London Restaurants by category
It's been a while since Gilgamesh opened. The 800 seat 'super restaurant' landed in pre-gentrified Camden Lock market in 2006 like a blinged-up supertanker gatecrashing a Levellers gig.
Visually, it's stunning. The diner-to-be ascends a narrow escalator, which opens out into an atrium space, a cavernous daylight-filled dome, stuffed with ornately carved dark woods and squadrons of hushed staff. It's definitely one of the more extravagant spaces in the city, as distinctive as the tall tower dining of the Shard and its ilk.
Sadly, it didn't take long to go downhill on a recent lunch visit. Paper towels, scuffed and peeling menus and cheap, unwrapped disposable chopsticks clash with the opulent surroundings. We were the first people in at 12.30 on a weekend lunchtime, and indeed the only diners for a while, so maybe they only bring out the good stuff (and staff) for the beautiful people later on in the evening.
It's a surprise that it's so quiet, given the vast hordes chowing down on hideously stodgy, reheated muck from the noodle merchants below. Despite the prices being more Chelsea that Camden, Gilgamesh have a set lunch menu at £12, so are not so far from competing in price and are surely a step above a styrofoam tray of MSG. I think there's more they could be doing to create a welcoming entrance - either that or they need to actively compete with the serried ranks loudly peddling their deep-fried chicken drowned in gloopy sauce, and offer people a taster.
Given the pricing on the main menu, the disparity between the pricing of the set dim sum menu and the a la carte causes some confusion. The latter offers a pan-Asian mix with most main dishes hovering in the £17 to £25 level, the former offers 3 'types' of dim sum for £12. With no idea how much that might deliver us we go a la carte.
Mushroom dumplings were green, glutinous and somewhat grim. They filled a steamer basket like claggy shopping bags filled with a lukewarm mushroom vol au vent mix. Similarly, an £8 dish of three unremarkable chicken gyoza arrived flabby and too cold again, their skin lacking any crisp or crunch. Mottled, soft and wrinkled like swimmers who've spent too long in a municipal pool. Overall, the mixed temperature of the food became a lunchtime theme, with most dishes just not hot enough. Admittedly, it's an enormous restaurant, but it didn't take so long to get from the kitchen to justify the tepid temperature of so many dishes.
Ribs were of decent enough quality meat, but had been cruelly treated. Cooked in (or at least covered in) a glossy oilslick of black bean sauce, tasting like a sweet soy that had been punched in the face by a rogue gang of star anise pods and not much more. A rare high came with great tempura prawns. Scattered with a sprinkle of crushed something, jade green methamphetamine maybe, they were as moreish as they were fresh, though four of them for £17.50 is definitely on the steep side.
Conversely, the T'n'T 'sashimi' pizza (I'm not entirely sure that's where best to place the quotation marks, but they need to go somewhere in a half-baked concept like this) wasn't the best idea of the day. There's a T for the tuna, wafer-thin slices of very good sashimi, thrown away on an over-salted flat biscuit base and violently assaulted with truffle oil (that other T) and acerbic micro greens.
The Chef's sashimi selection was thickly sliced, lumpen and way too cold for the flavours of the fish to have opened up. I wasn't expecting Dinings or Umu standards, but I was hoping for better than M&S. We've moved on with Japanese and Asian dining in the capital, it just doesn't feel like the team at Gilgamesh has noticed. Two pieces each of salmon, tuna, prawn and (I think..) mackerel were plonked down unceremoniously by the server unannounced and unexplained.
At £40 a head for an a la carte lunch with no drinks it's difficult to see me being back to try their evening atmosphere, though I'm sure that for some, the idea of a roped-off luxe lounge in the heart of newly wealthy Camden is de trop. It's a world away from the Hawley Arms that's for sure. But come here for food? I'm not sure I could do it (and I'm not sure anyone else does). It's a gigantic bar and club that also serves food. Overpriced mediocrity I know your name. And it is Gilgamesh.
DISCLAIMER: We were invited to dine here (anonymously) by the restaurant. We walked in unannounced, paid in full and then were refunded by the restaurant PR after we'd left the restaurant.
When I was a young man, there was a weekday evening TV programme that reviewed computer games. This was back before gaming became mainstream 'popular culture' and were just the thing that little boys did after they'd graduated from Panini stickers but before they had discovered Rebecca Burley's cleavage and the intense joy of illicitly obtained cigarettes.
One of the many features I remember from the show, other than the venerable Patrick Moore as the titular Gamesmaster dispensing advice on how to reach previously unachievable levels and slay end of dungeon bosses, was the hilarious Viewer Reviewer section. Each week a pasty faced young limb from the provinces would be given the first play of a new game before reporting back in the way of any normal twelve year old confronted with adults and a TV camera: "I liked this game, it was good." they'd intone nervously. "The graphics were good and the sound was, um, good". Warming to the theme, "overall this game is recommended. If you like that sort of game". Hardly Giles Coren, but then who am I to talk?
The Blues Kitchen on the Camden High Road makes all the right noises, and some of the things it tries, it manages to pull off perfectly. On a Wednesday evening at 7.30pm, it's slick, reclaimed brick and artfully themed interior is packed out and booked out, so much so that we're told by the chipper and efficient front of house that there isn't a table until 9.30. We slink back across the road for another pint before being called with a cancellation.
Staff are universally friendly, funky and devoid of the 'tude one might expect given the locale (and the crowds). Beers from a slim list of US crafts are pricey, but a wonderful set from house singer Katy Anderson and her band the Rumours is as deliciously well done as it is unhyped. In hindsight, I'd have opted to sit nearer, have a couple of beers and enjoy the set more.
The menu is, unlike the bar, a pretty straight summary of good ol' Louisiana stylings. And the selection of burgers, fried or BBQ'ed goods and gumbo certainly fit the design theme. Like the teen reviewer of my youth though, I can't get round the fact it was all good, but 'just' good. Despite the potential to be so much better. A shared platter of sliders were fair enough, perfectly adequate support to the band and the beers, though the new house special of deep fried alligator tail fillet could have been chicken or pork given the level of cooking it had endured in it's panko crumbed prison.
The mains were united in three aspects; great ingredients, cooked well but woefully underpowered with their seasoning. My St Louis pork ribs were perfectly juicy and tender, cooked perfectly over (allegedly) aromatic wood chips, but just didn't have any flavour to them. Lovely meat, but someone had totally missed the marinading stage. Cooked nude, without the thick umami kick and spice a good sauce should have brought, they were just 'nice', sadly no more than that. The same, even less forgivably, was true of the gumbo… A deep slow cooked stew of seafood, meats and spices shouldn't need to be liberally salted and peppered just to render it edible, especially when otherwise it was so well prepared. It was puzzling though maybe that's 'fine' if you're not a big fan of the duurty BBQ experience.
Sadly, despite the stunning rhythm 'n' blues and the friendly staff, I can't see that I'd be back in a hurry for the food. It's a great option if you are unlucky enough to find yourself trapped in Camden of an evening and more than adequate for a night of music and drinks, but the food feels very much ancillary to that. "Overall this place is recommended. If you like that sort of thing".
To badly (and incorrectly) paraphrase Samuel Johnson, "when a man is tired of kebab, he is tired of life."
Marathon Kebab House is a local hammered foodie legend. It's a real institution. And there could be two definitions of that. Somewhere that's been in situ serving local kebabhounds so long that it's passed into popular mythology; or somewhere you get dragged screaming towards when you've lost your faculties and are desperately in need of an intervention.
For the ever smug Chalk Farm locals, it's both. A hot bed of dirty Doner kebabbery guaranteed at the end of a long boozy night and the last place you remember walking into as you wake up with the whiff of chilli scented shame on a 'too old for that, my god what did we do' Sunday morning.
Generation Y have no doubt expunged it from their moral compass, too poefaced or saddled with uni debts to have fond remembrance of the joys of the late night elephant on a stick. For the barefaced bechilded Bacchanalians it's a blast from the past. A dirty hot grill upfront and a groovy cliche of sticky tabled late night embuggerance out the back.
I'm not going to try describing the food. If you have to ask, or really want to know, you shouldn't be here in the first place. I've never walked in sober, but I've never walked out hungry. I can't deny I've never lost it down the u-bend, but it was almost certainly the fault of that second-to-last Sambuca.
Deal with the crowds on a weekend. If you haven't had enough they do lukewarm cans of lager. In the day you could get ten Bensons with your kebab roll, ideal if you'd stumbled out of a nearby gig desperate for a smoke. Oh and there's often a guy dressed as Elvis doing karaoke out the back. He's a regular, a member of staff or a fevered dream, but you won't know till you go there properly steaming drunk.
Where: Bento Cafe, Parkway, Camden
How much: £18 for lunch for one, not cheap considering...
Come here: if you're in the area and craving Japanese or seeing a show at the Jazz Cafe next door
Best not to judge it on looks, Bento Cafe isn't the prettiest spot, inside or outside... Stuck on one of the most unlovely junctions in Central London, Camden Parkway, It doesn't look too smart from the street, with a curling menu in the window, but there have been some reasonable reviews and I couldn't really stomach the thought of Camden Market 'street food'...
Stepping inside, I was pleased to see a sushi counter piled high with fish, though there was slightly too much pre-cut fish for a restaurant that had only just opened its doors. Like the decor, the extensive menu laid in front of me is slightly tatty round the edges. They cover the gamut from tempura to teriyaki, tonkatsu to donburi and a wide range of nigiri, maki and sashimi. The photos certainly look professional, and there are some interesting choices, particularly in the mains (mainly between £8 and £10 a portion, other than the more expensive black cod). I was briefly tempted by Hotate Mentaiko, grilled scallop with superior roe sauce (though a little unsure why it might be superior...)
The bento box, a lunchtime special at 6.40, came with a good sized, fresh portion of rice, a neat side salad and slightly muted pickles. The chicken teriyaki had a good flavour in the sauce but was slightly too dry otherwise. The vegetable gzoyas were the least successful element. Measly parcels of sad that could have come from the aforementioned Camden Market stalls.. I also grabbed a plate of mixed sashimi, a tale of two halves. Meltingly sweet, quality salmon, yellowbelly and mackerel, it arrived fridge cold (I knew there was too much piled on the counter) and in lumps just too big to enjoy. The fish was tender and yielding, with particularly excellent tuna the consistency of foie gras. Once rendered into smaller mouthfuls and slightly warmed it was lovely.
Nice enough if you're in the area and craving Japanese or seeing a show at the Jazz Cafe next door, but not worth a special trip. If you're in the area and just hungry, I'd suggest there are better pickings to be found.
