London Restaurants by category
Where: The Nordic Bakery, Golden Square. I'm partial to a good breakfast. It's been said before.
This cool little Scandinavian place sits among the behemoths of the film universe in Soho's Golden Square. The square and the store are both packed solid with lunching film makers and local office workers on a weekday lunchtime, this drizzling Thursday morning sees them both empty.
The space is beautiful. Spare design, concrete walls and dark woods. Being a bit of a design nut, I absolutely love the regional furniture in here. Authentic, utilitarian and perfectly constructed. They're so (rightly) proud of it that it's listed on the menu like a local ingredient. After I sit down a regular walks in to prep for a meeting. With black cableknit sweater, thick horn rimmed specs and a stylish leather iPad case he was a true Scandinavian cliche, looking like he should have been in Oslo or Copenhagen.
Most people will sum Nordic cuisine up as being broadly based around meatballs, pressed or pickled fish and vodka (with Dime bars included if you've been to Ikea recently). However a trip to the Nordic Bakery will also add the unassuming sounding cinnamon roll onto that list, and probably lead to a Homer Simpson drool moment too. The bakery offers a simple coffee (served in beautiful Aino Aalto glasses, design nerds) and sandwich menu with a variety of regional specialities. Gravadlax, luscious pressed salmon in a dill pickle served with dark nutty rye bread, boiled egg served with mustardy sharp pickled herring and Karelian Pies, a Finnish potato pasty in a rye crust. All perfect for sitting with in the sun on Golden Square and almost enough to make you forgive ABBA.
Breakfast here means only one thing for me though, the cinnamon bun or korvapuusti as it's known to the sugar hungry Finns. Each nation has a variant. 'Designed in Finland, made in London' states the menu. Presumably made in London because it would cost too much to ship the gigantic yeast dough rolls, laden with a moreish toothsticking sugar cinnamon syrup, from their native Finland. One of these and you're clear past lunch, two of these and you'd be clinically dead. Warmed and served with a short latte it's the perfect breakfast pick me up, thick, chewy and moreish - but almost more than this correspondent could cope with. Only a few steps away from the beautious Portuguese pastel de nata served at nearby Fernandez and Wells but a continent away in style. Both serve great coffee and a sugared breakfast treat in their own, culturally diverse way and one of the joys of Soho is that you can sample both on a regular basis. Just woe betide your waistline...
With who: My inner devil and Mrs Jones
How much: With a couple of beers and a cheeky 50% discount on the food we spent £20 a head in The Draft House.
Cool Japanese clothing designers reading Huffington on their iPads sat in organic cafes selling artisan coffee and cake. Yank bankers in civvies, park Porsches with expensive baby seats and small dogs alongside asymmetric art students.
Quirky coffee houses with regulation Gaggia (Gaggi for the plural?) that roll into cool West Village style bars in the evening. Estate agents hunting in packs and florists by the (obviously organic) bakers dozen. Old churches, old factories, Zandra Rhode's Textile Museum and the throwback of Al's, a proper working man's cafe. A strong sense of renewal.
It could have been Hoxton, but things are moving south. Bermondsey is well and truly reborn.
It might just be the perfect street to take a stroll on a Saturday, and is a great one to introduce out of towners put off by Brick Lane's bustle. If you can't find enough to occupy you at nearby Borough Market, then take a stroll down Tooley Street. A host of people have hit up Zucca with reviews, mostly positive, describing it as a near perfect local Italian with a modern twist and praising its emphasis on fresh ingredients. Village East was stylishly ripped (deliberately) from the area of Manhattan giving it the name and among the coffee bars, the Bermondsey Street Cafe is a perfect spot to people watch over an organic soya latte (or a double espresso - whatever floats your boat).
On Bermondsey Street, pubs like the Woolpack and The Garrison have given up on their working class roots and now sell upmarket (with prices to match) gastro vibe with (that word again) artisan brews on tap. They've got some serious competition now with the arrival just round the corner of another of Draft House pub from Charlie McVeigh. While 'chain' can be a dirty word in the restaurant world, and 'concept' a filthier one, every now and then you find someone who makes it work. On the evidence of the three Draft Houses he now has, it could very well be that McVeigh is one of those.
It's not really fair to review so quickly after opening, the place is in soft launch as highlighted by still unfinished corners and a 50% discount on food, but then I'm not really a reviewer so I doubt I'm breaking a code or will cause too many sleepless nights for the team there.
The space is interesting. By which I mean odd. It grew on me after a while, though that may have been the excellent Kiwi Macs Gold lager I was sipping so easily. Decor as standard for refurbished 'rescue' pub, Farrow & Ball shades of grey and a beautiful restored bar packed with pumps (twenty four draft beers and ales on tap, each with their own glass, it's a sight to behold). Oddly though, they've channeled New York Diner for the tables, chairs and artwork. It feels slightly disingenuous but by no means bad. I quickly got used to the lime splash of the banquettes and focussed on the beer in hand. Once it's packed with people, it'll make little difference anyway. I'm not sure whether they have a no music policy, or if it's one of the bits they're still waiting on, but I did feel the lack of music, could have done with something in the background to cover mine and Mrs Jones inane chatter.
The menu is classic, competent gastro pub. 8 mains, a handful of snacks / starters and pates, burgers and steak. I don't think there was a dish on there I wouldn't eat, and I'll certainly be back for a go on a rolled rabbit, mint and lentil starter (not yet ready to roll sadly) and a plate of Lincolnshire belly pork with a black pudding hash. As it was, we went for the red blooded option. Mrs Jones had a perfectly cooked ribeye packed with flavour and I went for a steak tartare. Sadly, it was 'pre-mixed', something I've never been a fan of. One of the best things about tartare for me is being able to chose the ratio of herbs, onion and particularly tabasco that flavours the raw steak. There's also something pleasingly visceral about breaking the egg into the blood red mince. On a positive note, the steak was beautiful and for my palate, the chef got the flavours absolutely spot on, though I'm someone who likes a strong tabasco kick and this might have proved too much for others. I don't know I was overly keen on the chips or the bearnaise either. Neither was bad, but the chips wilted a little and the sauce was too thick. There are however, strong signs of a real quality in the ingredients and my starter of buttered brown shrimps on crostini was among the nicest versions of this particular dish I've ever had. rich nutty shellfish cut through with a hint of citrus in the sauce.
I love the fact that the beers can be served in 1/3 pint glasses, giving you chance to try some really interesting brews. The wonderfully helpful chap behind the bar was very happy to chat through the list, pulling us a taste of an intriguing Schlenkerla Rauchbier, a 5% beauty that tastes of smoked ham. I couldn't manage a pint (and they don't sell it by the pint) but it's good to see that they're going for flavour. It's a bit too far away for a regular post work pint, but is a great go to option when in the area, and I'll be making a few trips just to work through that beer list.
With who: Drama Queen and the Booker
How much: Starters around £3/£4 and mains between £7/£10. We spent £20 a head with drinks.
There's something very egalitarian about chain restaurants. They simply don't care who you are and aren't at all bothered about trying to impress you specifically. No bookings, you turn up, wait your turn, and get the same service as everyone else. In his excellent review in the Guardian, Jay Rayner recounts how he had to stand outside in the queue with the rest of the rabble too, slightly discombobulating I've no doubt, for a man used to a certain level of recognition. After a late afternoon meeting over wine (the best sort of meeting) me and my two guests thought about staying in the rarified atmosphere of the Ivy Club but in the interests of investigative research joined Mr Rayner and other food luminaries by queuing at Dishoom.
Dishoom has been referred to (mainly by the PR team) as a Bombay style cafe. An egalitarian, open all hours canteen serving taxi drivers, students, writers and lawyers (according to their puff anyway)...None of those stereotypes were notably present on the night, predominantly, our fellow diners were more the middle class braying London types you traditionally find clogging up the greener parts of zone 2.
There's got to be a book written for this. 'Food Branding 2.0 - lessons for the post Pizza Express generation'. Like the equally insipid Jamie's Italian next door, and 'gourmet, authentic Mexican fine dining experience' (more PR bullshit) Cantina Laredo next door to that, the team behind Dishoom seem to have swallowed the whole volume, hook, (press) line and sinker. It's somewhat sinister having all three of them next to each other. It's the kind of line-up better suited to touting for passing trade outside a Croydon multiplex rather than prime real estate in the centre of London.
The food is casual, safe and generic Indian (at risk of insulting a large country). It doesn't seem to come from anywhere specific, and certainly didn't bear any relation to what (admittedly little) I know of the hot, spicy street food of the region. For a coastal city, you'd expect fish to feature heavily, the best they could do was a 'Dill Salmon (that well known Indian fish) Tikka'. Our starters included Bombay Sausages, a student dinner party staple of the future fusing chipolatas, onion and curry paste, Chilli Cheese (on) Toast, pleasant but utterly underwhelming, and a dish called Keema Pau, minced lamb in a ragu style sauce served alongside a muffin. These came with fridge fresh pickle pots and a highlight, perfectly chilled Meantime Union beer.
Our main courses were similarly pedestrian. The Chicken Biryani was nicely presented in a clay pot with a pastry seal but arrived dry, beautifully but subtly fragranced and lacking in a core ingredient. "Do they serve the chicken on the side?" questioned the Drama Queen, apparently not, it was just hiding (very well) in the rice. The taste was as subtle and shy as a thirteen year old at a school disco, it felt like nothing more than an accompaniment. The Spicy Lamb Chops came with some semblance of taste and some of the vim and zing you'd expect from a decent kitchen. Beautifully cooked, tender and juicy, they were the one high point for me. The final plate, a Lamb Boti Kebab was dry again and chewier than expected. When the Insider called and summoned us back to the Ivy, we didn't have to think too long and hard.
There's a niche in the market for a chain Indian, and Dishoom gives a good argument for filling it. For anyone who's ventured within a mile of Tayyabs or Lahore in the East End, or been to some of the great curry houses of Birmingham, Southall or Bradford you're going to be left wanting. That being said, if you're stuck in theatreland with kids or random relatives who "don't usually like that spicy foreign stuff", you could do worse. And if that isn't damning with faint praise, I don't know what is.
With who: Teacher Boy
How much: between £4 and £8 a plate, we went for 3 plates each and were absolutely stuffed.
The Masticator doesn't like tapas. It's something to do with the concept of owning one's own food, ordering and eating enough to sate you and knowing that you can eat whatever is in front of you without feeling greedy or that you're depriving others. He doesn't like the cut and thrust of sharing plates, the complex social dynamics that come with ensuring you have enough of what you fancy, while appearing like a generous and sociable dining partner. It's a difficult dance, and especially difficult if every morsel of food is utterly spellbinding.
He won't like Polpetto.
Small plate dining, associated with the tapas of Spain and the mezze of Greece and Turkey, appear all over the region. The less known Venetian equivalent, chicchetti, have many similarities. Combinations of meat, fish and vegetables, often served with bread or polenta. Can't go wrong. In the past few years, alongside several excellent new Spanish joints, we've also been lucky enough to welcome both Bocca di Lupo and Polpo to Soho. The latter, a buzzy little place on Beak Street, was opened by Russell Norman (ex Caprice Holdings) to solid reviews and even more solid word of mouth. A strict no bookings policy at this 'locals' restaurant led to regular queues down the street once the word had spread. It looks like he could be about to do it again with Polpetto, a beautiful little matchbox above the French House.
The room is a cube, up the stairs from the Frenchie, and small with only 20 or so seats. A high ceiling, simple light walls, and the middle class garden trick of mirrors in window frames make the most of the space. Like that other Soho stalwart Andrew Edmunds, the cheery but casual staff, wonderfully flavoured rustic food and informal dining style aren't likely to win any Michelin stars, but I doubt that they care. I've talked before about the good old days of the Soho lunch (see my Dean Street Townhouse review for reference) and this is yet another gem to add to the list.
We dived into the fascinating menu with three dishes apiece, checking that would satisfy (while leaving room for desert). Meat, meat, meat, meat, meat, meat and potato. It's what happens when boys are left on their own with menus. An appetiser of roughly chopped chickpea and anchovy came pepped with garlic and thyme served on crostino. Perfectly flavoured, confident, rustic cuisine (well, it was served in mismatched bowls). This was a statement of intent.
What's the point in being a 'grumbling' gourmet asked Teacher Boy, if you keep going to restaurants that you can't grumble about. True dat. But if it means I get to eat at places like Polpetto more often, you can just call me Gourmet from now on...
THE CURSE OF THE RESTAURANT OF DEATH... LE PETIT PARISIEN IS NO MORE, REPLACED BY THE CROOKED WELL
Where: Le Petit Parisien, Camberwell
With who: Teacher Boy
How much: £8 for a burger, other mains between £8 and £15
I've been here a few times under the current ownership, and it's certainly the most pleasant in its latest incarnation, a French style gastro pub and cocktail bar. The inside is a little unwelcoming with generic faux leather club chairs in the bar and dark wood in the restaurant side. Over the summer they've got a selection of street furniture that's pleasant enough on the quiet leafy street (and yes, we do have those in Camberwell too). The service is friendly though chaotic at times and when the food is good, it's very good.
The kitchen focusses on French and pub staples with an occasional Algerian twist. Not a bad brunch option too (especially during the summer months when you can sit outside). On several occasions recently I've recently had an excellent steak frites here, the cheap onglet cut, cooked brilliantly on each occasion with a load of taste, perfectly accompanied by a brace of lagers or a bottle of house red. They also have a well regarded cous cous night every Friday that I've been meaning to check out. My last visit was hopefully the exception to the rule. Having a hankering for a burger after a few beers with Teacher Boy, manfully struggling his way through the privation of a 6 week holiday, we decided to give Le Petit Parisien a go. It wasn't terrible, but was sadly just rather forgettable. The burger was lacking in all taste, other than a slight oily tang, it was overpowered even in taste by the, randomly square, ciabatta bun. A floppy side salad came undressed, the chips appeared twice fried and a measly portion of salsa on the side came straight from a pot. It's a lovely place to go for a summer evening drink if you're local, and not a bad option for inviting friends dubious about visiting the area, it's less gritty than most. If you're going to go for food though, stick to the steak frites...
Where: The Crown, Victoria Park
With who: Ed Hitter and a host of other work types
How much: starters around £5/£6, mains between £9 and £15 and pork pies at the bar for £2.50
When one of our team won a dance class in a work raffle there was no way that we weren't all getting involved. Twelve assorted writers, editors, business types and a random designer who happened to be in the room when we discussed it. I'll leave those who know me to imagine this class. Less of the Ballet Russe, more Ballet Grosse. We fell out of the class covered in sweat and neon. You can take a man to dance, but you can't always make him spin (in a coordinated fashion). We fell over the road still in our street-dance costumes and into the Crown.
When Hackney gentrifies, it does so quickly. Sloaney pub chain Geronimo takes a dicey neighbourhood boozer, though admittedly one in a beautiful old Victorian building, across the road from the tower block guarding the entrance to Victoria Park and turns it into somewhere you'd expect in the monied parts of South West London. This also put us into the deepest depths of Hackney, an area I'm not familiar with, even after more than ten years in the capital. Call me biased and parochial, but I can get my squalor closer to home and it's rather too close to the asymmetric haircuts of Hoxton's bars and cafes. We all have areas we love, and I've never had a Hackney state of mind.
Usually, I'd be channelling the burger in a place like this, and certainly as a precursor to a night of fairly heavy drinking, however it had only been 24 hours since my last one and not even I can justify that. I'd also had a fairly awful fish and chip lunch quite recently at their West end outpost The Adam And Eve and didn't want to have another pub standard massacred by mediocrity. As such, I turned to a Butternut Squash and Red Onion pancake with goats cheese. Don't judge me, I was wearing neon leggings and a crop top. More pedestrian than a German rambler and aggressively priced at a tenner considering the costs of the ingredients (a perennial whinge with vegetarian dishes - How CAN it cost more than a burger or a fish fillet to buy?). It's a great concept for a dish, wholewheat pancake filled with a roasted, slow cooked mix of squash and onion and wrapped like a parcel. The goats cheese then sits on top before it's thrown under the grill and served with a balsamic dressing and rocket. It just didn't deliver. Pleasant enough, all of the elements needed to be turned up by 30% (with the exception of the rocket, at the hight of its peppery heat).
Man cannot live on pork alone... He needs hot salsa, guacamole, refried beans and a tortilla wrap too.
A fledgling chain operation, Tortilla provides freshly prepared burritos, fajitas and tacos to the worker drones around their central London locations. Their newest site is almost directly opposite my office and just couldn't be ignored.
I went expecting to grumble, suspecting a lack of authenticity, flavour and most importantly spice, and from the second I walked in nothing disabused me of this feeling. There's a real feel of the franchise to the decor here. Walls covered with faux brickwork and wipe clean prints of other more authentic carnitas joints back in the old country (well, California). One of those serve it yourself Coke machines occupies a wall, and a counter contains the take away necessities amid bottles of extra spicy sauce.
We worker drones joined a long queue towards the counter where the servers each prepped a section of meal, none trusted with the complete picture, all asking the same questions to each person. "Lime or Mexican rice sir?", "hot, medium or mild salsa madam?" I made the mistake of trying to give my full order to the first person in the line, only to have to repeat it another 5 times as I was taken down the production line. my wrap grew, through rice, beans and the all important meat stage (braised pork natch), past sour creams and guacamole, "would you like guacamole sir that'll be 50 pee extra" before heading into the all important final spicy straight.
Dear reader, I paid. It's about a fiver for the pork, chicken or veggie rolls with steak having a 50p supplement, certainly not overpriced for central London lunch fodder. Taking my foil wrapped flour roll torpedo back to the office I have to confess to being slightly excited by the weight and the heft of the thing as I took it out of the bag. Initial tastings of the tortilla wrap didn't blow me away. Bland and slightly too doughy with no discernible taste of its own. I know it's a different cuisine, but I much prefer the wrappings they use at Moolis, a company so obsessed by their flat breads they travelled to San Antonio, Texas to pick up a specific brand of flatbread maker (they've nicknamed it Moolita, bless..) - that's the sort of bready obsession with detail I'm looking for.
However I've got to say that it does get better from here. The carnitas pork ha obviously been marinated overnight and pulls apart easily. The whole meal (other than that tortilla) is spiced and flavoured with reference to authenticity rather than a milder European palate. The rice and beans do their job but aren't overloaded in an attempt to cheaply bulk out the wrap and the hot salsa is heaven... a deep dark red dredge of chilli, properly loaded onto the groaning wrap. Tingling heat and a softer slower burn, as Gregg Wallace would no doubt say if he'd joined me, "That's An Accomplished Sauce".
It's across the road from my office and it works for a spicy, quick lunch fix. I could go to the more accomplished Benito's Hat on Goodge Street, but you know what, I'll very seldom be bothered walking that far for anything other than Moolis, and if they ever move up the road to Market Place, I'm moving in.
With who: Northern Mother
How much: £25 for three largish plates to share, at least half a loaf of their excellent sourdough bread and a nice glass of Voignier.
Arriving back in London via Liverpool Street on a Sunday still has me straining at the leash to hit Spitalfields, but since my chain resto disappointment detailed last month I've totally lost faith with the 'old' market, and now loop round it to hit the Up-Market (geddit, geddit!!!), Truman's Brewery (for the inestimable Rough Trade Records) and the food stalls clustered around the top end of Brick Lane under the new and shiny Overland line.
That being said, a new street food dim sum concept eatery called NOW has just opened on Liverpool Street and I'm a sucker for concepts, especially steamed ones, so I hauled Northern Mother along there. Before walking in, I'd been entertaining hopes of a dim sum version of the legendary Moolis and hadn't, yet, realised that it was part of the Ping Pong chain. It's fairly obvious as you walk in that's where they're from and the initial view was disappointing. A pared down range of pre-prepared parcels sat in their take-away boxes in a central steamer. I would report on the food but the four staff took ten minutes to serve the couple in front of us, seemingly not happy for them to leave the counter and refusing to move to the next customers until every item had been commented on, loaded onto their tray and paid for. As for the concept of lunchtime dim sum boxes, they've certainly got to get a lot better at actually serving the stuff at speed, even if it does just arrive pre-packed from a warehouse in Slough.
A derisory stomp past the grockles queueing outside Wagamama and The Real Greek brought up Commerical Street and a cheeky sidestep into St John Bread & Wine. It was like diving into a cool outdoor pool on a hot summer's day. The high white walls are reminiscent of a butcher's shop from bygone days and the tiled floors, piles of bread and high windows remind me of my grandmother's pantry. The casually efficient staff glide between the close parked tables with insouciance and slot us neatly into a spare two top. Owned by Fergus Henderson and sister to the splendid St John in Farringdon, this, the smaller restaurant, is a more casual spot, opened some seven years ago when they needed room to expand and moved the bakery operation down to Commercial Street.
The food arrived as it was ready, looking like it could have come from the rose tinted pantry of my childhood. Potted pork with sweet pickled gherkins was creamy and moreish, with a salty kick and a pleasing bite. It was an enormous portion for the price and perfect spread on the rapidly diminishing pile of sourdough. This was followed by thin sliced Middle White ham, served with a side of crisp, tart and mustardy piccalilli and the light lunch finished off with thin slivers of a nutty and slightly sour Ticklemore goats cheese, served with freshly shucked raw peas and topped with peashoots. Food of champions.
Where: The Nordic Bakery, Golden Square. I'm partial to a good breakfast. It's been said before.
