Category → Food Reviews
Goodman City / Steak / Bank EC2R
I stumbled into the Mayfair Goodman with the good lady completely by accident a few months ago. We had in fact been making our way across the West End to Byron, to try out the celebrated nuclear cheese version of their burgers, as requested by me and dozens of others.
Goodman was just right there. And had burgers. And we’d just purchased an enormous skillet from John Lewis and I was trying to not kneecap passing tourists with it.
It was a welcome, tobacco-coloured stop, where we had a very serviceable burger (not as drippy as I’d been led to believe) and a really quite jaw dropping beef carpaccio.
Look at the marble on that.
Fast forward to August and the new cunningly-placed Bank branch is running a three day soft launch. It’s an address that will ensure generations of long boozy banker lunches and the wine list has been knowingly selected to match the expenses drubbing it will no doubt be fuelling. It was a simple visit, especially when we had to pass on the full steak experience previously.
I’m a huge fan of the upmarket steakhouse. It’s an American export that is wholly welcome in London, where our steak has been bland and tasteless for too long. And it really helps showcase some of the stunning meat available in the capital. Hawksmoor’s Ginger Pig partnership springs to mind. We’re in a new era of local rock star butchery, and this new breed of steakhouse is the venue
The key elements that make Goodman really good fun are all in the detail. The servers wear chef’s whites. It gives the unconscious illusion that they might be the one actually grilling the cut you choose from the selection tray. The tray itself is a masterstroke. I don’t think I’d ever order fillet steak normally, but the fact we could see just how marbled the fillet actually was is a huge selling point. It also gives you a visual guide as to what you can expect. I still struggle to think of beef metrically.
Everything is branded. The entire room and everything in it has been given a great deal of thought. The knives. The tap water bottle. The plates. The waiting staff. It’s not subtle, but it’s pretty and it’s tasteful.
They don’t skimp on portions. Sure, you pay for it, but just the fact you can order a 900g USDA porterhouse is immensely satisfying. The meat is impeccably cooked, provided you give enough detail when ordering (medium rare, but the rarer side of medium, not blue please). It’s well seasoned. The bearnaise has enough bite to it and doesn’t congeal too quickly. The stilton sauce is a richly reduced gravy, a country mile away from the gelatinous cheese sauce you’d expect otherwise. It all goes together brilliantly.
The accompaniments are, like the meat, flawless. The truffle chips are crisp and fluffy, the mushrooms are doused in just enough garlic butter and the tomato salad actually has some really quality tomatoes in it. And a good tomato can be very hard to find.
The only thing to really bring up is money. I’ve had a fair few discussions with beef fans who declare, with good reason, that they could just as easily go to O’Shea’s or the Ginger Pig or Allen’s of Mayfair and buy their own T-bone, rib eye or Porterhouse, take it home and grill it there. It’s a very good point. Steak isn’t hard to cook properly.
Even with 50% off food it was still nudging £45 a head for a single course, some shared sides, a cocktail and a glass of Malbec (our desserts were comped due to a spot of inadvertent menu proof reading). It would have been £70 on a normal day. What makes it sting less is how good the experience is, but it’s priced for special occasion, and do you just want a steak when you’re paying that much money?
Therefore I think Goodman falls squarely into the ‘awesome if on somebody else’s expenses‘ bracket. Or just keep going back for the burger. At £12 it’s the star buy.
Full set of photos available on flickr
Goodman – Bank
Bookings via their website
£70 for steak, some sides and just about enough booze
The Ledbury / Tasting Menu / Notting Hill W11
Well. The annual Big One.
The Ledbury was the site of my birthday lunch, back in May. The annual epic Michelin blow-out.
The Ledbury was absolutely top of the list after genuinely gushing reviews from all kinds of folks whom I respect enormously, most notably Mark from Wahaca who talked about it without taking a breath for several minutes.
So a table for six was dutifully booked way in advance, and in the final weekend of May we ventured out West to parts of Notting Hill we’d probably not see again for quite some time.
Before we get into any kind of by-the-numbers course dissection (which I think I’ll just let the photographs do, erm, visually), it’s worth pointing out exactly what I feel makes the Ledbury one of the absolute Best Restaurants In London.
Service.
Bonhomie. Banter. Wit. Overwhelming knowledge. A little bit of showing off. All perfectly placed. Deftly timed.
There are very few restaurants that can truly say they’ve got the appropriate level of service absolutely right, but the Ledbury is certainly one of them. The staff somehow manage to be convivial, relaxed and sometimes downright cheeky without straying too far into the uncomfortable over-friendliness and ill-timing that plagues other London restaurants, especially in the ££££ bracket.
And it’s not just the maitre d’ or sommelier who exude this uncanny, natural charm, but every single member of the waiting staff.
All of them. Exceptional.
Texture.
What elevates the Ledbury’s cooking into its very own league is the quite unbelievable variety of texture, both in each individual dish and across the whole menu. It’s an enormously difficult thing to express in words, so if you haven’t already been sold to enough, get down there and eat. Just the simple act of putting each course in your mouth is a highly excitable and complex experience, weird as that may sound.
My mother, in her own inimitable style, referred to the use of ‘grit’ in each course. She meant it in the nicest possible way, and I don’t think any of us could think of a better word for it. It’s layered softness, but with depth. Nope. Not much better. Moving on…
Being a bit daring.
I suppose I’m referring to the wine here. We went for the matched wines at an extra £45 per head. Red with fish. Port halfway through. Mental. A blithe disregard for the Michelin rulebook. But calm, considered, tradition-banishing choices. The kind of choices that exude confidence in each component choice of every course.
And each of the bolder choices were flawlessly explained by the sommelier. What a dude.
So now this review is a bit past its menu relevancy date, I’m not sure what’s still on the Ledbury tasting menu. Our collective highlights were the faux squid risotto, the pomp and theatre surrounding the celeriac. Yes, celeriac can be sexy. And the finest loin of lamb you ever did see.
The trouble now is I feel the Ledbury should be in my life more often, since it’s such a joyous, care-free, but undeniably elegant experience. And what makes it even more tempting is the simple fact that the set menus are an absolute steal.
If it’s on your to-eat list, move it up a few notches to the top and get over there. You will not be disappointed.
Check it:
Full set of photos available on flickr
The Ledbury – Notting Hill
Bookings via their website
£125 tasting menu including matched wines
Shacklewell Nights / Pop-up Restaurant / Dalston E8
It’s funny how it’s only really been nine months or so since I started visiting East London’s supper clubs, and the speed with which they seem to be proliferating and evolving.
We were lucky enough to visit Shacklewell Nights’ first evening of service, run by Claire from Green Onions and Jonathan from a little restaurant you might have heard of called St John. The concept, in their words:
They have joined together to cook the very best of seasonal British food to be enjoyed by diners in the relaxed and informal surroundings of the old clothing factory.
So essentially we have a highly experienced supper clubber teaming up with one of London’s most respected proper-British-type restaurants. And probably more of a focus on the dining room too rather than just the food. Expectations were high.
Shacklewell is divided into about four or five large communal tables in a buzzy, top floor industrial building. Dishes are served per table, with everyone passing them round.
We started with an excellent brown shrimp, samphire and potato starter, dressed to perfection. Just enough bite to the shrimp. Fresh and summery.
Following that was a platter of beautifully cooked duck legs on a bed of white beans and bacon. Both of these dishes were very simple with big, bold flavours. Very St John. Very seasonal. Most enjoyable.
Pudding was a sorbet with vodka shot palate cleanser followed by a blackberry fool with the most perfect shortbread biscuit you ever did taste. A well rounded meal with great like-minded folks, run like a ‘proper’ restaurant.
So Shacklewell certainly isn’t a supper club. It’s way too slick. You’re paying for those top-end ingredients and proper-restaurant service (the room seats fifty I think). The chefs wear whites and everything. The big leagues.
Of course, now I’ve written this, Shacklewell won’t be popping up again for another two months. So keep an eye on the Twitter account, and if you fancy a lovingly prepared British four courser with a friendly, knowledgeable crowd then it’s well worth a visit.
Shacklewell Nights – Dalston E8
Bookings via their website
£35 for four courses and some wine + BYO
The Meatwagon / Cheeseburger / Peckham Rye SE15
There’s a movement gaining ground in London at the moment. As Byron Hamburger spreads across the capital with breakneck speed (and eventually capsizing aging Hamburger Unions and weary GBKs in its wake), the joy of finding a decent hamburger in the capital is becoming less of a rarity. I’m a big fan of Byron. They’re mainstreaming and quality-controlling the expansion of a decent burger experience. This is something London is not used to.
At the opposite end of the scale, away from the building sites and the neatly printed menus and expensive agency branding, you’ll find The Meatwagon. Behind a large van in a very typical Zone 2 industrial estate a few minutes walk from Peckham Rye station, sits an unbranded, unassuming little food van. This is the celebrated Meatwagon. I first came across the ‘wagon from a similarly burger-afflicted friend who pointed me in the direction of their Twitter account. It said they weren’t going to be around for a few weeks. Harrumph.
And then, on a Wednesday afternoon, an update. It’s back. Thursday and Friday. From 12pm ‘until we run out’. Ominous. Tempting. Only nine minutes on the train from London Bridge.
A flurry of instant messages between me and another burger critic, and we’re set for Friday.
After stumbling through some leafy Peckham side streets, getting a bit lost, and a quick ‘that can’t be it’ double-take, we’re standing before a beaming Yianni, who gleefully tells us he can do a cheeseburger, bacon cheeseburger or chilli burger. With chips. Triple-cooked. Obvs.
I think the pictures do these justice, but there’s a few points to make here. Yianni uses 100% chuck which he pulls out of a little fridge in big fistfuls and bashes them into patties in front of you. Salt and pepper. The bacon is interesting. He boils up a side of bacon, shreds some off and bashes that into a patty too. It’s thick and chewy, like American crispy bacon without the fat, chemicals and over-saltiness. As for the chilli, it’s half a green chilli fried in butter with a touch of stock. Genius. Both are thrown on top of the patty on the grilling plate before the piece de resistance goes on last. The cheese.
Two slices of it come out of the fridge. It looks like Kraft. We ask if it is Kraft, like a pair of over-excited children. Yianni smiles and says “No, it’s real cheese. It’s taken me ages to source this and it’s my secret. I’ll happily tell you about the rest of the process, but the cheese is my secret weapon”. We don’t push.
The buns are locally sourced white sourdough. Soft. Unseeded. Exceptional. Yianni carefully lattices mustard and ketchup on each side so they have a perfect covering.
And when we get to eating it, the fact we’re standing next to a bin in a glorified car park in Peckham just melts away. The meat is juicy, flawlessly pink and perfectly seasoned. The cheese which has since melted into the patty renders us speechless and is as close as you’ll ever get to a west coast In’n'Out-alike. The meat-to-bun-to-condiment ratio is perfect. We are ecstatic.
If you’ve got anything more than a passing interest in quality burgers, then follow the Meatwagon. Yianni said he’ll be back in a few weeks time. The Meatwagon is his part-time dalliance when he’s not doing proper catering jobs. Get down there. It’s an adventure and it’s London’s best burger. It’s a damn sight better, and 100% more Guerilla, than that other place.
Follow the Meatwagon on Twitter and Facebook.
Guerilla Burgers – W1U
Oh dear. We’re not off to a good start.
Guerilla Burgers opened last week, and we popped in for an evening burger on their second night.
You can still smell the paint on the walls and it’s nestled on James St where Tootsie’s used to be: a culinary black hole of touristic medicocrity. So keeping its youth, inexperience and location in mind, let’s see how they did.
Despite a friend being able to order a medium/rare burger earlier in the day (and enjoying it too), I was denied the same patty treatment and proffered the ‘health and safety’ excuse. Irritating.
Of course when they did show up (roughly 25 minutes later), they were hideously, unforgivably overcooked. Literally crunchy on the outside of the patty. Arid in texture despite pouring over all the sauces we had to hand.
This is a heinous crime when your raison d’etre is making burgers, and a hefty proportion of your overlong menu is given over to a poorly written quasi-diatribe on what makes ‘the perfect burger’.
PS: it’s not burning it.
The burger itself is served in a stainless steel dish (the kind you would typically expect to contain a curry) with the condiments on the side. The buns were neatly toasted, but my companion simply stated through dried-out lips “I could have cleaned my bath with that burger”.
It doesn’t stop there, they serve up crinkle cut chips. Like the ones out of the freezer you used to get round your best mate’s house when you were nine years old. And they haven’t changed a bit from how you remember them: spongy, cold in the middle and not abundant enough to justify their £4 price tag. We also made the error of going for the ‘smothered fries’. Smothering consists of three small morsels of cheddar and a large dollop of sickly veggie chilli. Avoid that upsell.
Something fishy…
The fish tacos are also a country mile away from what fish tacos should be. They’re marinaded salmon, with no breadcrumbs and shop-bought tzatziki slathered over the top. And are cold. So it seems Wahaca still remains the only purveyor of a fish taco resembling something similar to its delicious Califonian brethren.
There are some enormous menu issues going on here. It’s too long and unfocused.
Check out the PDF on their website and witness the layout issues and bizarre menu choices (the LA burger has cottage cheese in it, burger sauce is called ‘Russian Tarragon Dressing‘, sliders are called skaters for some incomprehensible reason, I could go on).
Saving graces?
Well the staff were very much full of first-week perk, which would have made us feel guilty about complaining about the food. They were trying really hard, and I can’t blame them for what came out of the kitchen, although arguably a quality control process should be implemented to stop overcooked meat going out.
If they sort out the menu and do some proper testing I might give it another go, but when you’ve got Byron within schlepping distance, then I can’t think of a good reason to go here.
The thing is, it won’t really matter if the food doesn’t get any better. James Street serves the post-Selfridges tourist crowd (we had to wade through big yellow bags on our way out), and it will make no difference to them if whingy blogger types like me continue to opine Byron‘s simple genius over GB.
This review is a slightly more focused version of the one I originally posted on Qype
