Dinner

Never have I eaten anywhere with more hype than 'Dinner by Heston Blumenthal'.  Ever since he announced that The Fat Duck would be gaining a cousin in London, people have been talking about it.  Then the news came that it would showcase hestonised versions of antique British recipes and the intrigue and excitement grew.  Finally 'Dinner' opened in the Mandarin Oriental amid much fanfare about swiss-designed clockwork spit-roasts and bespoke jelly-mould shaped light fittings and the 1st of the reports began to filter through.  All the usual suspects seemed to have a table at Dinner within the 1st few weeks, and the reviews they penned were stellar - hardly a bad word was said. I had to get a table - and soon!

Securing that reservation was not an easy job as it turned out.  My friend (and unofficial photographer) spent 5 hours on the phone 3 months in advance to get us a reservation for 3 and the countdown began.  In the last few weeks, however, a few less favourable reviews started to creep in and I began to wonder whether the experience would live up to its billing.  The 3 months scurried past and yesterday three of us found ourselves crossing the marble threshold of the gaudy Mandarin Oriental in Knightsbridge.

After a short wait, we were shown to our table near the huge windows which make up one wall of the restaurant and provide a view over Hyde park.  Another wall is taken up by the glass panels surrounding the open-plan kitchen - including that swiss-watch-driven spit, complete with glistening, amber, spiral-carved pineapples slowly revolving in the corner.  The decor is simple for the most part, lots of dark wood and grey upholstery, but the numerous glowing jelly moulds keep things from seeming too serious.

It is not often you come across cocktail ingredients such as red icewine, sage and aged plum eau-de-vie - so we each enjoyed a delicious concoction from the bar menu while we argued about what to order from the menu.  The problem with such an intriguing menu, is that no-one wants to order the same as someone else but everyone wants to try everything.  The waiters were beaming and friendly and happy to explain - often in lengthy detail - what went into each dish (the menu descriptions are as diaphanous and cheffy as you might expect).  At length, and while enthusiastically tucking in to pleasantly chewy sourdough and unpasteurised butter, we each managed to agree on a starter and one extra dish (the now iconic Meat Fruit), and had decided on a main and pudding each.

We were a little disappointed that there were no amuses bouche (after all, it is 'that kind of place') but brushed this feeling off quickly as the 1st course appeared minutes later.

My roast bone marrow came minced with anchovy and parsley, served within a halved, cleaned bone alongside crisp pickled baby veg.  It was somehow rich yet delicate and had the flavour of the rendered, crispy fat on the side of a good steak.

The 'Broth Of Lamb' sitting opposite me comprised a collection of crisp radishes and baby leaves, crispy golden nuggets of deep-fried sweetbreads and a slow cooked egg, at the table this was ceremoniously baptised with a crystal clear, deep tawny consommé.  The liquor was powerfully flavoursome and once the egg yolk had begun to mix with it, it took on a silky texture.  The crunchy, breaded sweetbreads were described as 'like perfect fast food'.

My other companion chose the 'Salagamundy' - a warm salad of slow-cooked chicken-oysters, bone marrow, horseradish and parsnips.  The variety of textures and the perfectly matched flavours made this dish one of the best of the whole meal.

I think every review that I have read has mentioned the Meat Fruit, a part of me wanted to break with conformity and eschew it entirely but we saw several walking past us (in fact I'm fairly certain every table in the house was adorned with one at some point) and in the end we gave in.  When it appeared, it did really look just like a mandarin - there is no denying the presentation was brilliant.

The chicken liver parfait inside the mandarin jelly skin was very smooth, very light and very tasty - we happily scraped the board for every last smear of it but on reflection we agreed that it was no more than a well made pâté in a cunning disguise.  I think, had we not seen it on TV and in a hundred reviews and were not expecting to get… exactly what we got… we may have been a lot more impressed.

Onto the mains.  My spiced pigeon breasts were deep pink all the way through, juicy and extremely tender.  The flavour was quite mild - squab pigeon I think, and therefore not too gamey - but strong enough to stand up to the rich ale reduction and the artichoke hearts it was served with.

Chris' roast cod was golden and crisp on top but unbelievably moist and bouncy within, reportedly the most skilfully cooked fish he'd eaten.  The creamy cider and mussel sauce was beautiful.

Seb's duck legs had been brined, slow cooked and then glazed and roasted. The sweet, succulent meat needed very little encouragement to fall from the bone and the smoked fennel it was served with was an interesting foil.  

This dish was served with an ample portion of potato purée making it considerably more filling than the other two dishes.  Chris and I were glad of the tripple-cooked fries we ordered.  Also, sadly, the potato purée was over seasoned; not to the point of being unpleasant but enough for us to mention it to our waitress. This was the only example of non-perfect cooking we encountered - and hardly a major transgression.

In an effort to limit costs a little, we decided to nurse our cocktails for a while and wait until the main course for wine.  This presented the biggest problem of the evening and my only real source of genuine complaint.  The wine list is extensive but it is irritatingly overpriced.  I didn't count them, but I got the impression that there were more bottles priced in 4 figures than there were for under £100.  Needless to say, in a restaurant like this, in a hotel like this, the fat-cats and show-offs must be catered for.  It would be silly not to list the Château Latours and Chateau d'Yquems that people expect to see but we struggled to find an affordable bottle that would complement our meal.  That said, the Sommelier was excellent, she took into account that we were eating a mix of game and white fish between us (which pretty much limited us to the light, low-tannin reds) and that we did not want to spend more than double-figures on a bottle and we eventually agreed on a 2005 Nuits-St-Georges for £95.  It was perfect.  Fragrant with red cherries and oak leaves and with very light, fine tannins giving a supple, silky mouthfeel.

Puddings arrived after a little break to finish our wine.  My burnished, spit-roast pineapple was tender and full to bursting with sweet and sour juice. It accompanied a 'Tipsy Cake': six little pillows of soft sponge nestling in a small iron pot which, when disturbed, oozed custard indignantly.  Clever, delightful comfort food that brought a huge smile to my face.  

The Chocolate bar sitting to my right was an oblong of smooth, intense ganache and sharp passion fruit gel alongside a light, fine-textured ginger ice-cream.  The ice-cream tasted as though it had been made with milk rather than cream - very refreshing alongside the rich chocolate.  

The third pudding was the most interesting and the second stand-out dish of the meal.  the 'Taffety Tart' was almost like a millefeuille - a stunning, beautiful, layered construction comprising many and varied flavours all playing off one another: spiced apple, fennel, black currant, rose, chocolate and probably more.

We each chose a dessert wine by the glass.  An intense Szamorodniy Tokaii with a strong backbone of acidity to balance it's golden-syrup sweetness was perfect for my tipsy cake.  A perfumed, honeyed Sauternes from Ch. Suduiraut's second label was complex enough for the Taffety Tart and a dark, luscious, christmas-cakey Pedro Ximenez sherry stood up to the intense flavours of the chocolate bar.  Again, consummate recommendations from our lovely Sommelier.

After dessert, our waiter brought us each a tiny teacup containing a small, pale brown blob.  He explained that 'Heston is a great lover of tea and likes everyone to have a cup'.  The white chocolate and Earl Grey ganache in the cup was extremely sweet and cloying.  Chris and I found it quite unpleasant and couldn't eat it.  It was served with a crumbly caraway biscuit - this was slightly salted - I guess to cut the intense sweetness of the ganache, but for 2 of us it wasn't enough.  It rather ruined the aftertaste of the pineapple and Tokaii.  Our sweet-toothed companion, however enjoyed his and happily finished ours too, so I suppose it's a matter of taste rather than poor judgement in the kitchen.  However, when mentioned to the waiter that we found it too sweet we felt a bit fobbed-off with the flat reply 'It's supposed to be like that.'

The Maitre D' spotted Seb taking snaps of the food and asked if we were planning to write about our experience.  When he heard about the blog, he arranged for us to be taken on a brief tour of the kitchen area. We stood for a while at the pass and saw the dishes being plated with impressive, calm deftness - despite every table being full, the chefs all seemed to be unflustered and methodical. Some of them were even smiling!  They could have been on their best behaviour for our benefit of course, and our guide assured us it wasn't always that serene but I got the impression (from the 5 minutes I stood there chatting) that this was a kitchen where passion for cooking comes before big egos.

Working out exactly what to make of this restaurant was harder than I expected.  In general I feel that it is a victim of it's hype.  Those who have been unimpressed by their experience there have been, for the most-part, subject to false expectations I think.  People hear the name Heston Blumenthal and expect to be met with a taste of the arcane and the wacky.  They expect to be challenged and have their boundaries pushed.  But Dinner is not The Fat Duck.  It does not pretend to be The Fat Duck.  Heston may oversee the restaurant and provide the premise and the inspiration, but the head chef is Ashley Palmer-Watts and it is he who is in the kitchen running the show.  The food is outstanding - apart from a touch too much salt in the mash every dish was flawless, exciting and delicious.  The service was immaculate and congenial and the ambience lighthearted and classy.  However there are a couple of things that need to be addressed and they are enough to stop me short of giving Dinner my 1st '10/10'.

Firstly the wine list.  I am not a stranger to the fact that wine in restaurants is subject to a stupendous mark-up, but there is so much well made, interesting wine out there for £5-7 per bottle that would easily be affordable even with the restaurant mark-up.  It is unforgivable to have so few reasonably priced wines on the list, especially when the food really isn't all that expensive.

Secondly, the portion sizes of the various dishes, while never being over the top or mean, seem to vary quite a lot.  There is no way of telling from the descriptions/prices whether you are ordering a filling plate or something that needs a side-dish.

Finally, it would be nice to see an interesting pre-dinner morsel to whet the appetite and maybe a couple of petits fours with coffee.  I'm not suggesting theatrical nitro-at-the-table wizardry, but something a little more than the 3 courses (and a dollop of sugary tea-goo) would be nice when you're parting with £150 each for the experience.

We loved dinner and all vowed to save up and hurry back to taste the bits of the menu that we reluctantly missed.  Can I say that it was the best meal of my life? No, not quite, but it comes pretty close.  Let nothing else that I have said detract from the fact that the skill of the cooking is the best I have ever encountered.  If you can bare the ordeal of actually booking the table, do it!  You can't fail to have a wonderful time… providing your expectations are in line with Dinner's ethos and not clouded by the hype surrounding Heston and The Fat Duck.

Dinner By Heston Blumenthal

The Mandarin Oriental Hotel

66, Knightsbridge,

SW1X 7LA

9/10

££££-£££££

~~ Many thanks once again to Sebastian Stanley for the photography ~~

Capote y Toros

Olives with almonds and cold Manzanilla,
Octopus slices with hot smoked paprika,
Whole pata negra hams dangling from strings……
These are a few of my favourite things…

Oh hell, I find myself daydreaming about a meal I had a couple of weeks ago and all of a sudden I'm channeling Julie Andrews.  It is true though, Spanish, and especially tapas, is a very strong candidate for my favourite way to eat.  Capote y Toros in Chelsea is one of the best examples of why:

Firstly, I LOVE SHERRY.  There, I said it, and I'm not ashamed!  Yet, more often than not, when I admit this to people, they exchange furtive glances and make cliché comments about old ladies and altar wine.  When I try to explain that, if you know where to look and what to avoid, Sherry offers some of the most startling,  delicious and unexpected flavours you will ever come across in a glass, people smile and nod… but I get the distinct impression that they are humouring me.

The fact is that, if you ignore the sweet, blended Cream Sherries (the ubiquitous Croft Original and Harveys Bristol Cream etc.) that are found on your grandmother's mantlepiece, you are left with an array of other, much more interesting styles which are woefully under-appreciated in this country. There really is a variety for every occasion

Fino is the palest but is powerfully dry and crisp with enough nutty, savoury depth to partner salty olives and roasted almonds.  Manzanilla is similar, but lighter and has a pleasing littoral, saline edge to it - perfect with oily fish like sardines.  Amontillado has been allowed to oxidise a little to take on a golden brown colour and a richer, nuttier, dried fruit flavour while usually remaining bone dry - great with meat like pork, chicken and rabbit.  Oloroso is aged in contact with oxygen for longer, producing a dark, rich complex wine with a higher alcohol content.  It is usually still dry but this is offset by intense aromatic woody, raisiny flavours - drink with richer meat dishes and cheeses.  Darkly sweet and almost syrupy wines made from Pedro Ximénez or Moscatel grapes are full of opulent spice and fruit and are amazing poured over a good vanilla ice-cream.  Needless to say all these Sherries are great to drink on their own as well.  I'm in danger of getting carried away now (as I said, I like Sherry a lot!) So, on with the review!

When I heard that Capote y Toros, the latest, smallest offering from the people behind Cambio de Tercio and Tenido Cero had the biggest Sherry list in the country and an interesting tapas menu to match, I collared a fellow enthusiast and dragged him to Old Brompton Road in Chelsea.  We arrived a little early and as such were the only punters there.  We took a moment to gawp at the long, narrow room - painted in lurid pink and yellow. One wall was made up mainly of sherry shelves and the opposite was a mosaic of photos: Matadores, picadores and enraged bulls in the throws of contest.  At the far end was the bar, beneath several thousand pounds worth of top quality Ibérico hams hanging from the ceiling - a very good sign, we thought!

The wine list was, indeed, packed with a bewildering array of sherries of all varieties and prices.  Some familiar, most not.  Our friendly, strutting waiter (coping valiantly with my somewhat pidgin Spanish) was quick to guide us through the list and make suggestions within our price range but managed not to patronise us at all.

We began with a taut, refreshing glass of Manzanilla (Gutierrez Colosia) with some olives, toasted almonds, bread and olive oil while we tried to work out what not to order from the concise menu.  Fresh anchovies in a Palo Cortado vinaigrette were deliciously sharp and oily.

A generous portion of salmon tartare was soft and silky, with tiny brunoise chunks of raw courgette (I think) running though it and offset with a rather interesting aïoli flavoured with padron peppers.  Having drained our 1st glass, we moved on to richer dishes and richer wines.

A 'reassuringly expensive' plate of expertly sliced Ibérico ham was a perfect partner for a stunning Amontillado (Fernando de Castilla 'Antique').  The Sherry and the ham were both excellent on their own but together they brought each other alive - layer after layer of musky, woody, savouriness that seemed to go on forever.

Roasted cod with a sobrasada crust was moist,  flaky and translucent with a thump of hot paprika from the porky topping. 

Juicy piquillo peppers stuffed with ox tail were soft but meaty and covered in a shockingly vibrant sauce.  The amontillado disappeared very quickly and we felt compelled to order more.  We moved on to a bottle of Oloroso from the same producer to complement our final few dishes.  This wine, had a similar profile of flavours to the previous, but was richer with added flavours of toffee, cloves and raisins.  Another beauty, although, we slurred to one another, we preferred the swaggering Amontillado with its stiffer, drier backbone.

Cecina - cured beef ham - was a highlight of the meal.  A libidinous ruby red, the slices packed punch of concentrated beefy flavour - we savoured every morsel.

Indecently porky pig's cheeks were melt-in-the-mouth, but I found the potato purée they were squatting in to be a little too soft and gluey for my taste.

By this point, Neil and I were somewhat worse for wear and conscious of the fact that the place was now heaving with people - all, apart from us, conversing frenetically in Spanish.  We were politely told at the start of the meal that we might be asked to move to the bar after an hour and a half if the restaurant were busy, but despite the queue of people building up, we were left to take our time (possibly as we were getting through a lot of sherry).  It was not until we had scoffed our way through an excellent cheeseboard (I was far too pissed to remember the names of the cheeses) that we were asked if we wouldn't mind finishing our bottle of desert wine (a fruity, syrupy, christmas-cakey Moscatel whose name also eludes me) at the bar.

Having sat for nearly three hours and filled ourselves to the brim with meat and booze we didn't mind at all - it was good to stand for a bit and soak up some of the garrulous atmosphere at the bar - we could have been transported to a lively tapas joint in Madrid and not known the difference.

Our meal was not cheap - it set us back just over £200. However, about two thirds of that was on wine - we got carried away and could easily have ordered cheaper ( and fewer) bottles which would doubtless also have been excellent nonetheless.  Cost aside, the food was nothing short of outstanding; uncomplicated but imaginative examples of proper spanish cooking executed almost without fault.  The atmosphere was every bit as hearty and rich as the food and the service was good-humoured and efficient even once the place was heaving.  Go to Capote y Toros; arrive early with an empty stomach and a mind open to exploring Sherry… you'll not be disappointed.

Capote y Toros

157 Old Brompton Road,

London

SW5 0LJ

9/10

£££ - ££££

Bocca di Lupo

For too long now London (and everywhere else) has been adrift in a sea of uninspiring Italian chain restaurants, but over the last couple of years a few small islands of imaginative, authentic food have appeared and all of a sudden we are spoiled for choice!

These days you can barely move in Soho without tripping over a Russel Normal restaurant - Polpo, Polpetto and Spuntino have set many mouths a-slobber in Soho lately and 'Da Polpo', soon to open in Covent Garden, is likely to be just as excellent.  Thanks to people like him and Jordan Frieda & Tim Siadatan of Trullo, Islington we finally have somewhere to shelter from the abject mediocrity offered by Gondola Holdings and Tragus Group (responsible, between them, for the ubiquitous Pizza Express, Ask, Zizzi, Bella Italia and Strada).

Bocca di Lupo, hiding away on a Soho side-street, is another such Italian eatery that has been attracting rhapsodic reviews since it opened a couple of years ago.  A friend and I decided to go and see what the fuss was about.

The trip to Bocca was a little impromptu and I left it until the morning of the visit to call and book a table - stupidly thinking 'It's a Wednesday lunchtime… how busy can it be?'.  Very busy, apparently.  The only two spaces left were at the bar, but despite being a little short on elbow room, we got a view of the kitchen and could see many of the dishes being prepared right in front of us.  Our fellow diners were a mix of business suits and trendy Sohoites and our waiter was very cheery and helpful.  Bright green olives, excellent focaccia and olive oil appeared quickly and we set about dissecting the menu.

And what an exciting menu it was!  Not only because of the mouthwatering, and often intriguing dishes on offer but also the fact that nearly all of them could be ordered as either small or large portions; meaning than almost any combination of starter and main was possible.  Why don't more restaurants do this?  Seriously!  Another nice touch was that each dish was labelled according to the region of Italy it comes from - just in case you fancy an entirely Ligurian lunch or Sicilian supper.

Neil and I decided on the same starter - Lamb proscuitto, raw broad beans and pecorino fresco.  The ham was sliced in front of us on a beautiful hand-cranked meat slicer and presented on a board with beans in their pods and 2 generous slices of young pecorino.  The colours were striking and the combination of salty ham, savoury cheese and fresh, slightly bitter beans was simple and perfect.

My pansotti filled with nettle and borage were silky and light but the deliciously rich, coarse walnut pesto they were smothered in made them surprisingly filling.  Neil's spider crab linguine was initially described as 'awesome' but on reflection he decided it was a little short on actual crab.

After my pasta and the very generous portion of spinach I ordered to go with it, I was pretty replete but my love for Italian desserts won over and I ordered the blood orange granita.  It appeared, a murderous shade of deep red, with a sprinkling of toasted almond flakes and chopped mint and after the first crunchy, juicy mouthful I was rendered instantly speechless.  It was at once rich and refreshing, the tart orange offset buy the toasty nuts and cool mint.  Once I had finished it and drained the last precious drops of sanguinous juice from the glass I recovered the powers of speech and then refused to shut up about how good it was for the rest of the day.

My friend's combination of 3 white gelati - yoghurt, coconut and ricotta-sour cherry - disappeared in seconds; before my camera (or spoon) got anywhere near them. They left a big grin on his face.

As we were en route to a wine tasting, we eschewed booze and coffee and drank only tap water; even so the meal was not exactly cheap.  But the food brought such pleasure, the ingredients were clearly top-notch and the service was great - so we could hardly grumble.  3 courses for 2 people including service came to about £85.

I should mention, that there was a lunch menu of 'one-dish meals' available as well - all of which sounded just as tasty.

Bocca di Lupo seems to me to occupy a clever middle-ground between such places as Polpetto (equally gorgeous food, but more casual and rustic and less expensive) and the more polished and pricey big-guns like Locanda Locatelli, Murano and The River Café.  I will certainly be back to sample the sections of the menu that we left untouched - the roasted and fried things all sounded interesting in particular.
I may even drop in from time to time just to get another hit of that narcotic granita!  

Bocca di Lupo

12, Archer Street

London

W1 7BB

9/10

££-£££ (depending on whether you are snacking or filling up)

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
££-£££  ***