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Reviews of London's Restaurants, Supper Clubs and Hotels, Wine Tastings, Travel Writing, and Home to the Japanese and French Supper Clubs in Islington
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Name: Beef & Brew Haggerston at The Duke of York
Where: The Duke of York, 33 Downham Road, N1 5AA, http://www.beef-and-brew.co.uk
Cost: A 3-course meal will cost around £35 per person not including drinks and service. Starters are priced from £3.50 to £6.75, steaks from £10 to £19.50. There is a Friday lunch and every day early bird (5.30-7.00pm) menu at £10 for hanger steak and chips or burger and chips. Desserts are ice-creams and sorbet or priced at up to £5.50 for 3 scoops, or sundaes at £6.50.
About: Beef & Brew has been operating from a small venue in Kentish Town, offering in their own words 'quality steak without the price tag' from grass-fed cattle. Owned by ex-Murano chef Jessica Simmons and former City worker Daniel Nathan, Beef & Brew's signature sirloin comes from 14 year old retired dairy cows, known as Txuleta from Galicia, while fillet cuts come from Swaldale Foods' native-breed cattle in North Yorkshire, and onglet from grass-fed Herefords. All their steaks are dipped in beef dripping before being quickly chargrilled.
Beef & Brew opened a second and larger branch at the former Duke of York pub (dating from 1822) in Haggerston in July 2018, with a more extensive menu than the sister branch.
It is a true pub-restaurant, with a bar and stools for those who just want a pint, but most of the area is given over to dining tables. With solid wood floors, the walls a harmonious blend of metro tiles, bare brick and exposed industrial ducting, its a relaxed and informal place to wine and dine. And most commendably - it is a dog friendly pub-restaurant!
What We Ate: Brisket jam nuggets (£5.50) were little cubes of well-seasoned pulled brisket, wrapped in breadcrumbs and deep-fried. Delicious.
Devilled sardines (£6.75), freshly grilled in a spicy chilli rub, were bracing, served with a cooling cucumber, herb and yoghurt quenelle.
Best of the starters though was the grilled squid served with ultra-thin slices of sweet pickled fennel, and a lightly spiced Romesco sauce (£6.50). Made from garlic, old bread, almonds, vinegar and paprika, the Romesco was spicy, nutty and was the perfect accompaniment for the grilled seafood.
Having been lucky enough to sample some wonderful Txuleta mature beef on a recent trip to Galicia, we just had to try the Galician sirloin (£19.50), one with Bearnaise sauce, the other with truffled hollandaise (both £1.50). Naturally firmer than your average 2-year old sirloin (the usual culling age for beef cattle), this cut was richly flavoursome, slightly gamey, served medium-rare with golden yellow fat, and a real steal at this price for 250g of prime Txuleta.
As side dishes, the chips, gravy and beer cheese (£5.50) - similar to a Canadian poutine except with beer cheese not cheese curd - were rich, tangy and flavourful.
Smoked aubergine with honey and miso (£5.50) - an adaptation of Japanese nasu dengaku - was meltingly tender, with deliciously smoky notes from the char-grilled flesh. The lightly pickled, sweet daikon ribbon was a great garnish, adding freshness and texture.
Although the gnocchi'n cheese with jalapeños (£5.50) looked a tad dry, the interior was anything but. We loved this.
For dessert, we shared a sundae of pistachio, chocolate sorbet, poached cherries and chocolate sauce (£6.50). I enjoyed the combination of flavours here - nutty, chocolatey yet light and with aromatic cherries.
What We Drank: There is an excellent range of craft beers on draft and in bottle. The entry level wines, both priced at £19, are a Spanish Pinot Bianco - Garganega blend, while the red is a French Merlot - Grenache blend. We opted to share a bottle of Papa Figos Douro wine from Portugal (£30). With red berry fruit, fresh acidity and light tannins, this went down a treat with the Galician sirloin.
Likes: Highlights included the grilled squid with Romesco sauce and the Galician Txuleta sirloin. Beef & Brew has helpful and knowledgeable staff, a casual vibe despite the obvious focus on top-quality food, and best of all, it is dog-friendly too. So bring your pooches!
Dislikes: None
Verdict: Beef & Brew is the local steakhouse any foodie would love to have on their doorstep, and so I'm lucky to live just a few blocks away. I can't wait to return with my doggies, and next up will be one of their burgers with steak salad and a craft beer! Or perhaps I will just have the magnificent Galician Txuleta again. Highly recommended.
Name: Morito Hackney Road
Where: 195 Hackney Road, London, E2 8JL, www.moritohackneyroad.co.uk
Cost: Average spent per person is £35 (not including drinks or service). The menu consists of small eats to share, and the recommendation is to start with 3 small plates per person, plus a portion of bread (£2.50), followed by dessert. Small eats are priced from £6 to £12.
Wines are served by the glass, 500ml carafe and bottle. The house red and white wines are available on tap - Spanish Verdejo and Tempranillo (£4 per glass, £15 per carafe).
About: Opened in March 2016, this new branch of Morito in hipster Hackney, just over the road from the Columbia Road flower market, is much larger and can accommodate many more diners than the original restaurant on Exmouth Market.
It features a stunning ‘U’ shaped central bar with an elevated counter for those who prefer to dine there, as well as a total of 70 covers on tables scattered around the restaurant.
With an open-plan kitchen overlooking the restaurant like at Moro, polished concrete floors, simple wooden tables with cushioned aluminium chairs, the look is clean and industrial, and with plenty of natural light. Morito Hackney Road is a lively, buzzing place for lunch or dinner.
Tables are allocated for a maximum of 90 minutes, so Morito is not the place for a relaxed long lunch or dinner.
The staff are super-helpful, efficient and well informed though, and we got through our dinner without feeling in any way rushed.
What We Ate: The menu is divided into 5 sections and changes daily. There are only a few options per section, which should make it easy to order, though on our visit I was tempted by so many of the menu items that I struggled to make my choices!
From the ‘para picar’ (appetizer) section, we ordered the bread basket (£2.50), which included a delicious and warm, freshly baked flat bread that worked a treat with the labneh, a thick and creamy Greek yoghurt, spiked with chillies and charred corn (£7), our choice from the ‘vegetable’ section. With a scattering of fennel and coriander seeds, and a pesto of parsley, as well as fragrant chilli oil, this was deliciously fresh and zingy.
From the meat offerings, we chose three dishes. The chicharrones (£7.50), an Andalucian specialty also popular throughout Latin America, are crispy pieces of fried pork belly – Morito’s version was sweet and tender, and I loved the addition of a simple dressing of cumin and lemon that cut through the fattiness and gave the pork such a lift.
The least promising of the dishes (Dr G’s choice, which I had to go along with), was in fact the best dish of the night. Fried rabbit (£7.50) was nothing short of a revelation - crispy rabbit morsels on the bone, seasoned with a fantastically aromatic dressing of rosemary and moscatel vinegar, lemon and sea salt.
The third meat option was the baked courgettes flowers with jamon and Manchego (£7). I found this disappointing in flavour, presentation and portion size – I could not detect any jamon, and the flower was of the type that did not have the baby courgette attached. I just wish I had ordered another portion of rabbit at virtually the same price!
From the fish section, we ordered two dishes. The slow-cooked cuttlefish with chickpeas and fino sherry (£11) came with flakes of red chilli and a scattering of Mediterranean herbs. I enjoyed the dish – the cuttlefish was super-tender and delicious, the chickpeas were soft, waxy and had a lovely texture. The only snag for me though was the overpowering and pungent smell (of offal I think, even though there was no offal in the dish as far as I am aware).
A much fresher option was the grilled mackerel, which came with tangy beetroot, walnuts and a sweet and aromatic borani (a Persian or Turkish yoghurt dip) flavoured with dill and tarragon (£9.50). This was excellent –the fresh herbs and beetroot cut through the oiliness of the mackerel, it had great flavours and textures, and in all was a very well put together dish.
To finish our carafe of red wine, we shared the cheese platter dessert (£6.50). With Zamorano and Fuente Los Angeles cheeses and membrillo, this was a classic combination of mature and well-flavoured hard sheep’s milk cheese and blue cheese, served with miniature biscuits.
For dessert proper, we shared a delicious fruit salad (£7), but not as we know it - this had crispy pieces of filo pastry, with sweetened labneh flavoured with gum mastic (a Turkish tree sap), slices of fig and peach and fresh green pistachios. I was so pleased to have ordered this – it had everything going for it – texture from the filo pastry, creaminess from the labneh, sweetness and freshness from the ripe fruit. A real winner.
What We Drank: We started off with a lovely bone-dry Manzanilla Gabriella sherry, from Bodegas Sanchez Ayala (£5 per glass).
With the main meal, we shared a 500ml carafe of Garnacha 'El Marciano' from Alfredo Maestro 2015 (£24). Medium bodied, this had ripe cherry and plum fruit and soft tannins.
Likes: I love the extra space, the deep fried rabbit with rosemary and muscatel vinegar was the highlight. The chicharrones, labneh, cheese platter and dessert were all very good. Well-informed, efficient and friendly staff, what a joy to see this in London, and particularly in Hackney.
Dislikes: The baked courgette flower with jamon and Manchego was the weakest link.
Verdict: Super-fresh, zingy and delicious Mediterranean and Middle-Eastern flavours, I thoroughly enjoyed the food and service at Morito Hackney Road, and highly recommend it.
Name: The Richmond
Where: 316 Queensbridge Road, London E8 3NH, http://www.therichmondhackney.com/
About: This was our second visit to The Richmond in Hackney, but this time we came to try their Sunday Brunch menu - you can see our earlier review here.
The Sunday Brunch menu offers the extensive selection of British oysters for which The Richmond has become known for (also available at other times), as well as a selection of meat and fish dishes that reflect an Antipodean, rather than a traditional British version of Sunday lunch. This is not surprising since the restaurant is owned by Australian executive chef Brett Redman (formerly of The Pavilion Café in Victoria Park).
The Richmond looks even more elegant in the daylight – the dining rooms and bar are tastefully designed in a striking, dominant red colour, with bare dark wooden tables and subdued lighting.
What We Ate: From the starter menu, we chose the English crab muffin (£7) - tender fresh crab over a toasted muffin, the whole thing dusted with lovely Espelette pepper – perfection.
The Grilled dived scallops and preserved lemon butter (£7) was also delicious - plump and meaty, and still adherent to its shell, although definitely singular rather than plural as described on the menu.
For main course, we had the lamb shoulder (£17) - slow cooked for 12 hours, then roasted, this combined crispy skin with the tenderest of meat, and was served with confit tomatoes, anchovies, samphire and aubergine – the blending of land and sea ingredients here worked well, the saltiness/umaminess of the samphire and anchovies (two of my favourite ingredients) with the lamb meat was so damn clever.
I hardly order chicken in a restaurant, unless it is of outstanding quality and The Richmond’s did not disappoint. Their spit roast poussin with pumpkin and sage stuffing (£18) was served with a rich, concentrated and velvety Marsala gravy that saw me scraping my plate! The poussin meat was sweet and succulent, and of excellent quality. The restaurant uses a wood fire to cook all its meats.
To accompany our mains, we shared a side dish of cauliflower cheese (£4) – the cauliflower was cut up into tiny pieces, mixed with cream and cheese and finished off under the grill for a crusty top – I congratulate the chef for making such an uninspiring vegetable taste so utterly delicious!
Deep-fried desserts are just the best things on any menu as far as I am concerned and so the apple beignets (£7) had to be ordered. Served with a fromage frais sorbet, the beignets were airily light, filled with apple puree, and dusted in cinnamon. I loved these babies.
We also had the brown butter financier (£7) - served with poached pears in cinnamon (I can never enough cinnamon in my life!) and crystalised almonds, this was also very good.
What We Drank: The Richmond is renowned for their cocktails and I urge you to order them when you visit. Sunday brunching can only mean Bloody Mary and that is what I had – lightly spicy, and strong, it got our brunch off to a very good start. Dr G opted for The French 75 which blended gin, sparkling wine and lemon, and had a refreshing intensity of lemon.
The wine list is extensive, and focuses almost exclusively on Europe. There is a good selection of wines by the glass or 500ml carafe. The entry level white is a Cotes du Rhone at £29, while for the reds, it is a Tempranillo from Castilla, Spain at £27. There are also some well-chosen British craft beers, as well as a couple of Belgian and USA options.
From it, the sommelier suggested a Loire red to accompany our challenging combination of lamb and poussin main courses. The Domaine de Veilloux 2013, Cheverny a blend of Pinot Noir, Gamay and Cabernet Franc (£34) was light, but with a good weight of red cherry fruit and little tannin. This was a good choice that stood up to the lamb without overpowering the poussin.
Likes: There is some excellent cooking skill on display at The Richmond, and it's great to see a neighbourhood restaurant where complete confidence in the skill of the chef is justified. Service was faultless.
Dislikes: None.
Verdict: Fantastic cocktails, highly skilled cooking and a gorgeous restaurant, what is there to dislike about The Richmond? There are very few places in London I can think of where I would rather be for Sunday Brunch. Highly recommended.
Name: The Richmond
Where: 316 Queensbridge Road, London, E8 3NH, http://www.therichmondhackney.com/
Cost: Average spend - £35-£40 per person not including drinks. The menu is divided into 4 sections: "Raw" at £9-£10 featuring carpaccio or tartare of scallop, seabass, Sicilian red prawn or tuna. “Small Plates” from £7-£9, “Big Plates” divided into meat, fish or vegetarian options from £16 to £28 and “Sides” (£3.50-£4). Cocktails are unusual and inventive, with some interesting ingredients like hibiscus petals, agave and camomile-infused Pisco. They range in price from £8-£10.50.
About: The Richmond is a neighbourhood bar and restaurant in Hackney offering a number of cooked dishes but its focus is on British freshly shucked oysters and other raw seafood dishes. The cocktail menu is impressive and highly creative.
Opened by Australian chef Brett Redman (formerly of The Pavilion Café in Victoria Park), who is now the executive chef at both The Richmond and at the Elliot’s Café in Borough Market. Redman is joined by American business partner, the fashion stylist Margaret Crow who was the major force behind the elegant restaurant décor.
The restaurant has a rather unassuming front but inside, the dining rooms and bar are tasteful in a striking, dominant red colour, with bare dark wooden tables and subdued lighting. The Richmond is not a ‘neighbourhood’ restaurant as we know it – this is a stylish eatery serving super fresh fish and seafood with prices to match anything in Central London. As the diners sitting at the table next to ours confided – they love coming to The Richmond, but this was a meal they had to save up for!
What We Ate: We started with a selection of “raw” dishes - the scallop carpaccio, with ajo blanco, elderflower oil and grapes (£10). The scallop was meltingly tender and super fresh, though I wished there was a little more of it at this price level. The ajo blanco (a chilled soup of almond, sherry vinegar, garlic, bread) was good but again there wasn’t much of it, and in my opinion it could have done with a little more acidity (more sherry vinegar) or garlic for flavour, to give the dish the lift it needed.
Better were the Sicilian red prawns with lemon and basil (£9) – creamy, fresh and delectable with a hint of lemon and basil, they were great but again not the most generous of portions considering the price tag.
Our favourite raw dish was the tuna tartare with aubergine, harissa and mint (£9). The aubergine tasted like a Levantine baba ghanoush- lightly crushed and bursting with flavour, this was a cleverly conceived dish.The combination of aubergine, spicy harissa and fresh mint against the raw tuna was a first for me but one I will definitely try and replicate at home.
Moving on to the “small plates” section of the menu, we went for the crispy prawns and lemon mayonnaise (£8).Marinated in milk and oats overnight then deep-fried, due to long soaking they were very soft and so eaten whole, head, shell and all! They were really delicious, and I highly recommend them.
I don't normally comment on the bread, but the version on offer when we visited was from Bread Peddlar (www.lbpedlar.com), and was excellent. From August 2015, I am told the restaurant will be baking its own sourdough bread.
From the “big plates”, we had the Nduja spiced seafood stew with pasta shells and aioli (£19). This dish, a medley of octopus, mussels and prawns served in a spicy and scrumptious broth, was probably the highlight of the evening - richly flavoured with meaty textures, this was a great dish and surprisingly well priced.
The Hake with Vesuvian tomatoes, chickpeas and samphire (£17) was also excellent, served in a velvety butter and tarragon sauce and fresh chickpeas (a rare thing to see these days) which were delicious although perhaps a little firm.
To accompany, we had a side dish of cauliflower cheese (£4) – this was wonderful with savoury blue cheese flavours and a lovely creaminess from the unpasteurized British Ogleshield cheese from their supplier in Bermondsey.
For dessert, we shared a banana tart with creme fraiche and macadamia (£6) and also some fantastic deep-fried Beignets, served with fresh peaches and custard (£7) on the side. They were both great – comfort food at its best.
What We Drank: There is a fairly large and well-thought out selection of natural wines, served by the glass or half litre, as well as sparkling wines and Champagnes. Natural wine specialist Isabelle Legeron has devised the restaurant’s wine list.
Entry level white is a Rousanne - Viognier blend from the Cotes du Rhone, priced at £29, and the entry level red is a Tempranillo from Castilla, Spain priced at £27. It's a well thought-out, exclusively European selection of wines.
We started with a couple of refreshing cocktails - the Brit Spiritz (£8), featuring my favourite north London Kamm & Sons spirit from Holloway, elderflower cordial and natural sparkling wine. We also had the Richmond Fizz (£9), with Beefeater gin, fresh lime, Pedrino and egg white. Pedrino is another new London-based drink, an all natural blend of Pedro Ximenez, citrus botanicals, quinine and spring water, and 5.5% alcohol.
To accompany our food, we had a glass of two white wines. One by Alexandre Bain, La Levee, Pouilly-Fumé, 2013 (£9.50 per glass). Creamy, savoury, this was about as far from a generic NZ Sauvignon Blanc as it is possible to imagine.
From the "Orange" wine menu, we had the Cascini degli Ulivi, A Demua, Piemonte, Italy, 2010 (£9.50), a blend of Riesling, Verdea, Bosco, Timorassa, Moscatella. Rather like an oloroso sherry (lightly oxidized), this was a great accompaniment to the savoury octopus dish.
Likes: The tuna tartare with aubergine was delicious, the nduja spiced octopus, and the beignette. For me, the perfect meal would start with Richmond Fizz, followed by tuna tartare, nduja spiced seafood stew and the deep-fried beignette for dessert.
Dislikes: none.
Verdict: The Richmond offers excellent British fish and seafood, with great raw seafood options. The cocktails are well-made and strong using unique spirits and mixers. As a neighbourhood spot, The Richmond is as good as it gets. Highly recommended.
