Santo Remedio's Delicious Mexican Sunday Brunch

Name: Santo Remedio

Where: Santo Remedio, 152 Tooley Street, London , SE1 2TU, https://www.santoremedio.co.uk/

Cost: Starters are £4.50-£6.50, mains £11-£15, with sweet pancakes or filled doughnuts  at £4-£8.50.  Brunch cocktails are £8.50-£11.50. 

About: Edson and Natalie Diaz-Fuentes set up Santo Remedio in Shoreditch in 2016, opening their second branch in London Bridge's Tooley Street in 2017, serving up a menu of modern Mexican food.

The menu focuses on dishes from Mexico City, Oaxaca and the Yucatan peninsula.

Santo Remedio uses a blend of imported Mexican ingredients and fresh local produce (for example, their Mexican-style Cotija cheese is made by Gringa Diary in nearby Peckham), to create fresh, vibrant Mexican flavours, and the dishes I have tried before were among the best in London. All the salsas are made on the premises.

From October 2018, they are serving a Mexican Sunday Brunch menu, and I made my way over to give it a try.

What We Ate: A classic guacamole, with smashed avocado, onion, tomato and tortilla chips (£6), with grasshoppers (£1.50) was fresh, vibrant and delicious.

Tetela - was a delectable corn masa parcel filled with black beans served over a glossy mole negro, finished with Cotija cheese and crema (£5.50).

Equally good were the Motuleños - corn tostadas with black beans, topped with 2 free range fried eggs, salsa roja with morita and ancho chillies, Cotija cheese, grilled bacon and plantains (£14). This is a regional dish from the Yucatan peninsula, and was Edson's favourite brekkie while he lived in that part of the country.

But the dish that really made me want to visit Santa Remedio was their Torta Ahogada, which I had tried a couple of weeks earlier at a one-off collaboration they ran with Bubbledogs (reviewed here).

This is a sourdough baguette filled with crispy fried pork belly, dunked (ahogada translates as drowned) in a magnificent salsa roja made from a blend of chillies including morita, which gives a fantastic smokiness, grilled tomatoes and other seasonings, dotted with pink pickled onions (£12.5). The sandwich was punchy, vibrant and so delicious.

For dessert, we had the tres leches pancakes with banana (£7.50), made with three types of 'milk' including dolce de leche, served with a Mexican chocolate de agua (£3.50), a traditional water-based drink with cinnamon and sugar. The pancakes were surprisingly light, flavoured with cinnamon and a side serving of fresh raspberry puree cut through the sweetness of the pancake and syrup.

What We Drank: We had a couple of 180 Tequila Bloody Maria's (£8.50) - made with blue agave tequila, tomato juice, Santo Remedio chilli blend and celery.

Likes: The Torta Ahogada was sublime, the Motuleños were excellent. The food tasted fresh, vibrant and full of flavour. 

Dislikes: None 

Verdict: The Mexican dishes I tried at Santo Remedio are some of the best I have had in the UK, and indeed took me back to some of the best restaurants I experienced in Mexico City and Oaxaca. Santo Remedio is my go-to place for Mexican food in London. Highly recommended.

Bottomless Brunch on the Southbank at Gillray’s Steakhouse & Bar

Words & Photography by Matthew Brown and Luiz Hara

Name: Gillray's Steakhouse & Bar

Where: London Marriott Hotel County Hall, Westminster Bridge Road, SE1 7PB, http://gillrays.com/

Cost: The Gillray’s Bottomless Brunch is available every Saturday and Sunday, from 12-3pm, for £40 a head. Diners can choose two courses from the extensive menu, which is organised into four sections: Cereals, Eggs, Meats and Treats. This will be accompanied by an unlimited number of glasses of Cordoniu Brut, a light and refreshing cava that is perfect for an early afternoon sitting. Side-dishes are available for £5 extra, and include a Bloody Mary, triple-cooked chips, and cauliflower and truffle bake.

About: I last reviewed Gillray’s in 2013, when I came for a sumptuous steak dinner, complete with oysters and cocktails. I recall that meal well and looked forward to my return visit for their new weekend brunch. You can read about it here.

The restaurant is named after the 18th Century political caricaturist James Gillray, and this impressive spot in the South Wing of the Marriott Hotel County Hall boasts great views across the Thames to Westminster.

The beautiful wood-paneled, large-windowed dining room is a welcome respite from the tourist rush outside, but it’s also the perfect place to enjoy a brunch before seeing a matinee at the National Theatre or Old Vic, or a film at the BFI.

The Bottomless Brunch offers some signature dishes from the evening menu (sirloin steak and a thick bacon chop) alongside brunch favourites such as eggs royale, pancakes and chia-seed pudding. It is good value and a lot of fun. 

When I came here last, I mentioned that it would have been good to see more affordable options on the wine list, and I'm happy to say that the brunch menu now gives you the opportunity to enjoy a Gillray’s meal with a good-quality free-flowing cava, Cordoniu Brut.

What We Ate: We started with a complimentary hors d’oeuvre from the kitchen, miniature Yorkshire puddings, filled with melted cheddar, and accompanied by a horseradish and creme fraiche dipping sauce. This innovative take on a Sunday Roast classic was such an improvement on the original! The cheese adds texture and flavour, and the fresh dipping sauce went perfectly with the light pudding batter. They were so good, we asked for more!

One of the first courses was the quinoa porridge, made with almond milk and topped with raspberries, pomegranate seeds and honey. Beautifully presented, it was a healthy way to start, with the almond milk ensuring that the dish wasn’t too rich.

Next was the Eggs Royale - an English muffin topped with smoked salmon, poached eggs and a rich Hollandaise sauce. It’s a brunch classic, and the Gillray’s version was so generous that they even folded an extra slice of smoked salmon between the halves of the muffin. The grilled lemon halves were yet more proof of Gillray’s attention to detail, this dish made for a decadent start to the meal.

The second course was a 200g sirloin, topped with a fried egg. It was accompanied by a side dish of flat cap mushrooms with rosemary. Unusually for a restaurant in an international hotel, Gillray’s prides itself on its local suppliers. The Aberdeen Angus steaks come from Darragh O’Shea’s farm in Scotland, and this shows in their depth of flavour.

The second main course was the Gillray’s Steak Burger. This enormous stack, containing a 280g patty, cheedar cheese, onion rings and gherkin may have taken their generosity to a fault! It was hard to tuck in to, and even harder to finish! Sadly, the thick patty could only be ordered well done, it was flavoursome if a tad dry. The onion rings were crispy on the outside, and the hash brown nuggets were a brilliant and addictive invention, served alongside a delicious red onion and bacon chutney.

What We Drank: Our meal started the way every good brunch should, with a Bloody Mary. In the Gillray’s version, the spiciness of the Tobasco is softened by slices of fresh cucumber and lemon, and the addition of celery salt.

After that, we started on the unlimited bubbles. Cordoniu Brut is the perfect choice of cava for the Gillray's brunch. It's dry and light, and the prominent apple notes give it a sweetness that works perfectly with the dishes.

Likes: The incredible cheesy Yorkshire puddings that came as a complimentary hors d'oeuvre, and the generosity that continued throughout the meal. 

Dislikes: We would have liked to see some more imaginative sweet dishes on the menu, other than the usual staples such as pancakes and waffles. 

Verdict: The Gillray's Bottomless Brunch is the a great weekend treat, especially for meat lovers who want to have the Gillray's experience, with a view of the Thames and unlimited bubbles at a great price.

The New Weekend Brunch Menu at Polpo

Name: Polpo Soho

Where: 41 Beak Street, London, W1F 9SB. www.polpo.co.uk

Cost: Average spend is around £20 per person. Cooked dishes range from £6 to £8, with pastries at £1.50, granola and doughnuts at £3. Boozy cocktails, Breakfast Bellini and Bloody Mary, are £6 while a whole bottle of Polpo Prosecco comes in at a reasonable £16. Coffee, whether cappuccino, double espresso, latte, or flat white, is all priced at £3. Breakfast tea is £2.  

About: Opened by restaurateur Russell Norman in 2009, Polpo Soho was the first branch of several that have slowly spread across London and beyond.

Sister restaurants are Polpetto above the French House in Dean Street, da Polpo in Covent Garden, and Spuntino on Rupert Street.

Polpo is known for its small-eats and informal dining style for lunch and dinner, that was somehow ground-breaking when it first appeared. As of June 2016, it also offers brunch on Saturdays, Sundays and Bank Holidays from 10am to 12.30pm.

What We Ate: The menu is concise, with four cooked options, plus pastries, doughnuts and granola, and a range of hot and cold drinks including a couple of breakfast cocktails. 

We started with the soft poached eggs served on a bed of scafata (£6). Scafata is a traditional stew from Umbria in central Italy, made from fava beans and spring vegetables which may include Swiss chard, asparagus, peas and onions and sometimes pancetta or salsiccia. Polpo’s version had beans, peas, rocket and baby artichoke hearts.  It was a stunning-looking dish, rather like spring on a plate, with perfectly cooked beans and vegetables, and oozy, runny eggs, but it sadly lacked seasoning. I have seen scafata recipes with Pecorino cheese or pancetta, and I think the dish would have gained from the addition of either.

Better was the brunch pizzetta with Italian salsiccia, wild mushroom and a soft egg (£8). With a fine thin crust and a scattering of fennel seeds, it came with top quality Italian spicy sausage, and slices of thick-cut pancetta, marbled with wonderfully aromatic, savoury fat - this was the highlight of the brunch for me.

Polpo's posh mushrooms on toast had wild garlic, an array of mushrooms (I think oyster, closed cap and perhaps porcini) topped with crumbled ricotta and a scattering of parsley, served on thick wedge of toasted sourdough (£6). I liked this but it didn’t rock my world – the bread had a great texture, but the mushrooms, though in abundance, were a tad uninspiring in flavour and texture, and again lacked seasoning.

To wrap up, we had the ricotta doughnuts and cinnamon sugar (£3). I enjoyed these mini doughnuts – they were fluffy, light and cinnamony, but would have been greatly improved by something served alongside like jam or clotted cream, or even some ice cream.

What We Drank: The Breakfast Bellini (£6) with a dash of Prosecco was sweet, peachy and refreshing. I also enjoyed the spicy Bloody Mary (£6), which was well seasoned with Tabasco and black pepper.

Likes: The brunch pizzetta is delicious - a simple dish elevated by the use of some top quality Italian ingredients. 

Dislikes: Service was in my opinion poor - the staff were not terribly friendly and an occasional smile would have gone a long way. They were uninformed about the dishes too – for example, nobody could explain which mushrooms were on the mushrooms on sourdough, one of only four cooked items on the menu. Besides, the seasoning of some of the dishes needs looking at. 

Verdict: A perfect brunch for me at Polpo Soho starts with a spicy Bloody Mary, accompanied by the Italian pizzetta, some strong coffee and a couple of their moreish sugar and cinnamon doughnuts slathered with a good helping of clotted cream or jam, if available.    

Sunday Brunching at The Richmond

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.

Meeting Hélène Darroze and Some of Her Top Suppliers at The Connaught

Hélène Darroze, the two Michelin-starred chef from Landes, resident at The Connaught, and one of the best known figures on the London fine dining scene, needs little if any introduction from me.

I visited the eponymous restaurant at The Connaught to try her magnificent weekend brunch (reviewed here), and was pleased to return recently to see Hélène for a very special lunch where she paid homage to, and brought some of her top suppliers to a wider audience. 

As Hélène explained in her introduction to the lunch, she owed much of her success to her suppliers. Without their support and the close relationships that have been nurtured over the years, she would not have been able to bring her cooking to the tables at The Connaught with such consistent quality.

Despite her celebrity chef status, Hélène is a down to earth and easy person to talk to, and I looked forward to seeing her again. On this recent visit, I learned of Hélène’s two adopted Vietnamese children, of her growing interest in the cuisines of Asia, and how she is bringing these flavours into her French cooking.

One such example was a lovely canapé of hand-chopped steak tartare, simply seasoned with a refreshing Japanese Ponzu dressing and thinly sliced coriander, topped with black caviar selected by Kaviari, one of Hélène’s suppliers.

I am a steak tartare obsessive, but having it with ponzu and caviar was a first for me - what a revelation!

Canapés and bubbly were followed by a sit down lunch, at which the guests were split over various tables, each having one of Hélène’s suppliers. At our table, I got to meet Alex McMullan, the lobster supplier from Northern Island. Interestingly, he told me that Hélène is his only customer in London, and that all his lobsters and crustacea that do not sell locally are shipped to France.

To introduce Bernadette Cassagnau of Béarn and her white cocoa beans, we kicked off with a martini glass filled with chopped Fine de Claire oysters in jelly, topped with an ultra-light and creamy white cocoa bean mousse.

A dollop of Kristal caviar by Kaviari and a leaf of gold finished off this stunning creation.  The combination of white chocolate and oyster was both daring and wonderful. It showed great sophistication, and was a fitting start to the meal.

Our next dish was Alex McMullan’s much anticipated Northern Irish lobster. Served in a highly concentrated, crystal clear lobster consommé, it was partnered with champignons de Paris, fine shavings of foie gras, coriander and baby shiso leaves.  The combination of lobster and foie gras was again unusual but exceptionally good, as was the addition of coriander and highly aromatic shiso leaves in this dish, evoking some of the best known flavours of Asia for me.

To partner both these dishes, we had a glass of 2009 Bourgogne Aligote by Pierre Morey, which had enough fruit, body and weight to perfectly match our first two starters.

The XXL scallop by David Price from Scotland followed - this was one of my favourite dishes of the lunch. A large meaty scallop was perfectly cooked, and served with a warm Parmigiano Reggiano foam and generous shavings of heady black truffle.  Cleverly put together, these simple, familiar flavours combined to create a form of culinary alchemy.

The hake by Anne-Marie Vergés of Saint-Jean de Luz was our next dish. A chunky fillet of hake was simply pan-fried and served with crumbled hazelnut, truffled mash, wild garlic foam and crunchy, paper-thin slices of cauliflower. I loved the many layers of flavour and texture in this dish, so ingeniously combined.

We enjoyed the scallop and hake dishes with a glass of 2012 Cuvée des Conti, Tour des Gendres, which was again a magnificent choice for both the scallop and hake dishes.

The pièce de resistance was, however, yet to come. Arnaud Tauzin’s magnificent chicken from the Landes is the Rolls Royce of the poultry world. I had a brief chat with Arnaud, who told me that he only sells the smaller and more flavoursome female chickens for consumption. Hélène Darroze is his only UK client, with the rest of his production being sold either locally in the Landes or to selected butchers in Paris, where each chicken retails for a whopping €45.

Chicken is a dish I hardly ever order in a restaurant, since it can be such non-descript meat in the UK. Arnaud’s chicken was among the best I have ever tasted, roasted and served with a highly concentrated glossy jus. The chicken had been stuffed with black truffle between the skin and the flesh, “cogollos”, potato and served with a creamy sauce made with “Vin jaune d’Arbois”, a French “yellow wine” akin to Fino Sherry but not fortified.

To accompany the chicken, we had a glass of 2010 Barbaresco Vigneto Valeriano from La Spineta.

The rhubarb supplied by Janet Oldroyd of Yorkshire was put to good use to create Hélène’s Forced Rhubarb dessert. A light and creamy rhubarb ice cream was placed over a freshly baked rhubarb financier, and served with crumbled almonds and a feather light rhubarb caramel tuille. The dessert was exceptionally light and refreshing, wrapping up proceedings with a real flourish.

I enjoyed a glass of 2012 Gaillac, Grain de Follie Douce from Domain Causse Marine with the dessert. For me, it was good to see this lesser known wine region represented in the dessert wine list. It is a wine I remember fondly from my trip to the Tarn and Gaillac  a few years ago.

In addition to the suppliers mentioned so far, noteworthy also were the all the vegetables for this meal, which were supplied by Joēl Thiebault, as well as the Espelette pepper by Mattin and Xabi Catanchoa, used in many of the dishes.

I thoroughly enjoy Hélène Darroze’s cooking - her creativity and sophistication of palate knows no bounds. But it was her generosity of spirit, humility and her publicly expressed gratitude to those who have supported her in her work that really struck a chord with me on this latest visit.

Helene and Her Team at The Connaught

If you have not tried Hélène Darroze’s cooking at The Connaught yet, I highly recommend it. If you have, it’s well worth a revisit. Her brunch is also one of the most fabulous ways to spend a weekend in London.

For more information about Hélène Darroze at The Connaught, visit their website here.