Agree that the food is good and the wine list isn’t. I like to go to the Maltby Street Market on Saturday and have lunch at 40 Maltby.
On a flight to London two years ago, I sat next to Juliet Rylance who was flying over to see her stepfather, Mark Rylance, reprise his role in Jerusalem at the Apollo Theatre. She was charming, invited me to attend the play, and insisted that I try 40 Maltby. One of those random encounters with strangers that make travel so rewarding.
Nopi and Medlar both tops in their class. This weekend.
And Sundays at Medlar is £20 less than the rest of the week for their 3 course. At £55, the only value that strong I know of is Atoboy in NY.
Good to read this about Medlar. We rode them on the way up to their Michelin *, then down when they lost it, both deserved. Glad it is back to form.
Nopi is always good, either upstairs or down.
Thanks for the tips! I was at the festival all day yesterday and now in Paris so I did not get to try anything else. I did manage to have some excellent jerk chicken with a good bottle of Metras! Funny story Erykah Badu who was the headliner sadly cancelled so my friends were asked to take her spot so therefore we got her catering! Planning on heading back soon the food scene is so great in London. Leo’s is a new spot all of the industry folk are talking up, the chef trained at Brawn and the opened Bright:
A quick recap of the weekend:
I snagged a reservation at Kol in early Sept. Has anyone been?
Not sure if this is the most recent London thread, but it seems to be the most generic, so I’ll add my recent experiences here.
I was in London for 4 days and enjoyed some mostly good meals.
Noble Rot Lambs Conduit – I really like it here. The food is always fresh and well prepared and, while the wine list isn’t as nicely priced as it used to be, it is exceedingly well thought out and there are always things I want to drink. I went for lunch solo and returned to the bar for a last bottle of the trip with a friend. Sitting in the bar, we overheard the staff talking among themselves, in various combinations, and they were almost always talking about wine. I loved that.
Kitchen Table – Overall, I had a very nice evening, especially as I ended up meeting and talking throughout the meal with two other solo food lovers. I’d give the meal a B (due to an averaging of scores ranging from C- to A) and the experience a B+. It didn’t start so well, as the bar area was incredibly stuffy, in addition to being hot, and I was pouring sweat. I also felt very pressured to order a cocktail or a glass of something before dinner, when I’d already ordered a bottle to go with my meal (Eric Rodez Blanc de Noir) and asked for it to be served immediately (provided it was at temp). I noticed that almost everyone around me did order a pre-dinner drink, and almost everyone who was drinking at all ordered the pairings. The champagne list is still very good, though the prices are in some cases out of control (what’s online isn’t accurate), but the choices are excellent. The food was, for me and my companions (one of whom was impressively knowledgeable across both restaurants and cooking), variable. Several dishes were truly excellent. A few were failures. The signature Parker House rolls were hard on the outside, which should never have happened to an item whose raison d’etre is to be soft. One of the hors d’oeuvres was a little crispy chicken skin sandwich with rosemary cream, and the rosemary was so potent that I couldn’t taste anything else for a good 10 minutes afterwards, and actually went into the bathroom to scrub my teeth and tongue. On the other end of the spectrum, the blackberries in one of the desserts were utterly tasteless. Putting these items together with some real imbalances in one or two other dishes, I came to the theory that it’s the foraging that causes the problems. James waxed poetic over and over about where and how a number of the products were foraged, largely in the city, and I began to think that perhaps part of the result is no control over the quality or flavor profile. I’m sure he tastes when they pick , but I can’t help but think there is 1) a lot of variation and 2) a bias that foraged = good. In my mind, it might be better to grow your own or work with a trusted farmer with control over exact species of an herb and its cultivation. Anyway, I don’t want it to sound as if the meal was bad – it wasn’t, and the highs were quite high, the service was great, the show is fun, and the dining room was a better temperature, though the fact that it’s impossible for anyone to get out of his/her seat when the bar is full without the assistance of two staff members to pull back the stool is a little annoying and awkward. I had high expectations, which were only partly met. To be fair, I am critical when it comes to cooking, and pull everything apart, even dishes we cook at home, and I thought there were some failures in the meal that should not have happened given chef’s skills and talents.
St John – as good or better than it has ever been, with one exception. A dish of crispy pig skin with chicory and sorrel blew me away, and a smoked eel was among the best versions I’ve ever had, so much so that I ordered another round the next night when Nicos and I stopped by for a drink at the bar after dinner (eel for dessert!) The only miss was a grossly overcooked lamb’s liver. A restaurant that prides itself of nose-to-tail cooking should never get this wrong. Overcooked liver is disgusting, likely the reason so many people hate liver. We sent it back not once, but twice! And they still couldn’t get it right. At that point, it’s got to be an incompetent line cook, as even if they disagree with what we want, they should do it that way by the third time just to make us happy. Despite the liver, I loved my meal.
Brawn – Went solo for lunch. Not a disaster, but not successful. I ordered a green gazpacho with white crab and vitello tonnato to start, both of which should have been fantastic, but were ruined by too much salt and waaaay too much finishing olive oil. The oil was of a high quality, but aggressively flavored, so on top of delicate flavors like cucumber, crab and thin sliced veal, was overwhelming. The soup was like eating spoonfuls of olive oil. I sent half the vitello tonnato back unfinished, and told them why. No offer to remake it, just gave me a quick and snooty “sorry” and whisked it away. My main course of brill with beans and peppers was nice and not over salted, so at least they made that adjustment after I complained. The wine situation there is difficult. The bottle list had a number of good options, but I didn’t want a full bottle on my own that day, as I wanted to get a workout in between lunch and dinner and I didn’t care to bring part of it back to the room as I didn’t think I’d have a time to finish it. The BTG list was impossible, totally natty and esoteric, not to mention in one case misleading. They were pouring a NV champagne that they listed as NV Marie Courtin “Damasse de Tremblay.” I asked for some detail because I know Marie Courtin and hadn’t heard of it, nor could I find anything online. Turns out (I’m paraphrasing what he told me, haven’t researched to verify) it’s a negoce bottling that Dominique has nothing to do with making, just sells grapes (or something), and the name Marie Courtin isn’t anywhere on the label. I took a little taste and it was not good. They should never list it as Marie Courtin. So overall the lunch didn’t feel good and mostly pissed me off. Ironically, I ran into the obnoxious waiter at Noble Rot the next night, but he appeared not to recognize me. Probably a good thing.
Quality Chophouse – My friend Nicos has a great relationship here, as he does at St John, so we got particularly good treatment. It was my first time, and I really liked it for being exactly what it was, and doing its thing really well. Yes, the seats are not terribly comfortable and it’s a bit tight, but we had a full booth in the front room to ourselves, and the noise level was not outrageous. The food was simple and strong, from a dense and delicious mangalitza croquette to the little salad that came with the steak. The beef itself was very good and perfectly cooked, but we make better at home, and get better in Spain. Comparing to those high bars is perhaps not fair, I know, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who I think would enjoy the historic atmosphere and simple approach. Of note, they had Parker House rolls that were spot on. I remembered that the owners are friends with the Knappetts from Kitchen Table, so I told the chef his rolls were better than at Kitchen Table, but not to tell James, and we had a good laugh.
Ambassadors Clubhouse – Not nearly as brazenly blingy as I might have expected, though definitely of a particular style. I think downstairs is more bordello-esque, and the bathrooms were so dark that going to fix my hair after walking there from Bloomsbury was a complete waste of time. We had a big corner booth near the bar and it was quite comfortable. Service was attentive, but a little scattered, with one or two things forgotten, and over eagerness to explain what the “most popular” dishes were. I thought the food was very good, pretty much on the level of gymkhana in terms of quality and unique flavor expressions, though perhaps a little less exciting in that I recognized a lot of the dishes and knew what to expect, though I suppose that could be seen as a good thing. The beetroot chat was an exception – I have no idea how to describe it, and I don’t really know what was going on in it, but it was great! We had one large main, the suckling lamb, and I thought it was very good, but not as fun and interesting as the smaller dishes. I would definitely go back. The only real screw up were the drinks – awful. Nicos and I had 4 different G&Ts between us, and we’d be surprised if all of them combined had more than an ounce of gin. We made up for it by going to Mr. Foggs Gin Parlour afterwards, and finishing the evening with white burgundy at Noble Rot.