McQueen

Ordinarily, a glitzy bar-cum-restaurant-cum-nightclub like McQueen in Shoreditch isn't the kind of place you'd find me having dinner. Aimed squarely at the kind of high-spending, hard-living City geezers 'n' gals who like their spirits premium, house happy and ropes velvet, it's somewhere I've always given a wide berth, even though I used to work just round the corner.

But then a few weeks ago at a networking event (yes, people do still go to those, or at least I do; they're like LinkedIn, but with wine) I met McQueen's very charming Marketing & PR Manager who, doing what good Marketing & PR Managers do when they scent someone who writes about restaurants, invited me in to try theirs. My kind of place or not, it would have been churlish to refuse, especially when it transpired that we had a mutual friend who would make the perfect dinner date.

Not realising that the restaurant has its own entrance on Tabernacle Street, we entered through the bar which, on a Thursday night, was - as I believe the kids say these days - going off. The decor, which carries through to the restaurant, is a bit blingy but perfectly inoffensive - parquet floors, Chesterfield sofas, slate walls, gilt-framed black-and-white pictures of the venue's inspiration, the eternally-cool Steve McQueen - and succeeds in making the space feel razzy without tipping over into tacky. The louche, sexily-lit room would, my pal Nic and I agreed, be ideal for a date, perhaps with someone who wasn't publicly your partner.

The menu (as well as the a la carte there are good value express lunch and early evening set menus) is unthreatening stuff - salads, bistro classics and a few grills - at not-too-terrible prices; starters are around the £8 mark and mains, except for steaks, all under £20. We kicked off with a couple of well-made cocktails and some courgette fritters, pleasingly thick wedges in a crunchy, salty crumb.

Nic's starter, a salad of carpaccio-thin slices of pretty candy beetroot with red apple and pepper cress in a lemon and herb dressing, was lovely to look at and fresh and clean on the palate, if a little bland. Mine, three plump, sweet scallops topped with crumblingly-crisp streaky bacon and served on a cauliflower puree given a kick with white pepper, was much livelier.

Poor Nic didn't do too well with her main course, a very ordinary veggie burger which - horrors - wasn't cooked all the way through and was served on an only-partially-defrosted bun. The dual shame of this was that, having chosen to serve such a humdrum vegetarian option in the first place, the kitchen couldn't at least do it well. They redeemed themselves with my monkfish, a good firm fillet served on soft, silky buttered leeks with smoky griddled razor clams, although it was rather heavy-handedly salted.

Desserts, fortunately, were spot on. Ginger pannacotta with honeyed madeleines was a very happy marriage of tastes and textures, while a classic hot chocolate fondant was as good an example as I've encountered anywhere. Coffee, too often an over-priced afterthought, was of a high standard, as was service which was nicely paced and unpressured with none of the forced formality or up-selling that I might have expected of such a 'see-and-be-seen' location.

All-in-all, bar that very poor veggie burger, McQueen was better than I thought it would be. My perhaps prejudiced expectation of venues like this is that they'll be more style than substance, the food and beverage offering secondary to loud music and a late licence in attracting customers; not so here. Not only did I enjoy McQueen despite it not being somewhere I'd usually go; I'd go so far as to say that I'd happily go back.

McQueen, 51-56 Tabernacle Street, London EC2A 4AA Tel: 020 7036 9229 www.mcqueen-shoreditch.co.uk

  

Posted by +Hugh Wright

Edwin's French Wine Bar & Restaurant

You have to admire - or envy - Edwin Chan. After a long and incredibly successful career in advertising, culminating in his founding his own global agency, Chan handed over the day-to-day running of the business to his partners and decided to pursue his passions of French food and wine. This saw him open an eponymous brasserie and wine bar in Lyon in 2007 and in October of this year, one in London.

The choice of Shoreditch as a location is an interesting one; although not quite as painfully trendy as in its Nathan Barley hey-day, the still-hip axis of Great Eastern Street and Curtain Road wouldn't seem ideally suited to somewhere priding itself on its traditionalism, as Edwin's does. But not everyone in EC2 wants to eat Peruvian-Japanese fusion atop a skyscraper, or vertically-roasted chicken under a giant Damien Hirst vitrine, so actually Chan could well be on to something.

Chef Jeremy Huguet's menu is a simple affair; nothing on it will be unfamiliar to even the most conservative diner. A three-course prix-fixe is offered at both lunch and dinner for an eminently reasonable £20, although with prices of only £6-£9 for starters, all mains around £15 and desserts no more than £6, three courses won't come to much more than that a la carte.

My fashion buyer pal James started with a plate of charcuterie (the rabbit terrine he'd initially wanted being unavailable) which was fine, as you'd expect a plate of Bayonne ham and salami to be. My escalope of foie gras with figs and raspberry coulis was excellent, seared to a crust on the outside and trembling within.

For our main course we both chose onglet, or hanger steak, presented sliced and with rather too many sauté potatoes. It tasted lovely but in both effort and presentation fell firmly into the 'I could (and do) make this at home' camp, which I think is taking simplicity just a step too far. A plate of cheeses, including a delightfully pongy Coulommiers and a sweet, nutty Tomme, rounded things off perfectly.

Chan personally curates and imports the wine list, which changes frequently. None of it is cheap, starting at £20 a bottle, but can be relied on to be good (and good value); our Haute Cote de Beaune was light but warming. Service, from an all-French staff, was entirely faultless.

Any restaurant, anywhere, serving good if unexceptional food at fair prices complemented by a strong and interesting wine list should do well; one with someone as passionate as Edwin Chan behind it, moreso. But Edwin's will, I think, struggle to achieve true popularity unless more is done to make it somewhere you really want to eat, rather than just being somewhere there's no really good reason not to eat.

The room, for example, is basic almost to the point of harshness, with aggressive fluorescent lighting; a restaurant - unless famed for its ascetic aesthetic, such as St. John - with no candles, no ornamentation, borders on the unwelcoming. From outside, too, Edwin's lacks warmth, retaining the unappealing doors and canopy of the backstreet trattoria it previously was. It's one thing to be a labour of love, quite another to actually feel like it to the customer.

Edwin, from a conversation I had with him after our dinner, appears confident that the restaurant and wine bar he's put his name to will do just fine without such finessing. I might not share his confidence, but I hope nonetheless that that proves to be the case. 

Edwin's French Wine Bar & Restaurant, 18 Phipp Street, London EC2A 4NU Tel: 020 7739 4443 www.edwinsfrenchwinebar.co.uk 

I was invited to review Edwin's







 Posted by +Hugh Wright

Soif

It always rather irks me, when reading about a restaurant outside of Zone 1, to see it described condescendingly as a 'good local restaurant', as if to reach it would require a journey worthy of Gulliver and that the preparation of decent food is somehow dependent on the possession of a W1 postcode. 

To those of us who live in Zone 2 (or - horrors - even further afield) it's the central London gaffs that need travelling to; our local restaurants are just our restaurants, ta very much, and many of them are very good indeed.

One such, which I've only just got round to visiting despite the enthusiastic recommendation of others fortunate enough to have it on or near their doorsteps, is Soif in Battersea. The third wine bar and restaurant to open in a group which now numbers four (the others being Terroirs, Brawn and the newly-opened-at-the-time-of-writing Green Man & French Horn), Soif follows broadly the same if-it-ain't-broke don't fix it formula - great produce, rustic dishes, carefully-chosen wines in convivial casual surroundings.

If that sounds like your idea of somewhere fantastic then I'd heartily concur; the slightly bistro-by-numbers interior might feel a little dated but there's nothing not to love about the food. While choosing from the daily-changing menu, chalked up on a large blackboard, three of us grazed on an excellent charcuterie selection - butch rillettes, the fat countered by tiny, mouth-puckeringly sharp cornichons, herby pork terrine and salty, paper-thin salame toscano - and a dish of perfect little leaf-on radishes Peter Rabbit would've risked Mr McGregor's wrath for.

The fat, tender chicken livers on toast with anchovy and rosemary butter which two of us chose for our starters were so big on flavour and beautifully balanced that I found myself craving them for breakfast the next day; I'd go so far as to say it was one of the best things I've eaten all year. Steak tartare - simply done, un-fannied about with, a process yellow egg yolk on top ready for smooshing in - was excellent.

Other mains - a nice hunk of roast cod with moreish, Moorish spiced chickpeas and alioli and a blushing pink magret of duck with garlicky sarladaise potatoes - were gutsy and faultless. It was a shame that bavette with duck fat potatoes was only available for two; I fancied red meat but no two of us could agree to have it so I ended up having the steak tartare from the starters, padded out with an exemplary green salad.

Instead of dessert, neither of the only two choices for which appealed, we shared a selection of immaculately kept French cheeses including  Soureliette, a wonderful unpasteurised ewe's milk whose nutty sharpness was the perfect match for a tangy bleu d'Auvergne and smoky Curé Nantais. I often find the prices charged for cheese in restaurants rather hard to fathom; £10 for three decent-sized pieces here seemed about fair.

As you'd expect from a restaurant whose name means 'thirst', drink is taken seriously and Soif's lengthy wine list is big on natural varieties, idiosyncratically categorised. There's a decent selection by the glass and carafe but cheap it ain't, with very few bottles under £25. That said you get what you pay for and our 2011 Roussillon 'Les Foulards Rouges' was, like my fellow diner Rich, full-bodied and bursting with character.

Two bottles of it, aperitifs and service pushed the bill for three up to £183 - just over £60 a head - which took me rather by surprise. The food had been good, and exceptional in places - those chicken livers, my gosh - but that still felt high, especially as similar quantities of even-better food and booze at sibling restaurant Brawn had only come in at about two-thirds that.

No matter; Soif is a very good restaurant and one to which, being lucky enough to be able to call it local literally, I'll be returning. Wherever you live, it's a journey I'd recommend you make, too.

Soif, 27 Battersea Rise, London SW11 1HG Tel: 020 7223 1112 http://www.soif.co 







Posted by +Hugh Wright

Café Boheme, Soho

Café Boheme is, like the sex shops of Walker's Court and strip joints of Rupert Street, a stalwart of the Soho scene. For twenty years it's stood on the corner of Old Compton and Greek Streets, apparently open all hours, its pavement tables always occupied - one of the hottest spots on a street where people-watching is a competitive sport.

But despite my having haunted the streets of Soho for a similar period - arriving in London from the sticks at around the time Café Boheme opened for business - until recently I'd only ever been past, not in; many's the time I've sipped and supped at Soho House upstairs, but I've always found negotiating the phalanx of drinkers outside Café Boheme itself too like running the gauntlet for comfort and hurried on elsewhere.

When I finally did decide to go in a couple of weeks ago, lured by a new menu defiantly retro in its simplicity and remarkably kind in its pricing, it quickly became apparent why Café Boheme has remained so popular and for so long. The attractive room is classic Soho House (who bought Café Boheme along with the rest of the building when they opened in 1995); design details that will be familiar to anyone who's eaten at sibling sites Dean Street Townhouse and Hoxton Grill are all present and correct. To the uninitiated this means dark red leather on bar stools and banquettes, wood panelling, lots of crystal and a statement zinc-topped bar at the heart of it all.

While sipping an excellent Martini, dinner date Eliot and I shared some eggs mayonnaise - I said the menu was retro - which were great, especially piled onto some good fresh bread. I also ordered moules marinieres which were textbook; the wonderfully sweet, small mussels used resembled clochinas, popular in Valencia but unseen anywhere else, making for a welcome treat. 

Main courses were nothing to get over-excited about, but then café food generally isn't and it was none the worse for it. Eliot's grilled chicken salad with tarragon mayonnaise was well-executed, simple stuff; the ratio of leaves to protein was perhaps a bit skewed towards the greenery but it was a generous helping of good-quality poultry nonetheless. My steak - a decent-sized rib eye, served blue and full of flavour if a tad over-salted - came with fantastic frites, hot, crisp and oil-less as they should be. 

We skipped desserts in favour of a couple of glasses of Sauternes (as you do); together with a glass of Pinot Noir from the all-French list - which also offer s good choice of 500ml pichets - and service the bill still only worked out at about £35 each. You could eat well here for even less; steak frites start at just £10 for rump (my rib eye was only £16, the selection peaks at £19 for filet), and main courses average £12-£13. 

Being a café, bookings aren't taken but given that it's open eighteen hours a day, opening for breakfast at 8.30 and only closing at 2.30am, it should always be possible to drop in and get a seat. With food of this quality, at these prices, in such stylish surroundings, it's easy to see why Café Boheme has been such a lasting success. What's harder to understand is why, with food of this quality, at these prices, in such stylish surroundings, anyone would ever want to eat anywhere else.

Cafe Boheme, 13 Old Compton Street, London W1D 5JQ Tel: 020 7734 0623 http://www.cafeboheme.co.uk 

 





Posted by +Hugh Wright

The Lawn Bistro, Wimbledon

Say 'Wimbledon' and the first thing that springs to most minds is usually either tennis or The Wombles, or to those of a more literary bent, Nigel Williams' brilliant trilogy of SW19-based novels. 

It's safe to say that one thing Wimbledon is not closely associated with is great restaurants; save for a couple of local gems - notably San Lorenzo Fuoriporta, an offshoot of Princess Di's favourite Knightsbridge Italian that during the tennis resembles a megastar players' canteen - the dining scene in SW19 is mostly limited to branches of some of the better chains and a couple of above-average pubs.

That could well be about to change, thanks to the arrival late last year of The Lawn Bistro in Wimbledon Village, where I enjoyed a splendid dinner with my local-resident pal Will recently. Here, the food is so accomplished, service so polished and the atmosphere - for the most part, but more on that later - so enjoyable that it will surely become as much a draw for visitors as the All England Lawn Tennis Club round the corner to which its name alludes.

The Lawn Bistro was opened in September 2011 by Akbar Ashurov - a man with such an unusually light online footprint that had I not seen him with my own eyes I might have doubted his existence - and Ollie Couillaud, formerly chef at (among others) Chiswick's high-end local favourite La Trompette. Couillaud was absent on the night we visited but a brigade ably led by his affable, rugged head chef Neil delivered a meal big on aces and with only very occasional faults.

In keeping with the comfortable modernity of the long, angled room, the daily-changing modern European menu is serious but accessible both in composition and price. At £27.50 for two courses or £32.50 for three - with hardly any of the supplements which I know I'm not alone in finding a huge irritant on supposedly set-price menus - it's not cheap but is very reasonable for the quality of the food that comes out of Couillaud's kitchen.

If our pre-starter of carrot and coriander soup with toasted seeds and hazelnut was immediately forgettable after the first mouthful, everything that followed more than made up for it. Our starter proper of ballotine of crab and leek was a beautiful, long neat cigar of sweet fresh filling, bathing in a luxurious champagne velouté in which a couple of oysters had been poached to just doneness. Not normally a fan of cooked oysters I found these lovely, retaining their briny flavour and plumpness but given an extra dimension by their warmth. Pickled ginger brought a fragrant, Eastern touch to the plate.

As a (much appreciated) little extra between courses, we were given a dish of venison carpaccio which as well as paper-thin slices of excellent meat brought together the earthiness of beetroot and celeriac remoulade with salty Parmesan and a slick of wonderful beef jus that took me by surprise with its intensity. Absent from the main menu, this is one of those dishes that if you see it, you should order it, as much for the thrill of that jus as for the brilliant rest.

Our main courses were perfect exemplars of what this restaurant is about: really smart but unfussy interpretations of classic bistro dishes. Plump, pink magret of duck, sitting on a subtle artichoke purée with some fondant potatoes and crisp curls of parsnip alongside and drizzled with a sticky port and orange sauce was at once wonderfully retro and totally now, given a lively kick by the inclusion of some boozy griottine cherries. Seared tuna - a pleasingly fat slab of fish - came with just-made caponata, butter bean hummus, olives and, for texture, a chick pea crisp. In isolation the flavours were all very low-key, but brought together on the fork the undertones made for a clever, complex mouthful.

After a livening palate cleanser of lemon sorbet in vodka - there's a combination I could get dangerously used to - we finished off with a seriously good pud of croustade of caramelised apples with hazelnut ice-cream. As well as enjoying the contrast of still slightly tart apple with the sweetness of the ice cream, I loved the witty presentation; the apple-filled, cone-shaped croustade came placed on top of a scoop of ice cream so that the whole resembled a dropped Cornetto, evoking childhood memories albeit without the tears.

Wine is taken very seriously. Diners pass through the wine room on the way to the loos and it's worth stopping to marvel at the glass-fronted cabinets' contents. We decided to order from the interesting selection available by the glass, discovering along the way a Slovenian sauvignon blanc - classically sauvignon on the nose but lighter and refreshingly more acidic on the palate - and a 2008 Austrian Blaufrankisch which, with its peppery black fruit, reminded me of a Gigondas. Good old Pedro Ximenez was perfect with the apple croustade, although so too was a wine we tried out of sheer curiosity, a sweet Helmut Lang Beerenauslese Chardonnay - I'd no idea that one of my favourite minimalist fashion designers produced dessert wines as good as his jeans.

Service, from smartly-uniformed (and terribly handsome) staff was excellent, perfectly-paced, courteous yet informal and with all the niceties of a smart restaurant without the silliness or stuffiness of fine dining. The atmosphere started off quiet but soon built to a comfortable lively buzz; alas as the restaurant filled, a table of five ladies d'une certaine age and a male pal, celebrating one of their birthdays, was seated next to us and even before their celebratory fizz started to kick in it quickly became apparent that their preferred means of communicating with each other was to screech and shout. Of course, restaurants can't know when taking a booking what a table's volume control is like, but perhaps seating a five next to a two is something best avoided.

That very minor gripe aside, everything that was within The Lawn Bistro's control I liked very much indeed. Our bill, for three courses, six glasses of wine, two stickies and 12.5% service came to £125 which felt reasonable; had we stuck to a bottle of wine from the lower end of the list - prices start at just£18 - we could have shaved about £30 off that.

The Lawn Bistro isn't just a welcome addition to Wimbledon, it's a fantastic new restaurant for all of London. It's certainly won me over, game, set and match.

The Lawn Bistro, 67 High Street, Wimbledon Village, London SW19 5EE Tel: 020 8947 8278 http://www.thelawnbistro.co.uk/

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Bistro du Vin, Clerkenwell

May 2012 - This restaurant and its sister site in Soho have now closed - they are to become mega-branches of the estimable Burger & Lobster

Asked in a recent interview what makes the perfect restaurant, an eminent and well-loved food writer observed that while good food obviously matters, it's not everything, and that the room, service and atmosphere are just as important. "Very, very few places get the mix exactly right", he sagely added. Although not getting it quite exactly right - yet - Bistro du Vin, the first standalone restaurant from the popular Hotel du Vin chain, is certainly an example of a restaurant that's heading the right way.

On the site of what was once Bjorn van der Horst's hubristic Eastside Inn, Bistro du Vin is the latest big-bucks opening in an area which already boasts, within a few minutes' stroll of each other, culinary genre-definers Bistrot Bruno Loubet, The Modern Pantry, Hix Oyster & Chop House and the daddy of them all, St John. Rather than trying to introduce something modern and fashionable to this already modern and fashionable mix, Bistro du Vin instead offers staunchly traditional bistro grub in stylishly classic surroundings, lubricated by an exciting selection of wines, many by the glass. It does, reassuringly and well, exactly what it says on the tin.

Bistrotheque

Think of ‘dinner and a show’ and you’re most likely to conjure up images of taking your mum to a matinee followed by an early supper somewhere swanky – Les Mis then Sheekey’s always works for Mother Wright – or for the really cosmopolitan among you, of watching les girls at the Crazy Horse on Avenue George V in Paris while nibbling côtelets d’agneau. You’re less likely, I would wager, to envisage feasting on bone marrow and snails before watching a three-piece transgender ‘frockabilly’ band in a converted warehouse in Hackney. But that’s exactly what I experienced last weekend at Bistrotheque, and what an enjoyable experience it was.

When it first opened about five years ago, Bistrotheque was that rarest of entities: something completely new, at least to London. While multi-purpose restaurant and cabaret spaces have been around for centuries, Bistrotheque eschewed the safe formula of mediocre, over-priced food matched with predictable, traditional entertainment and instead founded itself as a space for alternative, challenging performance, with the option of fine dining in its attractive restaurant space.

To add to its uniqueness, Bistrotheque opened in what was then – and to be honest, remains – the middle of nowhere, adopting one can only assume the bold mantra of ‘If we build it, they will come’. Come they did, and still do; Bistrotheque was an instant hit with the fashionable east London crowd and on the Saturday night we visited was doing a roaring trade despite its isolation.

The lure for us – myself, Alyn, Elaine, birthday boy PJ and his husband Michael – was the aforementioned frockabilly band, The Frantastics, fronted by Frances, erstwhile hostess of the temporarily-homeless Club Lola. While it’s perfectly possible to just come for the show (and I would highly recommend that you do come), the chance to make an evening of it and enjoy dinner beforehand was very welcome. I’m glad we did take the chance, because the dining experience was, bar a few glitches, very good.

There’s a choice of two dining rooms, the all-white, vaulted-ceilinged main room and the smaller, more intimate wood-panelled Oak Room. Wanting to celebrate PJ’s big day with some degree of privacy we opted for the latter, and were given a large, attractively dressed table in the centre of the charming candlelit room. The menu – printed, with immense practicality, on one’s place setting – reads appealingly; it’s modern, fashionable bistro fare as you’d expect from a modern, fashionable bistro.

I loved my starter of bone marrow, sautéed snails, frisee and toast, a generous helping of inch-thick cross sections of bone each oozing with rich, butter-soft marrow which paired deliciously with the garlicky snails and bitter leaves. A starter of mixed beetroot salad, herbs, orange and horseradish, chosen by all of the rest of the table, divided opinion. While one described it as ‘the perfect starter’, both ‘aesthetically pleasing’ and ‘soothing’ (sorry to go all Zagat on you here with the inverted commas, but I’m quoting from an email), another found the dish to be short on flavour and overly dry, ‘similar to eating a prettily coloured piece of card’.

Mains were universally liked. My steak tartare with chips and green salad was excellent, although the salad had to be replaced as it was so over-salted as to be inedible (who on Earth salts salad? I wondered). Alyn’s half roast chicken with garlic and wild rocket was a simple success, the meat moist, succulent and just fragranced with the garlic. Roast sea bass with creamed leeks, crab, tomatoes and gremolata was pronounced ‘simply delicious’ by PJ, and the two vegetarians at the table highly praised the fennel and oregano gratin, baked flat mushrooms and Taleggio. There’s clearly an expert touch being deployed in the kitchen, the subtle layering of textures and flavours in every dish showing both skill and imagination.

It being a birthday there had of course to be cake, and I had pre-arranged a chocolate and raspberry one which was brought to the table with the candles and fanfare requisite of such occasions. Once the candles had been blown out it was taken away and, at no extra charge, re-plated as individual portions with some excellent vanilla ice-cream. I thought this showed great generosity on the venue’s part, and was a real highlight of the meal. We tried additionally a fruit crumble and crème brulée, both of which were tooth-janglingly over-sweet; viz the green salad, somewhere among the commis chefs there’s a heavy-handedness which needs addressing.

Drinks were all pink; we started off with a bottle or two of a lovely light Prosecco rosé, before moving on to a 2008 Cotes de Provence, Domaine Gavoty Melopée which proved a successful match for our many and varied food choices. The wine list is strong, mostly French, and like the food ungreedily-priced. Tap water was offered and constantly replenished, earning extra brownie points. Service throughout was delightful, with special mention going to restaurant manager Jason who accommodated my extremely demanding table requirements and miscellaneous enquiries with charm and enthusiasm.

The bill, for three courses, lakes of good wine and 12.5% optional service which we were very glad to pay, came to about £60 a head; with less wine than we put away and sans the birthday cake you could get away for much less. That figure also included our entrance to the show, which for the record was just fabulous. Frances, Lauren and Jenny - the fantastic Frantastics – entertained us and a packed room with a foot-stomping, barn-storming set of covers and original material, including the oh-so-contemporary ‘I Fell In Love In A Chatroom’ – check it out on the Frantastics' website.

Michelin – an infinitely more respectable and reliable restaurant guide than this - says of its highest-scoring three star restaurants that they are worth not just a detour, but the journey itself. Given Bistrotheque’s location, you have little choice but to make a special journey, not to mention a few detours, to get there, but while I’m not sure it’s quite the sort of place I’ll be bringing Mother Wright in a hurry, I’ll certainly be making the journey again before too long.

Bistrotheque, 23-27 Wadeson Street, London, E2 9DR. Tel: 020 8983 7900 http://www.bistrotheque.com