A short review of Lemonia, Primrose Hill - June 2011

Where: Lemonia, Primrose Hill
With who: The Ginger Prince, Mrs Ginger Prince and others
How much: A toppy £25 per person for a glass of wine, shared starters and a main. Most mains are keenly priced at between £13 and £17
Come here if: you want to live like the beautiful people, or you're stalking Jude Law

Every tribe in London has their place. The well to do theatre crowd colonise The Ivy, Sheekeys and Joe Allens and the hedge fundies have Scotts or Goodman. The smug monied media mass of Primrose Hill have Odettes and posh Greek charcoal grill Lemonia.

It's been a local fixture for years, almost certainly in existence before the arrival of the creative agency types and the minor celebs attracted by the villagey vibe and bucolic rusticity of the little street off the top of Regent's Park. Sandwiched between delis and dress shops Limonia has a reputation above and beyond a thick menu of competent Greek cuisine. Arriving late, sodden with rain and lager, we managed to slide into one of the booths in the atrium at the rear, a table overhung with flourishing greenery from the low hanging roof planters.

Mixed meze and pitta forgettably dealt with early hunger pangs. I went for a slow roast aubergine dish topped with a smooth paste of minced lamb and cheese, served on a bed of creamy spinach. Not accomplished cooking by any means but hearty fare in variance with the thin and fashionable regulars. A couple of companions, more regular habitués than I, went for lamb chops from the grill. Slim shards of perfectly crisped fat along the bone were a delight to gnaw, but the meat wasn't quite pink enough for us.. the charcoal grill giveth but it also taketh away. The accompanying chips and rice were largely and deservedly unnoticed.

Right place at the right time? It's certainly got a place in local hearts and with the crowds it gets, the management won't be bothered that I'm not a super fan. I'd be happy to eat here again, but only if someone forces me to spend time in the many nearby bars first.

   

Jose and Zucca on Bermondsey Street - June 2011

Where: Jose and Zucca, Bermondsey Street

With who: J School and Dr Vole

How much: just over £40 a head for the entire evening. Sherries and starters in Jose are between £3 and £6 and you'll struggle to spend over £18 for 2 courses at Zucca.

Come here if: you want to try a range of great restaurants in a relatively small space

We'd finally hit summer. Friday night spent lolling outside the pub and a perky Saturday of sun and fun with walks wearing shirt and no jumper. A continental day ended appropriately with a hoped for but unscheduled aperitif stop in Bermondsey tapas joint du jour Jose. Owned eponymously by Jose 'Brindisa' Pizarro and garrulous business partner front of house expert Herve, it's finishing the job that neighbour (and final dinner destination) Zucca kick started and making Bermondsey, Street at least, a real foodie destination.

I have a slight problem with tapas restaurants out of their native environments, and it's that you can't crawl. The joy of tapas for me comes with a gleeful bowl around the neighbourhood and a bite and a glass in each joint. Moderation, exercise and a pub crawl in one. With a little help from Herve, we may have cracked it.

Prior to dinner and after a long warm walk, I was ready for a glass of something dry and crisp and cold. I steered us into Jose, keen to have a gander. The white tiled space focussed around the marble slab bar feels uncharacteristically out of place in South London, the heat emanating from it even more so. A combination of the small room, a large stove surrounded by Jose and his brigade, no air con and a sunny day meant I nearly lost the others at the first hurdle. The place was packed, no more than 25 in there, but it's enough not to want to be there when it's busier. No reservations means that like Spuntino you're going to have to come early, or be prepared to wait. As Herve explained, they're not aiming for the (London) bridge and tunnel crowd but hoping to add something to a great little local scene prior to opening larger restaurant Pizarro later in the year.

I sucked down deliciously dry sherry while we gorged, an early doors licensing quirk meant no booze without food, on a couple of the delicious tapa from behind the counter. We grabbed a couple of plates judging they would suffice as starters. Sea fresh boquerones, juicy white anchovies, came in a light and sweet seasoned cava vinegar, Murcian speciality pisto, a simple full flavoured Spanish version of ratatouille, came with a perfectly fried duck's egg. Giant yolk flecked with salt looming over the the plate reminding us of the late spring sun. Despite the specials board (cruelly featuring crab and basil croquettes the next day) you'd struggle to make a full meal out of the place, but that's partly the point. Grab a couple of plates, and move on. We admitted to Herve that we were going on to Zucca for our mains; "there you go then! There's your tapas crawl.. start here, mains at Zucca and then on to Village East for a cocktail or dessert." Tapas crawl, Bermondsey style.

Dinner at Zucca is always a treat. It's always worth a try on the day, you might be lucky, but generally it needs booking. If you want the perfect example of a local restaurant, it's right here. Seasonal fresh and good ingredients, reasonable prices and friendly knowledgable staff. It's not a difficult combination, but it's surprisingly hard to find. The buzz in the bright, light room is palpable. Intending on only a main, we were upsold to a shared Zucca Fritti, their house special - lightly deep fried sticks of pumpkin and squash, breads and then given a complimentary plate of spinach frittata. No complaints from this one, though my stomach did let out a moan on seeing the size of the veal chop that followed. Having written about Zucca a couple of times before, I'll happily attest to the meal being up to its usual standards and urge you again to go if you haven't.

And the dessert? Not a chance. Though by the time we dragged our distended bellies out of the door, Village East was just starting to get going. There are worse ways to spend a Saturday night...

Short review of El Vergel June 2011

El Vergel is a lovely little (mostly) Chilean deli and cafe on Southwark Street. A big old space under a new build apartment block, it's got a half finished air, make do and mend fixtures and furniture slightly at odds with the industrial open pipe and wall effect of the shell. Living nearby and having read a recent description on the excellently written and beautifully designed blog Rocket and Squash, it was on my list of places to try. As it turns out, we just happened to walk past one day.

The deli counter at the front hosts entire families of empanadas when we rock up, during the week I'm assuming it's full of the various salads that make up their lunch menu, fuel for the nearby office workers. There's also a range of sandwiches, a few tacos (including a range just for breakfast) and a tostada or two.

Stopping off for a caffeine hit on our way through and arriving too late for their 'special latin breakfast' (it stops with the parsimony of a seaside B&B at 11am even on weekends), there was obviously only one thing left for me - the aforementioned empanadas. A reasonable £3.50 each, hot and homemade, served with refreshing chilli crackled green salsa. This cuts through the slight fattiness of the pork mince encased in the soft pastry shell. The meat is robust and plentiful, oozing out with intensity, spice and the depth of flavour that comes from a long slow simmer. Will definitely be back for the latin breakfast.

The Eagle - possibly the best steak sandwich in the world - June 2011

We've all been there. Half way through a night out and you're regretting the straight from work sprint that meant you didn't eat since lunch. If you're as lucky as I was, you're in Farringdon and The Eagle is round the corner.

Most days you'll struggle to get a table in the stripped back, frequently copied old saloon bar. Seen in a thousand, thousand pubs since the place opened in 1991, it's hard not to feel at home among the mix and match furniture and the junkshop aesthetic. There are a couple of spots to watch chefs and bar staff dance behind the bar cum kitchen that ranges down the back wall too, but these tend to be taken with drinkers, thankfully as welcome as diners in the first come first served hierarchy of the place. That being said, there aren't many drinkers who don't dine when the food is as well known as this. Lunchtimes are local, it used to be the Guardian's de facto office canteen when they lived next door, now it's full of the crazy and the creative. Close enough to piggyback Exmouth Market's vibe and established as a gastro mecca, it's never too quiet in the evenings either.

A handful of regularly changing mains each night scrub from the long blackboard above the bar as they finish. Maybe they were too early for the small plate revolution, but other than a lonely Serrano ham, olives and bread, there's not much for the snacker here. Arriving mid-session, my belly was crying out for the Bife Ana, their sandwich of thinly sliced rump, marinaded in a garlic and oregano heavy chimchurri and slapped on that open grill behind the bar. Thick and tasty meats squish into floury white rolls, holding together long enough to soak the juices before collapsing like a beefy sigh into your mouth. One word of warning though... If you're there with a date, just make sure you share, there's enough garlic there to dent an entire vampire trilogy.

Venice - a (mainly foodie) round-up - May 2011

Overview

Don't come to Venice for the food alone: you'll be sorely disappointed. Come for the serried ranks of Murano glass tat, pushy gondoliers, the ever-present carnival masks and the tourist hordes instead - at least, that's what you're going to get. Most people are here for the canals and the romance, and the odd little alleys and sun dusty squares where it's just you and your lover. When she's pretty, she's really pretty, the effect too often reduced by the aforementioned tourist hordes.

Snaketails of umbrella-led tour parties predominate. While luckily less so in the spring, the cruise ships and coaches still regurgitate vast lumps of the very old and very young, united in their ability to irritate as they wind down the narrowest of streets.

Venice is viewed from above like a leaping fish; avoid the tourist packed San Marco at the rump like the plague. Aim instead for cheap and studenty Dorsoduro occupying the belly, quieter Canareggio at the head and dorsal and San Polo and the Rialto in the centre. The last of these, the food market at the heart of the city both literally and metaphorically, is worth an early morning trip for the still-quivering crustacea and iced piles of lagoon-caught fish, fresh veg too and all gone by 11. If you must go to St Mark's Square, go early and escape to the Rialto afterwards. We hit the misdescribed 'must see' square at 8.30 and were heading away from the cobbled tourist trap towards the Rialto Market before the menu touristicos were fully unfurled.

The local food scene
The name of the game in Venice is chichetti or polpette. Tiny bites on tiny slices of bread or small breadcrumbed balls of ground meat and fish. There's local pasta, the best utilising the excellent seafood bought from the market. There's pizza too, piles of it, the Japanese Knotweed of Italian food. Not specifically native to the region, but ubiquitous.

Both bacari and osterias serve surprisingly cheap local wine, prosecco and snacks. Bacari are often tiny hole in the wall joints where locals will grab tiny glasses or ombré of wine and a chichetti from the bar counter for a couple of euros before moving on to the next. The one nearest our hotel for example pumped out stunningly flavoured pork sandwiches and 1Eu glasses of prosecco from its postage stamp sized serving hatch. Osterias tend to be larger, still with a standing bar, but often with table service too. Don't bother trying to find a certain place, much less at a certain time, it's almost impossible on the winding streets and much like obsessing about seeing that specific band at Glastonbury. The fun is in the giro d'ombre, the Spanish-style wine bar crawl.

Some advice on standing at the bar. Do it and you'll feel smug and local (and pay less than a euro for a cafe or an ombra of wine) but play by their rules. Don't take up too much space or time and make sure you order quickly and efficiently when you catch an eye. Don't expect obsequious service or a menu, that comes at the pricier tables at the front.

I also became slightly addicted to local cocktail the spritz. Prosecco mixed with sweeter Aperol or Campari, dryly bitter either way, like an orange-scented Jack Dee. It looks wrong, and is so right. The perfect early evening pick-me-up served and stirred with a fat local olive.

We were only there for a couple of days, enough to find a few places to recommend but certainly not enough to claim any level of authority. If you go, and you should sample it at least once, then the best advice I can give is to get off the beaten track, avoid the tourists as much as you can and get involved in the local scene. 

A couple of recommendations for dinner
Al Zucca had a broad vegetarian slant, essential for Dr Vole, not the meatiest of eaters and at the wrong end of a pork odyssey. It's obviously in a guide or two as many of the customers seemed American or British (much like the rest of town, it's hard to feel like a cosmopolitan world traveller when every table around you is full of mothers with broad Lancashire accents). While the cries of 'vegetarian restaurant' were as obviously fake as they would be in many other parts of Southern Europe, there were enough vegetarian options to make you feel like they were making an effort. A few weeks later and I can't recall specific dishes, but I don't have a great memory for side dishes..
La Cantina was a real treat. Exceptional. No menu (repeatedly asking for one got two obnoxious Americans ejected) merely a selection of the best the market could offer from a grumpy bald genius hidden away behind a meat slicer. We shared a plate of fish, at €25 per person not cheap, but astoundingly good value for the amount and quality received. Fresh raw prawns and plump langoustines were sweet, creamy and served semi nude to be sucked greedily out of their shells, perfectly cooked fillets of meaty turbot, dorade and mackerel were lightly seasoned and oiled just enough to let the flavour through, it was simple but heavenly.

   A few highlights from a Canareggio 'giro d'ombre'
Around the top of the island between the Jewish Ghetto and the Rialto bridge sits Canareggio. Strada Nova runs through parallel to the Grand Canal, Murano-selling and mask-spattered by the train station, more lovely as you go round and home to a good selection of osteria and wine stores. It was recommended by several sources as the best place for an evening tapas and wine crawl and certainly didn't let us down.

Osteria Ai Osti - just off the main street in a little square widens out inside and sells battered crab and fish fritto (deep fried, lightly battered mixed fish) of a lunchtime and early evening. Start there if you can, the battered softshell crab was stunning.

Chichettaria Venexiana has shades of the tourist outside, but we ventured inside to the cool wood panelled interior for excellent tuna and mozzarella polpetti. The urge to explore deprived us of their house specialities, sandwiches of ham and cheese surrounded by battered aubergine 'bread'. Other places nearby were so-so, but as nothing is over a couple of Euros you begrudge it less, fire down your ombra and stroll on.
Alla Verdova is, we belatedly realised, something of an institution. It's as old as the hills and has been successfully balancing the local / tourist apartheit system for many years. We stayed at the bar for wonderful polpette, snapped up by the waiting crowds as soon as they hit. There was a larger selection here too, but I did wake up the next morning fantasising about those meatballs.

We also spent some amount of time in a tiny unnamed wine store, signed only by a barrel outside. Ranks of chichetti and some very accomplished pork sandwiches. The vino came from enormous bottles of house, and by that point, giggly drunk, I can confirm that it tasted of 'wine'. There were a number of others, some with salty clouds of creamy baccala served on chichetti, others for (foolishly) a solo ombra and one with a soggy mussel 'sandwich' that tipped Dr Vole over the edge. The same rule of thumb applies here as anywhere else. If you're the only people in there, you haven't found a hidden gem, just botulism...

The Rialto Market
For centuries the centre of Venetian life and still critically important. It's open early, with the stalls along the narrow streets and courtyards operating till lunchtime. Go as early as you can and take a look at the vast piles of fresh, pulsing seafood that make up the daily diet for many Venetians. As you'd expect, there are a number of places serving it for you then and there.

Tiny osteria All'arco gave me possibly my favourite experience of the trip. Standing at the bar, jostled by the workers finishing their shift, drinking wine at 10.30 in the morning (well, they have just finished work, and I am a lush, and a holidaying one) I turned to Marco the barman. We bounced different words and translations off each other to get a rough approximation of the plates of chichetti he and his father prepared daily from the best ingredients of the market. Packed into a corner, listening to the salty Italian chat of the stallholders I tucked into no less than three variants of salt cod, all prepared from the same base. Baccala Vicentzia came first. Hot, with capers and loosely flaked, it was neither salty or overly fishy but robustly held up the other flavours. It then came flaked with garlic, mayonnaise and chive and finally as local favourite Baccala Mantecato, deeply creamed with decent olive oil, it's breathtaking, simple and hideously moreish.

I'd also recommend Al Merca, another of the typical hole in the wall style baccari selling wines, a good selection of panini piccolo and the ubiquitous polpette, Bancogiro and Naranzaria. Anywhere this close to a tourist site of the magnitude of the Rialto Bridge needs to really go some to be a viable option and thankfully the last two are part of a row of decent options that share a perfect little terrace overlooking the Grand Canal. They weren't the cheapest of the places listed, but were both several leagues less than the over-priced pizza joints in San Marco and well worth it for lunch or an early evening spritz and a few snacks. Bancogiro has a Japanese Italian chef so expect ludicrously fresh sushi and the occasional Oriental twist.

View Some Venetian highlights in a larger map

Thanks as always to Dr Vole for putting up with me turning holidays into food focussed flights of fantasy and to London restaurateur and Venetian food expert Russell Norman whose boundless enthusiasm and opinions on the food of the region were supremely useful. He's the owner of some excellent restaurants: Polpo, Da Polpo and Polpetto all have strong Venetian influences if you've been inspired, Spuntino to a lesser extent, and all are well worth a visit..