London Restaurants by category
Watching a good friend pull a cum face as she loads soft, crumbly, chocolate cake into her mouth makes me shift uncomfortably in my chair. Trying it though, it's not difficult to see why I was (briefly, until I started my own pud) wishing I was having what she was having.
It's not that Bouchon Fourchette is doing anything innovative to make us squeal, or that its genre-bending, future fusion food is turning our knees to jelly. This is more the lovely sensation you get watching something work, pretty much, as it should do.
It's a labour of true Gallic love. For the food, and the wine, and the insouciant atmosphere of a hundred and one small town bistros. God only knows why you'd try and recreate any of that on the most unloved part of Mare Street, but someone obviously felt that they were up to the challenge. Thankfully for the casually tattooed locals, they look like they might be.
Inside, you're snugly insulated from the roaring of Mare Street by the atmosphere, if not quite the ersatz decor. Concrete floors, cabinets half-inched from a house clearance yard and reclaimed 70's school furniture are fun, but closer to a supper club in an artist's studio in the 20th arrondissement than a 'proper' restaurant. Still, it is Hackney after all...
I'm sure there's a very specific European word for a menu that consists only of things you desire to eat immediately. Mackerel rillette, dense and well-seasoned with the fragrant tang of juniper berries, came with jewelled pomegranate seeds and slices of earthy brown loaf (unexpected and an improvement on the general standard sourdough). Densely lardy saucisson was more than adequate too.
Our main was a well-hung and gamey cote de boeuf, as well cooked as I've had for a difficult lump of cow such as this. Proudly carved table-side, and at £35 with sides for two people, one of the best priced cuts of steak I've had out for a very long time. The side of spinach arrived towards the end of the meal with a cheerfully shouted apology to our table by the kitchen for forgetting it, and I'm back in that supper club again.
Barely-together creme caramel whispered to me like a sultry French chanteuse, the minxy little temptress wilfully ignoring the fact that I looked (and sounded) like Mr Creosote after that Cote de Boeuf. Much as I love it, such a cliched dessert rarely lives up to expectation. This one did, and certainly made up for the fact I wasn't heading for a cocoa-based knee-trembler like my dining companion.
The wine list isn't seemingly one for experts, it's one for drinkers. A handful of bottles, all available by the glass or carafe too, with nothing that isn't fizzy over £35. They bounce casually around the world's wine regions and have obviously been selected by someone who had a bloody good night trying them all, rather than a suit seeking to maximise profit ratio.
Slight niggles? I'll give a shoulder shrug and a scowl for the need to pay for my bread. Lovely it might be (white baguette, natch) but it's not really done these days. I'd make a bigger deal of it if it wasn't offset by the pricing elsewhere.
Bouchon Fourchette doesn't exactly feel like a restaurant, and that may be its biggest strength. It's like being cooked for by unhurriedly fashionable friends with astonishingly good taste in food and wine. Get them to invite you round for dinner soon.
http://www.bouchonfourchette.co.uk
It's the squatters, street artists and DJs of Hackney who made Hackney the hotbed of creative cool it is today. Unfortunately where they led followed the city trendies, design agency wonks and sub Nathan Barley meeja types all clamouring to claim that they've been here since, you know, since it was anything cool and now pack the restaurants and pubs (if not the bars and factory parties) for their fix of foods grown in locavore's allotments and on the factory rooftops of experimental urban gardeners.
It's more likely the latter camp and the Bugaboo bound broods of the latter camp, who pack the reclaimed wood tables of Mare Street eatery Lardo and next door cafe Unpackaged. The crowd is crowded with middle-aged men in clean designer trainers and trendy Kate Moss style mums who lunch. There's nothing wrong with that per se, especially if they're encouraging eateries like this to spring up.
Exposed brick (yawn) and upcycled furnishings might be last years trope, but it 's hardly out of place in this old factory and arts complex with its beautifully restored Crittal windows, daily menus on a clipboard (of course) and humming central bar and kitchen. Delightfully arch staff flex their tattoos as they twist through the tables straight out of hipster central casting.
There's gold on them there menus though. As you'd expect given the name, they go a bundle on meats here and digging on swine is what we came to do. It's a short but pleasing selection of sharing plates (yep, them too) of meats and veggies, small salads, pastas and pizzas from the wood fired oven in the centre of the kitchen.
'Lardy loin' came, as hoped, as the melt in your mouth thin strips of nutty fat that can only come from a happy pig. Impossible to stop eating. Arancini weren't large but were delightful, packed with morcilla and oozingly appropriate Italian cheeses like an advert for lactose and a ravishingly beautiful Pecorino, broad bean and mint salad was truly greater than the sum of its parts, if not quite enough to cope with the local yoot questioning its credentials.
We followed that with a shared salamini pizza. Fudgey soft button sized discs of picante salami pressed into a fresh sourdough base and covered with lashings of chilli oil. Mighty fine. There was nothing special about the tiramisu that finished the meal, but I suppose you can't have everything…
Next door is the slightly less easy to pin down Unpackaged. The hipster equivalent of those fresh goods stores that your Nan used to take you to. One half of the room is given over to an enormous and oh so eco selection of dried food bins. There's no way you could run out of spelt pasta or steel milled muesli round here, thankfully, there's no way you could run out of gorgeous looking breads and pastries either.
Only there for a quick breakfast, it was enough to make me brave the granola. Squidgy black beans came with dollop of sour cream, avocado and the welcome spike of raw chilli. Generously and pleasantly spiced and served with some of that sourdough bread, it kept me going till the evening. Who says vegetarians have no fun?
I'd never really entertained the hope of these little pats of goodness arriving in London, much less in a recognisable format or as close to the warmly unctuous soft pocket perfection of the originals. As such I was only mildly interested when I first heard about the Yum Bun stall at Broadway Market on a Saturday. "Hackney copycats" quoth I dismissively, certain that they'd not live up to my memories of the original. Lucky for me they were serving their pork filled pockets at the Actor's Touring Company Gala and I was able to sample one or two (definitely no more than three, and only because I was given a spare..) after a spectacular evening at the Arcola watching The Golden Dragon.
They're almost as good. And that's enough for me. The joy of the originals is somewhat in their surroundings. I mean, if I'm eating them, then I'm in New York, and that makes me very happy in itself. These are lacking somewhat on the fat, the Blythburgh pork is damned tasty, but other than one bun they just lacked a bit of the sweetness that comes with a strip of properly melting fat. Other than that, I can't fault them at all.
And if you need another excuse (or two) to go to Broadway Market...
It's home to another of my favourite snacks, possibly the best banh mi in London, served (with enormous snaking queue) at the otherwise utterly delightful BahnMi'11. Marinaded and freshly cooked pork, beef and chicken (not to mention an amazingly piquant turmeric scented catfish) are prepared over authentic Vietnamese griddles and served in homemade rice flour baguettes with coriander, chilli and veggies. Food. Of. Champions.
If that hasn't done it for you, then stick around till the evening, and get involved with the Argentine grill at Buen Ayre (see here for a recent review). While not as well known as Borough or Spitalfields, for the food alone, I'll be making the trip up to tease the trendies again.
Where: Buen Ayre, Broadway Market, Hackney With who: Mrs Jones How much: More meat than even I can eat for £23 a head. A phenomenally priced Argentinian wine list too, with several at around the £12 mark, several decent Malbecs under £20 and very little that went above £40.
I've been pulled up on the largely erroneous name of the blog a few times recently, and I have to say in my defence, that it's less about me lacking in discernment, and more to do with the recommendations I get. I'm not afraid to grumble if what I've had has been piss-poor (yes La Tasca, I'm looking at you) but it is hard to grumble when you visit somewhere with such a genuinely positive vibe.
If the Gaucho Grill is the 18 stone bully of the Argentinian Steak House scene, kicking sand in everyone's face and making you think that they invented the art of grilling meat, then Buen Ayre is definitely the speccy nerd. Except that this speccy nerd really knows how to look after himself.
If ever a man were born with a steak knife in his mouth, then that man must be Buen Ayre's co-owner, John P. Rattigan. Born to expat Irish parents, a nation not slouching when it comes to fine cattle husbandry, on a cattle ranch outside Buenos Aires, he eventually moved to the UK to set up Buen Ayre. His title is not Chef, but Asador - the title given to those Argentines who shoulder the heavy responsibility for the BBQ - the high priest who officiates over the holiest holy of Argentine cuisine.
So Buen Ayre is a steak restaurant. That much is clear. There is no point going here unless you too worship at the altar of meat. 45 covers only, it could sit quietly in the corner of one of Gaucho's barns. They run two sittings, 6.45pm and 9pm, and I'd advise the later one... trying to stagger through this quantity of meat in 2 hours is a challenge.
The centre point of the rustic Hackney restaurant is the authentic parilla that takes pride of place in the bijoux open-plan kitchen. It's a huge metal grill, custom built in Argentina, on which the slabs of beef are stacked before being lowered onto a base covered in glowing charcoal. The sight of the grill, a bovine version of the Spanish Inquisition, groans with meats and sausages and serves to highlight why you're not here for the salad. I would describe the rest of the restaurant, but dear reader, I didn't notice it. Wood? Maybe some pictures? Sod it, I was here for the meat...
Bread (standard white baguette and a couple of Jacobs crackers) was rescued utterly with a heavenly mix of blue cheese and butter to spread. God knows how good that would have been on nice bread. It came with a brace of homemade empanadas; crumbly buttery pastry cases like spicy Cornish pasties enclosing fresh, hot fillings, designed to take the edge off our hunger. I couldn't stop with the blue cheese mix, determined as I was not to ruin the steak to follow.
We went for the Parillada Deluxe. A metal tray heated over some of those charcoals, served to your table with a selection of steaks, sausages and cheese (yes, cheese, I'll come back to that). The tray arrived dwarfing the diminutive server, the pair of steaks stacked precariously over the grill. The deluxe comes with a 14oz sirloin and an 11oz rib-eye, both served the rare side of medium rare (to the possible detriment of the fattier rib-eye), sizzling slightly on the plate. If this wasn't enough, the grill also contains two large sausages, disappointingly dry this time but I've been assured that this is a rarity, and four nuggets of a homemade spicy, crumbling black pudding. And a disc of creamy provolone cheese with a topping of dried herbs, sizzling away in a corner of the plate, pulled away in artery threatening lumps. Nice as it was, it felt somewhat extraneous, like they were really trying to fill you with as much fat as you could take. Vital, tasty, life affirming fat for sure, but I felt towards the end of the marathon a little like a force-fed goose. The meat for the record was good. Very good. And certainly one to wave under the nose of anyone who has ever uttered the sentence, "I never bother with steak, it's all too samey for me". I won't mention the char, or the marbling, or any of the other phrases that confirmed meatheads will bandy around, but will confirm that the flesh was deep red throughout and had the most beautiful, almost sweet, taste.
We didn't have time for desserts, feeling slightly rushed at the end of our time slot. It's unlikely we'd have had room for any, but the option would have been nice. A swift espresso then instead, before rolling off into the Hackney night. I'll be back, and will find it hard to go back to the Gaucho after this. Have a look, you won't be disappointed. 
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).
