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Little Social | Little Social
Little Social sits across the road from Pollen Street Social, the epicentre of Atherton’s burgeoning restaurant kingdom. The frontage is understated, with just a menu box to indicate you’re in the right place. Inside is long and thin. Arguably, the two best tables are at either end, one in the bay window at the front, the other more secluded but still exposed to the room...
Brunswick House Café | Brunswick House Café
I’d drunk many a coffee at the Vauxhall venue, the Brunswick House Café, but for some reason never been near at the right time for lunch or dinner. Reviews were generally good when it opened in 2011, and the dining room, busy with furniture and countless lights and signs hanging from the ceiling, has always intrigued. I finally found good reason (and time) to visit and eat a few lunchtimes ago...
Patty & Bun | Patty and Bun
Patty and Bun, just north of Bond Street station on St James Street, is very firmly in the top tier. Judging by the queues, most of you know this already. But I think it’s worth noting them here anyway, so you get the idea of what I think it means to be categorised in this way. First and foremost their burger patty is densely packed, juicy and flavoursome. Clearly they make their burgers with quality beef and a well-judged fat content. On each of the three or four times I’ve eaten there, my burgers have been perfectly two fingers up to Westminster Council medium rare too...
Texture | #OGR: Lunch at Texture
There are, in fact, many good reasons to go and eat at Texture. But the One Good Reason that I wish to share with you, is their set lunch. For about the same price as three wilting salads and an E number packed brownie from the likes of Pret or Eat, the extremely affable Icelandic chef Agnar Sverrisson and his team will feed you three beautiful courses and also ply you with crispy fish and pork skin nibbles, a delicate amuse bouche and top class petit fours...
Sushi Tetsu | Sushi Tetsu
I have previously said that skiing and sushi are beyond economic rationale. That was obviously a flippant comment. It wouldn’t take long for a pedant to put together a sound analysis of costs and market forces to show that both of these activities make sense from a business perspective. What I really meant was that, when it comes to spending money, there are some things that you shouldn’t agonise over, however jaw droppingly expensive or excessive they appear. For me, both heading down a snow covered slope at speed and eating raw fish fall firmly within that category. They are luxuries that, even when I can only just afford them, I prefer to forget cost and enjoy, rather than worry about ‘value’ and what else you could do with the cash. Which brings me to a £90 lunch I had the other day at Sushi Tetsu in Clerkenwell: two and a half hours of eating bliss that I wouldn’t exchange for ten meals at the average sushi restaurant in London, let alone the two or three that you could have for the same price...
The Shed | The Shed, Kensington
Perhaps a good way of describing the Shed restaurant in Kensington, is that it is bit like Polpo for Middle England. You see, this cosy little place near Notting Hill Gate is doing the whole small sharing plate for just about reasonable prices thing, with those plates being served by young, not-bad-looking wait staff, in a room full of reclaimed materials and closely packed tables. Except for vaguely Venetian, read vaguely modern British; for tattooed, just-been-shagged-hair waiters, read respectable plaid shirts and hair firmly tied back; and for NYC themed light fittings and salvaged diner signs, read second hand pitch forks, and wine glasses hanging from the bonnet of a John Deere tractor. It’s a little bit quirky, informal but comfortable; a fun place for a meal...
Yoshino | After Jiro (Yoshino)
After Jiro we went to Yoshino, a fairly well established little place tucked away in a side street off Piccadilly. Downstairs appeared cute and atmospheric, though we were seated in the perfectly comfortable if slightly sterile section upstairs. The quality of fish that I had was pretty good, but then it should have been for the price (from £4 for two pieces of squid nigiri, £7 for two pieces of salmon nigiri to up to £10 for two pieces of otoro (fatty tuna)). Well marbled otoro was certainly the highlight and a rare treat (‘treat’ being the operative word at those prices). A sashimi platter looked decent, but the fish was far too cold to enjoy the flavour. Nasu Dengaku (miso glazed aubergine) was excellent, tempura langoustines were large and sweet, though maybe not contained in the lightest or crispest batter. Deep fried oysters were topped with a bizarre ketchup and mustard combination that I wouldn’t bother with again, and I’m not sure what Jiro would have made of the over reliance on savoy cabbage as a decoration...
Salon | Salon
At the end of last year, Cannon and Cannon, a deli selling British charcuterie and cheeses, made the room above its shop into a restaurant cum dining room called Salon. Have space in popular area, will use. The room is fairly make-shift, with reclaimed tables and chairs, bare wood and basic heaters (you know the drill). Even the name is recycled: based on the hair salon that used to occupy the space. It has a very small and limited kitchen that serves supper club style set menus in the evenings, with lunch options derived from the ingredients used in those menus and often highlighting the produce from the deli below. The chef, Nick Balfe, is well used to producing the goods from small, sometimes temporary kitchens and serving it to customers sitting on second-hand chairs: he headed the kitchen at the Brunswick House Cafe, and also worked with the Young Turks at the Ten Bells and on the roof at Franks in Peckham. Those influences are fairly obvious in the food, which is necessarily simple and uncomplicated, but smart in ethos, concept and delivery...