London Restaurants by category
A slight apology to start with. This is yet another positive review. In a long string of positive reviews. If it feels like I've mistitled the blog (I had one wag suggest it's recently been closer to the Gushing Gourmet, though that was before this week's post on 'Why I hate food markets') then I can only apologise for misleading you. If you're looking for a side of bile and vitriol with every main course, I suggest you head over to AA Gill's muscularly snarling man-spot in The Times.
I'm not going to apologise for a run of lovely meals. I'm having far too much fun for that. I mainly put it down to my restaurant radar, vastly improved over recent years, and the result of reasonable research (or so I'd hope). While it's true that a true car crash dinner (like last year's trip to Bistro De La Gare) is a source of much amusement, generally I don't like having bad meals just so I can dissect them for your pleasure, you're more than capable of doing that yourselves.
Toast.ED is a case in point. Why wouldn't I come here when everyone I know who has been has raved about it. A new kid on the block in smugly gentrified East Dulwich, it occupies the space vacated by one of my old favourites Green & Blue. Thankfully, it's got the look and feel of a welcome reboot of that friendly if haphazard local winestore and deli rather than being a wholesale makeover by another smug middle-class chain.
It's the second weekend in a row I've arrived for one of the rickety wooden tables in the front of the store and stretched out with well brewed Allpress coffee while pondering the menu. Last week I didn't crave for anything more than soft avocado on thick toast, perked with the lightest touch of chilli and lemon juice, this week I loitered over another excellent coffee until the lunch menu came on line.
A whole, smiling mackerel arrived lounging on a thick slab of toast, begging for finger licking evisceration and a healthily Chinese attitude towards digging the plump nuggets of fresh pearly flesh from its bones. Dusted with toasted ginger (sadly a little lost in the flavour of the fish) it's a thing of simple beauty and, assuming it pops up again on a frequently changing menu, one of the nicest summer lunches I could imagine.
If that was the starring role at lunch, it came very ably supported by a simply blanched courgette, parsley and caper salad and a lovely, if slightly shy, Muscadet from the wine vats lining the walls of the cool, refreshing industrial space.
Those vats offer reasonably priced take out or drink in house style wines, a beautiful French concept we haven't really cottoned on to here. At 11-12 quid a bottle for on sales it makes a fine argument for more people doing the same. The food prices too are very reasonable, and you won't spend more than fifteen a head without a bottle of that wine, though why you wouldn't have one, I can't imagine.
Now I have to admit to being slightly inebriated when I first visited The Green Man and French Horn. It was the glorious day that Bradford City triumphed over Arsenal in the Capital One Cup. Not a day seared into most people's memories, but enough to send me into paroxysms of clappy handed joy as I watched the giant killing unfold.
In fairness, all I really needed was something to soak up a number of pints. The output from this cracking little newcomer and youngest sibling of Terroirs, Brawn and Soif, was almost certainly beyond my faculty. So good though that, while not capable of sobering me up, it did cause me to drag a non football obsessed guest back to confirm what I'd witnessed.
We're in mixed small plate territory here. Lots of lovely little ideas, pulled together with a loose thread of the Loire Valley, intended as much as anything to show off an outrageously interesting cellar.
A thick slab of pork rillette was pushed eagerly into the contents of a hearty, fresh bread basket and consumed within minutes, hearty and flavoursome. My main plate was, as it had been on the previous visit, one of the simplest dishes I've had in a long time, three beautifully buttery fat mackerel, served with butter, garlic and a spritz of lemon. The quality was superb and the simplest of touches was all they needed.
Alongside, I opted for a grassy almost cidery fresh Cabernet Franc, refreshing and unexpected. A punch in the mouth of clean flavours that it through the thickness of the pork and the fish perfectly.
Poached pear was almost unexpectedly rich after the simple fare so far and a little too sweet for me, reclining like an early Rita Hayworth in a limpid caramel pool. I couldn't stop eating till it was gone, but in hindsight I'd have snuck in another small plate.
It was only after I'd been for the first time I realised the background to the restaurant and its owners, the terroir if you will. It was obviously going to be a winner. Until that point I got to experience the sheer joy that comes with making a real find, of discovering a new restaurant that will stay in your little black book for years. The fact it's a known quality doesn't change that fact.
