Restaurant Review: Nuno Mendes at Viajante in Bethnal Green

The problem with Viajante is that it wants to play with the restaurant gods and is priced on that basis - 6 courses for £60, 9 courses for £65 or 12 courses for £85.  But for those kind of prices you could go to Marcus Wareing at the Berkeley.

(crostini de romesco and gordal olives, almonds and Jerez)

So let's start with the "soft" side of the meal because that was their biggest failure. Marcus Wareing, Gordon Ramsay (here), Marcus McGuiness or any of their ilk who do similar "big" tasting menus like Viajante is offering guarantee good service.  Napkins magically return to your lap.  Chairs migrate in and out of the table in time with your movements and plates appear and disappear without you thinking about it.

Now I really really don't care about good service.  For me the best (cheap) meals come where it is warfare with the waiters.  You sit unloved and ignored in the corner.  But then the food.  The juxtaposition between the brilliance of the food and the obnoxious service (and cheap prices) make those kind of meals something even more special (see Antpeliler here).  Viajante wants to be more than that though.  It wants to be haute Bethnal Green cuisine but it is striving to be so with shonky so so service.  What is even more strange about this is when Nuno Mendes was at The Loft he oversaw an experience that was both fantastic on the food front but also had pleasant and paced service (here).

Restaurant Review: Ben Greeno at (Nuno Mendes') The Loft

This review starts by asking a question no one has bothered asking yet but is a fairly fundamental one.  Why read my reviews?  Well, the answer starts out simple but rambles a bit.

I have no financial interest in anything I review.  I blog because I enjoy it.  I have never been offered, accepted or asked for something free. I have no desire to set up an Underground Restaurant or a Supper Club because I have no desire to ever be judged by people such as me.  I have nothing to parcel, nothing to market, nothing I am personally invested in and no-one I feel compelled to talk up.  This blog is not and will not be monetised.  My industry and future is as far separated from the world of food as it is possible to be.

Restaurant Review: Saltoun Supper Club in Brixton

I think one word sums up Saltoun Supper Club (SSC), fascinating. From the food to the decor, it is all fascinating.

Now this is not meant to a slight on the food at all (for the simple reason that the food is rather good) but there is an element of theatrics to the whole experience which makes SSC special.  The whole supper club/ underground restaurant "scene" has stimulated many emotions in me but the general one has been a slight feeling of "is that it?".  There have been notable exceptions (L&F, Nuno Mendes and Christmas at Number 42) but in general it has been a slightly underwhelming experience eating in people's living rooms over the past year.  I don't go to supper clubs to simply have an emulation of a meal in a restaurant (and sometimes a bad one), I think there has to be something unique about it. Be it experimental food, bonhomie or just curiosity. SSC takes this and runs with it.here) has a far fuller and beautiful glimpse of the unique surroundings.

Arno and his assistant staged the whole process brilliantly. You walk up a flight of stairs and the flat unfolds around you. Interesting, quirky and unique are dotted everywhere.  The living room is like the top floor of the Welcome Collection in Euston and full of little curiosities. Between each course you are offered the chance to relax upstairs in a study similarly decorated and evocative.

Restaurant Review: Christmas at Number 42 by the Pale Blue Door/ Architecture Foundation

I was nervous before I went here. Was it going to be about the food or about a drag queen serving you food?

The underground restaurant 'scene' in London is about many things, one thing I have unfortunately realised five or six 'supper clubs' in is that good food is not always guaranteed.

The first supper club I went to (Ms Marmite's Underground Restaurant) made me question what all the fuss was about due to the lacklustre cooking. Having read that it was inspired by the paladares in Cuba I probably shouldn't have been surprised as having eaten my way around Cuba 12 years ago I had learnt the hard way that paladares/ underground restaurants can offer disappointment and food poisoning (often together).

It was only the novel experience of mingling with strangers and the slightly illicit sensation that led me to try my second (Lady Gray's tea room). Her great baking spurred me onwards and upwards to try Fernandez and Leluu's brilliant Vietnamese extravaganza. Thereafter there was the slight commerciality of the Savoy Truffle Club (insofar as they run a tight ship which means you get acceptable food but a slightly astringent experience compared to the frivolity of the other supper clubs I have been to) and then well... Christmas at Number 42 done by those behind the Pale Blue Door in Hackney. Oh, and I nearly forgot, Nuno Mendes at the Loft is also meant to be part of this trend but there is something different about a professional chef cooking at home (however, it was hella good).

I hadn't ever been to the Pale Blue Door but I knew it was a set designer's/ drag queen's mash up of a meal. When I saw that they were collaborating with the Architecture Foundation I booked three tickets to go, one of which was for Clair who first lured me to Ms Marmite's earlier in the year and put the whole 'supper club' scene on my radar.

Beyond that I walked into Christmas at Number 42 ignorant and not having listened to Christina Aguilera for an age. That was about to change. The room was a revelation. Normally when people talk about 'rooms' they blather on about decor or some nice wallpaper. This was a pre assembled miniature house. We wiggled our way up to our table, on the second floor, into the kid's bedroom. As we went pass our drag queen for the night (Russella, see http://www.russella.co.uk), resplendent in red, informed us that there was porn under the table (superglued we found out). So far so normal.

Restaurant Review: Lady Gray's Hidden Tea Room in Old Street

This is an old review which used to live elsewhere but my failure to make properly fluffy and sweet scones last night (no thanks Nigella Lawson) made me want to revisit and repost it. 

When I originally wrote my review I thought that the Hidden Tea Room was the best of the "domestic" underground restaurants I had tried at that time (this is meant to exclude Nuno Mende's efforts as there is nothing less than professional about his place, The Loft).  This was for the simple reason that Lady Gray and her husband had got the concept right; high tea. Brilliant. Simple, and easy to maintain the quality. 

This was one of the first underground restaurants reviewed by Time Out and has always meant that getting a booking is a bit tricky.  However, I managed to get a space there at the end of the summer and took two friends there.  I would definitely try to go in summer as Lady Gray has an advantage most Londoners don't have; outside space.  Perfect for champagne and her best dish, cheese biscuity nibbles.

After the opening drinks you find yourself in Lady Gray's front room squeezed in around a table that touches every corner of the room.  You don't forget for one second that this is not a restaurant and that is part of its beauty. The service, the surroundings, the food are all at a tangent of your "normal" experience. I mean, we even spoke to the people sitting opposite.

The effort Lady Gray and her husband took to relax, feed and stuff you were laudable. As already mentioned the cheese biscuits to go with the champagne were the highlight but the rest of the cream tea was good.  Not grand Hotel good, but good. Where they really stood out was on the teas, a selection of 10s and with each person getting their own little teapot.

All you can do when you meet such nice people as Lady Gray and her husband is wish them well and thank them for a great experience.

Price - £25 a head with all the tea you want

Restaurant Review: Nuno Mendes at the Loft

You know you are not in a 'normal' 'underground restaurant' when the chef repeatedly prepares his dishes sous-vide or by vacuum/ slow cooking. You know you are not in a 'normal' 'underground restaurant' when the meal proceeds completely to pace with no undue delays or panics. You know you are not in a 'normal' 'underground restaurant' when you pay £100 a head.

In short, it's worth it. Consider a dinner at The Loft as a bit like eating at the chef's table in a good restaurant. Then make a it a bit more open, make Nuno Mendes a charming Portuguese host and set it in his flat (which despite being called The Loft is on the ground floor). Then pluck some refined wine choices and enjoy a perfectly placed meal which gives you a chance to try some experimental dishes from the chef which you can chat through with him.

Not all of the dishes worked, some amazed, some were flat, none simply disappointed. All of them were 15 degrees to the normal restaurant tangent but within the el Bulli heritage. The only problem with the whole experience is that it is so distant and unfamiliar from the whole underground scene. It is far too smooth. That said I don't quiet know why that is a criticism, but it is.

I will be interested to see how his new restaurant, Viajante, goes. It is clear that his first attempt to strike out on his own was ill timed and too intermittently good (Bacchus). I never went but some of the reviews judge it as just plain bad. On the evidence of my meal at The Loft there is a consistency and sense to his meals that, for me, worked. If the wave that he has generated doing a supper club doesn't eb, I am sure it will be a success.

Price - £100