A KALEIDOSCOPE OF BRILLIANCE
February, 2011
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SUMMARY: A new venture by the stunning Ottolenghi team with a menu offering a choice of around 30 small “sharing dishes” using mainly Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and Asian ingredients. Open Monday to Saturday for lunch and dinner and Sunday dinner. Expect to spend around £28 for three dishes, before drinks or service.
I AM NOT usually obsessed with being among the first restaurant critics to review a new restaurant. In fact I usually tend to allow a restaurant to bed in, iron out wrinkles and get into the swing of things before I grace them with my presence.
But when it’s Yotam Ottolenghi behind the venture, and they are charging half price during their “soft opening” period (until Wednesday 23rd), I just couldn’t resist an early visit. And the fact that it is in Soho, just off Regent Street, didn’t put me off, and it shouldn’t put you off either. This is really worth a visit.
It is, apparently, the first of a series of new brasseries that Ottolenghi intends to open. The difference is that they will offer all-day eating, there is no deli section, and the menu offers around 30 small “sharing dishes” to choose from. The head chef is Ramael Scully, formerly the head chef at the Ottolenghi Islington branch.
The restaurant, whose name stands for “North of Piccadilly” is a visual delight. Apart from the open kitchens, de rigeur nowadays it seems, there are odd shapes and comfortable furniture, terrific light fittings and some toilets downstairs that are as important to try out as the food itself. It is all the work of Israeli designer and architect Alex Maitliss, who is a genius. My one tiny complaint is that the chairs squeak mercilessly on the floors and desperately need felt pads to keep the peace.
There is a recommendation on the menu that each person should choose three dishes from the savoury (meat, fish and veg) sections on the menu – and then think about a dessert later.
That meant that our party of four were being encouraged to order no fewer than 12 dishes – and I have to say right away that that was too much food – even the legendary Greedyboy found the volume of nosh too much to bear. My recommendation is that you order two dishes each, and then share a couple of desserts.
As expected, the array of food that arrived was a kaleidoscope of ideas, textures, contrasts and colours – but without at any stage going over the top and spoiling what is essentially very simple food.
I can’t describe all 12 dishes in detail, but here are the highlights: Lovely crispy crusty beef brisket croquets with Asian slaw, a very rich and sumptuous slow cooked pigs cheeks with celeriac and barberry (little red berries) salad, wonderfully aromatic braised lamb meatballs in a yoghurt sauce with pomegranate seeds.
Not everyone agreed or liked everything, but this is my newsletter so it’s my views that count, so I will say that I didn’t much like the shredded ossobuco with sage and parmesan polenta – it was just too intense for me, and I missed the way the meat usually falls gently from the veal bones.
The fish dishes included excellent just-seared scallops with pickled daikon (Japanese radish) and green apple, immensely subtle strips of halibut cured in lemon oil with samphire and shiso (an Asian herb) that was among the very best things they put before us, grilled hake kebabs with lemon pickle and yoghurt that wasn’t massively impressive, and some absolutely splendid (and unusual) prawn toasts with ginger and cucumber dipping sauce.
The vegetable dishes included refreshing chunks of peeled kohlrabi with a mouth-watering mint-flavoured sour cream, gorgeous sautéed carrots with mung beans, braised winter green and a terrific burrata (similar to a mozzarella cheese) with blood orange and coriander seeds.
There was one period when the food just stopped coming, and it was something like 45 minutes before the procession resumed – but that’s the sort of thing that happens during a soft opening week, so we didn’t complain. They were very apologetic – so apologetic, in fact, that they brought us an extra dish of the scallops in compensation (as if we needed any more food!)
By this stage, folks, we were absolutely stuffed to the gills, and we didn’t even consider ordering any desserts (things like vanilla ricotta, pineapple galette, roast hazlenut ice-cream and cardamom rice pudding). As I said, next time we will order fewer savoury dishes and leave some room for sweets.
Our bill, including four glasses of wine and service, would normally have come to £155 (around £38 a head), but our 50% discount reduced that to £77 – a very much more satisfying £19 each.
This is not cheap food. The dishes are relatively small, but most carry a price tag of between £9 and £12 each. More judicious ordering can keep the cost down, but in the end, the food is so good that you will hand over your credit card with a song in your heart.