Perilla has always been one of London’s ‘if you know you know’ darlings - a north London gem that blends bijou coolness and some stellar cooking. The question has always been, is Perilla really good or is it just really cool? Well, you can tuck that question in and put it to bed because Morchella - the difficult second restaurant from Perilla duo Ben Marks and Matt Emmerson - is a beauty.
A decade ago, Marks and Emmerson settled for a slightly rundown old kids cafe on the corner of Newington Green for their debut restaurant, but Morchella clearly had its pick of desirable spots. The resulting site is a grand old bank - tastefully refurbished in a similar wabi-sabi style to Perilla, but retaining the old wood-framed windows and wood-panelling. Natural light spills in by day, and crowds eat by flicker of candlelight by evening, whilst a busy open kitchen sits in the centre of the room, hosting counter diners. Staff bustle around the large, busy dining room, shuttling plates from the pass, always busy but never too rushed to help.
There’s plenty on the menu that’s instantly recognisable - salt cod, spanakopita, vitello tonnato, and a panzanella, for example, but the simple descriptions belie the ingenuity of the cooking. The spanakopita comes in a tiny, crisp cylinder of filo pastry, stuffed with oozing feta and spinach, that must be rushed to the mouth before it all escapes. It’s absolutely delicious, and we quickly rush a second in after it.
Aside from a couple of little bites that tiptoe on a tightrope of heavy seasoning, we can’t fault anything else we ate at Morchella. Highlights include a gorgeous pile of sobrasada ragu, with pearlescent hake lurking underneath, salt-baked poussin with a rich, ruddy chilli sauce, and an inspired blood orange portokalopita - a syrup-laden sponge cake scattered with tiny morsels of black olive. Imaginative and delicious in equal measure, Morchella is the rare restaurant that delivers on all the hype.