse protege has yet to reach the dizzy standards set by his mentor. The food is surprisingly affordable (well, relatively anyway) at £68 for their full taster and just £35 for a three course meal. It’s been open for just a year, and already it’s got a star. I like this restaurant very much, and you will be reading about a return visit in 2011, in the coming weeks. Read more.

Fat Duck

British £150pp. ***
High Street, Bray SL6 2AQ
Tel: +44 (0) 1628 580 333
Train: Maidenhead

Heston Blumenthal’s temple of fantastico in Bray is still hitting the spot. Nothing is orthodox about this three michelin starred restaurant, and for £150, you get theatre, tricks, Kiefer Sutherland lookalike restaurant manager and amazing snail porridge. If you are going to blow your load, you may as well skip the stuffy old-fashioned French institutions and don you favourite jacket to the most progressive restaurant in Britain. Read more.

The Square

French £75. **
6-10 Bruton Street, Mayfair W1J 6PU
Tel: 44 (0) 20 7495 7100 Tube: Green Park

Philip Howard holds two Michelin stars at the Square. I find that his French cooking not only has a certain air of flair, but that the concepts are innovative. I am a proponent of balanced flavours and good old fashioned ‘signature’ flavours, and I feel that this is the driving philosophy behind the technical accuracy of Howard’s cuisine. Expensive of course, I have heard that their set menu is laughable, but I tried their a la carte and it was eye opening to say the least. He has had a hand in newer establishments including Kitchen W8 and the Ledbury.Read more.

The Ledbury

French £75. **
27 Ledbury Road W11 2AQ
Tel: 020 7792 9090 Tube: Notting Hill Gate

Brett Graham must surely be the hottest chef in town right now. I went in 2009, when they were still a rising two star as opposed to the full two star status it currently holds. Brett loves his game, but you needn’t worry about overly livery flavours as his food is also a masterclass of umami, just like his mentor Phil Howard. Rarely do I remember individual dishes, though I remember his salt crusted ash celeriac – cooked wholly in a salt crust with ash and then served sliced with truffle mayonnaise and a kromeski of middle white pork. Signature stuff. His other restaurant is the Michelin Starred Harwood Arms.Read more.

St John

British £40. *
26 St John Street EC1M 4AY
Tel: 020 7251 0848 Tube: Farringdon

The original purveyor of Nose to Tail cooking, Fergus Henderson’s food is as stark as the restaurant’s decor. Offal, game and lesser known cuts are the order of the day and the menu is more of an exploration of the limits of what should be eaten, though equally there are some stunningly rustic dishes as well. At times, the bare-bones outfit might be just a tad too reticent, however its simplicity is also its greatest attraction. Roast bone marrow and their mandelines amongst their most popular dishes. For a michelin restaurant, infinitely affordable. Read more.

From Asia

Yashin

Sushi, £70pp
1A Argyll Road, off High St Ken W8 7DB
Tel 02079381536
Underground : High Street Kensington

This is an awesome sushi bar. Small, but awesome. Awesome showmanship. Awesome quality of produce. Awesome sake tasters. Awesome service. Awesome water. Awesome fushion of raw fish, rice and a flurry of modernist garnishing. And an awesome bottomline too, if you are not too careful. Truly cutting edge sushi has arrived in London. Read more.

Cafe East

Vietnamese, £15pp
100 Redriff Road
Surrey Quays Leisure Park SE16 7LH
Telephone: 020 7252 1212
Underground : Surrey Quays

The best rare beef pho in London. The best tri-colour sweet drink in London. And the best Banh Cuan, stuffed steam rice noodle in London. If you are a fan of Vietnamese cuisine, you got to try this place. It’s abit secluded, but it is worth the trek. Read more.

Tosa

Japanese, £25pp
332 King Street, Hammersmith, W6 0RR.
Tel: 020 8748 0002
Tube: Stamford Brook

It is a toss up between Tosa and Bincho. Both are yakitori restaurants, both cook skewered meat and veg over charcoal, and both produce stonkingly excellent charred and juicy products. The chicken skin and chicken oysters are better at Bincho, but for everything else, Tosa comes up tops. Plus it is slightly cheaper too. if you’ve never tried yakitori, this is a good place to start. Read more.

Wing Yip

Chinese, £25pp
395 Edgware Road, Cricklewood
NW2 6LN
Tel: 020 8450 0422
Bus : From Kilburn Underground, take the No. 32 or anything to Cricklewood till you see the Pagoda.

I’m a traditional kind of folk. Dim sum means family, huge banquet restaurant and waking up just abit earlier on Sundays. It can be argued that there are better places to eat dim sum that to bus all the way out to Cricklewood, but you just cannot beat the Wing Yip ambiance. The dim sum ambiance. Read more.

Koya

£12pp Japanese, Udon-ya.
49 Frith St W1D 4SG
Tel : 020 7434 4463
Tube : Leicester Square

What do you mean you haven’t had a chance to slurp these sticky lovelies yet? Superbly rubbery, hand-made udon, based conveniently in the heart of Soho. ’nuff said really. Drink with the ultra expensive Echigo beer made from Koshihikari rice. Read more.

Pearl Liang

£20pp Chinese 8 Sheldon Square W2 6EZ
Tel: (0)207 289 7000 Tube: Paddington

This is my benchmark dim sum in London. Food is good across the board, prices are reasonable and the dining room is elegant. Bog standard, but in a good way and really what you want is dependable quality. Cheung fun has great consistency, it doesn’t fall apart when you pick it up; har gau and siu mai will bounce around as you bite into them and I particularly enjoyed the wasabi prawn dumplings, even if purists say that is not Chinese, it is fusion. Purists like my dad for example. As you know, a good dim sum restaurant does not make a good restaurant for dinner. Royal China comes to mind. But I have heard many good things about dinner here, I have marked out my calendar specifically to try it. Helen the World Foodie Guide highly commends it and if she likes it, it is worth a try. Read more.

Yum Cha

£18pp Chinese 28 Chalk Farm Road NW1 8AG
Tel: 0207482222 Tube: Chalk Farm

You would have to visit on a weekend, and on lunch hour rather than for dinner. Personally, dim sum has always been Sunday breakfast for me and I think Yum Cha exudes just that kind of vibe. The food is excellent and might actually be better than Pearl Liang. Their egg tarts in particular are great, and they also serve very capable xiao long baos. The crystal dumplings – Prawn and scallop – were seeped in seafood flavours and most of the benchmark dishes including the har gau and siu mai kept me happy. Read more.

Uncle Lim’s Kitchen

£7pp Malaysian/Chinese Upper North Arcade Whitgift Center CRO 1UZ
Tel: 020 8688 8378

I’ve had alot of great Hainanese chicken rice in both Malaysia and Singapore. Being a quarter Hainanese myself, I know for a fact that ‘Bai Zhan’ Chicken – Poached White Chop Chicken – is something of a family tradition, so I am telling you now that the best Hainanese Chicken Rice I have had in London is not in London. It is in Croydon. If you have always been curious or are craving for a great example of this famous one plate meal, you must give Uncle Lim’s a try. They also do very good Malay style spicy chicken wings, sambal prawns as well as Nasi lemak. The chicken rice is a weekend only special and how I wish they would bring this family secret to London. Any restauranteurs reading this? More here.

Viet Grill

Vietnamese, £25pp
58 Kingsland Road E2 8DP
Tel: 020 7739 6686
Tube: Hoxton

Wonderful things are happening on pho mile in Dalston Kingsland, in fact, most Vietnamese restaurants are so good, that little separates them. Recently, I have been visiting Viet Grill, specifically for their special £5 one plate lunch offers, the noodles are quite abit soggy, but the soup stock is vibrant and fantastic. Deserves your attention too, if you are in the area. Read more.

Anything Else

Prufrock at Leather Lane

Coffee, cafe… lazy, special ,£3pp.
23-25 Leather Lane EC1N 7TE
Gwilym +44 (0) 7852243470
Tube: Holborn / Chancery Lane

Coffee has landed. This is everything a modern coffee shop should be about. World champion barista Gwilym Davies has expanded from a coffee cart in a men’s clothing shop to a really brilliant space in Leather Lane. At the ground level, you have a spacious gallery like space, that features a brew bar/counter , and downstairs, Gwilym and his passionate team of knowledgable baristas teach you how to appreciate and to make brew. This is an extremely special coffee shop, it’s nice to see a permanent version of last year’s Penny University project finally come alive, and I urge all of you to pop in to savour this achievement. Read more.

Zucca

£30pp Italian.
184 Bermondsey Street SE1 3TQ
Tel: (020) 7378 6809
Tube: London Bridge

This lovely little restaurant represents the first of a wave of restaurants that churns out fantastic Italian inspired dishes at unbelievable prices. Some hail it as a lite version of River Cafe, but I think it might probably be better. The best grilled veal chops I’ve yet had in a London restaurant. Read more.

Trullo

Italian, £40pp
300-302 St Paul’s Road
Tel: 020 7226 2733
Overground: Highbury & Islington

Like Zucca, except it’s in Islington, with more organic decor (as opposed to cold gallery edginess) and food of comparably price and quality. A pioneer of the new London Italian restaurant in the 21st century. Read more.

Towpath

Cafe, Lunch, easy.. £10pp (cash only)
Regent’s Canal Towpath
42 De Beauvoir Crescent N1 5SB
Tel: 020 7254 7606
Bus: 149 from Liverpool St Station to Haggerston rail.

It is as it says on the tin, a cafe by a towpath. The food is modest, the coffee is warming, but it’s fun, and it is charming. Hard to try to capture in under 50 words, but I do recommend reading my extended blogpost and then making a visit.

Hawksmoor Seven Dials

British, £45pp
*Not really in Seven Dials*
11 Langley St. WC2H 9JG
Tel: 020 7856 2154
Underground : Covent Garden

So here’s a tip, the next time your steak-loving pal takes you to a Hawksmoor, ask for the bar menu and go for the classic hawksmoor burger – with the chips cooked in beef dripping – AND the lobster roll. Two of the greatest things you will probably eat in London. Unless if you’re American, then those lobster rolls are no where near Luke’s. Forget the steaks. Seriously. Read more.

Chabrot

French, Bistro, …French. £25pp
9 Knightsbridge Green
London SW1 X7Ql
Tel : +44 (0)20 7225 2238
Tube: Knightsbridge

We don’t have many Parisian bistronomique er, bistros in town, and so one shouldn’t overlook the speciality of this particular restaurant. The plat du jours are extremely well priced at under £15, and you can end your meal with a cafe guarmand (your choice of brew plus four small schweet things), and the price includes a glass of tipples too. Chef Thierry Laborde was previously from Le Gav and his friendly bistro is a captivating addition to the circuit. Read more.

Byron Hamburgers

£7.25, all over.

I used to think Byron was contrived, but that was two years ago, when they only had three branches. Now, I think they produce the best burgers in town. And they have ten locations. I don’t think burgers should ever be gourmet, I think they should be accessible, affordable and simple. I eat byron hamburgers so regularly, I may as well invest in them. Read more.

Dock Kitchen

£25pp British 344/342 Lanbroke Grove/Kensal Rd, London W10 5BU
Tel: 020 8962 1610

The key to Dock Kitchen is experimental food. Initially a pop-up project as part of London Design Festival, Stevie Parle and Joseph Trivelli (the former, a River Cafe chef) have now established a unmoveable version of their moveable kitchen project. In addition to special theme supper club nights, they are also open for lunch on most days serving an ever changing daily menu of brilliantly simple good food cooked to perfection. A labour of love, and I am completely a fool for small, highly bespoke personal projects of this kind. Read more.

Fernandez & Wells

Fernandez & Wells Food and Wine Bar official site
Sandwiches £6
43 Lexington Street W1F 9AL
Tel: 020 7734 1546
Tube : Leicester Square

The Fernandez & Wells experience centres on providing a relaxing shrine for you to sink into a comfortable daze. There are three Fernandez & Wells café-bars all in close proximity to one another, each with a slightly different offering. The St Anne’s court branch caters for coffee lovers, the Beak St branch is mainly for cakes, while the Lexington branch has an open kitchen which offers delicious savory fare and a superb wine selection. The Lexington branch mainstays are European inspired sandwiches served with cuts of premium cured hams. Speciality items include Jamon Iberico Bellota (Iberian pigs fed on acorn and cereal diet) and legs of Jambon ‘Le Noir de Bigorre’ – a French ham from black pigs, cured for 24 months – which hang invitingly from the ceiling. F&W also serve a changing daily menu of cooked specials ranging from roast chicken to rabbit stew. Their roast pork ciabatta is splendiferous, hand carved by the waitress, stuffed with resplendently golden crackling and lashings of mayonnaise with fresh mustard seeds. There is a distinct lack of able boulangeries in London, but where quantity is wanting, quality is found in heaps at F&W. Read more.

Tapped and Packed

£cheap Coffee 26 Rathbone Place, Fitzrovia, W1T1JD

I have not written a review yet, and Tapped and Packed is brand new anyway, but if you are totally into the new coffee culture hitting the capital, then I wholeheartedly suggest giving Tapped and Packed a try. In addition to silky flat whites, they offer their brew via a number of methods including with a aeropress. Oh and their hot chocolate is absolutely divine. Made with chocolate flakes and cream, it is buttery, chocolatley but not overly sweet nor muddy. Plus, it isn’t as cramped as Flat white or a Milk Bar, expansive tables to spread yourself and your laptop, oh and free wi-fi too. Read their blog. My review is coming..

Finito for now..at least till the end of 2011.

It’s that wonderful time of the month again to take a sneak peek at the Top 20 food blogs, as according to the good people at Wikio.

The photograph above was taken at Queen’s Park Farmers Market, on a rather pleasant Sunday morning.

Ranking made by Wikio.co.uk

At the half way mark of 2010, we have witnessed a number of new restaurant openings in London which has brought a sleuth of choice to the discerning diner. Yet, many more are anticipated to open as we hurl toward the second half of the year. I went to some of the new opens and thought it was fitting to compile a list about what’s coming and what’s already here.

Fellow London Eaters,

For what it’s worth, I think Capello should stay on, he is one of the World’s best afterall, if he can’t get the job done, then who else? So there are more convincing choices in the London dining scene this year, than ever before now. Even though new restaurants open all the time, the last few months has felt abit like an extended blockbuster extravaganza. Week after week, wave after wave of gushing reviews. I’m not sure if it is a step up in frequency or that the talent pool has been upped, or merely that media (both new and old) are simply covering more ground. Regardless, amongst the new comers are certain gems that have dazzled customers. So I hope you find this list useful, where I’ve visited, I’ve linked it to my write-up, otherwise, I’ve linked out to a representative review, and if you’re looking to ride the trendwaves, I’m sure one of these restaurants will fit the bill.

regards,

Kang.

Now Open

Zucca Italian, £35pp
People generally love it, the Italian-inspired menu is reminiscent of a ‘River Cafe Lite’ , cheaper but just as good. The grilled veal chop in particular is fantastic. It’s been around for three months or so, and still going strong I reckon. I’ve been back four times, and each time, it’s been excellent. If you like this, they also say that Maltings¹ – the older cousin – is great as well. Might be one of the best restaurants to open this year.

Bar Boulud French £40pp
Opened by Daniel Boulud, the three michelin starred French chef from NY, has enjoyed massive publicity. Everybody loves it. Boulud has brought in a superstar in-house charcutier in Gilles Verot, he has brought his famed gourmet burgers to BB (though I don’t rate them) , and generally speaking the rest of the menu (largely bistro fare) is widely praised. I liked my boudin blanc on my visit. It’s worth a look I think, though the dining room is starkly devoid of ambiance.

Viajante Portuguese £70pp
The name means ‘Traveller’ in Portuguese. It is the nickname for Nuno Mendes and represents the style of food to expect at his new outpost in Bethnal Green, the concept being that he has absorbed various world cuisines into his style and presented his food as a kind of journey around the globe. I think there are shades of glory in his food, I didn’t get everything, but the dishes that worked were definitely memorable.

Koya Japanese £15pp
This is superhot right now, Koya serves nothing but slippery hand-made (actually foot-kneaded) fresh Udon in accurate dashi-spiked soups, combined with the reasonable pricing, it has become an addiction for many, who hail it as a favourite haunt. I like it too. There is a choice of hot or cold noodles with a choice of hot or cold soups, pork, duck, chicken, beef, mushrooms, tempura being a selection of choices. Ask for an Onsen Tamago (super slow cooked egg) and the cod tempura (really fantastic). I also recomend Echigo Beer that is brewed with Koshihikari rice (the gold standard of sushi rice) amongst other things, it’s got an effervescence about it which I feel marries well with the soup stock and noodles.

Dean Street Townhouse British £45pp
It is a hotel, with a restaurant, or vice-versa. Critics seem to generally like this place, bloggers not so much. They say the food is a remixed version of school dinners, while it evoked childhood fantasies, it is (fortunately) not a faithful reproduction of British staple, rather this is the product of an utterly slicker design. Expect no less from the first Richard Caring and Nick Jones joint-venture I suppose. So there’s lots of cash behind the operation. I’ve never been, but I am curious…

Petrus French £60pp
Gordon Ramsay wrestled back the name from Marcus Wareing, opened in a new location (very close to MW in Hyde Park Corner) and installed JP Susilovic as front of house with exec chef Mark Askew directing the kitchen in the initial stages. Well. It’s not bad, but it doesn’t bring anything new to the table, it feels like a carbon-copy of Gordo other’s French outposts. Startlingly, it feels like a franchise restaurant, albeit a very high-end one. Still if you like classy (read, stoic) French restaurants, the £25 set lunch option is a good place to start.

Bistro Bruno Loubet French £40pp
This is another crowd favourite, Bruno has returned from a seven year endeavor down under and now he’s back cooking at The Zetter in Farringdon. I’m at two minds, the dishes feel hit and miss, the good stuff is spectacular, while the rest is downright ordinary. Service is a little wonky too, and I can’t shake the feeling that Bruno is a mercurial dude. I’ve never met him, but his food certainly comes across as such.

Gelupo Italian £10pp
Opened by the good people behind Bocca di Lupo (to be found across the street) , and is pitched as a gelateria and a take-away deli. It’s like the retail arm of the BDL larder selling their pasta, sauces and other ingredients. It’s only been up and running for a week or two, I tried their melon sorbet, which was really nice and their watermelon granita, excellent as well. I’d like to try their gelato-stuffed cannolis on a return visit, and maybe do a fuller write-up on it too, so watch this space.

Penny University Brew coffee bar, £3pp
This place is amazing, it doubles as a retail space for Square Mile Roasters, but it is also London’s first ‘brew bar’. No milk (well there is, hidden away) and the concept is that of the barista taking time to make a fresh brew (with nothing but hot water, a preferred brewing apparatus and a timer) and basically to appreciate coffee in its original splendour. It’s a great concept, currently just a pop-up but if we keep going, it might become permanent. So keep going. Seriously this place is awesome, it is a different sort of coffee appreciation which is rarely found in London, though brew coffee is on the rise². Speaking of which, the name is a homage to the hundreds (if not thousands) of coffee shops in 18th century London (particularly the Square Mile). The idea was of strangers sipping coffee and striking up cerebrally random conversations about the heavens, politics and anything in between, all part of the experience of a ‘penny university’ which was all the rage in those days. Intrigued? Read this excellent photo essay by Brian Ferry³ as well as Daniel Young’s thoughtfully informative piece⁴ for two takes on this concept.

Opening soon.

Restaurants expected to open in the 2nd half of 2010, include big names such as Pierre Koffman (formerly of La Tante Claire and 3 star holder) opening Koffman’s at the Berkeley cooking food from his home town; Heston Blumenthal with ‘Dinner’ at Mandarin Oriental in Knightsbridge, also the premier steakhouses Hawksmoor (I’m looking forward to their new lobster rolls..) & Goodman expanding into Covent Garden and the City respectively. Personally, I am excited about Bistro du Midi, to be opened by Marlon Abela who owns Umu and the Greenhouse. There is already a branch of the same name in Boston which recently launched and has received good reviews thus far, and the menu does look excellent.

And in Issue 5…

I really enjoy putting out ‘themed’ newsletters, and will continue this trend in future issues. I am currently exploring Italian restaurants, and after hearing rumours of Sushi Hiro’s decline (being sold off I hear), am also casting my net to other sushi bars around town. The Kappa roll at Kappa is good by the by, and Atari-ya, oh yeah to the otoro. Zap you in 30 days.

This post is also available as a monthly email newsletter, you can subscribe here.

All text and photography on this blogpost is copyright and belongs to Kang Leong, LondonEater.com. If you repost this without my permission, bad things will happen. So please don’t do it.

Yes, the food festival that features some of London’s more famous and not-so-famous restaurants, popped up this weekend at Regent’s Park under rather dreary skies. Of course I was there. I spent 100 crowns, that’s fifty quid. Oh yeah baby. Lots of photographs after the jump.

Switch to Fullscreen Slideshow Mode.

It was a case of scoffing, sleb chef spotting and getting our hands on as many free hand outs as we could. The event was to celebrate and showcase our capital’s dining scene, there were many instantly recognizable names and abit like cherry picking vineyards to visit in wine country. With my ‘roving editor’ Marcus, we circled out the restaurant stands which we wanted to try. I’ll keep the chatter minimal on this one…

(if you are reading this before the 20th of June, there are still tickets floating about¹…)

£10 buys you a book of 20 crowns at the Taste Bank, follow the green jeans…

Fino

The first stop was to Fino for their Cochifrito suckling pig, judged² to be the 2nd best dish of the event.

14 crowns. We agreed. Fatty, melty, a cracking crackling, smothered by a thick and syrupy sauce with hints of mint. Fino is on my list now.

Smiles..

Laduree macarons.

Le Gavroche

Oh yeah, Gastronomical Royalty. Michel Roux Jr (chef) and Silvano Giraldin (manager), the leadership of two michelin starred Le Gav³.

40 crowns or twenty squids: Lobster cocktail, with summer truffle and tomato jelly. Entirely indulgent, four large slices, lots of chunky lobster meat, iceberg lettuce, the jelly was a little bitter… in hindsight this felt like a waste of money, there wasn’t real invention involved, and I could’ve done with some hot buttered brioche. Still, can’t go wrong with fresh lobster and truffle. Le Gav is still very high on my list.

Checking the Taste map.

Feeding the missus.

The Sake no Hana stand…. Alan Yau’s showing I suppose, nothing really caught my eye. The Japanese presence which intrigued me was Dinings.

Vic – Coffee Maestro, oh he really is. He’s all over town, a coffee consultant (if my info is accurate), he is in and out of Tapped and Packed alot right now, he knows his brew, if you ever spot him, tell him Mark said hello.

Dinings

You might recall me raving about Dinings⁴ last year, a Japanese restaurant opened by ex-Nobu talent Tomonari Chiba. Naturally I was excited to visit their stand at this event.

Seabass carpaccio with ponzu jelly and truffle, 8 crowns. Yeah this hit the spot, peppery, citrusy, the fragrance of truffle, the oiliness of fish and an explosion of flavours. Their ponzu-truffle jelly is Dinings’ USP. They put it on their seared wagyu nigiri at the restaurant and it is equally amazing. Shades of Nobu, but mybe just a tad sexier in my humble opinion.

Seared Wagyu sushi with foie gras. 12 Crowns. The wagyu gently blowtorched, cut very thick, with a syrupy soya sauce concoction drizzled over it. I know some say foie gras doesn’t work with rice, but I thought it was masterfully executed here. The brawny wagyu, fragrantly bovine, a real wow-factor, it tasted lively and the sweet soya sauce managing to balance against the potency of the foie gras. Loved it too.

I think a revisit to Dinings is imminent. Not everything at the restaurant is spot-on, but their truffle-ponzu sushi are really out of this world.

The Patara stand.

Girls of British Airways. Yeah…black and white.

L’Anima

Here we are, super heavyweight Italian outfit, L’Anima⁵. I am overdue a visit, and what a slick operation, one could almost sense the jive from the kitchen team. Theirs must be one of the hottest tables in London right now. They are shutting for expansion works in August, and re-opening a month after, I think I might visit in July.

Rabbit Siciliana, 8 Crowns.

Wahey, and that’s the man himself, Francesco Mazzei with iron chef Judy Joo…! She is radiant by the way…we couldn’t take our eyes off her… Note the well-positioned halos.

Odette’s

You know Bryn Williams⁶ right? His turbot, oxtail, cockles and samphire dish (representative of Wales) was the winning dish from the 1st GBM series and became one of the dishes for the Queen’s birthday bash a few years ago. He did have it on the Taste menu, but we were ten minutes late, it was served at 1.30pm, and they sold out…

…so I went for the mint, pea and Welsh rack of Lamb instead, 8 crowns. It was superb. Delicate sweet peas, and an equally delicately cooked lamb chop, juicy. Bryn trained at Le Gav, was last at Galvin at Windows and now owns Odette’s. Oh yeah definitely on my list. The turbot will not elude for much longer.

Ansley working his magic…

Modern Pantry

I must say, I know very little about Modern Pantry save for that its head chef Anna Hansen⁷ trained under the eponymous Fergus Henderson. Her chermoula baked trout, quinoa, tomatillo,preserved lemon salad was judged to be the 3rd best of the event. No doubt after this event, I have placed Modern Pantry on my list, will visit the restaurant in the coming weeks.

I was intrigued by the items on show at Taste, I can’t even place the style of cuisine, which appears to be a kind of super fusion, the best of around the world foods. Tamarind marinated miso onglet steak, tumeric, and curry leaf besan chips, 10 crowns. I’m not sure about this one, the hanger steak, rare, was excellent but the rest of the spices left it a tad too bitter. I appreciated the spiciness however, but I couldn’t say it impressed.

Still, I am intrigued by her food, it reads very well indeed, and would be interesting to see how it translates in a restaurant.

Trinity

This south London restaurant⁸ has a cult-like following, whilst the restaurant itself keeps a pretty low profile, Adam Byatt’s name is whispered by food lovers regularly, and I am quite embarrassed to say that I have yet to visit Trinity. That will soon change, of course.

Pig’s trotters, toasted poilane, fried quail egg, sauce gribiche and crackling, 12 crowns. Judged to be the best of the event, and I can see why it won, I thought it was exquisite. A whippy, mustardy white sauce, superiorly intense crackling and sweet onion tasting trotters. With a milky yolk on the toast, it was a superb congealing mess that felt abit like breakfast. Apart from the Fino suckling pig, this was definitely the most memorable from the event. It definitely wowed. Pickled gherkings (I think) helped to cut through the strength of the dish. Sweet, flossy, salty creamy. Trinity is definitely on my list now. I really want to go.

Bea’s of Bloomsbury

Introducing the new face of Bea’s… just kidding that’s Tehbus⁹.

This is Bea¹⁰.

And these are her awesome cupcakes. The cakes are moist and spongy, the icing buttery and decadent. I am way overdue a visit, and I keep promising to show up for tea and cakes but I keep missing out. I will make it there before 2010 is over…

Finally then, Mark indulging…

….and here’s my favourite snap of the event.

We also had Gary Rhodes’ baked egg tart but I didn’t think it was worth highlighting. The raisin sauce was good, but the tart was too cold, no Marcus Wareing.

Yeah it was fun, how could it not be? An afternoon’s worth of eating, drinking and people watching. There were some great food on show, I have been alerted to certain restaurants I previously didn’t think too much about, and I believe most restaurants will have come away enhancing their reputation after this event.

See you again in Taste 2011.

See the fullscreen slideshow for further highlights or view the full set of photographs on flickr.

Did you enjoy reading this? You can subscribe to the Newsletter. Alternatively, you can subscribe to the RSS feed.

In the last few weeks, I embarked on a hugely carnivorous adventure to sample some of London’s serious purveyors of the bovine to bring you this mini-guide to London’s most well-hung. By far my favourite newsletter to put out yet. LondonEater presents The Steak Issue.

Dear fellow London Eater,

The LondonEater Newsletter, Vol 2, Issue 3

Steak is both functional and glamourous. Nothing compliments a whizzy jammy new-world red like a beautifully charred steak with a juicy red centre, the beef well-hung before, and well-rested after. Yes, beef is on the rise in London, chefs are modeling their output after New York’s famed steakhouses, Peter Luger, Robert’s to name a couple. To emulate Big Apple steak, restaurants are not only importing Prime USDA meat, they are also importing the vaunted charcoal grill (made in Spain) known as the Josper which is primarily capable of infusing a signature charcoal smokiness. ‘Sealing the meat’ is the art steak-houses engage, that is to sear the steak to produce a dry, crusty caramalised outer layer whilst ensuring the centre is still juicy. The greater the contrast, the greater the effect of amplifiying the spewing juices inside the steak. Sealing the juices is a myth, and largely an illusion. Finish off with a whippy béarnaise, or for purists, rock salt and you have the perfect meal.

I have prepared a short guide below with links to more detailed articles and reviews which I have been adding to my website over the last few weeks. Here I have concatenated what I hope will be useful links to help you find the best steaks in London. Enjoy…

best,

Kangpad…. yeah I got an iPad, and it’s great, run out and get one.

The Basics

Lets talk about Beef
We start with a holistic view of the wonderful world of beef, with a walk-through the major cuts, done-ness and types of breeds around the world, including a mystically super-marbled type of beef known as Matsusaka.

An Illustrated Guide to steak cuts
Have you always wondered about the differences between a sirloin and a ribeye? The significance of dry aging, what makes a Josper Grill so special, and what is the main difference between grain and grass fed beef, USA versus Britain. Lots of photographs.

My Recommendations

Butchers

Ginger Pig
Their East Moor farm boasts the largest herd of Longhorns in the UK. Longhorns are Britain’s oldest pure breed, the beef has great marbling characteristics and GP also dry-aged their own. Probably the best of England has to offer, fans include Heston Blumenthal.

O’Shea’s Butchers
Dermot and Darragh O’Shea are 7th and 8th generation Irish butchers respectively. Their family business was established in Tippery in 1789. Darragh O’Shea runs the Knightbridge shop. I believe their family farms Angus breeds. They dry-age in-shop at Knightsbridge. I bought a 40-day hung cote de boeuf which I thought was absolutely fantastic. Unbelievable marbling, plenty of juicy beefiness. And ever so so fragrant. I am beginning to be believe the best of Britain are O’Sheas.

Jack O’Shea
Jack is Darragh’s brother, technically speaking Jack and Darragh’s produce are similar. JOS is located inside the Selfridges food hall, with dry-aging rooms there. I tried a t-bone and a ribeye which were fabulous. The cote de boeuf from Darragh’s was juicier though. I usually gaze deeply into the meat counter whenever I am at Selfridges to marvel at the marbling… the marbling indeed. They also import Prime USDAs.

Wholefoods
Scotch beef is hard to come by in London these days, but you can get good Angus beef at Wholefoods in Kensington. You can see the impressive dry aging cabinets behind the meat counter. The beef carries wonderful grassy flavour. A firm tenderness, if that makes sense.

Restaurants

Premium £35++ per steak

Goodman
O’Sheas, Nebraska Prime, NZ Wagyu are all on their menu. They also have their own dry aging rooms. Grain fed proponents and they dry age their own steaks downstairs, this is why I love them. The sheer choice of top quality beef is unbelievable. They have perfected their Josper grilling methods managing to create a super crispy caramalised exterior, maintaining the juicy bloody centre and infusing a sizzling taste of charcoal that marries beautifully with the natural fragrance of well-hung beef. Their starters are ably amazing as well, featuring Frank Hederman Irish smoked salmon, a cracking lobster bisque and a creamy seafood risotto made with lobster butter. This is my favourite steakhouse in London, if you want to spend money on the best cuts of beef, Goodman is the answer. I recommend Prime USDA bone-in ribeye (700g to share) or the O’Shea’s Porterhouse (700g to share as well) when available, with truffled chips, the stilton and bearnaise sauce.

Hawksmoor
They use the excellent 35 day aged longhorn stuff from Ginger Pig. Their steaks are beautifully cooked in the josper, juicy steaks. Bloggers love this place, but I prefer Goodman.

Maze Grill
Turn right for the Grill at Jason Atherton (or I should say James Durrant’s) well received Gordon Ramsay restaurant. Personally I have not been to this restaurant at time of writing, but rest assured it is on my list. Reviews are rare, but the general sentiment is that Maze Grill know their meat. Their specialities are Creekstone prime USDA, corn fed, aged for approximately 35 days and Australian Wagyu ‘9th grade’ Gold style. Creekstones are also used in Peter Luger in New York. A Gordon Ramsay restaurant.

Mid-range £25-£35 per steak

Chapters All Day Dining
This is the sister restaurant to Andrew MacLeish’s Michelin starred Chapter One. All day dining is headed by Chef Trevor Tobin and located in Blackheath. He had done a tour of famous New York steak restaurants including Peter Luger and Balthazar to see how the Yanks did it, prior to opening shop at Chapters, additionally, he had helped the Goodman team headed by John Cadieux to get their operations running. John trained on the Josper at Chapters before heading Goodman. Their restaurant manager informed me that Chapters are one of only nine restaurants to own a Josper (Hosper) grill in the UK too. As it is based in Blackheath, steaks are alot more affordable than the Central London haunts, range of meat is limited. Hanger steak only £11.50.

Hix Oyster and Chop House
This was Mark Hix’s first restaurant in London, opened in 2008 to critical acclaim, two years on, the rather elegant philosophy of oyster and steak is still going strong. Hanger steaks are served with a cross-sectioned whole bone marrow stuffed with garlic and breadcrumbs and then baked. The béarnaise is excellent at Hix, subtle creamy rather than buttery.

Budget up to £25

Le Relais de Venise L’Entrecote
This is based on the famous steakfrites restaurant that began life in Paris, now an international sensation, think of it as a kind of fast food steak, aside from puddings, that’s all they serve. There are two in London, Marleybone and the City. For £22, you start with a lettuce and walnut salad and then tuck into two servings of entrecote, the second serving kept warm as you eat the first. Served with frites that would make any Parisian proud and smothered in the famous butter sauce.

Eastside Inn Just the onglet and frites, £18.
This is not a specialist steak restaurant, rather it is an exceptionally great French restaurant owned by Bjorn van der Horst, formerly of La Noisette. Their version of steak frites uses the Onglet (Hanger steak which is cut from the diaphragm of the steer, close to kidneys) and their definitive homage to the Parisian bistro classic give the essential dish a breath of fresh air. Exemplary production values. This is the best onglet steak I’ve ever had in London and I highly recommend it.

My favourites right now

1. Zucca
2. Koya
3. Eastside Inn
4. Hind’s Head
5. The Fat Duck

What I am up to online elsewhere…

I now occasionally write restaurant reviews for Redvisitor which is an amazingly awesome Travel website which has only just launched a few weeks earlier. I am preparing a feature on London restaurants right now which should go online soon. Do give Redvisitor a quick look see.

I also wrote an 8 page ‘Insider’s Guide to London’ for The Address Magazine recently. You can view a digital version of the magazine here. Flip to page 93.

Look out for my quirkier blog posts and additional restaurant reviews which do not appear on LE at Lastminute.com’s blog where I am a one of their many bloggers. My review of JW Steakhouse is due to go online sometime in the middle of next week over there.

In the next issue Fantastic new openings by crazily talented chefs are opening left, right and centre, in about two weeks from now, I will aim to showcase the latest and greatest and provide just a snapshot of the exciting openings to come in the months ahead, including Heston’s London debut. Stay tuned.

Did you enjoy reading this? You can subscribe to the Newsletter. Alternatively, you can subscribe to the RSS feed. Free, free free.

This is what food blogging looks like. Today, he is trying an experiment, by training his antiquated film camera on a plate of cheese and fruit all the while bobbing to tunes streamed from the internet to his touch sensitive media device that can also make calls, sometimes. Once he exhausts his roll of C41s, a 19th century design, he will digitise the developed negatives, ready then for digital publishing. Welcome to the 21st century. The freedom and availability of the world wide web has encouraged a whole generation to express themselves and it has given rise to the consummate amateur in a bid to announce his average punter’s opinion to the anyone who cares to listen to the broadcast. And boy, did he shout at the top of his lungs. With the advent of Web 2.0 architecture, it brought cheaper and sleeker tools to this very amateur publisher who sometimes thinks of himself as an independent voice, raging against the very system which had chewed him up for so long. The 21st century has also opened up the world of photography and decoupled the learning curve and the burden of developing costs to endow the end user with more image processing capabilities than ever before. Respect for good light is essentially a thing of the past now, as a sleuth of new cameras, equipped with highly capable digital sensors which can quite literally see in the dark. Now, everybody can be a photographer.

An Introduction

People often ask me what camera I use, often I will say that I shoot with a Nikon D700, but that does not really tell you much about my picture making abilities, because photography is much more than just a choice of camera. You’ve got to think about subject matter, framing, composition, quality of light, direction of light, post processing methods, lens choice, depth of field and so goes the list. All of these decisions impact one another when in pursuit of the perfect exposure. Even if you achieve personal perfection, it is a largely subjective state. A technically perfect image might not be an aesthetically pleasing picture, in which case, it just means it’s a bad photograph, or is it? Subject matter trumps technical quality. While it means that a superstar photog like say, Chase Jarvis will be able to grab startling results with his iPhone (good enough to publish as a photo book) it doesn’t mean that the iPhone is his camera of choice (various accounts suggest that he is also, very much a Nikon man). A camera is a tool which helps to get the job done. The better the tool, the easier and quicker the job can be done. But it is the photographer who makes the photograph, not the image making machine. Once you get your head around to that, you’ll realise that the best camera is actually the one you have on you right now.

Still, that’s the romantic way of looking at a craft, realistically, gear is just as important as skill when it comes to making photographs. If I had my way, I’d shoot with a Hassy 503CWD everyday. If I had my way. But the tension that photographers have with regards to gear/skill is a debate that rages on everyday. Would Dan Winters still be able to make his painterly portraits with a 35mm camera instead of his 8×10 setup? The best camera just simply isn’t good enough, if you have the thirst for achieving perfection in photographs, then it is only natural for your mind wonder about the latest technology floating about in the ether. Sometimes, I think of ‘upgrading’ as a way to buy into technical quality, but never asthetic quality.

And so I thought I would present a little guide to purchasing cameras, in case you ever wondered about the diverse range of products out there which a generation of bloggers might use to create their sumptuous photography. Whether you are a budding food blogger, or just someone wanting to learn abit more about cameras, this guide should prove to be a suitable introduction into the different types of formats available in most consumer driven economies. I’ll try to keep things fun too, let’s begin shall we.

Single Lens Reflex Cameras

Single Lens Reflex (SLR) cameras are by far the popular choice amongst food bloggers, if not professionals in general, not to mention the weekend Robert Frank wannabes. SLRs have a long history with photo enthusiasts throughout the ages, some of the world’s most well-known photographs have been made with classic SLRs of their time, namely the Nikon F. The way SLRs work are such that you see exactly what the lens sees. I know this seems like an intuitive and obvious design, but you would be surprised at the vast array of camera technologies out there which does not abide by this philosophy, some of which I will speak about later in this guide. In every SLR, lies a mirror box which deflects light from the lens into a glass penta-prism which then bounces the image the lens sees, to the viewfinder and then finally to your eye. From there, you are able to see what the final image looks like, then it is just a matter of framing and focusing before deciding to squeeze the shutter. When that happens, the mirror flips up to allow light to pass through to the shutter, which then opens to allow light to pass through to the film/sensor. When the photograph is exposed, the mirror flips down again. You can usually hear the ‘mirror-slap’ everytime you make an exposure… to some it’s music, to others (like myself) it’s equivalent to cow-fart, we gearheads prefer our cameras to be dead silent, so we can ‘blend-in’. Much of the bulk of an SLR camera is down to this inherent mirror-box/penta-prism design which takes up much of the space inside an SLR, see the large head on the camera? That’s where the penta-prism lives.

You will notice that I have not talked about digital SLRs yet because digital and film SLRs are essential the same design. The way you make the photograph is the same, it is simply that the recording medium, the film, has been interchanged with a digital sensor. SLR designs encompass a wide range of cameras designed to work with a wide range of film sizes, though let’s keep things simple and limit this part of the discussion to just the 35mm format. We’ll leave the larger formats to latter part of this guide. The 35mm format has a 3:2 ratio and it physically measures 36mm x 24mm. You’ll see why this dimension is important in a second.

Now, I assume you are mostly interested in digital rather than film, you want the beef on the latest digital stuff. There are several major brands out there including Pentax, Olympus and Sony who build great consumer SLRs, but most tend to fall in either the Nikon or Canon camp. Why you say? In the film days, the Nikon F was the professional’s choice primarily because of their sleuth of sharp and fast manual lenses. Nikon were also one of the first companies then to build very use-sable wide aperture, wide angle lenses such as the Nikkor 35mm f1.4 AIS for example – the photo-journalists choice. Eventually, Canon started building their EOS system and today their professional ‘L’ range of lenses have surpassed the Nikon cannon. It doesn’t stop me from buying Nikon though, more on lenses shortly.

In the digital world of SLRs, there are two terms you need to be familiar with : cropped sensors and full frame sensors. The latter is simple : a full frame sensor is equivalent in physical dimensions to a 35mm film negative. This is significant because it allows you to use the lenses as they were originally intended. The size of a film/sensor affects depth of field (how much in front/behind the focus point is in focus) and this is the key factor which compels users to buy into SLR systems : so that you can isolate subjects from the background, by blurring it out. Ironic don’t you think? The more money one spends, the blurrier the photo becomes… The larger the recording medium, the less the depth of field, the more accurate the focusing needs to be, to produce a good exposure. So in short, full frame cameras allow you to nail that striking look, with a higher degree of background blur using the equivalent lens/aperture compared to a cropped frame camera.

So what is the deal with cropped sensors then? Well, a cropped sensor basically means that it is smaller than a 35mm sensor/film. Usually about 1.5 times smaller, it is otherwise known as the APS-C format. The cropped sensor leads to a cropped field of view and changes the way your lens sees things. A 24mm lens is no longer 24mm on APS-C, it becomes a 36mm lens (1.5 x 24mm). The sensor only sees the centre cropped bit of the image projected by the lens and not the entire image which it is capable of projecting. While you lose out on perspective, what you gain is a cheaper camera. A full frame camera will set you back about at least £1800, very few companies make full frame SLRs, three to be exact : Sony, Nikon D700 and Canon. In the cropped sensor world, there is an abundance of choice and they start from as low as 300 quid. If you ask me, a Canon 400D will give you pictures equivalent to the 7D… 90% of the time. The only tangible differences are perhaps down to ruggedness in body construction, ie plastic body versus magnesium alloy.

Coming back to the mirror box conundrum again. The sheer size and noise an SLR camera makes is, in my opinion, it’s biggest problem. Sometimes, I feel like a pap on a dinner table. Try aiming a D3x attached with a 24-70 f.2.8 (plus hood) at someone, I guarantee that the first few seconds of facial expressions will be… interesting.

So here’s my recommendations if you want to buy an SLR system:

Budget You will hardly go wrong with the cheapest SLR choices from all the major manufacturers. There is currently no such thing as a ‘cheap’ full frame camera, so all budget choices are equipped with APS-C CMOS sensors. Sometimes you will find older bodies which utilise CCDs instead, such as the Nikon D40, go for it. The differences should be minor, but I personally prefer CCDs, they make cleaner, less plasticky pictures.

1. Nikon D3000 body only £339
2. Canon EOS 1000D body only £319
3. Sony Alpha A230 body only £329

Mid-range This is a contentious category, I debated as to whether I should include this because I feel that in the digital world, there is no such thing as mid-budget bodies. I have made photographs using a D40 (200quid) and D700 (1700quid) which are at times difficult to tell apart, and that’s comparing a cropped sensor versus a state of the art full frame one. Semi-pro bodies use ‘advanced’ cropped sensors, they build them with better viewfinders, and more rugged shutters as well as a much tougher body. But in terms of the picture making element, the sensor, the differences as I said are slight. Going from a cropped sensor to a full frame is another matter altogether because you gain benefits with regards to a change of perspective and so forth. But if it’s between a high end and low end cropped sensor body, I think it’s really a just matter of personal preference. Oh but they shoot video too…

1. Nikon D300s body only £1100
2. Sony Alpha A550 body only £700
3. Canon 7D body only £1250

Pro. Congratulations. You have money to spend, wow. The best digital 35mm full frame format SLRs money can buy as follows:

1. Nikon D3x 24 megapixels, body only. £4800
2. Canon EOS 5D Mk II 21.1 megapixels, body only. £1600
3. Sony A900 24.6 megapixels, body only. £1900

…. and I shoot with a Nikon D700, body only £1700. Take your pick, if you have 2k to splash, all cameras in this category are awesome. If you fail to make a good photograph, you can’t blame the machine.

You will have noticed that I have only recommended you buy a ‘body only‘ camera. What about the lens? Well first of all, forget about bundled zoom lenses – they suck. Don’t believe what the camera guy says, 18-55mm cheap zooms are just that cheap zooms. There is a reason why pro level £1200 24-70 f2.8 lenses exists, and also the reason why professionals use them. NOW, here’s where the real excitement begins…

The importance of LENSES

There is a rule of thumb when it comes to splurging on system cameras. Save as much as you can on the cheapest body but spend as much as your budget will allow on the lens. Think about it, the lens is the first bit of kit that comes in contact with light. It is also the only physical medium which light must travel through in order to reach the sensor/film. So therefore, the lens then represents the ultimate bottleneck in a picture making machine. Slap a poor lens on a sophisticated full frame camera and you will be depriving the benefits of that detail monster. You might as well buy a cheap cropped frame body. Hence the arguement, lenses : ultimate bottlenecks.

90% of my food photography is shot using just one focal length and one lens. The Nikkor 35mm f1.4 AIS, fully manual, 1960s design. Hard to believe? It’s true. None of my lenses are longer than 4 inches and long lens envy is a myth. Unless you are a sports photographer needing to nail a portrait shot of Becks from half a mile away, you will not need a 400mm. Traditionally, lenses were made in one focal length only. We call them prime lenses. Lenses which have the ability to change it’s own field of view are known as zooms. You can think of zoom lenses as a bunch of primes lenses in various focal lengths in one neat package. If zooms are so convenient, then why do primes still exist? Well prime lenses are much easier to design which means higher image quality that almost always trumps zooms (save for a few exceptions). And prime lenses have much larger apertures, much larger.

The lens aperture is denoted by it’s f number. The larger the aperture, the smaller the f number and the thinner the depth of field (when shooting at largeaperture/lowfnumber). This leads some photogs to use the expression ‘wide open’ when it comes to creating images with a shallow depth of field. Opening up the aperture, effectively allows you to blur the background out and isolate the subject from the background by keeping only the subject in focus. The quality of the blur is something photogs obsess over early in their hobby, the term which describes the unquantifiable quality of the blurry bits is called ‘Bokeh’. An example is the photograph above, just look at the bokeh (forgive the pun).

With the advent of cropped sensors, you will need to rethink your lens considerations as they will change the FOV of your lenses, reducing the effective FOV in most cases by the factor which I’ve used previously. Hence a 24mm becomes a 36mm and so forth. Let’s try to rationalise the numbers and see if we can categorise lens focal lenghts in 35mm format :

Wide Angle Lenses from 14mm to 35mm They have a wide field of view and they start from around 14mm which is equivalent to 114 degrees. Human vision is about 120 degrees. Normally, wide angles are used by photo-journalists who are close to the action and who want to capture as much information as possible. A 24mm is usually considered ‘wide’ and allows you to capture say the 3/4 of the subject matter standing 1m away from you, guesstimating anyway. A 35mm is ‘semi-wide’, if you shield off your temples with your hands, that’s roughly a 35mm, ok maybe a bit wider.

Lens suggestions
Full Frame : Nikkor 24mm f1.4G , Canon 24mm f1.4L , Nikkor 35mm f1.4 AIS, Zeiss ZF 35mm f2 Distagon T, Canon 35mm f1.4L, Sony 35mm f1.4G SAL-35F14G… and the Nikon 14-24mm f2.8G – stunner.
Cropped Frame … there’s no compelling primes to consider really.

Normal lenses 40mm- 60mm The ultimate normal lens is the classic 50mm. Some say it mimics human vision, and because it is so natural, others think it’s a weird focal length which is not wide enough, nor is it long enough. Either way, the 50mm is one of the least expensive routes into achieving striking bokeh isolating portraits.

Lens suggestions
Full Frame : Nikkor 50mm f1.8 AFD, Canon 50mm f1.2L, Zeiss ZF50mm f1.4 Planar
Cropped Frame: Nikkor 35mm f1.8G DX, Canon 35mm f2.0

Macro Lenses Ah yes, herein lies the true strength of the SLR system : Macro photography. It is one of the few systems which allow 1:1 reproduction and can reveal microscopic worlds. Macro lenses are specially designed for close-up photography, and particularly suited for food. They are extremely well corrected up-close and the closer you get, the more striking the portrait. So. The choices.

Nikkor 60mm f2.8ED , Nikkor 105 f2.8ED VR. -> The latter is superior.
Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM
Zeiss 50mm f2.0 Makro Planar

Telephotos These long lenses are primarily used to shoot portraits, longer lenses tend to produce a compression effect which appears to make subjects look slimmer. Not always of course, but say 70% of the time, you’ll find that people look more ‘flattering’ when portraits are shot with telephotos. This is also the reason why wedding photogs lug around huge white lenses. That’s usually a 200 or a 300 f2.8L if I am not mistaken.

As I said before, I’m not a fan of telephotos, but if you are obsessed with bokeh, do yourself a favour and invest in either the Nikkor 85mm f1.4 AFD or AIS (the above photo is shot with this), Canon 85mm f1.2L, Zeiss 85mm f1.4 Planar. These are all awesome lenses.

The Rangefinder

Now that we are over the overly long discussion about SLR, lens designs and so forth, lets now move to the other camera systems on the market. Forgive me if I get abit melodramatic in this section, but to me, rangefinders inject magic into photography, these are not mere tools, these are the optical equivalent of wizard wands.

Rangefinders are archaic designs. Popular in the beginning days when 35mm was the then ‘compact camera format’, we’re talking 20′s, 30′s and 40′s folks. Now, only a handful of manufacturers make them, mostly for film only. If you ever shoot rangefinders, I guarantee you will fall in love with the freedom that 35mm brings to the picture making process. Rangefinder cameras are much, much smaller than SLRs mainly because they do not have mirror boxes or pentaprisms. This also means that the photographer does not see what the lens sees. Instead the photographer focuses the image through a ‘rangefinder/viewfinder’ which sits on top of the camera, decoupled from the lens. That is to say that the you would not see what the camera sees, instead the viewfinder is literally just a window through which the photographer sees the world. Bear with me as I try to explain this.

The viewfinder shows framelines for the different focal lengths of the different lenses you snap on. So in other words, you can see what’s coming in and out of the frame. This is useful since it allows the photographer to ‘see the world’ and then choose to cut away which ever detail as he sees fit. Now in the centre of the viewfinder is what is known as the rangefinder mask. This mask shows a split image. When you point the camera at the subject, you need to focus the lens until the two split images align. When they align, the subject is then in focus. That’s right, manual focus only. Rangefinders require a higher degree of commitment from the photographer, but the completely manual nature of the camera does mean that you think about every exposure more and nailing the shot is all the more rewarding. You’ll find that over time, your basic knowledge of photography basics improve with time. You’ll find yourself estimate the intensity of light and you’ll think in stops and handheld shutter speeds, you’ll also build up a mental focal scale as you become adept with estimating focus distance…is it a 1m or 1.3m and so on. You become a ‘better’ photographer. Overtime, you’ll become baffled with the automation of modern SLRs, adjusting aperture, shutter speed and focus manually would be second nature.

Zeiss, Cosina Voigtlander and Leica currently still make film based rangefinders. In history, there has only been three digital models ever made: The Epson RD-1 (out of production) , the Leica M8 (phasing out) and the Leica M9 (the world’s first and only full frame digital rangefinder on the market). When one speaks about rangefinders, usually one is referring to Leica cameras. These legendary cameras are hand made out from their Solms factory in Germany, and the German engineering is so revered and precise that Leica cameras are said to be able to outlive their first owners. There is great mystique attached to Leicas primarily because they have been the camera of choice for so many of the worlds greatest photographers in history, particularly street photographers. Henri Cartier Bresson, William Klein, Robert Capa, Robert Frank, Garry Winogrand, all Leica men. The romantic idea of roaming the urban jungle with a compact camera and capturing the decisive moment revolves around the Leica. Handling one of these cameras is much like handling a jewel. The smooth shutter release button trips a discreet sound, a barely audible click, the result of the cloth shutter exposing the film – no cowfart of a mirror slap here. The film advance lever is silky smooth, nothing on the market compares, and the bright viewfinder is just breathtaking. Leicas are a joy to use, but more so than anything, Leica lenses are perhaps the most prized of all man-made optical jewels.

Leica lenses are said to produce creamy smooth bokeh, have excellent colour rendition and that they draw images so beautifully, some claim there is an indescribable ‘glow’, an x-factor if you like. This indescribable x-factor comes at a price. As an example, a Leica 35mm f2.0 summicron ASPH will set you back 2000 pounds. That’s Great British Pounds.

The two photos in this section was shot with the Leica M8 mounted with a 35mm f2 ASPH lens. Note the superiorly smooth bokeh, and then look at the overall aesthetic of the picture and then to the colour fidelity – it just produces sharp photos no? Part of the reason is also due to sensor design. Leicas use CCD sensors which do not have anti-aliasing (AA) filters in front of the sensors. The AA filter is a sort of ‘blur filter’ which is designed to minimise what is known as ‘moire’ patterns, artifacts associated with repeated lines and so forth. An AA filter is usually present in digital SLR sensors. The lack of one leads to clearer shots. Couple an AA-less sensor design with the super high-resolution Leica lenses and you have an impressive compact image making machine.

So what’s the catch? Well, for one, Leicas are horribly expenses. A Leica M8 (1.3cropped sensor) costs £2500, the Leica M9 (full frame sensor) costs £4850, and the lenses start at around £1200. Plus, the nearest focusing distance for all Leica lenses is 70cm. My 60mm f2.8 focuses down to 18cm. The picture above is about as close as I can get to the sushi with a 35mm lens. Yes there are macro modifiers which you can fit on to a Leica camera, but even then, it doesnt give you 1:1 reproduction, closer to 0.3x magnification, and the CCD sensors are bad at low light, really bad. I don’t use rangefinders to shoot food, they just cannot get me close enough. In spite of this though, I love shooting with the Leicas, the romantic idea of capturing the streets is too addictive to put down. After all, it is the way I have come to understand the medium : the art of document life today. With Leicas, its all heart, logic goes down the drain, along with your bank balance.

Point and shoots

Compact, sleek, desirable and practical. In the digital world, everybody has a point and shoot. Point and shoots are like rangefinders, without the rangefinder. In the place of an optical viewfinder, the shutter simply keeps itself open so light passes from the lens straight through to the digital sensor. That’s how you get live view on the back of the LCD screen. Remember we spoke about cropped sensors? Well, digital compact sensors are typicaly 4 to 6 times smaller than full frame sensors. The significant reduction in sensor size means a significant reduction in cost and size of the lens, overall camera size and at the expense of also overall image quality. It’s basically taking a 35mm negative and cutting out 80% of the picture. Think about all that information you throw away! The smaller sensors mean higher depth of field for equivalent focal lengths, so shooting at say f2.0 on a point and shoot will give you an equivalent depth of field of say f8 on full frame.

Technology is rapidly catching up these days, and manufacturers are able to pull out even the tiniest detail from the compact sensors. So much so that many foodbloggers have created very accomplished photographs using point and shoot cameras. If I were to invest in a point and shoot, it would have to be the Leica Dlux-4, Titan edition. It features a 1/1.6 sensor, which is about a 4.3 crop and it’s twin brother the Panasonic Lumix LX3 is basically the same camera but without the hefty Leica price tag. £399 vs £500. The other contender is the Canon G11 with a 1/1.7 sensor, a 4.5 crop and retails for around £400. The little brother the Canon S90 is slightly cheaper and smaller, utilises the same sensor, but the former is built more robustly, has a fold-out LCD and has a more versatile lens which focuses down to 1cm compared to the 5cm of the S90. But as I said, if I had to choose, I would get the Dlux4. Helen the World Foodie Guide uses it, and it gives fantastic results.

Large sensored Point and Shoots and EVILs

After about a decade of digital sensor technology, pros lugging around heavy and over expensive gear, fear of being heckled as a pap, photographers are now uniformly crying out for large sensor technology to be squeezed into more compact packages. The premise is simple really, why can’t we make point and shoot cameras with large sensors? Well, we can now. Olympus and Panasonic are at the forefront of the large sensor, compact body philosophy. With the advent of a new sensor format known as micro 4/3, or a sensor with a 2x crop factor, this allows manufacturers to make cameras which rival digital SLRs in image quality. Professionals are already jumping on the bandwagon. Enter the Olympus EP-1 and the EP-2. They fall under the new moniker of ‘EVIL’ cameras or ‘Electronic Viewfinder with Interchangeable Lens’, that are much smaller than SLRs and comparable in size to digital compacts. Think point and shoot, no optical viewfinder and interchangeable lens ala an SLR. The premise is to put even more ‘professional’ imaging power in hands of the hobbyist. My dad’s friend who has been a photo journalist for about 25 years has thus far avoided going digital, until he saw the Olympus. His very first digital camera. And he isn’t alone. Thom Hogan has taken his EP-1 on his photographic journeys. The other player to embrace the m4/3 EVIL bandwagon is Panasonic with their GF-1. Same deal as the Oly EP-1 really, and both cameras are at the forefront of this brand new revolution which is taking the digital photography world by storm. Very soon, the idea of paps lugging overly large cameras will be a thing of the past. Sony and Nikon are both hard and work with their interpretation of EVIL cameras, though their output probably wont be ready till early 2011. There is another player in this large sensor, small body game though : Leica.

photo credit:leica camera

Pictured above is the Leica X1. It is the first point and shoot to utilise a APS-C sensor (in fact, some say the same Sony sensor as used in the Nikon D300). It has a Leica 24mm f2.8 elmarit lens (equivalent to 36mm FOV) and it is hand-built in Germany to a classic finish same as the flagship Leica M rangefinders. Leica lens quality, focuses down to 25cm (for macros), the shutter is completely silent, is great in low light. If I had £1400, this would be my food-blogging camera of choice. Discreet, sleek, unobtrusive and most of all excellent digital image quality. What more could you ask for? £1400 perhaps. There are whispers that other manufacturers are going down this path, so the next few months will be interesting to say the least. About the only other alternative to the X1 is the Sigma DP1 and DP2, but their FOVEON sensors aren’t exactly true 12mp sensors, it’s more like a very high quality 4mp. The future of foodblogging? You decide.

Medium Format

photo credit:hassleblad

So now that we have exhausted all the compact camera choices, what else is there? Well, a whole other level, that’s what else. In the grand scheme of things, the 35mm format is tiny. Think about it, it stretches only about 36mm on its longest end – that will never give you real detail and true description. What you need is to capture light on a much bigger canvas. Enter Medium format. Negatives measure to 60mm by 60mm and their digital equivalents are made to similar dimensions. If you want real detail, as I said, the key in is a big sensor. A much bigger one. As far as I know, pros use digital MF, albeit in a controlled studio enviroment to shoot magazine spreads, be it food or fashion. And as far as I know, billboards are mostly shot with digital MF cameras. Hassleblad is the leader of the pack, though there are alternatives such as Mamiya. Personally, this is next level stuff for me, I’ve never touched a MF camera before, but if I do decide, then I want a Hassy 503 CW. It is a true system camera which can be interchanged with a film back or a digital back. It shoots square images. Now if only I had another £10,000 lying around…

Film vs Digital

Beyond medium format, there are large format cameras, we would be stepping back in time to talk about them really, and they slow the photographic process down significantly, and it’s all film based. Real photography. Art photographers mostly use large format film cameras to make their pictures. Andreas Gursky with his grand pictures, repeating patterns, macro social landscape photographs comes to mind, and my personal favourite are Dan Winter’s editorial portraits. Painterly, truly next next level stuff. As good as digital is, I don’t believe film will ever die, and I hope it never dies out because film still has a quality and a character which digital doesn’t quite yet seem to have managed. I feel that film stock produces colours and tone which are smoother, and just more natural. My film of the moment is Kodak Portra 400NC – for neutral colour. Perhaps we need to wait for the ghost in the machine to manisfest. Film is slower than digital, usually daylight balanced and fail in artificial light, much harder to master, but when you nail the exposure on film, it’s special. Ok then a little test, film vs digital. One is shot with a Nikon FM2 with a 50mm f1.4 lens with Fuji 160 film ; the other is shot with a Nikon D90 with a 16-85mm zoom lens set at 36mm. Which is which? Which is better? Does it really matter?

So there is it, a foodbloggers’ guide to cameras. Hopefully I will have piqued your interest in not just cameras, but also photography in general, subtle as it is, they are not the same thing. At the end of the day, having gone through several thousand pounds worth of camera and lenses, I feel that getting bogged down with camera choices did not instantly improve my photography. Everytime I changed systems, I learnt the strengths and weaknesses of the system and adapted to the camera to best draw out it’s potential. But the same problem always presented itself. Was the light good, how shall I compose the image? Is this a good subject to shoot? If so, will it make an enticing photograph? No camera has been able to to take away from the decision making process every time I make an exposure, and I wouldn’t want it to either. I make the photograph, not my camera.

About the Author Kang the photographer is in the business of occasionally creating mouth-watering images for his clients, mostly restaurants. His last commission involved lots of steaming pho and his next project involves shooting plates of fruit, health concious cou-cous and quinoa all to be bathed in a flood of sunshine. He loves food and cameras equally, and his growing photobook collection boasts a copy of “The Animals”. Visit his portfolio at kangphoto.com.

Did you enjoy reading this post? Why not subscribe to my feed updates for free. Alternatively, You can subscribe via email.

Sir Joshua Reynolds, the 18th century painter held the view that defining good art required standardisation and classification. He argued in one of his discourses on art that general beauty makes more sense than particularities because it was rational and because that’s how the human mind operates. Of his most famous critics was William Blake who replied to his notion of general beauty that “To generalise is to be an idiot; To particularize is the alone distinction of merit” Yes, I have finally eaten myself to madness. I once held the view that London was the gastronomic capital of the world. I have had some wonderful meals in the last eight years in the city, defending the Big Smoke’s reputation against naysayers. London restaurants naturally become my benchmark when defining a good meal. Generally speaking, there are lots of great places to eat in the city, but I just wonder if we examine the city’s gastronomic landscape through a microscope, would the finer details alter the general aesthetic?

Let’s start with the obvious metrics, the most obvious of them all being the Michelin guide. Favoured for it’s ‘uniform’ methods (if controversial) in forming city based lists around the world, and also for its general revere among the most illustrious of names in the business. The hunt for those ‘macarons’ (I was watching Will Sitwell’s show when I edited this) can become a hazard to health. In 2010, there are fifty London restaurants listed in the red guide but only two from that list hold the coveted 3 stars. New York has 55, with five 3 star restaurants; Paris boasts a whopping ten 3 star restaurants out of a total 96 and Tokyo glitters with eleven 3 star restaurants out of the total of 197. Does the Ledbury’s salt crust celeriac compare against Per se’s Oysters and Pearls? Who knows, if we were generalising, illustrious lists say very little about the strength, diversity or culture of a particular region’s (or city in this case) cuisine. All it is really saying is that there are fifty way to splash your cash.

Don’t get me wrong though, I am not disrespecting all the talent and hard work sunk into finely tuned Michelin kitchens, but rather than examine the high profile backslapping amongst the most talented as well as the most well connected, I want to look at it from the other side of the fence, from an everyman’s view on what the London dining scene looks like. And so, we are now the ultimate idealists. Our cause is not to search for a total sensory experience, nor is it to focus on the fine twill of Egyptian cotton hand towels; but we are more interested in keeping it real by looking at properties which are tangible, local and truly unique to it’s surroundings. Every city has its own footprint of gastro gems; New York boasts Josper flamed strip-joint strip-loin; Parisians with their bistros (craving confit du carnard..) ; Taipei and it’s microcosm of beef noodle houses; Sydney for the overwhelming selection of seafood and to Hong Kong where I believe they have perfected the egg custard tart. You see where I’m getting at right – what’s our trump card?

The city has always been known for its diversity. Take a look at the recent fads: viet-baguettes, coffee culture, steak, the tapas culture, dim sum, burritos. And then think about the incalculable types of genres you can sample in London, I’ll bet that you can name at least a couple of ‘good’ restaurants in each style of cuisine. Variety is never a bad thing of course; it means we get to experience all sorts of rather good imitations of imported cuisines. Personally, I am a fan of Spanish food, and I love all things Japanese, but I have never bought iberico ham from Huelva nor have I tried fishing for unagi at Lake Hamana. In my head, what I think are good examples of either cuisine, is limited to those restaurants in London. It’s all a matter of setting a point of reference isn’t it? Just what determines how faithful a cuisine really is, and more pressingly does authenticity correlate to quality? And what of champions of fusion; If a superior marriage of ingredients occurs, does it create a ‘new’ cuisine in itself, or does it get absorbed into the culture local to the area? Which cookbook does the california roll – born in Los Angeles – belong in?

It is that problem I have sometimes when making comparisons of imported cuisines, having only eaten at say a few hundred restaurants in my lifetime around the world – who I am to be passing judgement right? The point I am so desperately trying to get on to is in establishing the identity of London gastronomy. So. What is it? Roasts, curries and kebabs? I hardly believe London is the destination for fish and chips and how does Brick Lane compare to the Manchester Curry Mile? Surely there are restaurants in London which represent the pinnacle of British cooking. The obvious candidate is Henderson and St John : Holder of a Michelin star, high on the world top 50 list, internationally renowned – The London restaurant? Too obvious. I think a master chef is one who understands that brilliant cooking is a result of harnessing the power of local produce – it is the single most meaningful competitive proposition a restaurant can boast. You know, as much as I am in love with the idea of St John, I much prefer the crabs on toast at 32 Great Queen Street. When I take a harder look. I see the Hereford roads, the Harwood Arms of London and the concept of the Gastropub stands out for me. The reticent style which lets quality of local produce take centre-plate, a type of restaurant which is unique to this country, and a style in which I hope has its quintessence in London.

And so there it is, I don’t think I could ever say for sure where London lies in the premiership of gastronomic capitals around the globe, and I think I would indeed be a fool to make that kind of generalisation. Cracking restaurants exists in London, and cracking restaurants continue to open every year, I know I have eaten some wonderful meals in the city, and the belief that there are even greater restaurants to visit drives my adventure on this blog. So now it’s your turn – what’s your take on London restaurants, have you had memorable meals in London, and if so, where and if London is not your pick, then where are your favourite restaurants in the world?

Did you enjoy reading this post? Why not subscribe to my feed updates for free. Alternatively, You can subscribe via email.

Tapas Brindisa official site
18 Southwark St
Southwark, SE1 9
£7 Tapas

Brindisa, brindisa, brindisa. Yeah, they’re on to their third one now, perhaps the most respected name in Spanish food, ‘Brindis’ is ‘to make a toast’. Something I tell everybody, Spanish is my favourite cuisine, and I was more than happy to have finally made the trip to ‘brindis’ at their borough market kitchen.

(NB: Tapas porntography ahead)

Spanish Brindisa

I remember the first time I walked into a tapas restaurant, its still there, even though I hadn’t been back in oh, about four years. Café Espana on Old Compton Street – anybody been there recently? They used to do these really hearty dishes of garlic casserole chicken that made my knees go weak.

That virgin experience has since been eclipsed many times over, I appreciate the idea of feasting on several small delights, perhaps that’s just me and my binge like tendencies.

Right then, tap water please.

Curing it

Apparently Franco Manca get their chorizo from Brindisa. As a food supplier then, its no surprise to find an embarrassment of cured meats on the menu, oh I love my cured meats, especially jamon iberico. I was aiming for a quick lunch after browsing Borough market, so I balked at the £22 asking price for an order of their finest acorn fed jamon. Instead I plonked for the Salcichon de Vic at a more pleasing £4.20

Supposedly a traditional Catalonian recipe, it was generously dosed with olive oil and cracked with black pepper, indeed the silky saltiness really was quite appetising. Oh yummy, this is good ham.

Lipsmack.

One cured meat was not enough as I also ordered the Cured León beef with pomegranate and frisee salad, priced at £5.75. Any salty cured meat balanced against those mini pomemgranate juice explosions is a winner. This one tasted like it was doused with abit of garlic oil, a fruity sweetness and an appetising way to start the meal, my tummy is suitably greased.

Liverol

In the words of JRR Tolkien, time for Brindisa to show their quality.

Let me start by saying that I’m not a fan of chicken liver, unlike duck liver which is strangely fragrant, chicken liver just crosses the stinky line for me, so I was sceptical when the better half ordered this dish. Still, in the true spirit of objectivity and in the quest to eat it all, I swallow and refrain from spitting….

Sautéed chicken livers £5.90

…. And my boldness was rewarded with one of the richest toast toppings I’ve ever had. This was just a perfect dish. It was sizzling, the texture was juicy and superiorly moist, as it was liver – the mushiness was only too evident. But it was the big rounded flavours that raised my eyebrows. A dominant garlic palette with a soya-like creaminess and a mouthful of smokiness, it was perfectly appetising. A succinct dish, and just what I was hoping for in terms of a light lunch.

No-follow

The BRN100 pretty much peaked at the chicken liver and quickly plummeted like the FTSE100 as it didnt get any better than this.

Galician Octopus with Potatoes £7

The octopus was rubbery and it tasted like it was made in a La Tasca kitchen. It was under seasoned, the potatoes were flaccid and well, at some point, I felt as if I was munching on tinned octopus. It looked nice though, but this was a major fail in my opinion.

Right then, on to the seafood.

Swordfish with mojo verde and black olives 7.50

The item sounded exciting and exotic. Following the tepid octopus show, I am hoping this last dish will leave me with a good impression of Brindisa. I immediately noticed the bitterness from the char-lines, like it was smoked over cast iron from the dark ages. The able smokiness added depth to the chunky and plain tasting fish, simply seasoned with seasalt. I really liked the sweetish green salsa because it took abit of the bitterness from the fish away. Still a little under seasoned and perhaps just a tad too simple. It did its job as it was quite a light dish, but it didn’t excite like the chicken liver did.

Brindisi

We turned up at 2pm to an overcrowded restaurant and returned at 3pm to be seated. Such popularity must mean that they are doing something right… right?

Well, yes and no. My experience was favourable, but it fell below expectatations. True enough, the produce is premium quality; the hams and the oils used tasted like sainsbury’s finest (not quite sure that’s a compliment), but there were just a few faults in the execution of the dishes. I was a litte surprised that they couldn’t get the octopus right, and I think they might have to go back to cooking school to tweak their grilling methods. Having said that, the chicken liver on toast was remarkable, and for that alone, its worth the price of admission.

Tapas Brindisa might be in danger of becoming too popular for its own good. It really fell below expectations, although having said that, it was still a very slick experience altogether. I have had better tapas in London, certainly Brindisa is up there with the rest of them, but if I had to choose, Brindisa probably won’t come first.

The Gist of It

Tapas Brindisa official site
18 Southwark St
Southwark, SE1 9
£7 Tapas
Verdict: The ham was faultness, the chicken liver: inspirational; everything is a question mark.

What about you? Did you agree with my assessment of Tapas Brindisa? Do you think that they are one of the best tapas bars in London?

Did you enjoy reading this post? Why not subscribe to my feed updates for free. Alternatively, You can subscribe via email.