The Riding House Cafe - a touch of the Caprice Holdings? Apr 2011

Where: The Riding House Cafe
With who: The International Man of Mystery and others
How much: small plates are £3-£5, mains hover over the £10-£13 mark.
Come here if: you're looking for a new creative digital agency, or you've got a meeting in the area

Lunchtime in another 'restaurant of death'... Not that anyone has actually died here, it's more a term that implies that it's never really settled as a venue. The previous incumbents, Curry and Lager (someone needed to give their brand consultant a good shoeing for that one), talked a good game, and sold a pretty decent all you can eat buffet, but never really looked like they were for the long term, laying their hot trays down on jerrybuilt stands over the remains of London secretary haunt Bar Ha Ha beneath. Such is the pageant of London's restaurants. Some you know will, and should, close within months, others fight on against all hope and others just feel like they've always been there.

Even within the first couple of weeks you get the impression that the team behind The Riding House Cafe will be there for a while. Searching around for the feel, I was initially gunning towards it being someone in the Russell Norman mould. There’s definitely the organised attention to detail you’d expect with an ex alumni of the Caprice Holdings group. Casual it may seem, but there’s an eagle eye for their brand of casual, clued up perfection and design at the top of the operation and that attention permeated through the staff on our visit. On checking, it’s actually from the team behind Bermondsey stalwarts The Garrison and Village East. Similar wrong side of the tracks chic for a creative relatively monied local market makes it obvious if you’ve been to the other two.


The name is a little bit disingenuous, it's open from 8 till late for three services, but the cafe similarities end there. It's a relaxed, casual bistro with a lot of thought behind it. They've certainly spent a lot of time, effort and money on the stripped back, 'found' chic aesthetic. Bare walls and pared back ceilings, bare bulbs, bleached woods and Victorian tiling are the backdrop to old French cafe tables and chairs alongside some beautiful blue swivel seats at the long, lovingly reclaimed bar. So far so good. The smart staff are uniformed to match the local office workers, dark jeans, shirts and matching marl jackets wouldn't look out of place in one of the creative meetings bound to occur here. It's only the sheer numbers of them (and the fact they're not iPadded up to the eyeballs) that allows you to differentiate.

The lunch and dinner menu is more substantial than the Cafe moniker might suggest. Plates of small sharing food occupy the top half of the menu, neatly priced at £3, £4 or £5, a popular recent trend and here pleasingly priced. It’s a bit all over the shop with no clear style; Moroccan nestles with continental bistro classics, Eastern treats sit next to solid British bites. That being said, there are some simple gems there and it’s easy to eat substantially for £12 - £15, priced well for the local office market as a weekly treat. I’d have trouble defining anything as perfect, but there’s nothing that doesn’t need just a small tweak from the army of chefs on show. Squid and chorizo came in a spicy tomato sauce with fresh olives, slightly too many flavours for the well cooked but subtle squid. Roasted butternut squash with sage and (sadly unnoticeable) chilli should have had a little more crisp to it for my money, but for three quid it’s hard to complain. 

Other ‘smalls’ sampled include a very competent lamb with a superbly spicy aubergine puree and a tasty if slightly dry pork belly – three big cubes made a good enough impression for me to put it down to teething troubles and a minute too long under the heat lamps. The final two dishes continue the slightly odd world tour. Tuna ceveche, that lime ‘cooked’ tartare from Latin America, was another substantial portion well doused in spice and flavour (though lacking a little in lime according to The International Man of Mystery), and a steak tartare, a favourite of mine, here slightly over ‘prepared’ (ie pre-mixed with a touch too many capers, onions and herbs), it was difficult for the beef to shine, but I’d certainly give it another go.

Spread over two lunches, I also had time to sample the Tichfield Burger. An all too rarely seen sloppy mix of darkly pink flesh (I didn’t stop and get the breakdown, no doubt others will) cooked medium and nestled plumply on a controversially seeded (and slightly too chewy) bun. It wasn’t the worst bun I’ve had, and was certainly of a good quality, but didn’t quite ring true. The meat was excellent. The Tichfield comes topped with a fairly proportioned slice of grilled foie and thinly sliced and slow braised onions, both rendering down and sinking into the juicy meat like an upmarket sloppy joe.

It's a well run, happy place and a perfect addition to the neighbourhood. They seem up for feedback and I’m definitely hoping they’re part of the local dining scene for a long time to come. It’s certainly starting well and I’ve booked for next week already...