Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category

Street level: An invitation to Sam’s place

Friday, September 3rd, 2010

(by Mike Fletcher)

It’s not often that I venture from zone two for an evening’s dining out experience. But when Sam Harrison, the man who partnered with Rick Stein to open Sam’s Brasserie in Chiswick, invited my guest and I to dinner at the duo’s second eatery in Balham, we headed for the gateway to the south.

Harrison’s has been around since October 2007. On occasion I have spent a lazy Sunday afternoon nursing a bottle of red with Balham friends in its relaxed bar. But I’ve never graduated to the 90-cover restaurant, taken my seat underneath the circular brown lampshades and perused the simple menu of classic brasserie-style dishes with a modern twist – until now.

I should point out here that Sam Harrison didn’t actually join us for dinner. If he had have done, we probably would have tried harder to stifle our giggles when my guest asked our waitress what type of bread we were being offered and received the polite friendly reply ‘brown’. She did redeem herself however by explaining to my australian friend what kind of fish sea bream is and the fact that a poussin is a young chicken, without feeling the need to add the rather gruesome fact that it has to be younger than 28 days at slaughter to be classed as such.

For starters, we opted for the sharing platter but added a side order of chilli and garlic grilled squid because you can always tell the quality of a restaurant’s food by the texture of its squid (it obviously helps to eat a lot of squid at various different restaurants to aid the comparison).

The sharing platter was furnished with morsels of buffalo mozzarella, cheese croquettes, pâté and other butcher’s delights, served with flat bread (we resisted the urge to ask again what type of bread this was although the answer would have been both accurate and just as funny).

I’m pleased to report that the squid was tasty and succulent and went extremely well with a mid-priced Argentinian Malbec. It’s also pleasing to report that tap water was regularly topped up throughout our meal and the service was always friendly, attentive but non-intrusive.

For our main course, I couldn’t resist choosing from the Harrison’s Classics section of the menu. I opted for the aged Scottish rib-eye steak which came beautifully presented on a butcher’s board with fries in a pot and bearnaise sauce in a small pan on the side. To me, this choice was in keeping with the relaxed picking and dipping nature of our meal and the steak was cooked to perfection.

My guest experienced her first taste of english sea bream and enjoyed it. I’m sure though she was eying up the amazing looking cheeseburgers delivered to our adjacent table with envy. She consoled herself by giving in far too quickly when our waitress suggested ordering the hot chocolate fondant for dessert. The 15 minute baking time this pudding takes is well worth it but unfortunately it just wasn’t enough time for either of us to have found enough extra room to fully enjoy it. Full to bursting we were both forced to admit defeat and decided to walk the long way back to the tube, determined to return again another day and finish that goddess among desserts.


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Street Level: An evening with Andrew Edmunds

Friday, July 2nd, 2010

(by Mike Fletcher)

I spend far too much money on eating out. It’s one of the inconvenient pleasures of living in a city with 50 Michelin-starred restaurants and hundreds of secret hideaway eateries just waiting to be discovered and then savoured.

Despite a constant urge to try out new places however, I always find myself returning to one of my favourite Soho establishments, Andrew Edmunds on Lexington Street.

Admittedly, Andrew Edmunds receives most of my custom during the winter months. It’s somewhere familiar to escape the drizzle and swap the falling temperatures for the warm dark glow of intimate candle-lit tables, plain white tablecloths, great British food and an extensive red wine list. I wasn’t entirely convinced therefore that I’d made the right choice when, on one of the warmest days of the summer so far, I reached for the phone and booked a table for two downstairs at this charming gourmet bolt-hole.

Maybe I opted for a table downstairs so we could pretend that the balmy summer’s evening unfolding on the street outside was actually a dark winter’s night as we swapped stories over a naked flame and drank a 2006 mid-priced bottle of Argentinian red.

Actually, the real reason I requested downstairs is because that’s where my preferred table is located (the only restaurant where I actually know which table I prefer). Tonight, table 22, side on to all the other diners so that you’re not distracted by their food choices or over-heard snippets of conversation, was available and ours for three straight hours.

My starter choice was the same starter I always go for at this home away from home diner – Dressed Crab (superb). After our very amiable Kiwi waitress Katy had joked about the hand-written menu and then translated the hieroglyphics, my guest went for Lincolnshire asparagus vinaigrette with thin slices of Pecorino cheese.

For main, I went for the Calasparra risotto with squid, mussels, prawns, clams, chorizo and langoustine whilst my guest plumped for the poached wild sea trout, accompanied by Jersey Royals and a watercress mayonnaise. I had definitely plumped for the more flavoursome dish as my seafood arrived infused with chili and was extremely satisfying with just the right amount of heat. The trout looked a tad boring but I was assured that it tasted very nice.

I rarely go for dessert but was quite happy to sip my expresso whilst my guest pondered long and hard over whether to have the peach and almond tart. With no decision reached and a cursory look round to see that most of our fellow diners had departed as it was approaching 11pm, I requested the bill and inspected the damage.

Our meal for two, with wine, coffee and 12.5% service charge came to a very reasonable £79. It was only after the tab was settled that Katy returned to our table with a slice of peach and almond tart and two forks. “There’s only two slices left and I know you were tempted so you have this one and I’m going to save the final slice as a treat for when I finish my shift,” our waitress said with a smile.

It’s service like that which will keep me returning to Andrew Edmunds all year round and sets London’s restaurants apart, in my view, from those anywhere else in the world.

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A Stampede of Beef

Monday, October 12th, 2009

The Argentinean evening of grass-fed steak and Argentine wines -  part of the Festival organised in different parts of London by one of our sponsors -   at The Wells gastropub in Hampstead corralled a very full house of customers. The meat was incredible  – Argentinean beef has a fresh taste that really appeals to me – and the chef had made lively chimichurri sauce to accompany it.

I must confess now that The Wells is owned by my sister Beth Coventry but nepotism sometimes ought to rule.  Tonight The Wells is hosting a Lucky Dice evening – throw a six and your food will be free – and there is still time to try their festival menu at £25 for two courses and send in votes.

Speaking of nepotism, you can also try a Festival Menu and a Lucky Dice extravaganza tonight  at my son Ben’s gastropub, The Draper’s Arms in Islington. Food runs in the family.

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Festival Menu at Quo Vadis

Friday, October 9th, 2009

My first London Restaurant Festival Menu experience was at lunchtime today (Thursday 8th) at the lovely Quo Vadis in Soho where sunshine was streaming in through the stained-glass windows. The exceptional value immediately put flesh on the bones of the festival as the £15 for two courses included a main course of roasted partridge (provided, maybe even shot by Tim Hart the father of the hospitable Hart brothers who own the restaurant) served with a delectable stuffing of chopped meat and chestnuts wrapped inside a Savoy cabbage leaf and fondant potatoes.

On the a la carte the same partridge dish is priced at £23 so the bargain is blatantly obvious particularly as the first course I chose of mackerel with Serrano ham, capers and a parsley emulsion was immaculately prepared with the mackerel skin as snappy as crackling and the flesh staunch enough to partner the ham perfectly.

Nigel Barden who will present the London Restaurant Festival Awards on Tuesday 13 October rated highly the alternative main course of crisp pork belly with caramelised onions and apple sauce and had the nerve to ask for a first course from the Festival Dinner Menu (£25/£35 for two/three courses) of pig’s trotters and ceps on QV sourdough.  We shared a dessert of praline chocolate bar with caramelised banana with spoons clashing as we approached the middle from either end.

The Festival aims to beckon diners into restaurants with the promise of a more than fair deal and hopefully become the start of a lasting friendship. I have a feeling that Quo Vadis may do very well in the voting for Best Festival Menu on www.londonrestaurantfestival.com or www.toptable.com

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Work as Pleasure at Phoenix Palace

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

On Wednesday evening a dinner for the London Restaurant Festival steering committee was held at the wizard Chinese restaurant Phoenix Palace in Glentworth Street, a few yards north of Marylebone Road.

This popular place, a favourite of mine, has recently undergone a major refurbishment and the committee was shown into a new private dining room where I think Posh & Becks would have been perfectly happy.

The meal started with an update from Tim Etchells from Single Market Events quickly followed by the arrival of two suckling pigs with blinking red electric bulbs like round Christmas tree lights for eyes. The squares of lacquered crackling served with plum sauce and small soft house pancakes were fabulous.

Equally good and totally different in its fragrant subtlety was the double-cooked mixed seafood and winter melon consommé, served in a vegetable vessel beautifully decorated with carving to resemble Shang dynasty pottery.

Simon Davis, Katie Mann and Penny Watson revealed more about the progress of the many and various festival events, whilst dishes of baked lobster with noodles, steamed turbot with shredded pork and loganberry, fresh lotus root filled with minced pork, pak choi with crab meat sauce and more were fitted in around their announcements. This was “work” as pure pleasure.

Several of the dishes, including the lobster, feature on the Phoenix Palace Festival Menu which in the evening is charging only £25 per person for six dishes.

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My Restaurant Week – Sizzling steak at Rowley's, double lunching and a Night Watch tour of the Soho House venues

Monday, May 18th, 2009

Rowley’s
This is not somewhere where I would usually choose to have lunch but the owner recently handed over to his son Will Guess, who now runs it with his sister. The reason I would not normally go is based on little more than the fact that it would not really occur to me.

The most striking thing about Rowley’s, for those who have not visited, are the interiors. The property was once the butcher’s shop of the distinguished Walls family whose meat business obviously grew considerably. The remarkably vibrant green and orange tile work remains. It has been a restaurant since 1977 and is best known for its entrecote with herb butter that comes to the table on a sort of fajita-style sizzling platter. I ordered this. The steak was pretty good but the butter was a little cloying. The sizzling platter seems anachronistic.

Will Guess is a charming and enterprising young chap who is keen to attract a new generation of people to Rowley’s. Of course, when they opened in 1977 there were considerably fewer restaurants in London and steak frites was considered a luxury. This is no longer the case and at nearly £20 Rowley’s does seem steep. I’d make the butter an option and think about losing the sizzler – not least because it means that the last piece of meat is overcooked.

That said, the service is excellent, the “all you can eat” fries are pretty faultless and the atmosphere – in the heart of St James’s – is rarefied without being fusty. And then there’s the magical tiles. It’s well worth a visit.
Address: 113 Jermyn Street, London, SW1. Tel: 020 7930 2707


Maggie Jones
To lunch with the lovely Charlotte Ross who runs the features department at the London Evening Standard. The paper is one of our media sponsors for the London Restaurant Festival and will also be publishing our festival guide and supplement. Charlotte is a keen supporter of the London Restaurant Festival and I was keeping her up to date with some of the events, chefs and restaurants that we are starting to confirm.

The Evening Standard will also be keeping you informed about the London Restaurant Festival through their food pages that are now published on a Thursday. Obviously we have a close link to the newspaper as Fay Maschler is its celebrated restaurant critic, chair of the London Restaurant festival and also my business partner in our consultancy company, A Private View Ltd. I was also features editor and travel editor on the paper for several years. We appreciate the support of the London Evening Standard and of Geordie Greig, its new editor who is fully behind the London Restaurant Festival.

Maggie Jones is an oddment. A cluttered, jumble of an interior but not without charm. It resembles the inside of a Romany caravan combined with a Normandy bric-a-brac shop. Lunch was a mackerel that was fresh and unfussy. The salad was a bit lazy. Still, it’s never really been about the food here and I wasn’t too hungry as I was double lunching (see below).
Address: 6 Old Court Place, London, W8.


Imagination Gallery
A midday meeting with Fay at the inspired Imagination Gallery offices morphed into a lunch as we joined up with Mark Philpott and Phil Roker of Vacherin. This is an exciting catering company that recently opened the new café at the renovated Whitechapel Gallery and also does the restaurant at the Imagination Gallery. It’s really an uber staff canteen. Mark knows his stuff and is a former chef. They are ones to watch.
Address: 25 Store Street, South Crescent, London, WC1. Tel: 0207323 3300


George
I meet with Des McDonald to talk about the London Restaurant Festival. Des runs Caprice Holdings for Richard Caring and both of them are on the steering committee for the London Restaurant Festival. There are several ideas we are working on. Alvin Caudwell – the business development manager for Caprice Holdings and the ‘go to’ girl to get things done also joined us. I can’t reveal what we’re hatching at the moment but will be able to soon. Snacked on the most delicious cod goujons.
Address: 87-88 Mount Street, London, W1. Tel: 020 7491 4433


The Wolseley
Breakfast with Jeremy King, co-owner of The Wolseley along with Chris Corbin. Jeremy was keen to find out more about the London Restaurant Festival and, as the owner of arguably the most stellar restaurant in London, it is important for the festival that he is on board. Happily, he was extremely enthusiastic about our plans and we are now working on the best way to include The Wolseley and also St Alban, their other restaurant on Regent Street.

Jeremy is a man of discerning sensibilities – and a fellow cyclist – so to have his support, and the involvement of his restaurants is yet another vote of confidence for what Fay and I, and the London Restaurant Festival team, are endeavouring to achieve for London. I had a plate of The Wolseley’s delicious kedgeree, a dish that is far too difficult to find on menus these days.
Address: 160 Piccadilly, London, W1. Tel: 020 7499 6996.

 

Wild Honey
Chef Anthony Demetre also has the feted Arbutus in Soho and is a supporter of the London Restaurant Festival. We’re looking forward to seeing what event he, and his business partner Will Smith, come up with for his restaurants, as they are extremely knowledgeable and inventive.

Myself, Fay and Penny Smith – the London Restaurant Festival manager – were having lunch with Dan Thomas, the news editor of Caterer and Hotelkeeper magazine. This is considered by many to be the bible for the hospitality industry and so it’s important that they understand the London Restaurant Festival and are kept in the loop. I’m pleased to say that they are happy to help in any way they can.

Lunch at Wild Honey was typically fresh, well sourced and seasonal. The new season morels with chicken wings in Madeira sauce were notably good as was the chicken and duck terrine and the tartare of Arctic char. Mains included a dish of cod, cockles, chorizo and chickpea and a traditional bouillabaisse.
Address: 12 George Street, London, W1. Tel: 020 7758 9160.


 

By the by…
On another note, I spent a few hours the other evening joining Soho House director of operations Martin Kuczmarski on one of his ‘Night Watch’ tours. Nick Jones, the founder of Soho House, is on the steering committee of the London Restaurant Festival and is helping with various projects. He wondered if I wanted to get a behind the scenes tour with Martin – his extremely capable commander-in-chief who used to work with Gordon Campbell-Gray. It was a fascinating glimpse into the measures one really needs to go to in order to maintain the decent standards that the Soho House group of clubs has built up over the past 15 years or so.

The premise of the ‘Night Watch’ is fairly straightforward. About half and hour or so is spent in each of the six London venues talking to staff, visiting the kitchens, scouring the scenes for any hiccups or inconsistencies. We began at Shoreditch House, which was throbbing with people on the roof as the sun was out. Martin let me in on their new plans for the roof that I promised not to reveal, suffice to say that they are as renegade and fun as you would expect. Then it was off to the Café Boheme, Soho House and bkb to look at the kitchens and listen to any problems staff may have. It’s all done in a very friendly and productive fashion. It was impressive.

We skipped Cecconi’s and headed to High Road House in Chiswick where we had dinner and a chat with the talented Jesse Dunford Wood, the new chef. After we had eaten, Martin and I ran through some of the dishes with Jesse and made our comments. It’s this sort of immersive and responsive attitude to restaurants that makes all the difference. We then repaired to the Electric on Portobello Road to see how things were brewing up towards midnight. The place was fizzing. We had a vodka tonic – just to ensure it was being mixed correctly.

Many of the Soho House Group restaurants will be involved in the London Restaurant Festival. Perhaps we can create a version of the Night Watch event for those who want to see behind the scenes? We shall see.

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My Restaurant Week – delicate octopus at Corrigan’s Mayfair and stellar steak frites at Soho’s latest hot spot

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009

Corrigan’s Mayfair
Met up with the affable Mark Wogan for lunch to talk about the London Restaurant Festival. He has some good ideas. Mark is a former chef who now acts as an agent for the likes of chefs Richard Corrigan and Mark Hix and also his father, Sir Terry. I’m a big fan of Richard Corrigan, not only as a chef but also as a bloke. He has an unguarded passion for food that was sown, as a young boy, on his family’s modest small holding in Ireland. The menu at Corrigan’s Mayfair is still one of the most exciting in town. The dishes, like the man himself, are a welcome affront to the senses. I started with the octopus carpaccio with baby squid, chorizo and feta and then went for the kebab a la Greque with Salt Marsh lamb kidney. The octopus was served as delicate slivers and the smoky zing of the chorizo released flavours in octopus that can be dormant if served lazily. The kebab was buxom and succulent. On other occasions I have tried the suckling pig sausage with oysters and duck tongue, linguine cooked in red wine with pecorino bone marrow and the crubeens beetroot horseradish. The prune and Armagnac ice-cream is stellar, as is the rhubarb soufflé. Richard joined us for a glass of red. He’s extremely enthusiastic about the London Restaurant Festival and will be taking part. I have persuaded him to sit on the London team for our ‘University Challenge’ quiz that will pitch four London chefs against four New York ones. All the questions are related to food, restaurants, recipes, wine and so on. We’re also looking at including one of Richard’s restaurants in the Gourmet Odyssey event.
Address: 28 Upper Grosvenor Street, London, W1K 7EH. Tel: 020 7499 9943

The Wonder Bar

To lunch with Ewan Venters, the inventive and genial food director for Selfridges. Fay also joined us. I never fail to be wowed by the enterprising approach to food at Selfridges. There are well over a dozen restaurants at the store and we met at one of the most ingenious. The sleek Wonder Bar sits alongside the wine department on the ground floor and has a wine ‘juke box’. This is a nifty machine that keeps wine in prime condition once opened thus allowing people to have fine wine by the glass. You can put money onto a card and then self serve if you wish. The food comes on boards and is aimed at those wishing to share. There’s fine Domecq Jamon Iberico Bellota and superb Frank Hederman Beech smoked salmon with capers and beetroot chutney. Ewan sits on the steering committee of the London Restaurant Festival and we are in talks for a very exciting project at Selfridges during the festival.

Selfridges & Co, 400 Oxford St, London, W1A 1AB.

 

Sanctum Soho

Sanctum Soho has just opened and I visited early on to get a feel for the restaurant. I must admit an interest here as A Private View Ltd, the consultancy company I have with Fay Maschler, helped find the chef and compile the menu. He’s a gifted young man called Gavin Austin who is passionate and lacks self-indulgence. He’s a talent to watch out for and cooks with a lot of integrity using simple, well-sourced ingredients. I had scallops with bacon and peas and it was neatly presented and full of distinct flavours. It was also nice and hot. The rib-eye steak was exceptional and the fries hot, crispy and tasting of potato. It will be a few weeks before the place is up to full speed but with the food already this accomplished it’s certainly one to watch.

20 Warwick St, London, W1B 5NF. Tel: 020 72926100

 

Zafferano

Fay and I had lunch with the owners of this popular Belgravia Italian. It’s part of London Fine Dining Group that also has Aubergine, L’Oranger, Allora and Memories of China in its stable, among others. Zafferano is an elegant place serving precise and authentic dishes. The food is always beautiful to look at and they are swift to get seasonal specials onto the menu. I started with some linguine and morels. They were earthy and nutty. The escalope Milanese was thankfully not hammered into the mean-spirited thin offering as is so often the case and is like eating a greasy bit of cardboard sprinkled with pebbledash. Instead it was succulent and the bread crumbs golden jewels. London Fine Dining Group are keen to be involved in the London Restaurant Festival.

15 Lowndes St, London, SW1X 9EY. Tel: 020 7235 5800

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My Restaurant Week – Oysters at J Sheekey, Sichuan tapas and the best burger in Belgravia

Tuesday, April 21st, 2009

J Sheekey
During lunch at J Sheekey with Chris Hughes, the effervescent character behind the Taste food events, we discussed having a bit of a shindig during Taste to tell people more about LRF. Taste is a partner of the London Restaurant Festival and will also have an event during the inaugural LRF in October. I never tire of J. Sheekey. It’s refined without being stuffy and the recently designed oyster bar is one of the most delightful places to sit and eat in London’s West End at the moment. It’s redolent of the oyster bar in Grand Central Station in New York but more intimate and better food. We sat in the main restaurant which is no less agreeable and I had some sound oysters and an excellent bream, simply pan-fried.
Address: 28-32 St Martin’s Court, London, WC2N 4AL. Tel: 020 7240 2565
Book online

Sukho Thai

Dinner with friends at this Thai restaurant that remains, to my mind, one of the best in London. The service is sweetly deferential and the food is presented with delicate modesty. The tom kha soup and the soft shell crab are particularly good as is the fresh tuna in spicy lemongrass and mint and the corn fed chicken with cloud ear mushrooms.

Address: 855 Fulham Road, London, SW6 5HJ. Tel: 020 7371 7600

 

The Pantechnicon Rooms

You can get one of the best set lunches in town at this elegant neighbourhood bolt-hole on the rapidly emerging hot spot of Motcomb St. It’s owned and run by a savvy young team whose first project was The Thomas Cubitt Pub on Elizabeth Street, just down the road towards Victoria. Theirs is a canny operation. They take ordinary pubs on the Grosvenor Estate and transform them into extremely well designed, and finished, pubs and dining rooms. The Estate loves them for it and so do the locals if the packed house when I visited was anything to go by. I had an excellent burger with a beaker of piping hot fries and a beer for £12. I’m going to head back soon as I gather they’re about to start serving muntjac deer – very pioneering and delicious too. I gather they’ve just bought The Orange Brewery on Pimlico Road for their third venture. Good luck to them.

Address: 10 Motcomb Street, London, SW1X 8LA. Tel: 020 7730 6074

 

Ba Shan

In keeping with the current vogue for small plates of food this new place in Soho specializes in the more unusual dishes from Northeast China. It’s Sichuan tapas in a way and known as ‘Xiao chi” (small eats). The restaurant itself is intimate and dressed as if to resemble a cross between a marketplace and an authentic, simple Sichuan restaurant with small wooden benches. The effect nibbles at edge of naffness but manages to avoid a full-blown feast of foibles. I was a guest of Richard Vines, the restaurant critic for Bloomberg and a supporter of The London Restaurant Festival. The smiling staff, many having just arrived in the UK, was engaging and helpful despite some language difficulties. I loved the lotus leaf buns, five-spiced beef and jia mo with cumin-spiced beef. For a full review you should read Fay Maschler’s in The Evening Standard. Read Richard Vines’ review here.

Address: 24 Romilly Street, London, W1D 5AH. Tel: 020 7287 3266

 

The View

Not in London but this unprepossessing little place above Whitsand Bay is well worth mentioning and a real find. It’s far superior – and far less expensive – that Rick Stein’s places in Padstow on the north coast.  I had sardines that had been simply grilled and not fiddled around with followed by an exceptional piece of turbot. All local suppliers and the head chef/owner Matt Corner is notably talented. He runs it with his wife Rachel. Also, the name of the restaurant is no shallow claim as the view across the sea to Rame Head is breathtaking.

Address: Treninnow Cliff Road, Whitsand Bay, Cornwall. Tel: 01752 822345

http://www.theview-restaurant.co.uk

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