centurion magazine london dining

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AUDACIOUS, BOUNTEOUS, COSMOPOLITAN AND DELICIOUS,

DINING IN LONDON

HAS NEVER BEEN BETTER. BILL KNOTT REPORTS ON THE BRITISH CAPITAL’S LOVE AFFAIR WITH FOOD

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CONTACT CENTURION SERVICE FOR BOOKINGS CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM 87

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t has come a long way in 20 years. Back then, The Big Smoke‘s restaurant landscape had a few mighty oaks (Le Gavroche, Marco Pierre White‘s Mirabelle, Nico Ladenis‘s Nico at Ninety on Park Lane, Sir Terence Conran‘s Quaglino‘s) and the occasional olive tree (Zafferano, Riva and The River Café). There was Tamarind and a handful of other good Indian restaurants, but you would have searched in vain for flowerings of great Spanish, Thai, Japanese or South American places.

There were green shoots as well, though, and nowadays the British capital boasts an extraordinary number of good restaurants, serving food as diverse, cosmopolitan and stimulating as the city itself. There is depth as well as breadth: diners can now choose to eat Basque (Lurra, Donostia), Puglian (Li Veli, Ostuni, Apulia) or Keralan (Rasa, Quilon) food, not I

Brown butter- poached sea bass, spinach and oak- smoked roe from the East End’s Clove Club

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just generic Spanish, Italian or Indian. The wine-bar and cocktail scenes have been reinvented to suit all age groups and pockets; there seems to be a steakhouse on every corner (Hawksmoor, Goodman, MASH), and the craze for pimped-up fast food (Chicken Shop, Meat Liquor, Bao, Suvlaki, Bukowski) shows no signs of abating.

The most exciting contemporary restaurants have sprung up over the last few years: their chefs might be from these islands, but their inspiration comes from far and wide. Isaac McHale at The Clove Club, James Lowe at Lyle‘s, Robin Gill at The Dairy, The Manor and Paradise Garage: all are well-travelled, intelligent chefs with a flair for coaxing local, seasonal ingredients into great dishes. Their innovative Northern European cooking, inspired in part by the restaurant scene in Copenhagen and the new-wave bistros of Paris, has plotted a fresh course for the contemporary restaurant. Their cheerful, buzzy, bare-board dining rooms may be as dressed down as the clientele, but their kitchens are very serious indeed.

One reason London is so open-minded is that, unlike Paris, Rome or Madrid, it has never had much indigenous cuisine to champion. Which is not to say that a Sunday roast (The Truscott Arms), fish and chips (Kerbisher & Malt), breakfast fry-up (Hawksmoor Guildhall) or even jellied eels (M Manze) are impossible to find, just that, for the discerning diner, London‘s global restaurant forest has a whole lot more to offer. Herewith, our comprehensive guide to the old, the new, the tried, the true and every conceivable thing in between.

T hanks to Britain‘s imperial past, Indian food has long been part of the national diet – the first Indian

restaurant opened here in 1810 – and there is a curry house on every high street to prove it. Recently, though, Indian restaurants have gone up in the world. Since Tamarind won a Michelin star in 2001, several others have been similarly rewarded: London can now boast six, including Benares, Atul Kochhar‘s calm first-floor oasis on Berkeley Square; Sriram Aylur‘s sublime southern Indian cooking at Quilon (and the long-established Bombay Brasserie next door, if your taste runs more to kebabs from the tandoor), and the stylish open grill at Belgravia‘s Amaya.

The hottest ticket in town for the last year or two (literally, if you order the wild boar vindaloo) has been Gymkhana, Karam Sethi‘s clever evocation of a wood-panelled colonial club. This is the place for game curries and pukka street food, with a great ambience and a serious wine list. Sethi also owns Trishna in Marylebone – another Michelin-starred place with a superb four-course set-lunch menu – and Hoppers, a Sri Lankan-inspired Soho

Tandoori Murg with spring salad from Benares

Left: the colonial club-setting of Gymkhana; right: a selection of karis from Hoppers

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A decade ago, more or less all Londoners did at a bar was drink: these days, eating at the counter is as cool as a

chilled glass of manzanilla at one of the three terrific Barrafina restaurants, featuring chef Nieves Barragán Mohacho‘s inventive tapas and raciones. Or there are oysters and seafood dishes aplenty at Wright Brothers, J Sheekey and Bentley‘s; superbly creative Levantine food (order the polenta with parmesan, asparagus and mushrooms) at Palomar; superb regional Italian cooking at Bocca di Lupo (the fritti romani are the best this side of Rome‘s Jewish Quarter, especially the artichokes); or perhaps the rice hotpot with king crab and wasabi tobiko at Roka in Charlotte Street. Each of these restaurants

MARK HIX

How would you describe the London restaurant scene when you first came across it? I moved to London about 30 years ago, blimey! All of the good restaurants were in hotels back then and you could pretty much count the good ones on one hand. These days, of course, it’s completely the opposite and you lose count of new openings.

How has that changed over time?London has become the gastronomic capital of the world, I think: there are more than 100 types of cuisine on offer, and you can eat pretty much what you want – and where you want – all day and all night.

Do chefs naturally make great restaurateurs? How do you adapt from one to the other?I think chefs can make great restaurateurs, but it’s about getting on the restaurant floor, instead of hiding in the kitchen. That’s where the real fun starts and the kitchen banter ends.

What do you think Pharmacy 2 adds to the London scene? I reckon it is a good example of making a gallery restaurant work and making it fun. It also draws in interesting people from the local area, Vauxhall, which is a bit of a restaurant desert.

Which other 2016 openings are you most excited about?I have a job keeping up with openings. I used to know six months in advance what was opening and I was excited to try them out: now I have a list as long as my arm of places to go. hixrestaurants.co.uk

Having worked his way up through the Caprice Holdings Restaurant group, Hix left to set up his own empire, which now numbers eight eateries, two bars and a hotel in his native Dorset. His most recent project is Pharmacy 2, in collaboration with Damien Hirst at Vauxhall’s Newport Street Gallery in Vauxhall, south London.

joint where the eponymous riceflour pancakes meet mutton rolls, pumpkin curry and arrack cocktails on a rather joyous menu: no bookings, but worth the queue.

Heading further east, both in cuisine and location, the newly opened Som Saa on Commercial Street is part of a thoroughly welcome flowering of what you might call new-school Thai: authentic, vibrant flavours conjured from wok and grill. The menu at Jane-Tira, in Soho, is similarly punchy – the mackerel curry is not for the faint-hearted – and the barbecued rare-breed meats at Smoking Goat will set the pulse racing as well. Meanwhile, Smoking Goat‘s ex-head chef Seb Holmes has been popping up in various locations, but aims to open a permanent site for Farang in Borough this summer.

Left: a sample of the creative Levantine fare on offer in Palomar; below: the counter at J Sheekey’s oyster bar

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MARLON ABELA

How would you characterise the London restaurant scene now, compared with when you first came here?It was smaller and much more insular back then: now it’s opened up to the world, both ethnically and in styles of restaurants. It’s an example to the world.

You take a lot of care hiring the right chefs for your restaurants: what does a restaurateur add to the mix?I look for quality across the board: food, wine, service, location, everything. Fine dining is our niche: we understand that game. The chef has to fit into the style of a restaurant: the menus have to make sense, and we give critical feedback. The longer a chef has been with us, the less guidance he needs. A sort of intuition develops.

What are your plans for The Square? Do you think it has the potential be London’s next three-star?I think The Square and The Greenhouse both have three-star potential. The Greenhouse is hidden away, more romantic, almost rural by London standards. The Square – we are keeping the name – is more metropolitan, on a busy road just off Bond Street. You can’t beat the location.

Which other 2016 London openings interest you most?I find Nuno Mendes’s food very interesting, sometimes challenging, so I look forward to the new incarnation of Viajante, and I think Tom Sellers at Story is very talented, so his new place will be worth trying. marcrestaurants.com

His MARC restaurant group first came to London in 2001, and his portfolio now includes Umu, The Greenhouse and Morton’s, as well as a patisserie, a wine merchant and several restaurants in New York. Abela’s latest acquisition is The Square, on Bruton Street, where chef Phil Howard held two stars for many years. He is planning just a light refurbishment and thinks he has found the right chef, but he won’t say who just yet.

MARLON ABELA

N o district of the city has seen a more dramatic upsurge in its restaurant scene than East London, particularly

the stretch between Hoxton and Spitalfields. A small upstairs kitchen at The Ten Bells on

Commercial Street was the unlikely launchpad for a collective called the ”Young Turks“, and its two leading lights, James Lowe and Isaac McHale, have gone on to run two of London‘s most talked-about restaurants: Lowe is at Lyle‘s (try the raw scallop and blood orange, or the blackface mutton with radicchio and anchovy) and McHale runs The Clove Club (buttermilk fried chicken with pine salt is a classic here, or perhaps flamed Cornish mackerel with rhubarb and toasted oats). Both were at least partly inspired by the Brooklyn scene, but both emphasise seasonal British produce, especially

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offers the added attraction of a kitchen view, an agreeable bit of theatre.

Some gastronomes might instead prefer to gaze out at Great Portland Street from the bar at Michelin-starred Portland while snacking on razor clams with kimchi and wild garlic, or pop into the permanently booked-up Kitty Fisher‘s in Shepherd Market and work their way through a sizable chunk of aged Galician beef at the smart little bar. Mop up the juices with their famous bread with burnt-onion butter.

For an even more stellar experience, nab a stool at Kitchen Table, the “secret“ restaurant behind hot dog-and-champagne joint Bubbledogs in Fitzrovia, where chef/proprietor James Knappett‘s 10- to 15-course modern British menus are chalked up on a board, paired with wines chosen by his general manager, sommelier and wife Sandia Chang. And at Fera, Simon Rogan‘s seriously chic temple to modern British gastronomy in Claridge‘s, book one of six seats at Aulis, Rogan‘s “development table“, where all manner of high-tech gadgets are commandeered to produce a string of dishes unavailable on the normal menu.

Above: Woolley Park Farm free-range chicken and chips – with Damien Hirst artwork in the background at Tramshed; left: Merchants Tavern in Shoreditch

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H istorically, London wine bars were populated by besuited men canoodling over the candlelit chianti with their

secretaries: some didn‘t even allow women to buy drinks. While a couple of old-stagers remain (the Cork & Bottle is a ruby in Leicester Square‘s dust, and Gordon‘s Dickensian vaults are as atmospheric as any of the city‘s watering holes), the modern London wine bar is far more inclusive, evangelical about small producers, and often equipped with a fine kitchen to boot.

Take Terroirs, in Covent Garden, and Brawn, well worth the schlep to Columbia Road (go for Sunday lunch, when the flower market brightens the street): both part-owned by wine merchant Les Caves de Pyrène (“natural“ wines for the brave of palate; plenty of others for more conventional tastes), and both offering terrific food, along rustic Anglo/French/Italian lines. The Terroirs‘ DNA also runs through the newly opened Six Portland Road, near Holland Park.

Or try one of Vinoteca‘s branches: the cosy Clerkenwell original offers a simple menu and an impressive cellar, with wines available to take away, too. Over the road is the venerable St John: the whitewashed bar and bakery (an old smokery) is a great place for a glass of minervois (it has its own winery in deepest France) alongside Fergus Henderson‘s trademark bone marrow and parsley salad.

The almost Parisian Sager + Wilde, out on Hackney Road, offers a fine selection by the glass at its beautiful iron-grate bar: Californian wines are a speciality, and the cheese toasties are legendary. 28°-50°‘s three London “wine workshops“ offer lists of 30 wines with benign mark-ups, as well as a long “collectors‘“ list of fine wines: a few vintages are offered using the Coravin wine access system, allowing oenophiles to sample just a glass of something special. Coravin is transforming by-the-glass offerings in restaurants as well: go to Noble Rot in Lamb‘s Conduit Street for a fine list and Paul Weaver‘s superb food; try Anna Hansen‘s fusion-tapas at the bar in The Modern Pantry, Finsbury Square, with a glass of Duckhorn Cabernet 2012; or put on a tie, go for lunch at The Ritz, and sample any of a dozen or so wines from its Coravin selection.

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vegetables. And both offer an à la carte menu at lunchtimes only.

Elsewhere, and with summer in mind, the terrace at 8 Hoxton Square is as delightful as chef/proprietor Cameron Emirali‘s lively seasonal food (veal chop with creamed morels, spinach and truffle, for instance, or octopus with black beans, sobrasada and picada). Sister restaurant to Soho‘s 10 Greek Street, both are popular for their excellent-value wine lists (courtesy of co-proprietor and former wine merchant Luke Wilson) as well as for their food.

Mark Hix‘s Tramshed boasts a Damien Hirst cow in formaldehyde with a rooster on its back: chicken and steak feature heavily on the menu, naturally. Neil Borthwick (the other half of Angela Hartnett, whose Mayfair stunner Murano is also worth a visit) mans the stove at Merchants Tavern, just along the street – there‘s a cracking bar here, too: try the deep-fried oysters or the venison sausage roll, and maybe a rum-and-raisin old fashioned. This is an area where the late-night bar scene (reminiscent of Brooklyn‘s speakeasies) means there are plenty of post-prandial diversions: The Nightjar (watch out for its potent Prohibition cocktails) and Nola (short for New Orleans Louisiana: hence the French Quarter bourbon-based cocktail, and the hefty selection of Hurricanes) both stay open to 3am at weekends.

Traditional London wine bar Cork & Bottle

Inside wine workshop and kitchen 28°-50°

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PAULO DE TARSO

You came to London in 2005: what was the restaurant scene like here then? How has it changed? There were some great restaurants, of course, but it wasn’t as big as I thought it would be: a lot of the same people were eating in the same bunch of places. What’s happened since has been amazing. Jamie and Nigella have helped educate people about food on TV, and great restaurateurs like Jason Atherton and Bruno Loubet have sprung up. In 2005, I think London was behind Paris, but it’s now surpassed it in a dramatic way.

What about service: has that improved?Definitely. At Bar Boulud, we made sure our staff spoke good English, and knew where the nearest post office was, what time Harvey Nicks closes, that kind of thing. Lots of our staff got stolen, which annoyed me to start with, but now I see it as a compliment. You have to invest in your team: we hire someone for their personality, and then teach them the trade.

Apart from Margot, which 2016 openings are you looking forward to most?Monica Galetti’s new place, Mere. I can’t wait to see what she does there. Frenchie – Gregory Marchand is such a lovely guy – and Viajante: I have great love and respect for Nuno Mendes. margotrestaurant.com

Brazilian-born Paulo de Tarso has established himself as one of London’s best-known (and most immaculately dressed) front-of-house figures, working first at The Wolseley and Scott’s before taking the reins at Bar Boulud, Daniel Boulud’s brasserie in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Knightsbridge. He left there last year to set up an Italian restaurant with Nicolas Jaouën, former GM of La Petite Maison. Called Margot, it is scheduled to open in Covent Garden this July. S M A R T S E T

Acclaimed Italian chef Francesco Mazzei at work in Sartoria

W hile the trendiest restaurants may be all bare boards, foraged chickweed and bearded chefs, there

are ever more hot spots for those who like a little pampering with their pâté de foie gras. Mayfair‘s beau monde now has the Beaumont Hotel, with the retro, transatlantic glamour of its American Bar and Colony Grill Room, while more flamboyant types can flaunt it at Sexy Fish (where the bar boasts over 200 bottles of Japanese whisky from 17 distilleries), Richard Caring‘s extravagant temple to modern art and pan-Asian cuisine, or at Park Chinois, Alan Yau‘s extraordinary cabaret restaurant with its über-luxe decor and Oriental menu, where the duck is a must. Two-star Umu, in Bruton Place, features chef Yoshinori Ishii‘s highly accomplished kaiseki cusine, while Bellamy‘s, Gavin Rankin‘s bijou brasserie and caviar bar a few doors down, fosters a discreet aristocratic air: Her Majesty the Queen doesn‘t often eat out, but when she does, it is here.

Italophiles, meanwhile, can bask in the polished luxe of Frescobaldi (bistecca alla fiorentina with a bottle of the owners‘ legendary

Left: cabaret plays a part of the experience at Park Chinois; right; a Miso Thirsty cocktail from Sexy Fish; one of Frescobaldi’s mosaics

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T his year sees no let-up in the burgeoning restaurant scene: serial international restaurateur Jason Atherton has already

opened Sosharu, his Clerkenwell izakaya (try the smoked octopus with seaweed, or wagyu sukiyaki) and is hatching plans for an Italian restaurant in Victoria‘s vast Nova development; meanwhile, his former Gordon Ramsay colleague Clare Smyth is leaving the three-starred Royal Hospital Road restaurant to open her first solo venture. Another high-profile chef, Monica Galetti, will open Mere on Charlotte Street this autumn. Nuno Mendes, the Portuguese chef at celeb hangout Chiltern Firehouse and owner of the splendid Taberna do Mercado in Spitalfields, plans to reopen his highly rated Viajante later this year. And Tom Sellers, the much-lauded proprietor of Story, has taken over the old Collection site on Brompton Road for his new project Restaurant Ours.

Already open are Bellanger, Chris Corbin and Jeremy King‘s Islington brasserie; Frenchie, ex-Jamie Oliver chef Gregory Marchand‘s Covent Garden restaurant (elegant, vibrant small plates, mains and a carte blanche tasting menu); Les 110 de Taillevent, the London outpost of the Parisian bistrot de luxe, with 110 wines by the glass; and Morito Hackney, the first venture outside Exmouth Market for Sam and Sam Clark of Moro fame.

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Tuscan reds is the order here) or the merry buzz of nearby Sartoria, with ex-L‘Anima chef Francesco Mazzei now in charge: snack, drink and hobnob in the bar, or head to the dining room for crudo di pesce and a giant veal milanese.

Fully fledged gastronomes can stay in Mayfair for Claude Bosi‘s playful, imaginative cooking at the two-star Hibiscus or Arnaud Bignon‘s mastery of flavours at (equally starry) The Greenhouse, or venture west to The Ledbury for Australian chef/patron Brett Graham‘s brilliant, intricate dishes (and, quite possibly, London‘s next three-star restaurant).

Below, left: fresh rice cooked in seafood dashi, served with tempura clams, ikura and Japanese young onion at Jason Atherton’s Sosharu; below, right: Rudi Carraro, bartender at Frenchie

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