Good or otherwise, Japanese food is hard to come by in East London – a remarkable failure of a food market that is so over-saturated that chefs are now setting up ‘residencies’ instead of restaurants.
And yet the only sushi around is likely to be part of a Sainsbury’s meal deal, or in Itsu or Wasabi’s duelling salmon boxes whose ubiquitous, marginally different characters evoke the Whopper/Big Mac rivalry.
On the other end of the inauthenticity spectrum, international giants like SushiSamba on the billionth floor of the Heron Tower offer a dose of vertigo with a £200+ bill.
But almost two years after it opened, the East End Review has discovered what might just be the only normal Japanese restaurant in East London.
Plus, as an added bonus, there are private karaoke rooms on offer for post-meal humiliation.
Sushinoen is easy to miss – tucked to the side just off an utterly chaotic junction in Aldgate.
Owner Shang admits that in the beginning, much of their custom came thanks to a buddy-buddy relationship with the Qbic Hotel next door, which has been sending over droves of hungry business travellers since it opened. But slowly a local crowd has caught on.
On a recent Tuesday evening the serene dining room was packed with suits, locals, and a reassuring number of people ordering in Japanese.
For the most part, Sushinoen, or ‘sushi in a garden’, is ultra-traditional with kimono-clad staff and low tables atop sunken floors for your legs – ancient custom for some, date-night novelty for others.
Classic starters like chicken gyoza, braised pork belly in Dashi soy sauce and miso-glazed aubergine are full of all the salty umami you could hope for.
As in so many Japanese restaurants, maki rolls are tarted up with the spicy mayo concoctions and artfully-presented special rolls (read: gigantic) cater to the Western expectation of intense flavour and hugeness.
But the real test is achieving the perfect simplicity of a plain piece of sashimi and nigiri. Sushinoen does this very well, with a selection of fish far more extensive than cult-favourite Dotori in Finsbury Park, which sticks to the basics.
Sushinoen boasts two types of salmon and tuna (fatty and lean), scallop, mackerel, yellowtail, octopus and sea bream, among others.
Most of the maki (rolls) we tried had lettuce rolled in, a surprisingly strong flavour when paired with delicate fish and rice, evoking a sandwich-y vibe I could have done without.
But regardless, for Japanese classics, you can’t go wrong.
How quickly things change in Hackney. When I went to review the newly opened Foxlow on Stoke Newington Church Street, I was surprised to find that the second branch of this “neighbourhood restaurant” (also operating in Clerkenwell), had taken over the premises formerly occupied by Italian restaurant and brunch place Homa.
“It is with great sadness and regret that we today announce that Homa will stop trading…” Homa’s website reads in a post from February.
“We started our little venture in 2009 because as longstanding local residents we loved our vibrant Stokey community deeply and could think of no better place to set up our restaurant… We will, of course, continue to be involved as local residents.” I asked Foxlow’s manager if he knew what had happened. “Too bad?” he said with a shrug, pulling back a chair.
And how could he be expected to know? Many long-term residents, however, will remember that before Homa, this was where the threadbare Booth’s pizzeria and bar served up meal deals to sozzled locals playing pool, before they went on to Maggie’s bar. Each change here has wrought a more exclusive successor, with better food.
This is not to say that Foxlow, run by the owners of the hugely successful Hawksmoor chain, isn’t going to be a huge success, or that it doesn’t deserve to be. The ambience is lively, the menu is a fun (and very meaty) take on the American steakhouse, and the prices, while certainly more expensive than Homa, are obviously within grasp of the locals, given that every last table was full.
I started with a pleasing Hawksmoor special cocktail of gin and London Pride recommended by my server, and we nibbled on anchovy and goat’s butter crostini before diving headlong into the indulgent menu: housemade pork and beef rillettes, squid, steak with béarnaise, 10 hour short rib with kimchi, fries covered in deep fried chicken fat, beans with shallots, all rounded off with some indulgent puddings for good measure.
All the food was excellent, with the buttery, tender steak being the highlight. Both the ‘chicken salt’ on the fries and the soft serve for pudding were nods to working class American food, one of the most annoying food trends of recent years, but while the former seemed excessive, the soft serve was divine.
The wine menu was extensive and had a couple of decent options that came in at under £25, but if you, like us, don’t show any restraint when it comes to ordering, a meal for two could easily run up a bill of £150 plus service. For more cautious spenders, the brunch or roast may be a better option, with meals hovering around a tenner and a £14 bottomless Bloody Mary. Considering this, I remembered that I used to only have brunch at Homa for that very reason. Perhaps the one constant in the Hackney restaurant scene is that brunch is the most affordable time to eat out.
An East London bakery is helping women affected by issues such as homelessness, poverty, prostitution and domestic violence turn their lives around.
Trainees at the Luminary Bakery meet up three times a week at Husk Coffee in Limehouse, where they are taught to bake everything from cupcakes to loaves.
Luminary gives the women a route back into work through six-month traineeships that equip them with practical skills, and encourage them to be ambitious and entrepreneurial.
Alice Boyle, Luminary Baker founder, said: “We had a team of passionate bakers and a cafe on Brick Lane [Kahaila café] we could stock with products, so [baking] was a logical choice but also one that has therapeutic benefits – there’s nothing like taking your frustrations out on some dough!”
The 26-year-old explained that the programme opens doors to women who find themselves homeless, sexually exploited, a victim of domestic violence or have come out of prison. The project aims to break the cycle and help the women reach their full potential.
One trainee, Jordan May, 22, said: “I have recently found myself homeless and am currently in temporary accommodation. I was diagnosed with a brain tumour when I was eight and therefore have many day-to-day difficulties and take daily medication.”
She added: “I always look forward to Thursdays because I know it’s going to be a fun, motivational day where I can relax and do what I love – baking.”
Flour power: A trainee at work. Photograph: Adam Cash
Jordan believes her traineeship at Luminary has made her believe she can take up baking as a career and start her own business.
“I plan to get some professional help regarding my own bakery from the ladies at Luminary and hope to start planning for it soon”, she said.
Alice explains the charity is only able to fund one of four applicants: “Being a charity we are constantly in need of funding.
“We aim to be generous, providing free lunch and travel and allowing them to take the products they bake home – but ingredients and resources cost money.”
For Jordan, taking home baked goods can lead to family squabbles over who gets to eat them, but added: “I found the baking to be very relaxing and therapeutic for me and helps me to believe that I can do something well.”
The next tier on the Luminary Bakery cake is a new property in Stoke Newington, where the first year’s rent has been donated. This summer will see the team training double the amount of women – which hopefully will mean double the amount of delicious baked snacks.
The Old Man of Artimino by Giovanna Garzoni, 1650. Courtesy of Galleria Palatina, Florence
If it wasn’t so inconvenient to bring a chunky hardback art book on an Easyjet flight, I’d suggest Gillian Riley’s Food in Art: From Prehistory to the Renaissance as a ‘top holiday read of 2015’.
A museum gift-shop buy with an academic styling, it doesn’t look or feel the part.
But what better than to read up on the origins of pesto while lazing on the Italian coasts, or peek inside the tomb of the wealthy ancient Egyptian scribe Nebamun (the real thing is on show at the British Museum), from the banks of the Nile?
Authoritative as it ought to be – Riley is a leading food writer and historian – this is a book about the mystery as much as the certainties of art’s centuries-old relationship with food.
With her guidance we discover what’s missing from our collective knowledge and the question marks over the meaning of the preparation, preservation and consumption of food in an array of artworks.
Few would be better placed than Riley to fill in the gaps using her expansive imagination.
Riley answers questions I never knew I had about the great larder of art history; such as why the men of ancient Mesopotamia drank their beer with a straw, or why the Renaissance botanist Ulisse Aldrovandi commissioned a portrait of his pet monkey clutching an artichoke.
And there are lessons aplenty to be learned, starting with the wisdom of Paleolithic cave painters; hunters for whom meat was never blindly taken for granted, but the subject of awe and intricate study in a time when “animals ruled the earth, and man was a puny creature”.
The Emperor Rudolph II, c.1590, Giuseppe Arcimboldo. Courtesy of Skoklosters Slott, Stockholm
Riley’s sixth book examines the countless layers of symbolism in the many meals of art history, as depicted in all forms from ancient wall paintings, fine art, mosaics, and frescoes to illuminated manuscripts and stained glass.
For those familiar with the author’s food columns in the Hackney Citizen, documenting intrepid culinary adventures in her Stoke Newington kitchen, expect the same hunger-inducing, poetic prose, and even more to learn here.
It’s a handy volume for those of us who need a narrow lens with which to recall forgotten history lessons, organised into snippets that can be dipped in and out of with ease.
Perhaps unwittingly, Riley’s descriptions of the micro-breweries of Mesopotamia offer much-needed perspective on contemporary foodie culture, reminding us that making your own beer is neither a laughable hipster fad nor a unique cultural advancement of our generation – it’s just something humans have done for thousands of years.
And as for the humble cabbage, its varied role as artistic muse deserves a chapter all of its own, as we discover its long lost identity as a celebrated preventer of hangovers. And, then, ridiculously, as temporary placeholders for the heads of the sick in 15th century psychological experiments – not to be tried at home.
Filtered through Riley’s irreverent, witty and ever-imaginative style, Food in Art is a guide through the sprawling past of art’s many interpretations of food, from the divine to the profound, and crucially the dark, humorous and absurd.
From the practicality of Ancient Egyptian illustrated breadmaking techniques, to the strange vanity of Roman mosaic floors designed to look covered in the remnants of a lavish banquet, mice and all, Food in Art calls for some self-reflection.
It’s a good opportunity to take a good long look at our ‘selfies with Spiralizer’, or the meaning behind Instagrammed kale salads of the 21st century. Rewriting Riley’s book in a thousand years’ time, what will the food historians make of us?
Surely, as ever, we’ll be seen as we are; very vain, a bit clever and somewhat ridiculous.
Food in Art: From Prehistory to the Renaissance is published by Reaktion Books. RRP: £30. ISBN: 9781780233628
Gillian Riley gets to grips with a Mexican tortilla press. Photograph: Annalies Winny
Mexicans the world over are recovering from the festivities of Cinco de Mayo, a celebration of the ignominious defeat of an invading French army on 5 May 1862.
At a gloomy point in Mexico’s history, when confusing internal politics and the threat of invasion created dread and despair, a small band of largely untrained men under General Zaragoza defeated the much larger French army at Puebla de
Los Angeles.
This is a good thing to celebrate, and Hackney too can mark this first brave gesture towards Mexican independence.
Fusion food
We can enjoy the world famous dish Mole Poblano de Guajalote (Turkey in a Chilli sauce), which is said to have been invented in Puebla de Los Angeles in the 17th century.
Perhaps the first ever fusion recipe, it combines native Mexican ingredients (chillies, chocolate, tomatoes, maize), with things brought over by the Spanish conquerors (nuts, spices, some fruits). Legend says that the Mother Superior of the Convent of Santa Rosa created this symbolic mix of ingredients to honour the Archbishop who founded the convent. Chocolate, a sacred substance for the Aztec rulers, was a numinous addition to a dish already fraught with symbolism.
The recipe we put together for our fiesta uses chicken instead of turkey, and is a pragmatic version of this great national dish, based on Diana Kennedy’s book The Cuisines of Mexico. London bars and eateries offer burritos and tacos and dazzling cocktails, but traditional festive family cooking is harder to find. So go home, Hackney citizens, put on your pinnies and get to work!
Fiesta time
First of all do a shop in the Wholefoods Market in Stoke Newington Church Street, then browse online for goodies from the Cool Chilli Company, and get some nice free range chicken from Meat 16 or Ginger Pig. We have learned the hard way that frozen or pre-cooked tortillas are disappointing, commercial guacamole expensive for what it is, that a home-made salsa has more zip, but also where and how to cheat and what substitutes we can get away with.
Thus after hours of absorbing and exhilarating toil, I sat down with friends to enjoy a Mexican feast. As well as the mole, there were homemade tortillas and guacamole, with shop-bought salsa verde de tomatillas, tortilla chips, salsa de chipotle and a freshly made salsa of chopped fresh tomatoes, green and red chillies, fresh coriander, salt and garlic. There was a bowl of crème fraîche and plenty of tequila and Mexican beer too.
A Mexican tortilla is a kind of flat-bread made with masa harina, a maize flour that has been ground from corn kernels treated with alkali (lime or ashes) to soften and discard the tough outer skin of the kernels. The chemical effect of this, a process known as nixtamalisation, does wondrous things to the nutritional properties of the masa, creating niacin, amino acids and extra protein and vitamins.
Mexican peasants in the past had a cheap, healthy and balanced diet eating these tortillas with beans, chillies and tomatoes, with little if any meat. They survived and flourished. But when maize got to Europe, and was cultivated all over northern Italy, its paucity of nutrients caused deficiency diseases like pellagra on a huge scale, with resultant social and economic misery. No fear of that in Hackney.
We made batch upon batch of tortillas with masa harina from the Cool Chili Co, available at Wholefoods, who also produce ready made tortillas spewed forth from a massive machine known affectionately as el monstruo.
Tortilla-tastic
One of the joys of a freshly made tortilla is its fragrant aroma, which enhances the things you roll up in it, adding an extra dimension to the already pungent food. The pliable softness of a nicely cooked tortilla adds a tactile pleasure to the business of eating. You reach for more, you call out for more, and with a little help from my guests and some basic technology, more kept on coming. We used two comals and a tortilla press.
The press is like a miniature Adana printing press, two hinged round plates with a lever handle to bring one down firmly on top of the other. We used this to flatten small balls of the masa, mixed with water to a firm dough, between sheets of tough plastic. The flattened dough was then deftly transferred to a very hot comal, a flat metal plate heated on the gas cooker, where it sits for a minute or so as it firms up and browns slightly in patches, then is flipped over and given a few more minutes, before flipping again to finish off.
Trial and error got me through my first batch ever, over half a century ago, so the blunders and tears are forgotten, the main lesson being to keep on trying until you get it right.
Mole madness
This is nothing to what we went through to make the mole. The chicken was browned in a little oil and cooked until almost done in good home-made chicken broth. Meanwhile the chillies needed attention: ancho, mulato, pasilla, are what I used, dried red or deep brown chillies, some wrinkled, which are first softened on the hot comal, then deseeded and torn in pieces and soaked in hot water for an hour or so. Meanwhile the spices needed toasting in a dry pan, the sesame seeds and pumpkin seeds (pepitas) toasted separately on a comal, taking care not to scorch them.
The spices when cool were pulverised, the nuts and seeds ground to a coarse powder and the by now softened chillies pureed in a food processor. The chilli paste was then fried to enhance the flavour and get rid of the rawness, then thinned out with some broth from the chicken, the spices and seeds were tossed in, and the sauce cooked until nice and thick. The final touch was to add the magic ingredient – chocolate, in small bits, tasting as you go; this is to enhance the deep dark flavour, and should always be subliminal … if it tastes of chocolate you have got it wrong.
Add the chicken to this heady brew, heat through and serve with a sprinkling of toasted sesame seeds. All this takes time and energy and imagination, but is so absorbing that getting the meal together is as much fun as eating it. Of all the cuisines on offer in Hackney, Mexican is the one you just have to do at home.
Guac attack
Guacamole made in a food processor comes out much too smooth and bland. I always use an Indonesian granite pestle and mortar borrowed decades ago from a generous Dutch friend who resigned herself to its loss.
To make guacamole you first crush coarse salt and garlic with coriander leaves (the tough stems discarded) to make a dense dark green paste, then add peeled, stoned and coarsely chopped avocados and pound (but not too much), so that the texture is variable. Then stir in some finely chopped hot chilli to taste and some coarsely chopped tomatoes. Pile into a bowl and decorate with
coriander leaves.
A homemade salsa is best done with a sharp knife and a chopping board, avoiding the homogenous mush you get with a food processor. Take tasty tomatoes, garlic, spring onions and coriander and chop each separately very finely, stir together and add heat from finely sliced chillies, then salt to taste.
Having wallowed in the tactile and olfactory pleasures of getting these simple dishes together, we now have to admit that a creative cheat can get good results from Cool Chili Company products and a variety of beans, pastes and relishes from other suppliers. A spot check in local shops reveals the unseen presence of enough dedicated Mexican cooks in Hackney to restock the shelves every week. I for one would love to hear of their exploits.
Ready to shake off the torpor of winter with the cool hiss of a pisco sour and zingy platefuls of ceviche? Then look no further than Martin Morales’ latest East End restaurant as he continues to pioneer his native Peruvian cuisine in the city.
Located in the old Alexandra Trust Dining Rooms, opened during Queen Victoria’s reign, the menu pulls together the Criollo, Chifa and Nikkei influences of Peruvian food with playful tributes to its surroundings.
Highlights include the sublime scotch egg-like huevo criollo – a runny golden yolker rolled in a crunchy shell of quinoa and black pudding-like sangrecita sausage. There’s also a nod to an East End classic with jalea de anguila – a beautiful plate of crispy fried eel and seabass belly with chilli tartare sauce and salsa criolla.
Overall, the menu caters deftly for both the ardent Peruvian cooking fan and patrons that aren’t yet up to fried lamb brains and barbecued chicken hearts (both delicious incidentally). Safer options include the steak with a fried egg, plantain, beans and cured pork – or the classic pollo a la brasa rotisserie chicken with chips and amarillo chilli, one of the core flavours of Peruvian food.
Ceviche, unsurprisingly, is the signature dish and we picked a beautiful plate of silky tuna slices with tiny emerald green roquito peppers that burst open in your mouth and radish-like daiko. The crispy vermicelli on top didn’t really add anything, but nor did it detract from the plate.
Dishes arrive as small plates and they recommend three to four, which is probably on the generous side given the state we waddled out in, but with so many good things to choose from over-ordering is no bad thing.
Arguably the beauty of Peruvian food isn’t about complicated techniques, it’s about matching high quality, fresh, flavours and textures and my favourite dish was also one of the simplest – crispy twists of marinated beef heart skewers in hot sauce from the big open charcoal grill, a hat tip to Lima street food. Also don’t leave without trying the pumpkin picarones (doughnuts) with honey and cinnamon that proved a hit at Andina.
With lusty Latin American beats playing over a packed 130-cover space, frothy pisco pouring by the pint load and splashes of bright contemporary Peruvian art for sale on the walls, it’s a big and busy place for brunch, lunch, dinner and take-out.
Ceviche Old Street 2 Baldwin Street Old Street, EC1V 9NU cevicheuk.com/oldst
The restaurant business is famously hard, particularly in London where rents and competition have become such juggernauts. Hackney’s low rents used to allow young or inexperienced entrepreneurs some room for error and experimentation, which is why some much loved local businesses such as the E5 Bakehouse, Passing Clouds or the now defunct Railroad Cafe seemed to be borne less out of a solid business plan than a narrow and determined vision to deliver something unique.
It’s easy to wax nostalgic about the past, however, and Hackney’s food scene is undoubtedly superior now. Some new arrivals are welcome additions, and one such place is Little Baobab, a new Senegalese restaurant and music venue that has opened up in the premises on Lower Clapton Road where Candela used to operate, before it disappeared without a sound.
Little Baobab feels like the sort of venture that was popping up every day in Hackney a few years ago. Run by chef Khadim and musician Abdoulaye Sam, two friends originally from Dakar, Senegal, the restaurant hosts live music every night.
When we went on Friday evening, the room was packed and people sat elbow to elbow around candlelit tables as a man played West African guitar music in the corner, propped up against the window. As the evening wore on the guitarist was joined by another musician and together they picked up the tempo. Staff were relaxed and warm, and were chatting casually to the mixture of customers, friends and family who were in the venue.
The menu was scant: it had three mains to choose from and only one starter, as well as two juices. We opted for the African mains: I had curried lamb with peanut butter and rice, and my friend had a spicy spinach stew, both of them hearty and satisfying and coming in at under a tenner each. I had a rum cocktail with baobab juice, followed by some bog standard but very reasonably priced house wine that was £3.50 a glass.
Beers on offer were an eclectic mix and mostly still being chilled when we arrived, which I took to be a sign of the restaurant cutting its teeth in its first weeks. Ultimately, however, the food was a backdrop to the convivial atmosphere. Let’s hope it lasts longer than its predecessor.
Halloumi man: Joe Taylor with ‘intergalactic’ stall front. Photograph: Ella Jessel
Asked who this year’s Field Day headliners are, would you say Caribou, Ride and Patti Smith – or Street Feast? For at next’s month festival, held as ever in Victoria Park, food and drink will be as big a draw as the music.
Or if not, it will certainly be as eclectic. Faced with a sudden craving for cold biltong, churros and chocolate or just a plain old soft shell crab burger, you won’t be found wanting. Street food, needless to say, is experiencing something of a boom in East London.
Joe Taylor is a 28-year-old from Stourbridge in the West Midlands, who came down to London to seek his fortune as a street food vendor. “I don’t have another job or career as such that I want to do specifically,” he says. “So setting up my own business gives me the freedom to tie all my interests together: having fun, going to festivals and events and working outside.”
The parameters set, Joe needed an original idea – not easy in an already crowded market. As a vegetarian one food he found himself drawn to at festivals was halloumi cheese.
“A lot of other stalls might use halloumi as vegetarian option but I thought if I was just doing a vegetarian stall there I could do something a little bit different with it.”
As well as halloumi wraps, Joe was soon thinking up new cheesy products – all guaranteed to make you dream at night. Deep fried bread-crumbed halloumi, pieces of halloumi in a cone and salad boxes are all on the menu. But after premiering the idea at Winterville in December, he realised something was missing – a snappy (or even cheesy) name, an identity. Soon Moony’s Halloumi was born.
“I wanted to find a bit of an angle that would help me engage with people, so there’s a little mascot which is Mr Moony, and he’s basically made out of cheese,” Joe explains.
“The stall front is a bit of an intergalactic space theme comprised of recycled 12 inch records. In front of the records we’ve got space mountains which have got a volcano plume where the menu boards can be written on that. And there’s a few halloumi people and bits of artwork.”
The strength of the street food competition means some kind of hook is a sensible idea. Kate Greening is this year overseeing all the food at Field Day and has been bringing vendors to Field Day for five years under the Venn Street banner.
“When I started we only brought in 10 metres of food then, and now we’re filling the whole site,” she says. Kate explains that as well as including well-known street food traders such as Street Feast, they are trying to bring less established traders with new and exciting ideas into the site.
“It’s very niche, very specialist, rather than have people who can do everything, we want traders who do one specific thing and really specialise.”
Kate reels off some of the highlights on ‘food stage’ as though they were her favourite bands. Crabbie Shack, of crab burger fame, apparently put a whole crab in a burger bun. “It looks like a croissant but it’s not, it’s a crab,” she assures me.
Churros Bros will be frying up dough – Spanish-style – with specialist chocolate, a new Filipino trader Kusina Nova looks set to impress, then there’s hog roast, sushi wraps and, I’m told, “killer” mac and cheese from Anna Mae’s. There’s enough, I’m assured, to take a trip around the world in different street foods.
“We know what the food culture is in London, and this is a great way of celebrating that by bringing as many of the high quality traders together as we can,” Greening adds.
After a three-year residency at the Hackney pub and music venue the Sebright Arms, now legendary pop-up Lucky Chip has packed up and moved on. With oodles of national press and legions of fans, as well as trendy if not wholly tasteful branding (see, for example, its Breaking Bad menu with “meth hot sauce” and free rock candy for all diners), it helped the Sebright become a destination for hefty late-night burgers.
Enter Bunsmiths. This new food venture has been developed by Sebright owner Charles Ross. At first glance, it is intended to fill the gap that Lucky Chip left behind: many of the items are identical. However, with plans to expand into a standalone restaurant in the next year, Bunsmiths is also presenting itself as a new contender on the scene. “When do you think we’ll hit peak burger?” my dining companion asked, as we were perusing the menu. It appears no time soon.
Bunsmiths, however, has a barbecue twist. Ross imported specialist smokers from the United States and as an American transplant in London who often feels bereft of proper soul food, I was heartened to see beef brisket on the menu, as well pulled pork – although I drew the line at a bun that combined the two.
The bacon cheeseburger and the brisket bun we ordered came accompanied by a tower of serviettes that were quickly used up: meat juice and sauces from both sandwiches ran through the bottom bun, down our wrists, and onto the food tray: this is not first date fare. While the barbecue perhaps didn’t quite reach the dizzying nirvana that it does in the States (my search continues), both sandwiches were ample, greasy and satisfying, appropriate fare for booze-soaked gig goers.
The sides are also worth a mention: homemade onion rings, fried chicken strips with chipotle mayo, and a crème fraiche coleslaw. There is a salad option but truly, this is not the place for salad. Along with my meal, I had a shot of decent Mezcal and a beer back, and my partner chose from the numerous craft ales on draught. Looking at the busy Thursday evening bar suddenly drain of people as they all headed downstairs for a gig, I was happy to see that despite plans of expansion, the Sebright has retained its unpretentious charm and local atmosphere.
We’re almost a year late to the party here, but it’s always important to check whether a place has let itself go with age.
Opened last April, Rotorino, a pedigree restaurant from The Dock Kitchen’s Stevie Parle, was ripe for re-inspection.
Sparkling with dimly-lit retro booths and cherry wood galore, it’s the kind of place Don Draper might eat, minus all the smoking. But when it comes to the actual food, the muse is more Italian grandma than Mad Men.
That means southern Italian cooking made with a cocky simplicity, and a staff that get lessons in caring about it very, very much.
Rotorino has mastered the art of the super-knowledgeable waiter. If it wasn’t so very passé, you might go so far as to call them ‘passionate’.
Fresh from a wine tasting and on her way to a work-organised visit to a buffalo mozzarella supplier in Naples, our waiter was a study in restaurant ambassadorship.
From flavour to provenance to ‘Where did you get these enamel plates?’ there wasn’t a question that stumped her.
“It’s nice that they care. Because in Italy, everyone cares,” points out my companion, our food writer Gillian Riley, describing Roman lorry drivers who would fight to the death in defence of their mothers’ tomato sauce.
Mad Men decor: Rotorino’s chic dining area
Settling in with a glass of Valpolicella – or ‘Valpol’ to those in the know – we were seduced by many things, but all of our waiter’s recommendations were, no hyperbole, outstanding.
We took a chance on oft-maligned brussel sprouts despite Gillian’s aversion, born of a Yorkshire childhood marked by overboiled everything. But this dish managed to single-handedly bring Gillian on-side.
No chance of soggy green orbs here – these ones are raw, and shaved so fine you hardly notice them among chunks of finocchiona (fennel-cured salami), slivers of pecorino and a sprinkling of hazelnuts, bound by a magical dressing I daren’t try to deconstruct.
Two shared pasta dishes were exquisite in very different ways, the flavours in each so distinctive it was hard to believe the two plates had come from the same kitchen.
The mussel casarecce (tight, chewy coils of pasta) was described by Gillian as “the best pasta dish I’ve ever had”. Perfectly al dente coils of pasta with wet strings of salty agretti and fat mussels, it really did taste of the sea – a joy if you’re into that sort of thing.
In stark contrast, a petite but beautifully rich bowl of pumpkin gnudi, (‘nu-dee’) sat the other side of the incredibly-good-pasta spectrum. Basically ravioli without the casing (or ‘nude’), this flesh-toned set of glorious little globes swimming in a butter sauce, topped with crispy sage, is full of plump softness and indulgently rich. Both are really, really excellent. But every restaurant has its bloopers.
We went rogue with the last-minute addition of fried artichoke and viola squash from the ‘stove’ section. That was a mistake.
Ignoring all sense of proportion, a small, badly-cooked artichoke was plopped on an intimidating mass of whipped veg and apparently some farro, all lost in the mix. More than the depths of southern Italy, it evoked an overworked curry, or maybe even refried beans left over from a platter of nachos.
But this minor car crash was washed away with a homemade rhubarb ‘cello’ (as in limoncello, but without the lemon), and came with a lesson: in this era of hyper-educated restaurant staff, pay attention to what they don’t recommend.
Choice is the hidden enemy. Just let them order for you.
