Restaurant Review: Cucina Cinzia in Fulham

I should have known that Cucina Cinzia (in Fulham) and I wouldn't quite get on as I maintain an entirely rational hatred of Fulham and all that it contains. Fulham and I will never be friends. I don't get up on a Saturday morning and iron a dress shirt for casual wear and then accessorise it with a rugby shirt draped over my shoulders and Fulham doesn't wear low slung jeans and ride fixed wheel bikes. Fulham's idea of adventure is going to Devon, my idea of adventure is going to Peckham tonight to try a "meating" (more on that next week).

But seriously now. Fulham is a long way away from my usual haunts in central, East or South London and Cucina Cinzia is a reflection of that. All the supper clubs I have visited up until Cucina Cinzia have been in the edgier bits of London (such as Saltoun Supper Club in Brixton, TOOB in Dalston, F&L in London Fields etc, Civet Cat in Newington Green etc.). Nights tend to be raucous, the food tends to be a bit experimental and the atmosphere free flowing.

Restaurant Review: Civet Cat Supper Club in Newington Green

For some reason I have spent a couple of weeks deliberately not writing a review of my evening at Civet Cat Supper Club (CCSC). There is a good reason for this. It is because I have been searching for a word and I have finally found it. That word is "local". CCSC is a fantastic "local" (and I say this deliberately) restaurant.

Restaurant Review: Trail Of Our Bread supper club in Dalston

It is a relief when you can be concise; our night at Trail Of Our Bread (TOOB) last Saturday will be one of the best nights I have this year.  If you like food and know how to get to London Fields without a map go here and beg for a place as you won't regret it.

I can think of no supper club (bar The Pale Blue Door but then it did have Rusella the drag queen - review here) where I have had so much raw fun.  This was only the TOOB's third supper club, it cost a mere £20 but it was blow you away good.  This was not about money, rep or anything else, it was about a passion for food.  And it showed.

We committed guest sacrilege by turning up early as the rain forced us into a cab.  There can be nothing worse than guests turning up early when you are having that final panic before everyone arrives but there we were, sober and judgmental.  This didn't phase TOOB at all and I was allowed to assist with the stereo system and Jen was allowed to assist by drinking white wine.  This gave us all the more time to appreciate the decoration.  Their flat is the kind of thing "Friends" would be set in nowadays if it was called "Hipsters" and was set in Dalston.*  Industrial relaxed cool warehouse chic.  And then it had been attacked by a briliant set designer with a sense of fun.  Jelly fish dripped from the ceiling with lights blinking at us.  A painted mermaid stared out us from the edge of the room.  Toy fish nestled on our plates.  Passion and effort were embedded and baked into the flat.

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: Fernandez & Leluu Supper Club in London Fields revisited

I should have written this review but ages ago but it is far harder to be nice than to be nasty about a meal.  When you have a truly excellent meal it is especially difficult to distill what made it so special into words.  I have now been to F&L twice and each time I have faced this problem (prior review here).

F&L is a strange beast, it is a supper club/ underground restaurant where the food is the star.  This is not about dancing drag queens, genteel conversation, glimpses into other people's front rooms or a fine brew, it is about good food.  What is most impressive about F&L is that they are inventive with their dishes.  They don't roll out dishes which are tried and tested (apart from on each other) but put new and strange flavour combinations out there to either succeed or fail.

On my second visit a group of six of us went to F&L's fish tales supper.  This was a chance for F&L to deposit large amounts of cash in Steve Hatt's hands (the best and most expensive fishmonger in London) and for us to see what they could do with it.  I was a bit suspicious before going as I thought fish could be the hardest ingredient to base a supper club around as it is all about freshness and not overcooking it.

The first course was salmon sashimi with mirin and orange sauce and chips.  The sashimi was swimmingly fresh and the dip was everything that impresses me so much about F&L; a combination that I have not tried elsewhere but which works so well.  I also remember a wasabi mayonnaise (though it may not have been with that course) which quite frankly wowed me.  Again, almost an obvious combination, but not one that I have had elsewhere.

Our Supper Club Dress Rehearsal

Every Christmas Eve, I cook. This year, I stayed in London for the holidays and decided to throw a Mexican inspired shindig for our friends who also stayed in town. We've been kicking around the idea of hosting our own underground supper club, so I decided this dinner would serve as a dress rehearsal.Our five course menu kicked off with my margaritas. Then followed with:

-Salmon ceviche with chorizo and crispy wontons
-Chicken tortilla soup
-Grilled prawns with coriander crema and black bean puree
-Barbacoa style beef with grape salsa, cabbage, and sweet potato chips
-Chili chocolate brownie sundaes

Restaurant Review: Rambling Restaurant in Camden

It has taken me quite a while to bring myself to write a review of the Rambling Restaurant in Camden as it didn't motivate me either way.

It is standard underground restaurant fare, pay money, receive invite (this one enjoyably a bit more cryptic than most) and turn up at a random's front door. As always with underground restaurants a lot (often everything) depends on who you are sitting next to and how much you drink. Fortunately Mat and I got lucky; a fun French and Spanish couple and a lot of wine respectively.

The deal at Rambling Restaurant was 3 courses for about £20- 25 (I can't be completely sure as I have somehow managed to lose my online receipt for the meal). The food is, I think, rather accurately portrayed in my surprisingly good iPhone pictures of the meal.

The starter was three dips and as much pitta as you could eat. The hummus was much better than most I had tried and the beetroot dip was excellent. However, one can only get so excited over dips and pitta and Rambling Restaurant were already one course down.

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: Fernandez and Leluu Supper Club

This review starts off with an admission of faulty judgement and ends with drunken meal joy.

A picky Parisian friend was bringing his new girlfriend over to London for the weekend so my girlfriend (a picky New Yorker) and I offered to arrange the meals for them. It began with a standardly brilliant breakfast at The Modern Pantry at which I found out his girlfriend was (i) Parisian (ii) liked champagne (iii) wanted to go clubbing in West London and (iv) liked champagne. At this stage I got nervous as for Saturday night I had booked Fernandez & Leluu's supper club in London Fields.

On re examining the menu they posted online I started to get really nervous; frogs' legs (for French people?!?), a Vietnamese inspired menu with pineapple and catfish thrown together. Was this going to be an unholy mess? Was the new girlfriend going to demand champagne and the soothing (boring) streets of West London?

Fortunately for me, I was completely and utterly wrong. It transpires that Fernandez & Leluu are both far better cooks than me (and most venues in London) and far far better at considering innovative flavour pairings than I (oh, and can cook frogs' legs well enough to wow a French person).

In a true over reviewing style, I'll start at the beginning and fade out towards the end (as that is when my enjoyment of the meal interfered with my memory).

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

Restaurant Review: Savoy Truffle Supper Club

This review depends on a sausage.  Don't worry, it will all become clear.

We made our way to Blackheath on a filthy autumn Friday night to enjoy a meal at the Savoy Truffle supper club; another "underground" restaurant.  Though this has to be the first time Blackheath has ever been part of something"underground" or cutting edge.

I was excited as I had heard on the grapevine that the chef worked at the River Cafe (one of my favourite restaurants).  I later found out I was wrong and he is training at Acorn House (an overrated eco miss).  Still there was at least some pedigree. The menu was short so I'll set it out in full:

1. Pumpkin Soup

2. Bangers and mash

3. Crumble

The quality was, well it was the kind of meal you would make on a night after work where you were trying to impress yourself.  Not extravagant, not fanciful but solid and enjoyable.  Pumpkin soup was pumpkin soup however the chef added chilli sauce which was an interesting touch.  The crumble was, a crumble.  Portions were huge, the service accomodating, the atmosphere a genteel dinning room.