London Restaurants by category
So how's the original outpost of growing tapas juggernaut of Brindisa doing since I last visited? Not as well as I'd hoped unfortunately...
Situated on the corner of Borough Market's southern corner, no bookings Brindesa was always a tough (and tiny) table to score, light wood interior filled with souls exiting the market laden with goodies, unable to wait until their home before sampling them. The unlucky masses would look on through the floor to ceiling windows and resolve to turn up earlier next week.
A recent midweek trip to the neighbourhood let me pop in for lunch on one of the less screwily busy days for the restaurant before the market next door grunts into life on a Friday.
The menu is still a organic shopper's wet dream, everything veggie sourced from the nearby stalls while meats and spices come from the Brindesa shop, hotfoot from the best suppliers in their Spanish homeland. The joy has always been that you don't want to wait until you get home from the market, mainly because what the kitchen can do with the same handful of ingredients is infinitely better than anything you could manage.
We've been spoilt by Jose, and the jamon croquetas he now serves up on Bermonsey Street. Those are light, fresh and heaven sent, these lumpen cigars of gluey mash under a too thick oily carapace just don't cut the mustard. Huevos Rotos - broken eggs over fried potatoes and Iberico pork sobrasada - is unevenly cooked. Soft slices of spud seemingly decanted into a lukewarm serving dish, the egg just the wrong side of soft and the sobrasada, a thickly spiced tomato based sauce, huddled in one corner under a slice of waxen potato. A great idea, and one I'm looking forward to borrowing for an inevitably hungover brunch, but there's nothing here any reasonably home chef couldn't improve on.
Sautéed chicken livers with an onion and caper dressing were fine, and well cooked. If I'd just taken a plate of that with a muscular minerally and obscenely dry sherry, I'd no doubt be hurrahing from the rooftops.
Compared to a recent revisit to gracefully ageing Barrafina, the team at Tapas Brindisa have got some way to go to regain their crown. If you're in the area, nip round to Bermondsey Street and see what their old boss Jose Pizzaro is up to at his brace of eponymous restaurants, either one of them easily has the measure of Brindisa I'm sad to say...
I dunno, you wait for London's tapas king to open one new restaurant, and two come along at almost the same time... No one was at all surprised when Jose Pizarro of Brindesa fame opened up jewel box perfect Jose on Bermondsey Street a year or so ago, there was a little more surprise when it was followed up less than a year later by bigger brother Pizarro a few doors down.
If the impression is that these are a couple of places he's thrown together, then it works. Jose is a absolute favourite for post work sherry and a pincho from the authentic little bar cum kitchen in the tiny space. I remember taking a Madrileno friend prior to dinner at nearby Zucca and after a swift but heated argument with the bartender on the best sherry on the menu and two plates of their heavenly croqueta, he happily declared it the equal of anywhere in Madrid.
Pizarro is a different level to the bustle of Jose. It's a significant step up in size for one, and though there's window seating and bar service, the majority of the covers occupy dark, masculine furniture evocative of a high end wine shop. We took a seat at the marble bar and eyed up the short menu.
While everything is available for sharing as you'd expect from the tapas king, there's a slightly more ordered approach here, with the menu broken up into small and large plates. We went for two of each, which arrived in that order, much in the manner of a starter and a main course...
As well as some of the divine jamon croquetas, we went with razor clams to start. Served in their shells with lashings of garlicky butter and sticky nuggets of chorizo to contrast with the soft flesh of the shellfish, they were perfectly well cooked if not quite to my taste, I traded the last one for another go on the croquetas, an outcome that suited both parties. Of the mains, we shared a slightly one dimensional if well conceived dish of roasted root vegetables and curdy but bland goats cheese. The other shared 'main' was as lovely a lump of roasted lamb as I've had in some time, soused in good oil and dotted with olives, insanely tasty little flavour bombs when crisped in the hot oven.
It wasn't as busy as I was expecting, possibly less surprising as it was a mid week lunch later in service. In itself not a problem, though it did deaden the mood slightly. I'd definitely recommend an evening table shared with friends. You can go through most of the menu between 4 or 5 of you and with the help of an exceptionally well chosen wine list and the knowledgable, friendly staff have a very acceptable night out.
Over time I've become increasingly disaffected with Borough Market. The corporate creep and commoditisation that all but wiped Spitalfields out hasn't quite managed to destroy Borough in the same way, but building works, a huge influx of camera touting tourists who sample everything but buy nothing and a management team who seem determined to get rid of all of their best tenants (you can read the sorry saga online here) are coming close. It's got to a point now where I'm loathe to recommend it as a location, unless you're going very early or have never been to London before.
One of the gloomiest encroachments for me in recent years has been that of the restaurants around the side. I'm never going to complain about places like Brindesa that put the place on the gastro map, though the likes of Black and Blue, with it's anaemic, badly cooked cow feel grossly out of place butting up against the likes of the Ginger Pig.
I'm partly painting a desperate picture for effect. It's not all bad. There's life in the old place yet. For every story mourning the loss of yet another old faithful stall or an angry article about the pricing or the tourists there are some sparks still. On a sun drenched Friday early morning the cobbled street is filled with local office workers grabbing refined caffeine from Monmouth, the cold air from Neal Street Dairy sends a waft of Stichleton up your nose, and you think that this is how London ought to be.
New opening Elliot's Cafe feels both late to the party and like it's been here for ever. On said Friday morning, I can't imagine anywhere I'd rather be. Bare brick, stripped Scandinavian aesthetic with a shared table groaning with some of the most sensational fresh baked pastries, fresh coffee smell and the buzz of a local community descending on a new spot. I pull a seat by the full height windows, sun streaming over my table as I open the paper prior to the arrival of my boss. I can't imagine ever sharing it with the tourists on a Saturday, but for this moment, it's all mine, it's all fresh and new and it's very, very good.
I could no doubt eulogise about the coffee, but if you care where it comes from, you already know more than I do. It's hot, fresh and tasty. The same goes for those pastries (we take some back to the office for later) and a simple but truly perfect Eggs Florentine, yolks the colour of Spanish sunshine, spinach hours out of the ground, both served on the fresh sourdough they bake on the premises. Even a bitter old cynic like me can't help but be slightly inspired by the wonder of mornings like this - It's why I live in London.
El Vergel is a lovely little (mostly) Chilean deli and cafe on Southwark Street. A big old space under a new build apartment block, it's got a half finished air, make do and mend fixtures and furniture slightly at odds with the industrial open pipe and wall effect of the shell. Living nearby and having read a recent description on the excellently written and beautifully designed blog Rocket and Squash, it was on my list of places to try. As it turns out, we just happened to walk past one day.
The deli counter at the front hosts entire families of empanadas when we rock up, during the week I'm assuming it's full of the various salads that make up their lunch menu, fuel for the nearby office workers. There's also a range of sandwiches, a few tacos (including a range just for breakfast) and a tostada or two.
Stopping off for a caffeine hit on our way through and arriving too late for their 'special latin breakfast' (it stops with the parsimony of a seaside B&B at 11am even on weekends), there was obviously only one thing left for me - the aforementioned empanadas. A reasonable £3.50 each, hot and homemade, served with refreshing chilli crackled green salsa. This cuts through the slight fattiness of the pork mince encased in the soft pastry shell. The meat is robust and plentiful, oozing out with intensity, spice and the depth of flavour that comes from a long slow simmer. Will definitely be back for the latin breakfast.
