Jonny Garrett's Reviews

Joe’s Cafe rather under sells itself. It sounds like a builders’ cafe where the dress code is high vis jackets and paint stained trackies.

I can assure you that you would not make it through the door dressed like that – despite it being 12 foot wide. Joe’s is actually a subtle and beautiful restaurant. A book case runs through the centre, punctuated with the occasional 50-year-old bottle of wine or Vogue collection from the 80s.

The tables are spread out and the service relaxed. Money here is made slowly, in stark contrast to its Kensington clientele. We ummed and erred over the wine list, starters and mains. Even deciding between sparkling and still water took five minutes, during which our tireless waiter looked busy at the table behind us.

I started with fois gras on a mushroom wafer topped with sour cherries. This was rather hard to eat, being unstab-able and too wide to balance on the fork. So by the time it reached my mouth it was more like sour cherries, topped with fois gras and mushroom pastry shards. Still, the dish was appreciated for its sweet and sourness, even if the texture was all together too watery.

For the main I had water trout (what other kind is there?) with a French tartare sauce and a cold salmon, almost sushi-esque roll with an horseradish base. To be honest it was felt foreign on the plate, distracting me from the wonderful trout and if I hadn’t been famished would have been left well alone. However, the course was served with the first truly tolerable form of fried cauliflower I have ever tasted, and all it took was the addition of lemongrass.

As is the case in all good restaurants, my memory of the pudding is a little hazy. We had finished a bottle of wine before even choosing our food. Nonetheless my pudding choice was inspired. My raspberry baseless cheese cake was sweet and decadent, and looked a lot like a maoam, a hallucination helped by the fact that it was surrounded by cubes of raspberry jelly. The rubber texture juxtaposed the maoam… More

If Sharwood’s is to be believed, whipping up a tasty curry takes 20 minutes and one pan. At Imli they have the same philosophy, but a very different method of going about it.

For a start, most of the menu is in the form of tapas. It is full of small, varied dishes that work as much as a map of India as a three course meal. It takes influences from all over the country, rather than the south-India dominated cuisine served in most curry houses.

Our platters cost around £8, which is brilliant value. It included several sides, a main curry, a field's worth of rice and, of course, a main curry dish. Being the sister restaurant of Tamarind, a certain quality of ingredients and cooking is to be expected, but I was blown away.

Every dish was unlike any other curry dish on any menu in any other curry house. The Papdi Chaat, a sweet yoghurt and wheat crisp salad, was worth the price alone. THe lamb fell apart on the fork and the potato and coriander cakes were refreshingly light compared to the heavier dishes.

Combining the philosophy of tapas and Indian food may seem unlikely but, as the head chef Samir Sadekar explained: Indian cuisine is meant to be diverse, and always shared. Although sharing is the last thing on my mind as I tucked in to our lunch platter, the point about having variety on your plate was well made.

Shrove Tuesday is the day that Christians use up all their food stuffs before the 40-day lent fast. Given the amount of ingredients it used, the Gay Hussar must have a very full pantry indeed.
This may be partly because the restaurant was empty when we arrived. The ambience was more like a library. My companion and I whispered conspiratorially while exchanging guilty glances, worried that a waiter may come and “shh” at us. Towards the end of the evening it began to fill, but by then we were too distracted by the glorious food to notice.
The downstairs room is a cosy mix between a living room and train dining carriage. The waiters friendly and delighted to talk about the food, wine and history of the restaurant. Being just of Soho Square it has seen its fair share of the highlife. The walls are adorned with caricatures famous politicians and journalists that have eaten there, a social circle it fully justifies.
Their pancakes are world away from the lemon and sugar creations soon to be stuck to kitchen ceilings throughout the UK. My deep-fried goulash-stuffed pancake was as hearty as any British stew and had a depth of flavour that belied its simple roots. The the veal itself was slightly overpowered by the sauce, but you hardly even noticed.
Our bottle of Tokaji Muscat Blanc did power through however. Its floral nature gave it an extremely sweet start and dry finish that cut through the heavy sauces. Hungarian wine is not exactly a staple of restaurant lists, or indeed supermarket shelves, but their white wines are often worth a risk.
For pudding I had the walnut pancakes, made famous by Budapest celebrated restaurant Gundel, after which the pudding is named. The dark chocolate sauce and walnut and rum filling were savoury enough to stop the dish being overwhelming, and the raisins gave short, sharp bursts of sweetness. After such a heavy main however, the second pancake could have easily been replaced by some whipped cream, to balance the plate. Chocoholics would… More