Blanch & Shock at The Endurance

Ever since I heard about 'food designers' Blanch and Shock, I've been wanting to sample their culinary creations.  However, despite being on their mailing list for ages, I've never managed to get to any of the events that they've organised or been part of.  Luckily, this month they have a 4-week residency in the kitchen of The Endurance pub in Soho.  Having been intrigued by the menu of small plates advertised on their website, I hurried down to Berwick street last week with a friend.  The pub was pretty empty, but the meal we had was so interesting and delicious that I found myself back there today, alone this time, eager for round two.  Today's grub was equally as good, despite the place being much busier than on my 1st visit.  It's about time, then, that I got my finger out and wrote about it.

Although Blanch and Shock do not make it themselves they have managed to find the best sourdough that I can remember eating.  The butter, on the other hand, is made in house.  It is cultured and then churned freshly each day before service.  Flavoursome and mousse-like in its lightness, I piled great, greedy globs of it onto the robust and springy bread.  When the bread and butter served for free at the beginning of a meal are as good as this, you know you're in for a treat with the rest of the courses.  (Incidentally the credit for the bread must go the genius bakers at St. John.)

The menu takes the now familiar shape of 'small plates'.  It is split into light appetisers and then slightly larger veg, meat and fish dishes with a few puds at the end. The dishes are just about big enough to share but I confess I was glad to get them all to myself today.  Prices are scarily reasonable - appetisers for about £2 and larger dishes for £4-7; it took a fair bit of self restraint not to shout 'bring me one of everything!' when the waitress came to take the order!

Chicken skins with red gooseberry powder did exactly what an appetiser is supposed to do.  The crispy skins were like 'chicken scratchings' - very moreish - and the powder was sort of like a British version of sumac; the fruity tang cutting through the chicken fat and making our mouths water.

Salty, fishy cod's roe was served with sponges made with nitrogen in the microwave (this was explained to me, but I can't remember the details). The sponges had a texture much akin to those used in the bath - or I suppose, more to the point, those found in the sea - they were perfect for mopping up the roe and the dusting of sea lettuce power which added to the marine flavour.

A simple salad of raw and cooked courgette with fennel was brought alive by a sharp lemon dressing and the addition of roasted spelt grains.  The flavours were fresh and clean and the combination of crunchy and soft elements was delightful.

We ordered English tomatoes with miso-soaked prunes and nasturtiums simply because we couldn't imagine what it would be like.  Happily the unusual combination turned out to be a good one - sweet umami flavour from the prunes (which had been steeped in a miso stock) paired well with crisp and fruity tomatoes.  The nasturtium leaves had a peppery, slightly sour flavour which added an extra dimension to the plate as well as the joy of coming across an ingredient totally new to me.

Pork belly had been cooked for 17 hours sous vide - it was tender, but retained its meaty texture.  The pork had been seasoned quite conservatively but its piggy flavour stood up well to the salty, barbecuey smoked plum sauce.  The puffed pork skin sprinkled on top had the texture of Rice Krispies and blackened little gem lettuce worked well as an accompaniment.

One of my favourite dishes was grilled ox heart with parsley sauce, green peppercorns and capers.  The ferric tang of the verdant parsley pureé was mirrored in the flavour of the meat.  The heart had the expected offaly edge, but was less 'livery' and more steaky than heart I've eaten before.  This may have been because it was served quite rare.  One of the chefs, Mike, asked me during my 1st visit if I thought the heart should be served this way, or cooked a little longer, to medium.  At the time I said that it was great as it was but, having eaten it again today, I think (as he did) that it would perhaps be better with a minute or two more under the grill.  Regardless of personal preferences about the cooking of the meat, the combination of flavours was spot on in this dish and there was something deeply satisfying about tucking into a thick piece of heart muscle!

Underneath the crispy, sticky, smokey exterior of this pork rib lay meat that was so melting that I could literally suck it of the bone: it was gone in a finger-licking instant and I wished I had a plate piled high with them rather than just the one.  It did only cost £2.50 - so I could hardly complain.  Blanch and Shock could make millions bottling and selling the smoked tomato sauce they served with the rib - I'd part with one of my kidneys for the recipe it was so delicious!  Somehow I managed not to pick up the plate and lick it.  Luckily I had managed to save some bread and I set about cleaning up every last drop with the fervour usually reserved for those with OCD.

Salt-cured bream reminded me of the herring I had from a stall in Amsterdam.  The flesh was firm and smooth and the absence of vinegar in the cure allowed the real flavour of the fish to dominate.  

A judicious scattering of pickled radishes and peppery watercress complimented the fish and made for a very pretty plate.

The most challenging dish I tried was beetroots cooked in embers with gooseberries.  The sweet, earthy beets and sharp, juicy berries played off each other nicely, but there was another flavour coming from the green stripe painted across the plate and a few torn leaves strewn on top.  At first this made me grimace - it was herby and bitter and I didn't like it.  Moments later, once my tastebuds had become accustomed, I found myself zooming bits of beetroot around the plate to pick up as much of the green sauce as I could.  It had a flavour similar to celery and fenugreek and it grew on me rapidly.  Apparently, it was lovage - another new ingredient for me.

Little sugar-dusted brioche doughnuts were well made and lovely when dipped in gooseberry sauce but thy weren't terribly interesting in relation to the other things on the menu.

As with the ox heart, I ordered the Hay and Malt tart both times.  Last week it was served with macerated strawberries and lime blossom.  The dark-brown pastry contained roasted barley malt, which gave it a rich almost Guiness-like flavour.  The filling was creamy and redolent of hay - a delicate but very pleasant flavour.  Apparently they roast and grind the hay freshly each day to flavour the cream with.  When I spoke to the chef, he didn't seem entirely happy with the execution of the tart - in his words, the cream and the base seemed to be 'having an argument' and indeed there was a bit of marbling when I looked closely.  By today, they had perfected it - the filling was pale and uniform and had the just-set consistency that melts on the tongue.  The strawberries remained, but the lime blossom (which was pretty but had little flavour) had been replaced with tiny mint leaves - an improvement.

As you can see, I am struggling to find much to criticise about the Blanch and Shock experience.  The food was surprising, fun, sometimes challenging and above all delicious.  You can tell by the way the chefs and the waitresses collect feedback from the diners and make little adjustments that they care very much about producing the best food they can.  There was hardly a foot put wrong in any dish I tasted - no mean feat given their experimental style and ever-changing menu - and in the best of the dishes, they achieved the goal of all food-alchemists - creating something that it much more than the sum of its parts.

The Endurance provides a great setting for this kind of food - it's relaxed but quirky and with gold flock wallpaper and stuffed animal heads it clearly doesn't take itself too seriously.  The staff were fun and friendly and happy to talk enthusiastically and knowledgeably about the food.

Enough food to fill 2 of us came to £45 with soft drinks.  Food for me today with a glass of wine, came to £25.  I can think of far too many places where I have paid a lot more money for a lot less exciting and accomplished food recently!

Blanch and Shock describe themselves as a design studio and catering company.  Their interests lie not only in cooking, but in 'gastronomy' in a broader sense - the choosing and sourcing of ingredients, the application of gastro-tech to make the best of the produce and the psychology and theatre involved with eating.  The skeptics amongst you might say that all this use of hay, smoke, dehydrators and waterbaths etc. is a little too achingly trendy and gratuitous.  Had I not tasted the products, I might have agreed but in contrast to many chefs employing such methods these guys use technology and unusual flavours sagaciously and to very good effect: every element of every dish is there for a reason. 

The residency at The Endurance runs until 1st September and details of the menu are released daily on their twitter feed. Also, each Saturday evening they will be cooking tasting menus inspired, in turn, by North, East, South and West.  Sadly, I gather that they don't have any plans to open a permanent eatery, but will be popping up regularly here and there to surprise us with new things!

Something tells me I will be back for more before the end of the month!

Blanch & Shock

The Endurance Pub

90, Berwick Street,

Soho, London.

W1F 0QB

10/10

£-££***

The Blue Print Café

The Blue Print Café has been high on my list of places to visit for some time now.  I very much respect chef Jeremy Lee's principles of seasonal produce cooked simply, so the other day two friends and I met there for dinner.  Unexpectedly, we left rather underwhelmed.

The Blue Print Café sits on the 1st floor of The Design Museum in Shad Thames, right by Tower Bridge.  The large glass windows frame an impressive panorama over the river.  This view and the comfortable, stylish dinning room decorated seasonally with small pumpkins and other harvest fruits make the restaurant a very pleasant place to be.  The service, however, was not quite as smart as the surroundings.  Nobody was rude, we were neither hurried nor kept waiting, but a few small things added up to leave us less than satisfied.

After a fairly long walk in the November drizzle we arrived pretty hungry.  Tasty sourdough bread was quick to appear once we'd taken our seats but the instant we had polished off one small slice each, our bread plates were whisked out from under our noses.  Normally I expect bread to be available at least until the main course, but we were left without hope of a second morsel long before out starters arrived.

On the menu, Salt Mallard with Pickled Prunes and Cherries sounded very interesting - I ordered it almost without hesitation.  On the plate though, the dish fell a little flat.  Presented somewhat untidily, the duck was tasty but a little dry - the pickled fruits were sharp and delicious but didn't provide enough juice to moisten the meat and the wodge of un-dressed watercress did little to help.

A Warm Smoked Eel Sandwich was very tasty - the oily richness nicely offset by thinly sliced, vinegary red onion pickle.  The otherwise excellent dish was let down by the fact that it was barely warm - it was as though it had hung around for a bit before finding it's way to the table.

The third starter was Razor Clams with a Parsley Crust.  The sweet, delicate flavour of the clam flesh was sadly over-shadowed by the grit hiding in the shells beneath it.  Explaining this to the head waiter was not as easy as you might expect.  He didn't seem to understand what my friend meant when he politely complained and eventually he had to be very blunt: ''There is now sand in my mouth.''  The dish was taken away, only for another waiter to appear a few minutes later - evidently the problem was still not understood:

''Sorry, what was wrong with your starter?''

''I'm afraid there was some grit in the clams.''

''Are you sure?  The herb topping is quite crispy and…''

''No no, it was definitely quite sandy - it wasn't the breadcrumbs.''

''Ok… would you like to try it without the crust this time?''

''No thank you! I'm happy with the crust… just without the grit please.''

It was all a bit patronising.  The clams reappeared - grit free - and were very tasty.  To their credit, this dish was removed from the bill without us having to ask.

Of the main courses, Skate with Brown Butter and Capers was very well cooked and very generously capered.

Venison was mildly flavoured and perfectly pink but served with the same pickled prunes and clump of watercress as my starter.  A bit of sauce would have been nice.

When choosing the main courses, my companions were advised to order some vegetables as their dishes didn't come with accompaniments.  I was told that, as my ''Grouse & co.'' came with plenty of traditional accoutrements, I should be fine without extras.

The Grouse sat on a fairly small plate alongside a handful of game chips, a small mound of fried breadcrumbs, a square of toast with the bird's liver spread on it and yet another sheaf of naked watercress. Perhaps, I thought to myself, I should have ordered some veg after all.  The 1st problem with this dish was a practical one.  I like to think that, as a keen cook (and qualified veterinary surgeon),  I can carve a roast bird with decent enough skill and dexterity; but it turned out to be impossible to butcher the grouse without it sliding around on the little plate scattering game chips across the table in all directions.  With hindsight, I should have asked for a sharp knife rather than trying to make do with the bluntish one I had been given.
While on the subject of 'game chips', I've never really seen the point in them.  They are, in essence, just crisps.  I know they're traditional, but they get in the way, you need to put your knife and fork down to eat them, they don't soak up any of the juices… perhaps I'm missing something.  Although, I suppose I ordered the dish, they were on the menu in black and white: I can't really complain.
The liver on toast was truly delicious - rich and unashamedly gamey.  The meat from the bird, once I had eventually dismembered it, was succulent, pink and tasty.  However, the small amount of dark grey juice that seeped from within the cavity was profoundly bitter and burnt-tasting leaving me to wonder if it had been washed out before cooking.  I found myself carefully steering pieces of meat around the plate to avoid puddles of juice rather than mopping them up eagerly as I had expected to.  The pleasant bread sauce and redcurrant jelly served with the dish did well enough to mask the unwanted flavour of any pieces that had been tainted.

Desserts were also a mixed bag.  The highlight was a St. Emilion au Chocolat - a rich, mousse-like chocolate tart - opulent and unctuous.

An Almond Tart with Baked Fig was also good, although the fig wasn't quite sharp enough to cut the very sweet filling making it hard to finish.

My Rum Baba with Orange Curd was less enjoyable.  The sponge was light, the curd was tasty and the ice cream well made, but the thin sugar-water that the whole affair was drowning in was devoid of flavour and I was unable to detect the merest whiff of rum.  I left most of it.

All in all this was a fairly lack-lustre meal.  An interesting, decently priced, seasonal menu was sorely let down by the fact that only the skate and chocolate pudding (i.e. the two safest dishes) were without fault.

I would like to think that The Blueprint Café was having a bad evening and that the chefs and waiters are capable of doing the menu and the view better justice… but there are a lot of other places I'd like to eat at before I would consider giving them a second chance.  A shame, as I had been rather hoping this might become a regular haunt.

4/10

££-£££

Hawksmoor - Seven Dials

I feel like I'm a little late to the party.  After all, Hawksmoor has been around for a few years now and most London foodies/bloggers/tweeters have already been many times and already written their glowing reviews.  However, being relatively new to this game, Hawksmoor only appeared on my radar in the last few months and only last week did I finally get round to checking it out for myself.  I was expecting a great meal - based on the hype.  'Hawksmoor does bloody good steak' is hardly newsworthy, so I wasn't actually intending to write about it (hence the lack of decent photos - sorry!).  However, when I got home at the end of the night, I couldn't stop myself: there are others out there, blissfully ignorant to this temple to Beef - these poor souls need, as I was, to be saved!

Deceptively small from the outside and hidden down the end of a Covent Garden side street, it took us a little while to find the restaurant, but once inside and down the stairs the place opens up, tardis-like, into a large bar and dining room.  An abundance of wood, brick, iron and racing green leather lent a vintage, masculine feel to the surroundings and indeed by quite a margin the majority of the clientele were male.  However, rather than seeming stuffy or macho there was an unaffected ease and warmth that made us feel very much at home.

From a very tempting array of starters (I can't wait to go back and try 'Grilled Clams in Bacon Bone Broth') my friend chose the Hawksmoor Smoked salmon and I had the Dorset Rock Oysters.  Being September (the 1st month with an 'R' in it for ages), I hadn't had oysters for a while, let alone native ones.  Native oysters (whether from Kent, Essex, Dorset or other parts of the British Isles) tend to be smaller and punchier than their flabby imported cousins and these were the freshest, tastiest oysters I can remember eating.  I eschewed the shallot vinegar they were served with and savoured them unadorned; enjoying the clean, rock-pool flavour and remembering the happy day, years ago, when my Dad first bought me one to try.  The house-smoked salmon was thick-cut, firm and piquant, served with a simple potato salad.

Hawksmoor specialises in steak but, with the risk of sounding like an M&S commercial, this is not just any steak… it is the result of research, obsession, cooking-trials and taste tests.  The meat comes from British, slow-growing Longhorn cattle sourced from The Ginger Pig and is dry aged for at least 35 days.  It's all predominantly grass fed and finished on grain.  On advice from the ever-reliable Lizzie (see her outstanding blog: 'Hollow Legs'), my friend and I decided to have the prime rib from the blackboard hanging on one side of the room.  The rib is quite a large portion of the beast - the smallest they offered was 800g (28oz) and largest was a terrifying 1.2kg (42oz).  We decided to split a 1.1kg steak between us.  Usually I order steak rare; in so many restaurants it is the only way to be sure that you won't end up with a tough, overcooked, tasteless plimsole masquerading as a steak. This time, however, I trusted the waitress' recommendation that prime rib is best appreciated medium-rare, as it allows more of the fat to melt and perfuse the meat with buttery richness.

The monstrous steak arrived - 2 inches thick and cut into fat slices.  We devoured it in awed silence, accompanied by some perfect triple-cooked chips and a very tasty tomato salad. (I was pleased to see that, although the salad involved various unusual tomatoes of various shades of purple, it was not tarred with the now ubiquitous and trendy epithets 'heritage' or 'heirloom'!).  The flavour of the meat was incredible - charred and very well seasoned on the outside, deeply beefy and buttery in the middle.  We ordered some grilled bone marrow on the side which we hungrily scooped out with our knives and spread on the steaks - as if it wasn't decadent enough!

Having chomped through nearly 20oz of cow each, we were both verging on uncomfortably full (our large preceding lunch of delicious udon at Koya and stunning ice-cream at Gelupo were, on reflection, a really stupid idea)… but the dessert menu appeared and we were both immediately drawn to the peanut butter shortbread with salted caramel ice-cream.  Despite being almost completely unable to move afterwards, we didn't regret our choice - the warm, crumbly shortbread, the gooey peanut centre and the almost-too-salty-but-actually-quite-perfect ice-cream were a great combination.  The barman recommended a 13y/o american rye whiskey (Vin Winkle Family Reserve) to accompany the pud - a perfect match and, now, my new addiction - smooth vanilla, caramel and dried cherry flavours with an edge of white pepper, charcoal and heck of a kick.

Unsurprisingly, dinner at Hawksmoor is not cheap - food of this quality rarely is.  The popular cuts of meat are priced by weight (e.g. £6.50/100g for the rib) meaning that our steak alone was £71 between us.  To some this may seem crazy when you can go to the pub down the road and order a steak for less than a tenner.  However, when you consider the care that has gone into sourcing such excellent, lovingly-reared meat, hanging it for the proper amount of time and the skill which went into cooking it to absolute perfection, it seems pretty reasonable.  To add some perspective, it's worth pointing out that if you were to wander into the Angus Steakhouse on Leicester square and order a 10oz rib eye steak they would charge you £17.50 (i.e. £6.25/100g) - about the same price for inexpertly cooked, poor quality meat served in unpleasant surroundings by staff who don't give a fish's tit whether you enjoy your meal.

The food at Hawksmoor is some of the best I have ever eaten: simple, uncomplicated finesse.  The staff were efficient, friendly and very knowledgable and the atmosphere in the restaurant was great.  For the 1st time ever, I cannot fault the experience in any way: I'm pleased, therefore, to give Hawksmoor my 1st 10/10.  I am looking forward to my next trip - I have my eye on the rather indecent-sounding 55-day aged (!!) rump (as recommended to me by Steven of 'Adventures of a Foodie', another staunch meat-addict). Bring it on!

Hawksmoor

11 Langley St,

Coven Garden.

WC2H 9JG

020 7856 2154

10/10

£££-££££

[Hawksmoor have 2 other restaurants, serving the same menu: one in Spitalfields (E1) and another in Guildhall (EC2)]

St. John vs. Polpetto

For those of you who are already thinking that this is an odd, or even ridiculous comparison to be making, please bear with me – I hope my point will be made!

Also, my apologies for lack of decent pics - my camera was stolen before I had chance to upload them!!

St. John in Smithfield is nothing if not controversial.  Its champions talk of food free from frippery and the devotion to forgotten meat cuts, ‘nose-to-tail’ and such like.  It has, after all, featured on the ‘Top 50 Restaurants in the World’ list for a while, has held on to a Michelin star for 2 years and boasts a list of celebrity foodies and chefs who rave about it.

However, its critics are less satisfied with the pared-down approach to dining and question whether St. John really has a place in the constellation of london Michelin restaurants.

Having read mixed reviews (e.g. here, here  and here) a friend and I decided to see for ourselves.

The restaurant finds itself in a refurbished smokehouse in Clerkenwell – it has deliberately been kept minimal: open plan, bare walls, no art, paper tablecloths etc.  It really is the antithesis to the usual Michelin glamour.  The antidote, some would say.

The service was friendly and casual (the first time I’ve ever been served by a waiter in a blood-stained apron!) and the menu was full of intriguing things.  To start I ordered a warm octopus and potato salad.  It was everything octopus should be and so frequently isn’t; meaty and toothsome without being chewy or slimy and the dressing was a savoury, tangy delight.  The pig skin salad sitting opposite me was a generous pile of crunchy, deeply porky crackling shards and nicely dressed watercress.  My friend reported goosebumps after the 1^st mouthful.  The portions were ample, but boths dishes were pretty much dumped on the plates.

When ordering our main courses we had differing approaches: I wanted to try something completely new to me and he wanted to see how well St. John could prepare a simple, standard dish.  To that end I had the poached lambs’ tongues and he the roast duck breast.  The tongues were a revelation; succulent, soft and salty with a deep lamby flavour – not as ‘offally’ as I had expected.  They were paired with crunchy shavings of blanched carrot, whole radishes, some rocket leaves and white beans.  I ordered some boiled new potatoes as well and these were genuinely the most delicious I have ever eaten – with the fantastic deep, buttery flavour that I have only ever found in roast spuds before.  Sadly, my fellow foodie’s experience was not as good.  His duck was fairly moist and pink, but surprisingly flavourless – actually pretty bland.  The skin, though browned, was soft and devoid of the savoury intensity and crispiness that good roast duck should have (I am pretty sure it was cooked sous-vide).  It was accompanied by a lone braised turnip; halved and with a slightly tough skin and a splash of thin pan juices from the duck.  The dish was pretty charmless and left him sorely underwhelmed.  It was not poorly cooked per se, at least not enough to be returned to the kitchen, but both of us felt we had cooked better at home: not something you would expect from a restaurant in this league.

We decided against puddings (Paul A. Young chocolates is walking distance from the restaurant and we wanted to save room!) and left St. John with mixed feelings.

2 courses and a glass of wine each, potatoes and a side salad came to £76 including service.

On reflection, I feel that St. John is a good place to go to try well-cooked examples of the less frequently used parts of the beast.  Next time I feel an offal craving, I will be back to see what their ever-changing menu has to challenge my tastebuds.  However, I find their deliberately spartan, no-frills mess hall ethos to be oddly more pretentious than most of the restaurants they are trying to set themselves apart from.  If meat is to be unadorned and cooked simply, then it must be nothing short of excellent.  If a duck breast is the only thing sitting on a plate costing close to £20, then it should be the paragon to all duck breasts, not a lament to the misuse of a waterbath.  I do not think that a Michelin inspector eating the same meal would have allowed them to keep their controversial star.  

After our lunch in Smithfield and a wander around Islington and Soho, we decided to see if we could find a more inspiring, better value meal to put the smiles back on our faces.  I am yet to read a single bad word about Polpetto, so figured this would be a good bet.

We were not entirely sure we were in the right place as we wandered up the unassuming staircase by The French House pub on Dean St.  However, at the top, we were greeted warmly and shown to a small table somewhat wedged in between others.  The 28 cover restaurant is crammed into a single room above the pub but, at 6.45, when we arrived, it was already pretty busy and the atmosphere was palpably alive.

We ordered an Aperol spritz each while we perused the menu.  It quickly became clear that we both wanted to order the entire menu and it took a lot of discussion and willpower before we had whittled it down to a mere 6 dishes to share.

The 1^st to arrive was a carpaccio of swordfish adorned with pink peppercorns and dill.  The plate was tiny, but the flavours huge –grins were instantly restored to our faces and our mouths were left watering for the following dishes.  Next came a pizzeta with cured pork shoulder and pickled peppers – as thin and crispy as any I have ever had and incredibly moreish, and a bruschetta of ricotta, grilled fennel and prosciuto.  The fennel was wafer thin and char-striped; its cool, smoky slipperiness complimenting the salty ham perfectly.  Warm lentils with creamy burrata and heady basil oil were hungrily demolished.  Borlotti beans with wild garlic and rosemary crumbs were good, but I would have liked to have seen more of the wild garlic; it was a little lost amongst the beans.  Finally the braised ox cheek on white polenta arrived.  The cheek was so tender that we could literally eat it with spoons, the flavour was deeply beefy accented with slivers of olive and some melt-in-the-mouth cherry tomatoes.  The polenta was very soft – wetter than I am used to, but silky and lovely nonetheless.

My dessert was a small, dense polenta cake doused liberally with an orange and campari syrup and a splodge of yoghurt icecream. Pleasingly tart, slightly bitter and very moreish.  My friend’s flourless chocolate and walnut cake was a little dry and crumbly and rather heavy – but tasty.

2 spritzers, 6 sharing dishes, 2 puds and service came to £69.  We waddled back down the stairs feeling fat and happy and vowing to return soon to try the rest of the menu.  The only thing which spoilt an otherwise excellent evening was the fact that our table was very close to the adjacent one, which belonged to the most irritating diners I have ever come across – they were shouting, or rather bellowing conversation at each other across the table, on topics ranging from better restaurants they’d eaten in to French prostitutes, all the time swearing, guffawing and gesticulating wildly – it was almost impossible to keep my own thread of conversation going and I struggled not to butt in and ask them to pipe down a bit!  Space is at a premium in Soho and I don’t begrudge Polpetto trying to squeeze as many tables into their outstanding little eatery as possible – we were just unlucky, I guess, with our neighbours!

You might wonder why I am comparing these two restaurants.  It's not just that I ate at them both in 1 day, but rather that I think they share similar ideals – unpretentious, honest grub, celebrating the ingredients rather than aesthetics and high concept.  One may be rooted in traditional/historical English cuisine and the other in vibrant Italian fare but they are not that different in essence.

However I feel that, where Polpetto wins, St. John fails.  Polpetto do their best to excite and titilate you in a buzzing, friendly environment, whereas eating at St. John you feel as if you are being challenged to appreciate their food.  It is as though they are picking a fight; inviting and relishing the controversy, daring you to disagree.  This, to my mind, detracts from the experience.

St. John Bar and Restaurant

26 St. John St,

London

EC1M 4AY

6/10
£££  X

~~~~~~~~

Polpetto

Upstairs at The French House

49 Dean St,

London.

W1D 5BG
9/10
££-£££  ***