London Restaurants by category
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".
Where: Red Rooster, Harlem
How much: Brunch came in at around $25 with coffee and juice
Come here if: you want a Harlem experience but don't want to go, you know, too local..
"The biscuits are outta control, right?!" It doesn't take much to confuse me, but that sentence came pretty close.
The biscuits in question are nearer to what the English would call a scone, dense, crumbling and slightly sweet on the outside, served here not with jam and clotted cream, but in Southern US savoury style with thick meaty gravy and chunks of dense herby pork sausage. Conceptually it should be my favourite breakfast.
Shiny new frontage glares out across the 125th and Lenox junction. Red Rooster is the gentrification of Harlem writ large. Walk the road down and you get a different story, not even the area's biggest fan could say there was anything attractive about 125th Street, that windy alley cutting through the heart of the neighbourhood past the Dollar Discount Barns, the numerous drugstores and assorted street sorts hustling the out of towners gurning for photos in front of the Apollo Theater, legendary career kickstarter of legends including Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holliday, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Jimi Hendrix and Michael Jackson to name a few.
The Swedish raised, Ethiopian born chef, Marcus Samuelsson brought Red Rooster to life last year in a blaze of sweaty palmed anticipation. He's something of a name in New York. Young, telegenic and with awards coming out of his ears since his early 20's and a critically lauded stint as Exec Chef at Aquavit, everyone has been waiting for him to explode into multi-starred glory ever since. He was the first to cook a state banquet for the 44th President and he hosted Barack O at a $30,000 dollar a plate fundraiser at Red Rooster earlier in the year. It's safe to say he's a Democrat and safer still to say that with recent visitors like that it was going to be a hot table. I wanted to head up to Harlem for a weekend brunch of hot (preferably battered) soul, and figured if I couldn't get in here I'd be fine with one of the many other brunch stops in the neighbourhood.
As it was, I didn't have any problem getting a table, even at 11am on a Saturday it was me and a handful of tourists and older faces. It's a fair bit pricier than most of the chicken or waffle joints running down this end of the street and wherever the neighbourhood is heading, you get the strong impression that few of the faces seen around the street would be factoring in a lunch or dinner here in the near future. The other problem is that it wasn't that good. The coffee, constantly proffered by the preppy kid casting aspersions on the relative sanity of my biscuits, was probably the best thing I had. The gravy was cloyingly thick and too sweet, an odd dissonance with the over herbed sausage. The biscuits were also sadly saccharine, closer in texture and style to the too thick and solid cornbread served alongside with a fridge cold tomato gloop.
I've no problem with sympathetically gentrified restaurants 'celebrating' the food of the local communities, hell, I live in Peckham, I'd love something like that round there, but it's got to be good enough to compete. On the evidence of my brunch, Red Rooster would struggle to make it as a curiosity in London, let alone stand tall in New York's Soul Food heartland.
