Wishbone

Back in August when I wrote a piece for The Telegraph about the emerging trend for up-market chicken shops, I felt safe in including Wishbone in Brixton even though it hadn't opened yet. 

For one thing, I'd been to a menu-testing (yes, I know, it's a hard life) at co-owner Scott Collins' MEATLiquor earlier in the year and thought everything was pretty much spot on, and figured that if the food was as good as it was in beta it would only get better with time.

For another, whatever your feelings might be on the burger cult that has had London in its sweaty clutches for the last eighteen months or so, there's no denying that Collins is a canny businessman who seems to have the Midas touch when it comes to peddling nouveau junk food, so why shouldn't his fried chicken joint be as big a smash as his burger bars? Combine all this with the fact that his partner in this venture is all-round food know-it-all and social media darling William Leigh, and surely you have the recipe for a finger-lickin' success?

Well, yes. You do. Wishbone, in Brixton Market - the covered grid of avenues which together with adjacent Brixton Village has stolen Bermondsey Street's crown as the capital's hippest restaurant strip - is just great. Split over two colourfully-decorated floors, Wishbone pays knowing homage to south London's myriad jerk chicken shops without resorting to patronising pastiche.

The menu is concise but offers enough choice to allow for variety on repeat visits (which, having been once, I imagine most folk will want to make). The free-range fried chicken, using Cotswold Whites from Aubrey Allen, is served as a quarter, half or in a sandwich and if the meat is slightly dry, it's made up for by exceptional flavour - actually of chicken, imagine that! - and a deliciously crunchy, oil-less batter.

Wings and thighs come with a variety of imaginative toppings; I have become dangerously hooked on the Thai thighs, boned, rolled and battered before being tossed in a tamarind dressing and topped with mint leaves, red chilli and crisp shallots. Buffalo wings are worth ordering for the accompanying sauce, studded with chunks of blue cheese, alone. Sides can be hit-and-miss; black-eyed pea salad and potato salad both proved bland, but deep fried mac 'n' cheese - because how else do you improve cheesy pasta if not by dipping it in breadcrumbs and deep-frying it, right? - is a thing of evil genius.

What I most like about Wishbone however, even more than the food, is the attention to detail. Even something as simple as a can of pop is served with care - chic glasswear, ample crystal clear ice-cubes, a neatly-cut slice of lemon - by unfailingly enthusiastic staff who manage to pull off the very rare feat of being extremely cool but not too much so for school. 

Moreish, fruity hot sauce and lip-smacking chilli vinegar are provided on every bright formica table along with eminently-practical wet-wipes for the inevitable sticky fingers. Price-wise Wishbone is fantastic value - a vast quarter chicken is just £5.50, sides all £2.50-£4.50 - and if I have one complaint it is that portions are so large that even, say, a quarter chicken and a portion of thighs is too much food for one person. Perfect for sharing though, so just take a friend or two.

I wasn't alone in spotting that chicken would be one of 2012's big food trends, but I'm glad that my early faith in Wishbone has paid off. This is fun, fantastic funky chicken - and worryingly for my waistline, only a leisurely fifteen minute stroll from my flat. I can't be the only resident of SW9 who's counting their clucky stars.

Wishbone, Unit 12 Market Row, Brixton Market, London SW9 8PR Tel: 020 7274 0939 www.wishbonebrixton.co.uk







Posted by +Hugh Wright

Brasserie Zédel

Anyone who, like me, was living in London in the 1990s will remember Atlantic Bar & Grill. Owned by the then-coolest cat in town, Oliver Peyton - the Russell Norman of his day, now better known for his role as a judge on Great British Menu - Atlantic, with its snappy bouncers and seemingly untraversable velvet rope, was for a time at least the place to see and be seen, if only you could get in.

It's rather poetic then that in its new incarnation as Brasserie Zédel, what was once London's most exclusive venue is now among its most democratic, offering all-day dining at extremely accessible prices to a staggering 240 covers at a time. Reservations are taken (fancy!) but a substantial proportion of tables are kept for walk-ins meaning that, unlike Atlantic, any and everyone is able to get in.

And get in they must if Rex Restaurant Associates, the Chris Corbin and Jeremy King-helmed investment vehicle behind Zédel  is to make back the fortune that must have been spent on the decor, one of London's most jaw-dropping rooms by a country mile. Shayne Brady, the impishly-handsome head designer at David Collins Studio has turned what was a dark and imposing subterranean space into a light, even dazzling room with acres of pink-hued marble, brass railings and real gold leaf on the capitals atop the room's mighty columns.

As for the pricing, much has been made of how cheap many dishes on Brasserie Zédel's all-French menu are - not least the soupe du jour at a no-it-can't-be £2.25 - but it's not necessarily a cheap restaurant; on my most recent visit, one of several since it opened, four of us clocked up a bill of about £40 a head once a couple of decent bottles of wine had been added to the mix. Rather, it is one offering value for money almost unheard of not just in London's West End but just about anywhere.

Starters start with that soup and peak at £7.75; particularly brilliant are the crème Dubarry - a thick cream of cauliflower soup - and the soupe de poissons at £4.75, almost as good as The Ivy's at two-thirds of the price. Salads, too, impress, particularly endive and roquefort which happily marries the bitterness of chicory to the saltiness of blue cheese.

Of the main courses, even the simplest steak haché - £7.50 on its own or available as part of the £8.75 for two courses or £11.25 for three prix-fixe - is noteworthy, using good beef and enlivened by a perky sauce au poivre. The vast choucroute Alsacienne, £11.75 and a meal in itself, is as delicious a mountain of pickled cabbage and pork as you'll ever find.  

Desserts continue the theme of being far better than one would expect for the price. I simply can't fault the ile flottante - £2.75! - and even the café gourmand with the prix-fixe is a generous serve, three mini pastries with a cafetiere of decent filter coffee. There's also all manner of ice-cream coupes, sorbets, tarts and cakes, all for under a fiver.

In a restaurant of this size, serving this many people, choreographing service is bound to be a challenge and to date my only real gripes with Brasserie Zédel have been around this. Firstly, wherever the kitchen is in this behemoth of a building, it is clearly too far from the dining room to ensure that food arrives piping hot; nothing I have eaten has been much hotter than tepid although it's tasted none the worse for that. 

Also, in the time it takes for plates to arrive at the tables, sauces can congeal; a quick whisk with a fork at the service station before presentation would help no end. Worst of all, on my most recent visit our main courses arrived before we had even finished our starters and rather than being taken away, they were served while one of our party raced under pressure to finish her soup, which is a serious no-no in my book. So it's not perfect, but it's still early days for Brasserie Zédel and with luck and a little more time these glitches should iron out. 

Everything else - the reasonably-priced wine list, the perfect classic cocktails being served in the beautiful Art Deco Bar Americain, the camp coral pink napkins one of which, mea culpa, found its way into my handbag - make this easily one of the most exciting new openings in London this year.

As I write, reservations have just opened for Corbin & King's next project, Cafe Colbert on Sloane Square; with its SW1 location and aristocratic landlord it is unlikely that it will be as democratic as Brasserie Zédel.  No matter; for here is a restaurant that in both pricing and geography is truly accessible to anyone - and not a velvet rope in sight.

Brasserie Zédel, 20 Sherwood Street, London W1F 7ED Tel: 020 7734 4888 http://www.brasseriezedel.com

 

 

 

Posted by +Hugh Wright

Tonkotsu, Soho

It's the smell that gets you first. Rounding the corner of Old Compton Street into Dean Street, the intense, rich aroma emanating from Tonkotsu like a vapour grabs you in its tractor beam, winds its way into your dilated nostrils and demands that, like a Bisto Kid, you track this heaven scent to its source.

That source, it transpires, is the vast vats of pork-bone stock which simmer away for up to eighteen hours and then, with the addition of noodles and toppings, become the tonkotsu ramen from which this jaw-droppingly good Soho newcomer takes its name. Still relatively unheard of in London, ramen bars are ubiquitous in Japan, where ramen has the same quick, cheap, feed-me-now status as fried chicken does here. Now the owners of the estimable Tsuru Sushi have decided it's the capital's turn for some top notch noodle action.

Tonkotsu's interior. Photo:  Senthil Sukumaran

As is the law for any Soho opening these days, Tonkotsu is a no-reservations affair, but spread over two floors so as to provide a decent chance of getting a table without too long a wait. The decor's part traditional  Japanese - stripped wood, silk wall hangings - and part neo-industrial, with reclaimed school dining room chairs at the bare refectory tables and an imposing caged spiral staircase linking the floors.

The menu, concise as a haiku, offers three varieties of ramen alongside a handful of simple sides and gyoza. These crimped dumplings, hand-made daily, are a triumph; usually offered either steamed or fried, here they are first steamed to cook the super-fresh fillings - pork, prawn and pork or shitake and bamboo shoot- before being flash-fried to give a golden colour, slight crunch and savoury flavour to the wrapper. 

Sides, too, show attention to detail. Chicken kara age - Japan's rather more civilised take on fried chicken - sees chunks of tasty thigh marinated in soy, ginger and garlic before being dusted in flour and deep-fried; the resulting nuggets are moist, tender and so packed with flavour as to not need the accompanying dipping sauce. A deceptively simple salad of spinach and bean sprouts benefits from its nutty, viscous sesame oil dressing coating each leaf, making the overall flavour smoky rather than bland.

But the best part of all is, of course, the ramen itself. I tried the Tonkotsu, which adds to a generous bowl of that sumptuous broth thin noodles, belly pork, a seasoned egg - sunshine-gold yolk still slightly oozing - bean sprouts and spring onions, and Alyn had the Tokyo Spicy, much the same but using pulled chilli pork and thicker noodles. Both dishes had in common an incredible consistency; the labour- and time-intensive cooking of the stock, during which the collagen in the pork bones breaks down, results in a creaminess almost like a velouté.

Each of us preferred our own choice, Alyn liking the only-slight extra heat of the Tokyo Spicy while I liked the restraint of the Tonkotsu, but agreed that both bowlfuls put anything we'd had before in the shade. Slurping, Japanese-style is encouraged; we didn't need any.

The concise drinks list might confuse some customers, focusing as it does on British craft beers, sake and whiskies. There are a couple of big-name Japanese beers (Asahi, Sapporo) that diners will recognise but other than those it's pot luck as far as liquid refreshment goes; even the soft drinks eschew the familiar, including 'Dalston Cola' which we didn't try but the gents on the table next to us abandoned after one sip.  Still, all credit to Tonkotsu for being as innovative with their drinks as with their food.

Pricing is reasonable especially considering the quality; ramen dishes (as well as the two we tried there's a veggie option using miso broth) are £9 or £11, gyoza £5 for five and side orders all about a fiver. With drinks and service, a meal for two will work out at about £25 a head, a pit-stop lunch for one of ramen and a drink closer to £15, putting Tonkotsu firmly in the affordable category.

Tonkotsu continues the trend in London for restaurants doing only one thing but doing it exceptionally well and in that respect is a very welcome addition. If, as I expect it will, it starts a new trend for ramen-ya, then we can only hope that they'll be nearly as good as this.

Tonkotsu, 63 Dean Street, London W1D 4QG Tel: 020 7437 0071 http://www.tonkotsu.co.uk







Posted by +Hugh Wright

Gyms Kitchen, Leyton

Updated, April 2013 What a difference six months make. Matthew, my friend who took me along on the visit I wrote about below, implored me to come back and give Gyms Kitchen (still no apostrophe...) a second chance, assuring me that the place was much changed, and improved since last August.

How right he was. The decor - which I didn't even mention first time around, feeling that I'd given the place enough of a kicking for the food, but had really not liked - has been softened, with rustic wood panels covering the once-bare walls and saloon doors hiding the formerly visible kitchen and dishwash area.

A much-extended and redesigned menu stays true to the healthy-eating vision (which, do remember, was one of the things I genuinely admired about the place first time round) but offers greater variety - even puddings! - and ordering from it felt much more enjoyable and less of an exercise in parsimony. 

But the biggest and most pleasant surprise was the food itself. Butterfly chicken breast and grilled tuna steak from the grill were adeptly cooked and subtly flavoured with home-made marinades, and beautifully plated on distinctive but unfussy flatware. Sides of asparagus and halloumi (grilled, of course) were well-seasoned and bulked out with crisp, fresh salad. And we very much enjoyed dessert of banana & chocolate protein pancakes with peanut butter and honey - that's pretty much all of my favourite things on one plate there.

Noticeably, the clientele now better reflects the owners' original vision too; the strapping chaps occupying the other tables were remarkably easy on the eye. And those 'eminently threesomeable' waiters? As hot as ever, I'm glad to report.

When somewhere takes as much notice of early criticism as Gyms Kitchen clearly have, and improve this much, I'm very happy to eat my words. And I'd be very happy to eat there, again.



Original Post

Call me old-fashioned - Lord knows I've been called far worse - but I find the current trend for and obsession with 'dirty' food really rather disgusting. Table manners have gone out the window, perhaps unsurprisingly given that the popularity of street food means there are no tables to need manners for. 

If I read one more breathless paean to a burger whose 'bloody juices run down my face and through my fingers' or another review of a barbecue gaff serving up 'melting fatty piggy gorgeousness', written by an apparently sane and presumably not-raised-by-wolves adult now gone feral, I shall probably give up reading (and possibly writing) about food altogether. Enough is enough.

By the Law of Opposites then I should be very excited about a restaurant like Gyms Kitchen, proudly 'serving fresh, healthy grilled meats and vegetables' - the polar opposite of all the triple-deep-fried, lard-basted, confited, hickory-dipped nonsense I find so unappealing. Except that Gyms Kitchen (I've checked, no apostrophe) is not the kind of restaurant it's possible to get excited about, unless you are the kind of serious gym-goer at whom it is aimed, the kind of muscle-bound, mahogany-stained body-builder who sees food as fuel and fat and carbs as the enemy. Which I am not, and don't.

To be fair, I only came to be at Gyms Kitchen through necessity; I was due to cook dinner for a friend who has just moved in nearby but a botched delivery meant that not only did we not have a table to eat off or chairs to sit on, but no crockery or pots or pans either. He'd had breakfast at Gyms Kitchen and enjoyed it so suggested we try it for dinner, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't hope that a place with the slogan 'Eat Clean...Train Dirty' would be heaving with hunks.

Disappointingly, with the exception of the present writer and a brace of eminently threesomeable waiters, the clientèle on the night of our visit was entirely hunk-free, consisting of a large family group and a solo lady diner none of whom appeared to be on their way either to or from the gym. Nor did they strike me as the kind of customer who was overly concerned by the calorie, fat, carb and protein content of their food as listed for every dish on the menu. 

More than likely they were attracted by what I could see as being Gyms Kitchen's wider selling-points, namely convenience and value for money; certainly there was no faulting the portion size of our - huge - grilled lamb wraps for the price, £6 or £8 with the addition of a side order. 

Less attractive though was the actual food itself; huge wholemeal wraps had the texture and consistency of linoleum and the meat within was tasty but tough - I suspect grilled at high heat straight from the refrigerator without time for proper resting  - and in places pure gristle. Side dishes of spicy rice and chargrilled asparagus were just that. There were, unsurprisingly, no puddings, nor any booze, with its evil carbs and empty calories; instead diners can choose from protein shakes (oh God), low-fat smoothies with an optional scoop of protein powder (shoot me now) or a virtuous range of soft drinks. Coffees are, of course 'all served with skimmed milk' as if you'd dare order anything else.

If I didn't enjoy Gyms Kitchen - and I'm sorry to say that with the exception of the company, I didn't - it could be said in their defence that I'm so far off their target customer that I was never going to. And it should also be said in fairness to them that even though it's not my cup of whey powder, their concept is at least thoroughly thought through and honest in its intentions, and I'd like it to do well.

Were it in Soho, say - the spiritual stomping ground of the gay (and they are mostly gay) gym-obsessed body-dysmorphics who absolutely love this kind of thing, Gyms Kitchen would be doing a roaring trade, but it isn't - it's at the top end of Leyton High Road, an odd choice of area to test out a concept which, the website admits, the owners hope will be the model for a franchise. As it is, all the available spots in Soho have been taken up by the kind of dirty-fried-street food pedlars that Gyms Kitchen is anathema to. For the time being, Gyms Kitchen will have to try even harder than they train to make eating clean as appealing as eating dirty.

Gyms Kitchen, 388-392 High Road, Leyton, London E10 6QE Tel: 020 8988 6362 http://www.gymskitchen.com


Posted by +Hugh Wright

Elliot's, Borough Market

Penicillin. Post-It Notes. The Negroni Sbagliato. Me. All wonderful, all indispensable to modern life (to anyone who might beg to differ about the cocktail, I say: Try one) and all of us happy accidents. Fleming's slovenly lab hygiene, Spencer Silver's failed glue, a barman not knowing his Prosecco from his gin and the power cuts of September 1975 all resulted in something quite unplanned but with hindsight, extremely welcome.

A few weeks ago I had a very happy accident of my own, when my friend Gay James (as distinct from Straight James, Posh James, Fat James or Baby James) managed to get off the bus a few stops too early for our assigned meeting place and called to say that he was in Borough, not Bermondsey, and lost.

It was easier to go to him than to try to direct him to me, so we found ourselves on Borough High Street, late-ish at night and with no idea where to eat. I figured that if we wandered towards Borough Market, somewhere would still be open; somewhere was, and it was Elliot's, which turned out to be fabulous.

Brunswick House Café, Vauxhall

Brace yourselves dear readers for something of a surprise. You might even want to make sure you have a stiff drink to hand. Ready? OK: I have started going regularly to the gym. Or more specifically, to The Gym, a back-to-basics, no-frills, great value place in my south London neighbourhood where I go once a week in a determined effort to burn off at least one dessert's-worth of the calories which I selflessly consume in the pursuance of producing the present blog.

Even more rewarding however than this expenditure of energy and burning of fat, is that The Gym is a mere lunge from Brunswick House Café, a just-about-faultless little enterprise which is quietly punching above its weight as I try to regulate mine. Brunswick House is a vast Georgian mansion, erstwhile London home of the eponymous Dukes and relic of a bygone age when the hunting grounds for which Vauxhall was famous were deer parks rather than the open-all-hours dance clubs and gay saunas of today. Derelict for many years, Brunswick House is now the London flagship of salvage experts Lassco; once-opulent ballrooms and salons are crammed full of signs, statues, knobs, knockers and bric-à-brac spanning the last two centuries at I Saw You Coming prices.

The café occupies a couple of rooms on the ground floor, including the beautiful ballroom, an Aladdin's cave of columns, chandeliers and concert hall props. As well as a point-and-choose selection of pastries and pies, the daily-changing menu extends to about a dozen simple, modern dishes combining best-of-British ingredients with more Euro-leaning salads and sides. Thus for brunch last Saturday, lucky punters - myself, Alyn and PV The Artist included - were able to choose from dishes as simple and splendid as our order of soft boiled eggs, sea salt and sourdough toast; Blythburgh breakfast slider, duck egg & Emmental biscuit; and confit Old Spot bacon, beaten eggs and apple chutney.

As at another of my favourite places, The Drapers Arms, the minimal menu descriptions are not an affectation but actually tell you everything that will appear on your plate, other than for a little garnish here and there. Simple preparation of obviously top-notch ingredients in imaginative combinations is a formula guaranteed to win me over every time, and my slider was as satisfying and clever a brunch dish as I can remember having. Alyn's boiled eggs were as brilliant as they were basic, their bright daffodil-yellow yolks proclaiming their freshness as they oozed onto the toast. PV's bacon and eggs inspired the most plate envy though; the 'bacon' was more like thick sliced gammon, the 'beaten eggs' a golden galette somewhere between scrambled eggs and omelette.

To accompany the fantastic food there's a lengthy list of heritage cocktails (it was too early for a Sazerac, even for me, but I'll be back of an evening) and all-French wines, none of which is marked up by more than £10. This is a welcome trend which started at Trullo and has evidently spread south of the river, but while this might make for good value on some wines relative to other, grabbier venues, the presence of bottles priced at up to £37, modestly marked-up or not, seems incongruous alongside a food menu on which nothing costs more than £7.20. We just settled for the house white, a Le Lusc Ugni Blanc Colombard 2009 at £15, which was fine for a bottle that we knew had cost only a fiver. The frozen tumblers provided with it were a very nice touch on a day warm enough to allow eating outside on the cute, scruffy terrace.

A brunch dish each for three people, wine and entirely discretionary service came to under £12 each. You'd struggle to pay more for a main and a drink, and could get out for even less; factor in an extra tenner and you could have a cocktail and a pud. Casual and friendly service is provided by a young and enthusiastic staff and the clientele is as eclectic and attractive as the surroundings. Brunswick House Café is, like The Gym and my going to it, fairly new; I have a feeling we'll all work out.

Brunswick House Café, Brunswick House, 30 Wandsworth Road, London SW8 2LG Tel: 020 7720 2926 http://www.brunswickhousecafe.co.uk  

Drink, Shop & Do, King's Cross

When a few months ago I was fortunate enough to avoid the swinging axe of redundancy and landed a very nice job at the much larger charity with which the tiny one I was then working for had merged, the only downside was that I had to move office locations from Trendy Shoreditch (TM) with its abundance of ace restaurants and bars to the rather less salubrious environs of King's Cross. I went from one day having within walking distance of the office Rivington, Hoxton Grill, Eyre Brothers and the legendary BLT Deli to having...well, a Pret about five minutes away. Although not usually given to performing oral examinations on gift horses, I was initially rather depressed by the enforced change of culinary scenery.

As an eternal optimist however I never lost faith that, as the old adage goes, with this much crap around there had to be a pony somewhere. Sure enough one day Drink, Shop & Do trotted into my life and the gloom was instantly lifted. On first walking past the dove grey shop-front on Caledonian Road, which stood out from the surrounding kebab and sex shops (by which I mean two separate types of shop, not shops selling both kebabs and sex, though if they exist anywhere it would be around here) with its bold, fresh graphics and canary yellow interior, I thought it was just a cool craft shop because of the window display of textiles and shelves filled with hand-made cards, sewing kits and vintage tea sets. But then I began to wonder what the 'Drink' part of the name could mean, and made the very fortuitous decision to step inside and explore further.

What I discovered was a smart little enterprise that's genuinely new, run with passion and really rather exciting. Passing through the Shop (making a mental note to treat myself to a quarter of something from the jars of classic sweeties lining one wall) I found myself in a bright, buzzing cafe-bar, flooded with natural light from a soaring glass ceiling, its walls decorated with patchwork quilts, framed origami and knitted samplers. These it would transpire are the fruit of the 'Do' part of the name; regular craft workshops are held here covering pastimes as diverse and productive as 'Play with Clay', t-shirt printing and card making. The atmosphere was instantly warm and welcoming; I resolved to come back when I had company.

For my first visit I took along my all-too-occasional lunch companion Scott, and we ordered a piece each of savoury tart  - there's two to choose from every day - with salad, then shared a generous wedge of chocolate tart. The savoury tarts (£5.50) were beautiful, one sweet potato, spinach and feta, the other pea, broccoli and Parmesan, both satisfyingly dense without being heavy and each accompanied by a goodly serving of tasty herb salad in a zesty vinaigrette. The chocolate tart was a cracking pud, its thick ganache filling complemented by pastry almost as sweet and crumbly as shortbread. On a further visit with a work colleague we shared a piece of tart - this time blue cheese and broccoli - and a plateful of cute, crusts-cut-off sandwiches (£4), half cheese and pickle, half smoked salmon and lemon, exactly like my mum used to make for my lunch-box and just as delicious.

With time to kill after work one evening before an event nearby, Drink, Shop & Do was the obvious choice for an early cocktail. From the short, witty list I chose a Ruby Shoes (perfect for a Friend of Dorothy), a generous tumbler-full of a refreshing, potent blend of orange vodka, raspberry liqueur, sour cherry, fresh lime and ginger beer. Then on my most recent visit, with Twitter pals @jezmd and @juliannabarnaby, I enjoyed a Coal Dust - a jet-black gin-based fizz made with coal dust sherbet - before we all tucked into big bowls of a fantastic, salty chorizo and chickpea stew with a couple of bottles of the perfectly decent house Merlot. While some of our fellow patrons embarked on a workshop making accessories out of recycled bicycle tyres - and why not? - we played a boisterous game of Scrabble, one of the dozens of old school board games freely available to all. I'll let you work out which words were mine...

I love Drink, Shop & Do. It's original, inclusive, friendly and great fun. The staff - all spiffing gels in vintage frocks apart from one extremely dishy chap - are all clearly having a hoot-and-a-half and want their customers, of which on every visit there have been deservedly plenty, to do likewise. Some of the prices are a little cheeky - that quarter of sweets, sherbet pips since you're asking, was £1.50 - but generally it's cheap and superlatively cheerful. Everything you see, from the mismatched furniture and vintage china food is served on to the handicrafts on the walls, is for sale, so if you like your teapot, or cake-stand say, you can take it home with you. I haven't found a new opening as refreshing and exciting since Dean Street Townhouse, and as with there I go back as often as I can and am never disappointed.

So impressed have I been, in fact - and please excuse me this shameless plug - that I've featured Drink, Shop & Do in my first column as travel editor for new online fashion magazine Fashion Salade. I very much hope that you'll find it in you to visit both.

Drink, Shop & Do, 9 Caledonian Road, London N1 9DX Tel: 020 3343 9138 http://www.drinkshopdo.com 

Mr Wu, Chinatown

'All You Can Eat' are easily my four favourite words in the English language. 'Hugh you look fabulous' and 'Cocktails are on me' come close, but it's the invitation - though I'll admit I tend to interpret it more as a challenge than an offer - to scoff as much as my heart desires that excites me every time.

I've enjoyed some exceptionally good all you can eat affairs; particularly memorable binges include a Champagne brunch at the Marriott, Budapest and a ninety minute breakfast blow-out at The Fullerton in Singapore. But, while I'm hardly a food snob at the best of times, put me within a bain marie's throw of an unlimited buffet and any care about the quality of what's on offer pales next to my delight at the quantity - and it's probably for this reason that I really liked Mr Wu.

Londoners will be familiar with the Wu brand even if, as many do, they abjure it as a cheap, base-quality tourist trap to be avoided at all costs. There's a number of branches dotted around central London operating under a variety of names including Mr Wu, MW and in the case of the Shaftesbury Avenue branch I visited, Little Wu, all offering an all you can eat Chinese buffet for next-to-no-money - £6.50 at this particular outlet. 

Although everything about Wu restaurants is designed to discourage lingering - hard wooden benches, fluorescent lighting that would be rejected as too harsh for Abu Ghraib, overpriced drinks - pay your money and you can stay as long as you like and eat as much as you can of the dozen or so stock Chinese and Oriental dishes on offer.

Now I know what you're thinking; food that cheap, in the West End, has to be terrible, right? Well, not entirely. Sure it's not brilliant quality, and much of it is a nuclear orange colour which screams 'Tartrazine!', but most of the dishes available are no worse than you'd get from an OK-if-not-great takeaway and some of it's even rather moreish. Highlights on my visit were char siu pork and satay chicken on skewers, both genuinely delicious and made with meat and poultry of sufficient quality as to withstand slight - only slight - over-cooking, and some juicy, spicy pork balls.

Everything else - including chow mein, beef in black bean sauce, sweet and sour chicken and 'Thai-style' battered prawns - was fine, albeit that the latter might more accurately have been described as 'discernibly prawn-flavoured battered bullets'. A ladle or two of any of the separate sauces - sweet and sour, sweet chilli and sweet peanut (OK, satay) - elevates any of the dishes from 'edible' to 'rather tasty'. By the time I'd shovelled down two hefty platefuls I was full, happy and satisfied that I'd had more than good value for my £6.50. 

Or rather, my fiance's £6.50; if you're wondering, perhaps incredulously, what I was doing at Little Wu in the first place, the answer is that my lovely man who doesn't earn very much wanted to treat me to a meal for a change and I knew that at a Wu we could eat, drink and tip for less than I'd usually happily spend on a main course.

Is this great food? Of course not, but it's not as bad as snootier critics might have you believe. Is it authentically Chinese? About as much as Christopher Lee playing Fu Manchu. But it's passable, palatable and pretty good value, and when it comes to bargain all you can eat, that, to be honest, is about all you can ask.

Mr Wu, 64 Shaftesbury Avenue, London W1D 6LU and branches. Tel: 020 7437 5088. No website. 

Bonnington Cafe, Vauxhall

Atrocious photograph courtesy of R.B. Swift

For a couple of reasons, the validity of which I'll leave it to you to judge, I don't have a very great deal to say about the food at Bonnington Cafe.  First of all there doesn't seem much point, as the menu at this moderately famous, co-operative-run vegetarian restaurant in Vauxhall changes every day depending on which co-op member is taking their turn as chef. Because of this, what was on offer when I visited will bear no resemblance to what might be available should you go - as I hope you will - other than that it will be vegetarian or possibly vegan. Secondly and more typically, is that being BYO, the seven of us who ate there recently brought and drank so much of our own that my memory of what was bought and eaten is slightly impaired.

There's plenty that I can tell you however, most importantly (and I hope usefully) that I liked Bonnington Cafe very much indeed and that it's a terrific little place. What started as a squat cafe in the early 1980s is now a respectable - but not too respectable! - commercial enterprise, funding the work of the local community's Bonnington Centre of which it occupies the ground floor. Gastropubs and brasserie chains everywhere pay designers thousands of pounds to recreate something approximating the decor of Bonnington Cafe, with its mismatched furniture, candles in jam jars and eclectic artwork, but this is the real deal, organic, the product of evolution and hands-on community involvement over many years.

While it might be possible to replicate some of the interior elements, no smart consultancy or marketing wonk could hope to recreate the atmosphere of this place. Being so deeply rooted in the community and true to its co-operative values, Bonnington Cafe welcomes everyone and as a result attracts a very diverse crowd. So, on the night of this visit as well as our table of noisy, expensively dressed thirtysomethings popping champagne corks there was also a group of very intense, patchouli-scented, bindi wearing groovers, a cute couple on a date and a table of arty-looking chaps with immaculately waxed moustaches. Oh, and there was an accordionist playing, not that it was a French-themed evening, just y'know, parce que. It all makes for a very warm, inclusive, comfortable place which more 'professional' restaurants could learn a lot from.

I suppose at this juncture I should say something about the food, or at least what I remember of it. My starter (there are two choices for each course, chalked up on a blackboard) was listed as 'Spanish tapas' and further described by our waitress as being 'sort of nuts, some beans and spices, in like a tomato sauce' which prompted the couple on the next table to chip in "It's nicer than it sounds!" The dish which I received resembled nothing I've eaten on my extensive travels in Spain but was nonetheless a very tasty bowlful, nicely seasoned and very nourishing. The alternative was pea soup; it was a bit heavy on the parsley for my liking (though in fairness, any amount of parsley is too heavy for my liking) but perfectly good as soup goes and an enormous helping too.

For main courses (and this I'm afraid is where the liquor starts to affect my memory) there was a 'Cuban platter' or some sort of pie; I had the former and liked it very much. Along with some spicy, rich veggie mince came some golden savoury rice, along with - oddly I thought, but if it's typically Cuban, mea culpa - a baked banana. It was filling and moreish, the mince as hearty as any meat-based ragu I've tasted. The pie...well whatever it was I know no-one complained about it which gives the chef a perfect 7-out-of-7 for customer satisfaction if not for memorability. For pud there was a choice of chocolate or peanut tart, the latter vegan (I'll take their word for it that the cream-ish swirl it shared plate space with was dairy-free). Both were good, and as with everything cooked with love and served in generous portions for the price.

Ah yes - the price. A final clincher, if you weren't already tempted to give Bonnington Cafe a whirl, is that starters and puds are three quid each and mains are all seven pounds, so a good, filling, ethically-conscious meal can be yours for just £13. In fact not all of us had three courses so the bill for seven of us came to a ridiculous £85; we rounded it up to £100 only to have our gorgeous French waitress run after us as we staggered off into the night crying (assume your best 'Allo 'Allo! accent for this), "You 'ave left faaar too motch monnay!" We very happily told her to keep it.

Bonnington Cafe, 11 Vauxhall Grove, London SW8 1TD Bookings are made directly with the chef; check website for their numbers: http://www.bonningtoncafe.co.uk 

The Mount Street Deli

As the regular reader - go on dear, wave so we can all see you - of this blog will know, I'm a huge fan of, and something of a pro bono brand ambassador for, Caprice Holdings. Until very recently I'd never found a restaurant I liked more than The Ivy; the place which stole its place in my heart, though only by a very narrow margin, was its stable-mate Dean Street Townhouse. There's nowhere in town I trust more to look after my precious mother than J. Sheekey, and I return time and time (and time) again for gossipy, glamorous nights at Rivington Grill. My affection for the company was further cemented last year by their generous support of an event I organised for my beloved Crusaid.

You can imagine then that I was rather excited to hear that the group has opened its first retail outlet in the form of The Mount Street Deli, just opposite another of the jewels in its crown, Scott's. I was asked along as a guest, on the second day of opening, to sample some of the products on offer, and from what I saw (and tasted), Caprice have another hit on their hands.

For the uninitiated, Mount Street is a very elegant thoroughfare (albeit currently blighted by seemingly incessant roadworks) running from Park Lane to Grosvenor Square. Always popular with the extremely well-heeled residents of Mayfair for its galleries, restaurants and specialist shops - gunmaker Purdey occupies a corner plot across from haute china supplier Thomas Goode - in recent years Mount Street has become synonymous with luxury fashion and is now home to many of London's highest-end boutiques, attracting wealthy local and international shoppers. The Mount Street Deli brings something genuinely new and completely suited to the mix - a delicatessen-cum-cafe stocking produce of sufficiently impeccable quality as to appeal to the street's very discerning clientele.

The food offering falls into two main categories, each of which has clearly been very thoroughly thought through. The eat-in offering - there's seating for 16 inside and 8 on a cute terrace - majors on fresh, home-made, seasonal and organic cafe staples, mostly British but including some smashing Italian salumi alongside menu favourites from some of Caprice Holdings' restaurants. The take-away selection is focused on the ne plus ultra of ready meals; dishes prepared in the kitchens of and usually only served in the members-only environs of the private clubs in the Birley Group, itself now a part of Caprice. There's also a lovingly sourced and carefully edited selection of preserves, chutneys, breads and confectionery ideal for giving as gifts or impressing dinner party guests.

From the cold counter I tried a variety of treats including plump, nutty jewelled cous cous, a few slices of silky salami and moreish mortadella, a mighty fine sausage roll (which I'll admit I would have preferred hot) and some lovely plump, briny olives which would have been perfect had they come wrapped in a vodka Martini. The hot dish of the day was a boldly savoury beef hot pot of which every spoonful spoke of slow, patient stewing, stirring and seasoning. A selection plate from the afternoon tea and puddings menu enabled me to sample the Deli's carrot cake, chocolate brownie and millionaire's shortbread out of which not just the latter will delight the area's super-rich.

The faultlessly enthusiastic manager Hannah Gutteridge is very proud of her coffee and an accompanying latte was excellent. What I really would have liked was a glass of wine; alas for the time being at least The Mount Street Deli is unlicensed meaning one can only browse and possibly take away the interesting and very reasonably priced wines on offer (a 1997 Pauillac at £75 caught my dipsomaniac eye). Although that remained on the shelf, I did leave with an armful of some of the quirkier goodies from the deli section including  a star anise and pink peppercorn mustard from Henshelwoods and some addictive chocolate lime biscuits from Island Bakery Organics.

Overall, I liked The Mount Street Deli  as much as I like its sister restaurants and bars and will definitely be back both to eat in - especially when the veal ravioli from Daphne's is on the menu - and to pick up some of what must be the poshest ready meals in London. The ultimate seal of approval however comes not from me but from the wonderful, elegant American lady who struck up conversation with me over coffee. Lucky (and, clearly, wealthy) enough to live 'just over the road' from The Mount Street Deli, she had already taken home dinner from it on day one and was now back on day two for coffee, a bite to eat and to meet her equally elegant husband. That the locals have taken the place so enthusiastically to their hearts before the paint is barely dry is a sure sign that Caprice Holdings have, yet again, got it absolutely right.

The Mount Street Deli, 100 Mount Street, London W1K 2TG Tel: 020 7499 6843 http://www.themountstreetdeli.co.uk/

Tokyo Diner, Chinatown

When I decided to start writing this blog and had to come up with a title, I wanted to choose something that was original but not too esoteric and self-explanatory without being trite. Although over time I've found myself wishing that I could have come up with something as brilliant as Thring For Your Supper (now alas soberly renamed 'Oliver Thring') or, my absolute favourite, And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Our Bread, I was and remain very satisfied with TwelvePointFivePercent. 


Occasionally when I tell people the name, it takes a few seconds for the penny to drop before they chuckle and say, "Oooh, twelve point five percent service!" but just about everyone gets that I took the title from the pretty-much-ubiquitous 'discretionary' service charge which, with the noble exception of the D&D group, just about everywhere whacks onto your bill these days.

Just about everywhere, that is, except for Tokyo Diner, a groovy little Japanese cafe just off Leicester Square, which not only doesn't add service to your bill, or stamp on your bill in red that service is not included, but actively states on it's menu that it won't take tips. Yes, you read that right, won't take tips.

According to the menu, 'Paying extra for service is a foreign concept. Since Tokyo Diner first opened in 1992, tips have never been expected or accepted. Any money which is mistakenly left on tables goes to St. Martin-in-the-Fields’ unit for the Homeless.' How brilliant is that? 'Mistakenly left on tables' has to be one of the subtlest pieces of cultural snobbery I've ever encountered, as if to say 'Ha! You English people and your crazy insistence on tipping! You get fleeced for twelve point five percent in most places and in the ones that don't, you feel obliged to leave it anyway! FOOLS!' Next time you're in a Japanese restaurant and service is added or the bill's left open, you might want to bear this in mind when deciding what, if anything, to leave.

The no tipping policy isn't the only endearing thing about Tokyo Diner (to which I was taken by my pal Greg when we were in need of sustenance and a stiff drink after seeing Debbie Reynolds' slightly surreal one-woman show on Thursday night). It's light, bright and spotlessly clean, with functional wooden bench seating configured in sociable twos, fours and sixes and set with everything one could possibly need including pots of disposable chopsticks, bottles of good soy and ton katsu sauces and a sprinkler of shichimi seasoning. As soon as you're seated, you're brought complimentary green tea and a little dish of rice crackers to graze on while choosing your food. Staff - almost all Japanese, for reasons explained on the quirky website - are enthusiastic, polite and humorous, evidently taking both pleasure and pride in what they're doing.

The menu offers a familiar selection of curries, noodle soups, bento boxes and sushi, all at super-reasonable prices. Should you be feeling particularly hungry (and we were - sitting through two hours of Carrie Fisher anecdotes works up one hell of an appetite), extra rice is offered with any dish completely free of charge - but 'please don't waste it' the menu exhorts. Another example of the restaurant's iron-clad social conscience is that there's no tuna on the menu, and there won't be until Tokyo Diner finds 'a trustworthy sustainable source'. Fortunately neither of us had our heart set on tuna that night and both went for a bento box, Greg's vegetarian, mine ton katsu.

Each was very good, and abundant, Greg's vegetarian option substituting a generous helping of stir-fried mixed vegetables for the crispy-coated pork fillet in mine. Other components were interesting and delicious; as well as a mound of rice we enjoyed pickles, a refreshing, sharp wakame salad, braised aubergine, some butter-soft salmon sashimi in mine and veggie California rolls in Greg's. The resulting whole was, as a good bento box should be, a substantial, balanced meal of complementary flavours and textures, which we both thoroughly enjoyed. Our enjoyment was further enhanced by a bottle of the house white wine, a very drinkable Vin de Pays du Comte Tolosan, strong in Sauvignon Blanc flavour and an incredible bargain at just £6.90. The mark-up on that can't be more than about a token 25% which just makes me like the people behind Tokyo Diner even more.

The bill, for food, that great value wine and absolutely not one single percent service, came to just sixteen quid each and could have been even less if we'd not been so badly in need of liquor. Tokyo Diner shoots right to the top of my list of favourite casual/cheap-eats options; instead of leaving a tip they ask that you 'Please come back and bring your friends' and it's a certainty that I will. I just hope that the no tipping policy doesn't catch on too widely, else I may find myself once again racking my meagre brains for a new blog title.

Tokyo Diner, 2 Newport Place, London WC2H 7JJ Tel:020 7287 8777 http://www.tokyodiner.com 

 

Byron At The Intrepid Fox, Soho

When Lord Byron - poet, aristocrat, traveller, soldier and politician - died in 1824, his contemporary at Cambridge and lifelong intimate Lord Hobhouse said of him that "No man lived who had such devoted friends." Judging by the praise lavished upon it by critics, bloggers and particularly the Twitterati, it would seem that his namesake chain of upscale burger bars inspires similar heights of fidelity. The enthusiasm generated by this relative newcomer to the ever-expanding gourmet burger market has been almost as frenzied as the 19th century public's reception of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage; burger afficionados go no more a-roving in search of their beef-patty-'n'-bun fix.

And yet, despite my usually being a sucker for good word-of-mouth, until this week I'd not been in the least bit tempted to go, for the very simple reason that I just don't give a toss about burgers. Not that I don't like them - I do, very much, and my home-made ones are my fiancé's very favourite meal - but they're just not something I feel able to muster any excitement for or especial interest in. Sure, I care if I get served a really bad one - burned, or cold, or in a stale bun say - and can appreciate a good one, but beyond that I'm really not greatly fussed about the beef used, or what cheese goes in it, and certainly couldn't fail to be less concerned about whether or not there are seeds on the bun.

Someone however who could and does care, very much, about such things is my friend Frankie, who I meet up with every few months for drinks, dinner and general merriment. Frankie loves a good burger (and indeed has very definite ideas about what distinguishes a good burger from a great one), so when it came to choosing somewhere for our latest nosh-up, and given that our main criteria were somewhere central, informal and cheap and cheerful, Byron sprang quickly to mind from some deep recess of my remembering.

The West End outpost of the six-strong chain takes its extended name from the pub which used to occupy the site, and which was known to taxi drivers and locals alike as 'that Goth pub' after its black-clad, white-complexioned clientele.Why the name of the pub has been retained is anybody's guess, the interior having been so completely reinterpreted as to erase any vestiges of its previous incarnation. The result is a very agreeable space with its exposed brick walls, low-hanging lights and Eames-ish furniture.

When we arrived at about 8.30 almost every table was taken; I didn't like the one we were shown to but within a few minutes of being settled at another (which I did like) we were told that it was needed for a group and asked if we would move downstairs. The sourness of my expression as we gathered our belongings must have spoken volumes, as we were offered free drinks as a sweetener; the prospect of free booze completely mitigated our annoyance.

As it transpired, the downstairs room was, we both agreed, actually the nicer of the two rooms, its white tiling, neon signs and modern, sculpted plastic furniture creating an atmosphere of part-Bond villain's lair, part-Berlin nightclub. The effect was spoiled slightly by its also being used partly as a store-room; stacks of trays of pop are not the most attractive sight. A very attractive sight however was our charming young waiter who was attentive, friendly and efficient, and knowledgeable and passionate about the Byron concept without being at all preachy.

The concept is, as it happens, remarkably simple and unpretentious consisting of just five points: burgers will be good beef, from small (Morayshire) farms, freshly made, cooked medium and served in proper buns. We both ordered the Byron Burger ('dry cure bacon, mature Cheddar, Byron sauce') and a portion each of French fries and courgette fries. Other options include chicken and veggie burgers and a few salads. There's also a selection of desserts but no starters - at all - unless you count 'proper olives ' (as opposed to what, I wondered? 'Pretend' olives? Parvenu olives?) or tortilla chips, which I don't.

Depending on which one of us you ask - and as it's me writing this review, which rather limits your options, I reproduce Frankie's opinion here too - we enjoyed either 'a very nice burger served simply without being three-feet high and held together with a skewer like in some places' or 'a really fantastic burger, 5 out of 5 for everything, absolutely delicious'. No prizes for guessing which of those accounts is Frankie's.  He loved the bun, commenting on its softness and freshness, whereas I just noticed that they were nice and flat and didn't need squashing or cutting. He liked the tasty cheese and crispy bacon, and noticed the crunch of the lettuce and thick-but-not-too-thick slice of tomato; my assessment was less forensic, focusing more on the (admittedly very palatable) whole rather than appraising the composite parts.

Most importantly, my gourmet guest was very impressed by the excellent meat (a blend we were told of chuck, skirt and brisket, which I thought sounded rather like a 60s California boy-band) and how perfectly it was cooked - it was, as promised, cooked medium, beautifully pink, moist and oozing. Neither of us could detect any discernible flavour to the Byron sauce - vaguely tarragon-y, and were those chopped capers I could see? - but it was perfectly pleasant, as was the tangy quarter-gherkin served with each burger.

The fries both French and courgette were good; crispy, hot and abundant if in the case of the courgette fries a little on the oily side. We drank a very nice bottle of South African Chenin Blanc, from a list which offers a choice of 'Good', 'Better', 'Great' and 'Best' at prices ranging from £13.50 to £21.00. There's also a lengthy selection of soft drinks, shakes and beers and ciders.

So, the dinner and the soiree too were done, and the bill - less our side orders, rather than drinks, by way of apology for the earlier table-changing nonsense, plus a coffee and including a definitely well-earned 12.5% service - came to a very fair £18 each. It had been a very enjoyable meal, and was just part of a long boozy evening which began with cocktails at Quintessentially Soho and ended with karaoke in a tacky-but-favourite gay bar. The notoriously high-living Byron himself would probably have liked to have come along for the ride. I'm still no greater a fan of burgers than I was before, and there was certainly no Damascene conversion as one fellow blogger had suggested there might be, but based on my wholly enjoyable experience I'll happily be recommending Byron to my, I hope devoted, friends.

Byron At The Intrepid Fox, 97-99 Wardour Street, London W1F 0UD Tel: 020 7297 9390 http://www.byronhamburgers.com