Mildred's - a review finally - Oct 2013

Another recent step back down Memory Lane. Gearing up for a trip to the Edinburgh Festival recently, I needed nothing more than vegetables and pulses. If you're that determined to give your flabby middleaged stomach and liver a kicking, at least have the decency to treat it healthily first.

I've always been a fan of Mildred's, ever since I was lucky enough to score an office opposite the place over ten years ago. It was never a place you'd waste on a dinner with suits. The unreservable tables are too close together, the service is amiable if too erratic for client entertaining and the menu a flustered mix of clichéd vegetarian comfort food and esoteric rabbit droppings. I'm delighted to report that nothing has changed in the intervening years.

Although it sounds like I'm gearing up for a slagging I'm really, really not. One of the reasons Mildred's has been there for so long is that it hasn't changed. And the regulars who crowd the front galley bar, flirting with the staff and each other while waiting for their table wouldn't have it any other way.

That cramped bar belies the gorgeously lit conservatory roofed space you walk out into. Light, bright and loud, it's packed every lunchtime and full from 5.30 every night.

Those veggie clichés are hard to get past. It's been a long time since I've been able to get past their doorstep thick mushroom and ale pie, thick chewy pastry scattered with seeds, stuffed with a glossy dark chunky filling you'd swear only a dead (and happy) cow could supply... If I sidestep that, then I get tackled by one of the tastiest bean burgers imaginable or tonight's punishing two footed tackle, a piping hot, bean and chilli feast of a burrito.

Taking up the space of a small child (or approximately an eigth of the size of Michael Gove's self regard) it squats ominously on the plate alongside some ill-judged and entirely erroneous greenery. Blistered white cheese (no one including the server is quite sure what sort) is baked into the carapace and the inside opens to a rich bean melange. It's inauthentic as hell but tasty and filling. The coconut curry with sweet potato was fine, verging on microwave hot, but instantly forgettable. There are a number of salads, various specials and a number of ways with quinoa. The wine list is

Sure it's not a place for a business meeting, and I'd think strongly about the impression you were going for before taking a first date there. But it's a wonderful place for a healthy, filling feed with your very closest friends, and that's why it's one of my favourite places in London.

 

Comptoir Libanais - a pale imitation - Aug 2013

Micro chain Le Comptoir Libanais aims to bring fast, affordable and 'fun' Lebanese casual dining to London. The first branch, in Westfield, obviously worked well as there's been a slew of them opening up elsewhere.

Having never understood why there aren't more casual lunch spots like this, I was initially entranced. Sure it's got a 'stop me and buy one' schtick borrowed from a Jamie's Italian or a Bill's Produce Store, with everything from salad dressing to handbags on sale in the souk inspired space, but it doesn't have quite the corporate roll out feel that you'd expect from one of those. Tightly and brightly jewelled shelves, a packed glass chiller at the back stuffed with healthy greens and cartoony colourful furniture - it's a lovely, fresh and open place to be on a summer's day.

Sadly, it was hard to be anything other than underwhelmed by the food we had over lunch. Simple and authentic it might (just) be, tasty it sadly wasn't.

I ended up with an overly salty halloumi salad, the four cold bits of squeaky cheese nestling apologetically on a bed of long ago prepared salad doused in an acrid dressing. The olives particularly were excruciatingly overpowering, exploding in the mouth like slimy, saline paintball pellets.

Alongside that we shared a plate of mixed mezze. A large enough portion, but nothing like large enough in taste. We left most of it to be collected, uncommented on, at the end. 'Highlights' included large dry falafel cannonballs, setting the cause of that noble dish back by years, their claggy mouthfeel reminding you why your mother always had to force you to eat chickpeas.

Alongside underpowered baba ganouch came glow in the dark purple stained turnip light sabres and kebab shop pickles. A brace of chiller cold pasties of indeterminate sort were also less than the sum of their (long ago prepared) parts - sparse filling sunk to the bottom like sediment in an unloved kettle.

Will it be a success? Sadly, almost certainly. Though the central locations will struggle to bring people back for a second visit, particularly if Yalla Yalla shifts up a gear and starts to roll out branches. Would I go back? Not without some coaxing. London isn't short of decent, authentic fast food in this style, it's just a pity that, with the exception of Yalla Yalla and Momo on Heddon Street, there ain't much of it round the central parts. It's just a pitta that none of the infinitely superior Edgeware Road or Knightsbridge brands haven't capitalised on that yet.

  

 
 

Quo Vadis - My, haven't you aged well? - July 2013

It's been a while now since new chef Jeremy Lee took over at Soho institution Quo Vadis, and even longer since the Hart brothers refurbishment that brought it back onto foodie radars after a decade of sliding standards.

The space gives the impression of being bigger than it is. Room after room of fresh, clean and chic off-whites and brasses open up as you penetrate deeper while thick white table linens mute the noise from tightly packed neighbours, the majority of them the loud and jolly old boys of the advertising type I thought had abandoned Soho altogether.

The little touches from the staff are delicately assured. There's still or sparkling filtered water, a banter if you need, an efficiency of clear and serve if you're obviously otherwise engaged and an eye for attention matched by some of the seasonal dishes on the well turned out rustic menu.

And it's from that short menu that we grab a short but perfectly formed lunch. I wistfully but worthily skirt a chicken and guinea fowl pie, but suffer agonies when it turns up centimetres away on the neighbouring table, huge and gleaming, its buttery smell wafting over the slim divide between the tables. I'm also deeply envious of a huge hunk of bleeding ruby hued onglet steak that arrives next to it, served up with golden railway sleeper-like triple cooked chips.

Thankfully, I get to sample some of those chips with one of the other substantial mains on offer. Coqulet isn't a bird you often see on restaurant menus. In these days of tightly managed animal husbandry too few young roosters, like their bovine equivalents, get out of early infancy. This one made a great case for them to hit more tables though. A hefty half bird was served simply roasted, with gloriously garlicky herb butter squashed into every crevice. Packed with taste, soft, supple and meaty, the bird is more than a match for its stuffing.

Alongside that, there were two simple but effective fishy salads, both ostensibly starters, that worked well to create a combined main course. Young garlic shoots, crushed olives, peas and mint came together well, though the mint was a little overpowering. Beautifully cooked squid with asparagus was much better, a lovely mix of flavours and textures.

It's an accomplished restaurant experience, as you'd expect from two of the capital's more accomplished restaurateurs, and has a quirky but polished charm that should ensure it retains its place near the top of the London dining pile this time round.

 

Top image nicked from the restaurant - 

I was on a business lunch so photography wasn't an option

Clockjack Oven - The romance of the rotisserie - Feb 2013

One of my favourite restaurant memories is that of a tiny little place in Paris called L'AOC. It's partly because I had a wonderfully romantic night there, with the most beautiful girl in the world, but mainly because you just can't compete with roasted meat.

The big selling point of atmospheric, soulful old L'AOC is their rotisserie. Enormous spits of chicken and pork, co-mingled juices dripping and covering lascivious slices of porous potato, thickly cut with rosemary and garlic, gently roasting in the meaty aftermath. After witnessing, and tasting, that you have to wonder how the Parisiens remain so thin (and also wonder who would ever want to eat a simple side salad again).

So imagine how delighted I was to hear that a rotisserie chicken restaurant had opened in Soho, on the site of the sadly missed New Piccadilly Cafe none the less. It must have been the easiest sell for finance in recent restaurant history. Let's just take every single restaurant trend and jam it into one. Chicken with more pedigree than a Crufts winner, a single item menu, no reservations and dude food you're encouraged to manhandle? It's all there. There are definitely eyes on a bigger prize here. Their parent company is called Clockjack Investments and they pre-emptively talk about 'their first restaurant', like they're going to be so busy rolling out new locations they may forget to update the website.

The place itself defines warehouse chic. Smooth wooden sharing tables with concrete walls and the odd flash of London Underground inspired tiling. If they don't make the rent in here, it's the work of minutes to pull out the large rotisserie unit behind the counter and slam in a branch of AllSaints instead. The bench seating is a little ungainly, though it's nice to watch the ebb and flow of Soho through the large windows to the front. Sadly, the large windows on the rotisseries mean you only get the occasional whiff of the slow cooking meat as it pirouettes around the heat. A parsimonious tease rather than tantalisation.

And the chicken? It's good. Really good. As good as you'd hope a free range chicken from a small farming co-operative in Brittany would taste. And for £19 a bird (with no sides), it bloody should be. Despite being nearly double the price of Nandos, an obvious target for comparison, that's not actually as much as it sounds, and it's a good sized beast that feeds two easily with a couple of plates of additional sides. Sadly none that we had were that memorable, but I wasn't complaining. We had a couple of pots of differing dips to spice up the meat though it didn't really need anything much, dense and fully flavoured with a sticky dark skin, it really was a good bird.

So does it compare to L'AOC? Sadly not. I have to withdraw my earlier statement. Shockingly it's not all about the rotisserie. The chicken might be good, but there's just no soul here. It's beyond fine for a quick lunch, but it's not somewhere I'd choose to linger long with the most beautiful girl in the world. 

   Photo half inched it off flickr, so if it's yours, please do let me know 

Mmmm Ramen... hip to the jive - Jan 2013

It's January! And what do you need to beat January? There's nothing like a healthy soup right? And trust me, tonkotsu ramen are nothing like a healthy soup...

After my recent rant about burgers I should be careful about jumping on another bandwagon lest I end up with more on trend foodstuffs I can't write about. After the gourmet meat patty explosion, the latest import popping up is that Japanese addition to the street food canon, ramen noodles. And not just ramen noodles, but the porkiest, most unctuous subset of ramen, tonkotsu.

With ramen, and especially with tonkotsu, the news isn't about the noodles. They're the bread that soaks up the soup. They need to be good, but they're not (really) the story for me. The story is the broth… broth made from pork bones to be precise, long and slow cooked for 15 hours or more until they yield up their fatty bounty into a creamy collagen rich soup. As an advertisement at Shoryu proudly describes it, 'rich, creamy and porkalicious'. Oh, and reader, it is.

I won't write too much about them, but instead defer to Marina O'Laughlin's excellent review on the most recent openings, Bone Daddies and Shoryu. I'd also recommend that you read her end of the year round up on the inexorable rise of trendy, dirty fodder like ramen and burgers. It's bloody funny (and bloody accurate).

Now noodles aren't just meaty delivery systems, there are numerous different styles (ask Mr Noodles, he has almost an entire blog devoted to them) and combinations, but the one unifying rule should be that it's (very) hearty, healthy(ish) and leaves you feeling better than you were when you walked in. Like the Japanese version of chicken soup, this is food that soothes the soul.

I've become slightly obsessed with the Soho venues that have sprung up offering the noodle, particularly ramen, over the last few months. As much because it's the perfect solo lunch or pre-theatre dinner. They all (with the exception of Ittenbari) have a counter that means you don't feel out of place slurping away on your own. Of all of them though, I preferred the atmosphere at Bone Daddies, it's buzzy, fun and resolutely non-traditional. The least authentic of the lot, but the chance to stare out at the passing Soho trade while supping your thick broth means that this is the perfect way to spend a lunchtime. The ramen was almost too porky for me*, packed with salty piggy flavour and creamily unctuous. Served with a rich and shining soft boiled egg and thick slices of the pig whose bones you are literally drinking, it's protein and protein and protein till you can't take any more.

Shoryu feels slightly more authentic but somehow slightly more austere (the cringey communal greeting all of the staff holler as you walk in aside) and Ittenbari, despite not offering the tonkotsu everyone is lusting over, is still often packed, it's shabby interior full to bursting with a silently polite line of ex-pats and Japanophiles queuing out of the door. Tonkotsu has proved the easiest to snag a table at, but here still you'll face a 30 minute wait of a prime time evening. To a casual like me they all taste pretty fine though it's definitely that Bone Daddies stock I wake up after dreaming about.

At between £8 and £11 a bowl it's not as cheap as it should be, but as a once a week treat it beats a burger. Don't kid yourself though, it certainly isn't as healthy as you make out just because you eat it with a spoon and it has veg spiked through it. It's probably not far off the calorie count of that burger if you checked (I won't if you won't). Even conveyor belt kings Yo Sushi are getting in on the game... Ramen vs Hunger emblazoned across their windows. I can't contradict them on that, and given the quality of the rest of the menu, I may not... any reports welcome!

Four spots for ramen in Soho:
Tonkotsu - 63 Dean Street, W1D 4QG
Shoryu - 9 Regents Street, SW1Y 4LR (opposite the Japan Centre)
Bone Daddies - 31 Peter Street, W1F 0AR
Ittenbari - 84 Brewer Street, W1F 9UB
And if you can't get enough of your noodles, then pop round to Koya - 49 Frith Street, W1D 4SG - Thicker udon noodles here, but damnably tasty all the same...


*even now I'm ashamed to have written that sentence...

MASH Steakhouse - There's gold in them there basements - Dec 2012

After Brasserie Zedel, I thought we might have turned a corner in the 'restaurant-prices-like-phone-numbers' debate. A Regent Street restaurant with appropriately sky-high rents and rates offering top drawer scoff you'll struggle to spend £25 a head on. Surely everyone would be onto this?

Now the joint genius of restaurateur team Corbin & King manage this pricing at Zedel with few reservations, lots of tables and very high customer churn, turning tables three or four times a service generating many more, albeit smaller, checks.

So surely, applying that rationale, a similarly ambitious venue next door which has just undergone an equally sumptuous redesign in another vast subterranean space should (if they turn twice in a service) mean that things only cost twice as much? Sadly not. We're back to £100+ a head territory now, as next door neighbour MASH sells steak, and not much more.

The opulent (and obviously masculine) dining room feels designed to appeal to the international expenses crowd: without a view, you could easily be in Dubai, Chicago or Singapore instead of London. Deals are to be done here gentlemen... over steak, expensive wine and casual misogyny. That's a tad judgemental and almost certainly untrue but, being only a Rolex-throw from Mayfair, it is at least plausible.

It has a vaguely Mid West American inspired opulence, though my descriptor is as lazy as the broad theming. Call it essence of robber baron... Thick, plush, arterial-red carpets? "make 'em plusher". Gilded, glowing fittings? "make 'em golder". Bulging list of rare American varietals in a leather-bound list? "make 'em rarer, and add a zero on..."

The shock is that it's not American, but Danish. Despite channelling Smith & Wollensky or Chicago Cut, it comes from the land of stripped pine and Arne Jacobsen chairs. The only sign of this Scandinavian heritage on the menu came with a trio of Danish-origin 70 day dry-aged steaks. I'm not averse to the Stilton-like joys of aged steak, but a 45 day aged piece I had recently from the Ginger Pig bordered on overpowering at times, and anything getting close to 70 is going to be considerably and challengingly funky.

Diving straight in, bypassing a relatively uninspiring starter list, we shared a surprisingly petit USDA Prime Porterhouse. It was wheeled up to be carved on a butcher's block. I was hoping for a lot from an expensive if troublesome cut. Advertised as fit for two or three, in truth it was probably only enough for one and a half or two with sides and starters. The problem with porterhouse is that you have two different cuts, sirloin and ribeye, separated by the thick T bone. Lesser chefs risk missing the balance and pushing the sirloin to a med/well, or leaving unforgiving ribeye fat un-rendered. As far as steaks go, this was a good 'un. Rich, buttery and with a decently deep flavour, it did everything a good steak should.

Along with that hunk of prime meat, sides were measly for the price, and fine, generally just fine. Like supporting dancers in a meaty musical. Chilli fries came with a crunch and a crackle of heat, while a soothingly bland mac n cheese ticked our other carby box. You can't object to either, but at £4.50 a pop, I want to have the best darned carbs in the city.

With a cocktail before, a digestif and a one of the cheaper wines (the leathery New World spell book unsurprisingly offered little below £40), we managed to splash £225 for two, certainly more than I'd expected.

Tangentially, I remember being told by the International Man of Mystery, no stranger to the jet set, that this bland luxe internationalism is welcomed by many who spend half their lives in assorted high-end business hotels. "They want reassuringly expensive stuff they recognise, with the odd plain local speciality, because it's impossible to know how an authentic, highly spiced x, y or z is going to go down when you don't know which continent you're on and your body thinks that it's 4am..." With that in mind, MASH fits the bill perfectly. Just don't expect to see me back without the expense account.

Tonkotsu - souped-up super noodles in Soho - Nov 2012

A year or so ago, a place called Koya opened in Soho. It's a stripped back little place with a sparse menu focussed on their highly revered house noodles, a few dumplings and the odd daily special. It's good, very good, and used to be a real favourite for lunch when I worked locally.

Ramen noodle bars are a pretty big deal in similarly multicultural New York, their equivalent of the recent London burger explosion. However unlike other ultra-successful food trends here it seemed to start, and stop with Koya. The queues, growing nightly out of the blue curtain swagged door told any chancy restaurateur that this could be the start of something big. It's taken a while, but it seems that there are a few others springing up now. A caveat at this point, it could be that there are a load of decent noodle places around that I don't know about, so if you have any other recommendations, drop me a note.

I have to say that Ittenbari didn't wow me as much as Twitter told me it would, the slow braised pork slices were strangely flavourless, though the snaking queues of silently anticipatory Japanese expats gave some clue to the popularity of the place. The most recent to open, the chillingly named Bone Daddy, is on the list.

In essence, it's simple. Pick your base stock and key ingredient, add extra noodles or soft boiled egg if you will and serve. This simplicity is what for some can elevate the humble ramen noodle dish to an art form.

Here the soft egg was burnished bronze perfection, lightly gelatinous white leaking golden savoury depth into the clear stock, thickening and enriching almost like butter. The noodles were perfectly cooked with a slight snap to them (though I'm no expert on the subject) and sank into the life giving, clear and umami packed stock. With expertly crisped chicken karaage alongside, it's a simple, satisfying and savoury lunch.

   

The limp disappointment of Cha Cha Moon - Sept 2012

Alan Yau's 'other' chain attempt Cha Cha Moon could well be described as The Danny De Vito to Wagamammas Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's like a pop up restaurant in a municipal leisure centre, and I certainly don't mean that in a good way.

Stumbling round Soho after a number of drinks we'd singly failed to find anywhere available for food and I'd singly failed to remember quite how perfect Brasserie Zedel would have been at a time like this until it was way too late.

After umpteen false starts, we finally rolled into Cha Cha Moon, somewhere I remember as a reasonable if innocuous local lunch spot from my time working in the area. Not amazing, but not bad, and at 9pm on a Friday night it was somewhere, finally, that had space for us.

The whole experience isn't one I'll be repeating, a courtesy that the food didn't extend to me.

The 'concept' and execution are frankly both lazy. A selection of generically South East Asian dishes dropped indeterminently into seemingly random categories and served as ready (seconds after ordering or minutes after we'd finished in the case of one sorry starter).

Despite the presence of a small army of wok bothering chefs in the open kitchen, the whole operation had the stench of the microwave. Nicci Polo's seafood ho fun arrived, barely lukewarm, minutes after ordering, as if it'd been hanging around from a previous mis-order. Frosty's halfhearted bun noodles were a pale and forlorn imitation of an impossible to screw up staple.

My Crispy Duck and Noodles managed to be both flabby and dry, with almost no redeeming feature except quantity, though that merely extended the torture. The noodles served alongside were undercooked and coated in a coagulating salty brown sauce, like the bastard child of a BBQ Pot Noodle and an elastic band ball.

We shared a selection of small plates, squabbling over who would (dare) finish them off. The chilli squid managed to hit every level of wrongness and thick, doughy potstickers came stuffed with what I can only describe as budget brand sausage meat. The less said about the Sichuan red chilli oil wontons the better, resembling swamp dredged body parts and putting back the cause of regional Chinese cuisine by several years.

At £20 a head including a single acrid cocktail each this isn't cheap fare. Finally seeing sense and retreating to Bar Americain in Brasserie Zedel, I was roundly mocked for not bringing the party here first. They were right.

If it was an attempt to recreate the flyaway success of Wagamammas then God knows it fails, and badly, on so many levels. It has the feel of a chain being readied for rollout but 4 years after this one arrived it's clear that this plan has fallen by the wayside. What's not clear is why this one, surrounded by some of Soho's finest eateries, has not.

   

Zedel abides... 'that' perfect West End restaurant has arrived - Aug 2012

When I was a young West Ender, a posh night out ended up in the familiar confines of Joe Allen. Slightly dirtier ones usually found you gurning round a four top in Balans or playing pinball up the rickety staircase of Bar Italia. You'd gone very wrong if you wound up in Shuttleworths... I was a little young for the Atlantic, that louche, debauched bacchanal under the old Regent Palace Hotel. It's to that space that we head tonight, now home to the newly launched Brasserie Zedel.

It's not an expensive joint. And that's an understatement. Three courses for three people, coffee, wine and service clocked in at £90, phenomenal value given the quality. If this was a vanity project by new restaurateurs, you'd laugh at the prices and imaginging the rows with accountants, vowing to get as much grub down your neck as you could before they whacked the prices up. It's not though, it's the latest venture by two of the biggest restaurant thoroughbreds this country has produced, Chris Corbin and Jeremy King. If the brains behind The Wolesley and The Ivy think that this is the way the industry should price, prepare for the cutting of some prices or the sharpening of some knives...

Bright, airy, tall and gilded. Even though you're in a basement, the whole experience is like being thrust into an Art Deco inspired cruise ship for the night. You could dress up to match if you want to but if you don't really want I can't see that anyone would mind.

The menu reads like a 'Best of France - Bourgouis edition' cookbook from the 70's, in a really good way. Hefty, non sharing, mains are generally under a tenner, soups are less than three quid and other starters swirl the heady heights of a fiver. Substantial plated salads and big slabs of pâté are consumed with gusto while I chow down on escargot as garlically exotic as you remember from that first school trip to France as a 12 year old.

Steak hache is made on site, a triumphantly large patty of the trimmings from proper cuts of beef, a tartare burger if you will. It was a little too solid in the construction but really well flavoured, coming with an inclusive metal cone of proper French fries (another pet hate of expensive places, the sides that should go with the dish should NOT be added chargable extras) and lashings of pepercorn sauce for £8.75.

If the profiteroles were a tad over baked, it only served to highlight that these weren't perfectly pre-prepared, plumped generic pap but homemade and fresh from the subterranean bakery that had been responsible for an excellent (free) bread basket earlier.

Arriving in London today, you couldn't ask for a better catch all recommendation than Zedel, it's there for groups of friends, good for serious foodies glomming at the novelty value, perfect for a classy date and suitable for clients and parents without any of them thinking you're skimping.

I hate to end the review by keeping coming back to it, but i still can't understand why they're charging so little for this food. Sure it's what you'd expect to pay in a provincial French brasserie but this is a newly and expensively renovated spot on Picadilly Circus. They must really hate their accountant, or the rest of the industry...

La Bodega Negra - Mexi-can! Aug 2012

On a sultry Soho night, the office Joes and Olympic trippers trooping down Old Compton hardly notice Kate Moss extinguish her cigarette and stalk back into the sex shop. Is it that regular round here to see a supermodel (retired) in a sex shop? Given the in crowd's current predilection for hip Mexican La Bodega Negra, hidden behind the porny facade, it's probably not that unusual dahling.

Following Kate down the staircase to this modish modern Mexican is a crowd definitely more Chelsea than Soho, beautiful blonde embassy types squired by ex Bullingdon Clubbers. This isn't entirely a bad thing. They bray less when they're out of their comfort zone and here just provide a slightly well-to-do wallpaper. The rest of the decor veers from New York Underground cool (distressed brickwork, exposed piping) to second toughest in the infants (the artfully carved cardboard clad VIP room currently occupied by La Moss and the cool kids looks like it was assembled by class 5b). Not that any of this matters, because the 'atmospheric' lighting stops you seeing much of it, or the food, or your fellow guests.

The sevice was disarmingly friendly, with the exception of snappy, fraught bartenders, but occasionally bordered on slightly hapless - We went through three separate clean plates each for our shared starters (one of which didn't arrive until prompted and felt missed) and had our table turned on a ten minute notice in the same breath as being offered desserts. We were offered a space in the barrio chic bar to finish up before being moved on from there for another booking. All minor points, but given the ease you can spend £50-£60 a head without booze, these are things that need not to happen...

The tacos, a bellweather dish in any Mexican restaurant, were pretty good in the main. Street food purists (and most Americans) might baulk at £6-£8 for a pair of the soft shelled snacks, each a two bite pop, but both lamb with a deeply savoury 'drunken' salsa and pork with grilled pineapple were excellent. A prawn number was superbly flavoured if a little too subtle for the likes of Kate's smoke raddled palate. Better than Wahaca? Almost certainly. But at three times the price you'd hope so.

Mains were larger than expected. Given the average waist size of the crowd, I was expecting to sample a range of (very) small plates, but the mains were all plus size, verging on the American.

The Author and I shared an excellent lamb barbecoa, slow roasted meat falling off the bone, cooked till tender in a rich, chocolatey sauce and served in an enormous chafing dish that occupied the table like a meat filled Olympic flame. It's not easy to split one of those up in the half light of the restaurant but we struggled manfully through it. There were some great flavours coming through in the deep rich cooking technique, and my only criticism could be that it left me with barely enough room to finish my (slightly hurried) dessert. Sides are extra, expensive and necessary, the big hunk of lamb came with nothing itself, a bit of a squizz for a £40 shared dish.

The Publisher gamefully went for the sea bass that AA Gill had described as like "antibiotics growing on a pantyliner". The red and green adobe topping was tasty if more muted than described, but the fish was perfectly well cooked and not noticeably like a Bodyform. Like much else, it was a deeply enjoyable dish that I'd order in future. With a surfeit of meat on the table, Dr Vole went for a slightly disappointing mushroom and tortilla salad. She enjoyed the flavours and contrasting textures but it added nothing to my understanding of Mexican cuisine, and was pretty much the only option if you didn't want meat or fish.

I'm not sure how Mexican it is, but they've half-inched the Scandinavian inspired 'Frozen Berries with White Chocolate Sauce' from Le Caprice. I didn't notice any specifically Latino twist to it though it was as delicious as it has ever been. Dr Vole's Chocolate Fondant had the slightest spike of chilli and a quite superb Mole infused ice cream. That one is definitely worth returning for.

Cocktails were excellent and I was impressed by the food on show, though I'm not sure it quite matches the pricing. This is rustic food in the main, with a variety of rich spicy sauces masking a number of usually cheaper cuts. The premium is for the atmosphere, and the bar, and on a buzzy Friday night, I didn't have a problem with that, though I might do on a slower Tuesday service.


CAVEAT - I should note that after previously having a previously planned evening here right royally norsed up, we were treated as guests and had our meal, and a very nice bottle of champagne, comped. So that was nice of them. Given that it was to make up for a customer services problem, and not because I was writing this, I wasn't initially going to mention it, but full disclosure hey.

An updated review of Byron burgers in Covent Garden - June 2012

The Burgerman cometh

Since I first reviewed Byron, I've been a fairly frequent visitor to what is now frankly a substantial chain of 23 branches across the capital and counting.

Every time I go back there's a light trepidation. Every new site I try there's a little fear. Will this be the point they jump the shark?

Thankfully not it would seem. And I've even tried to catch them out with a Saturday early dinner in the Westfield Shopping Centre branch.

There's a constant level of innovation on the menu; most recently with the 'Chilli Queen', a collaboration with the Admiral Coddrington's Fred Smith. Other than  the semi-regular specials they have a classic, cheese, cheese and bacon, chicken or veggie variants. It's clear what they master in and they don't try anything special. They've also focussed on the beers, introducing a short but solid craft ale menu to go alongside. 


Most importantly they get the fundamentals right. The burgers are tasty, fresh and well prepared to a consistent quality. Sides are high quality, grease free and tasty. The staff are universally happy, attentive and well drilled and the spaces while different are all clean and decorated to a similar simple formula.


All in, a chain I'm delighted to see growing and growing. Assuming the standards remain as high as they have I'll keep coming back on a regular basis.


And my first review from mid 2010, the Wellington Street restaurant is still the one I go back to most often...

Where: Byron Hamburger, Covent Garden
With who: Roger the Dodger
How much: £15 a head for the Byron Burger, fries and a chilled bottle of Peroni


I've been semi-resisting this one for a while. I hate to say it, but I thought that there may be a few too many burger reviews around at the moment. To be honest, I always thought there were few bigger burger fans than me, until I started writing me blog and realised that I was a rank amateur. I've mentioned it before, but have a look at A Hamburger Today if you want to understand true obsession. 


The Dodger and I had a pleasant afternoon meeting over a couple of beers (I love my job sometimes) and decided to grab a bite before heading off. In a sheep like tourist packed strip of chain restaurants running along the arse of Covent Garden towards the Strand, Byron doesn't initially stand out. It's a fairly substantial chain of its own now, ten restaurants strong stretching from Kingston to Canary Wharf. Despite my misgivings of chain restaurants generally, I have to admit that Byron appears to be really rather quite good. It's a clean, tiled room with church hall style chairs and basic decor. There's a cavernous space downstairs that I hope fills out regularly.


It was a quick bite, post and prior to a few beers. I went for the Byron Burger and courgette fries. Never having had courgette fries, I was pleasantly surprised. Soft and juicy courgette strips, in a light and crispy batter. Perfect. The burger was cooked medium, with a beautiful pink colour. The charred flavour I was hoping for only came through in the last last few mouthfuls but it was there, and it was good. There was a nice tang to the cheese, though the bacon was a little thick and came away in lumps. 


UPDATE - Byron Soho Sept 2010
The old Intrepid Fox on Wardour Street was a proper dive pub. Full of bikers, rockers and various other ner-do-wells, listening to rock music. Dingy, black and somewhere you could always get a pint. I was deeply saddened when it went the way of the developers.
And when they announced plans for a gourmet fast food restaurant underneath the luxury city centre flats I shrugged sadly and composed eulogies to old Soho.. So I was pleasantly surprised when it turned into a Byron. Service is as friendly as the others, food just as good, if not a little better. Maybe there is hope for Soho yet.