NORTH ROAD: GREAT

A lot people seem to be under the impression that DH's direct-from-the-gut approach to our food and restaurant posts are some sort of pose. Possibly something to differentiate ourselves from the rest of the food-blogging herd. They couldn't be further from the truth - we've always been loud, irascible and big-headed. And that's just our good qualities. Take for instance this post by HS from almost a decade ago where our trademark opinionated style is present and correct. Even in those salad days I still shamed restaurants into giving me more if I thought the portionage inadequate and my love of rough, clear spirits continues to this day.

It was only when I visited North Road restaurant the other night that I realised it was situated where the subject of that Chowhound post, The Clerkenwell Dining Rooms, had been. Before that I think it had been an outpost of the Stephen Bull (remember him?) empire and to be honest when I first walked in it reminded me of that place, light, pleasant but a bit anonymous.

I’d never made it up to Fig in Islington to try Christoffer Hruskova’s food before so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I sat down as the lone diner in the restaurant, accompanied only by the strains of Al Green’s How Can You Mend a Broken Heart. Sob.

The menu descriptions looked blissfully straightforward although I wasn't always convinced they corresponded exactly with what I was eating. The taciturn waiters didn’t seem to be certain either. I was grateful however they hadn't gone down the route of christening the dishes with names like Memories of Helsingør or Jutland. Spring. Dusk. although there was the gratuitous use of the word "textures" in the pudding menu. Slap Hand.

The cooking would best be described as resolutely Northern European with the additional benefit of helping one to lose weight – there’s hardly a carb is to be seen here. So instead of the usual basket of bread (“zees ees whalnut, zees is a meenie baggette…etc”) I got three skins: one of cod, one of pork and one of chicken. Quite nice although the one of chicken was a bit chewy. Alongside were some little quail eggs that had been smoked.

Like the similarly experimental Coi in San Francisco which I visited earlier in the year, there is a fair bit of greenery and additional flourishes (one dish was like eating an exhibit at the Chelsea Flower show) that while not unpleasant doesn’t always feel like an improvement. In fact, at North Road, the strongest component of every dish I ordered was the primary protein which, with the exception of the lobster, was always of decent quality and cooked with precision.

So in the first starter of Scallops, the little bivalves were cooked perfectly with a slight blush of colour. I wasn’t sure what the bitter cress was bringing to the table although it was interesting in and of itself.

The little powdered horseradish was a nice touch as were the strips of apple, but as in some of the other dishes there was always the feeling there was possibly one ingredient too many.

Take for instance the Veal Sweetbreads – and don’t trust anyone who says the lamby version are just as good, they’re not – which were cooked just so: good colour on the outside but melting and soft on the inside. They were covered in a ghostly shroud of milk skin which added a sweet, creamy note. There were some small braised onions and pickled green elderberries that added a little acid touch. But then they had to go and add some pickled onions as well which basically killed all the other flavours.

The car-crash of the starters was the Cured Native Lobster and Buttermilk with Horseradish, Coastal Herbs and Vinaigrette. Now much as I like Sashimi I really believe that shellfish are immeasurably improved by the application of a bit of heat. And so it was here. The taste of the lobster didn’t come through and it was very salty. The rest of the dish was like a cold soup of hedgerow clippings. Edible, but only just.

Thankfully, mains were more conventional and excellent. A thick wedge of squeakily fresh Brill was perfectly cooked and sat on top of some bias-cut salsify that had been cooked in a sort of creamy sauce that I’m guessing wasn’t made from cream. The green stuff on the top had been made out of a sea vegetable and added a gentle briny taste. A lovely dish that could only have been improved with some of those elderberries.

The kitchen were getting into their stride now and a Veal three ways really hit the spot. A small fillet of baby cow was pink and delicious as was a roundel of the braised and shredded tail, the whole topped with shreds of Veal breast. I may have got the last two bits mixed up but in any case it was terrific cooking.

Such was the lightness of touch evident in all the dishes I managed to squeeze in a couple of puds. The word interesting probably best sums them up.

Jerusalem Artichokes and Sunflower seeds tasted like the Indian dish Kulfi covered in a light, creamy, moussey thing. Not unpleasant, probably twice as big as it needed to be.

Low Tide at Skagen…sorry, Liquorice and caramel in textures was a sort of caramel ice cream covered in, well, your guess is as good as mine. I didn’t detect the liquorice but the caramel was nice. Again, the portion was more generous that it needed to be (I know, a Hermano saying there was too much food. Scandalous). At least both dishes kept my insulin levels on an even keel.

Restaurants aren’t some sort of binary manifestation i.e. having one sort of gaff doesn’t preclude the presence of any other, so I always welcome anyone who brings something new and diverse to the dining scene. While I’m not as convinced as some of this new foraged ingredient-led style the fact that at North Road it’s allied to great ingredients and sure technique make it one of the better new openings in London. I’ll be returning.

MORITO: A LITTLE MORO

Walk into Morito and you might think you're in a nuevo tapas bar in Madrid or Barcelona: a clean, modern space filled with people sitting at the bar and at tables squeezed along the perimeters of the small room; a handwritten list of tapas, on a board; the chef, beavering away at the plancha turning out small plates, a buzzing atmosphere. But, you’re not in either of Spain’s two largest cities, you’re in Morito, a little tapas bar offshoot of parent and neighbour Moro, which stands on the site previously occupied by Spanish food wholesaler Brindisa.

Look closer though and there are plenty of clues that you are in fact in London's trendy Clerkenwell and not Madrid’s trendy Chueca. First off there's the smell or rather the lack of it: that unique mix of fag smoke, deep frying, cured hams and coffee I know and love from Spain’s finest. Then there’s the staff. They're not dressed in ill-fitting dark suits accessorised with wonky bowties and they are not nearly grumpy enough.

I like Moro. I’ve been going there since it first opened and although I don’t think it’s as good as it was (but then, where is?) from time to time I’ll still prop myself up at the large zinc and knock back a chilled half bottle of Manzanilla and a few cazuelas from their short tapas list.

The selection is larger at Morito and is written in an odd sort of Spanglish (and very irritating it is too). And the prices, well, they don’t seem too bad on first viewing but when you see the size of the dishes - and they really are tapa-sized - you might feel, like me, that they’re overpriced. The lack of seafood dishes too is a bit of a giveaway too. But overlook its cod-Hispanic affectations and like its big sister Morito is not a bad place to hang out for a bite and a glass or two.

The cooking is basically Spanish with a bit of Mahgreb thrown in - sumac and za'atar are available to sprinkle over one’s food. There’s plently of pimentón used as well. Sometimes too much, as in a dish of chiccarones (sic). They're advertised as being from Cadiz style although the last time I had them there they were a type of pressed pork rather than the usual cubes of belly pork served here. More importantly, all I could taste in the dish was the paprika.

Tortillitas de Camarones also hail from that ancient City. They’re a thin, crisp pancake made from chickpea batter with some shrimps mixed in, almost as another seasoning. Morito’s version was a bit oily but tasted authentic enough. There weren’t many shrimp but that could have been because the portion was so titchy.

An empanadilla of mussels and chorizo tasted took me back to visit to A Coruña although I found the pastry used here a bit leaden and reminiscent of something you'd find in the local health shop.

Croquetas de Jamón were disappointing. Instead of a creamy béchamel interior there was a tasteless semi-solid grey mush with very taste. The Croquetas de Bacalao, sorry Salt Cod, were much better. I also liked Morito’s preparation of Octopus which came sectioned and grilled in a perky and fresh-tasting salpicon .

The balance in a dish of Butifarra with white Navarran beans was all wrong and with a big splodge of garlic aioli the dish ended up being a bit too greasy and the taste of the Catalan sausage was lost. The beans were beautifully creamy though and cried out for a little bit of bread to mop things up.

Of the Montaditos (stuff on bread) the best was the little riff on brekkie: a couple of quail eggs with Jamón sitting on good Moro bread. Definitely something to be picked up and stuffed into one’s gob (which did what I did). The worst was the Birch Bolete where the taste of the mushroom was killed by the fried bread underneath.

Given that much of the preceding food hadn’t been bland, although oiliness was a general theme of the evening, a plate of seared rump was a bit of a shrug of the shoulders sort of dish. It hadn’t been seared enough, it hadn’t been seasoned enough and it hadn’t been rested enough. And (deep sigh) the beef hadn’t been hung for long enough.

There’s just the two desserts to choose from but for me it’s always going to be a scoop of Moro's Rum 'n' Raisin Ice Cream slathered in PX. It still hits the spot although the lack of any liqueur action meant I had to take a my espresso and Patxaran con hielo next door.

Although the evening may have seemed like more like a sequence of misses than hits the quality of the ingredients were decent and nothing left a bad taste in my mouth… well, maybe the prices did a little bit but to be honest that’s also the case at Moro and I still go back there quite happily. I can’t really explain it. I’ll probably return to Morito as well.

BISTROT BRUNO LOUBET: TEXTBOOK

Don’t call it a comeback.

Bruno Loubet may well have been away from the capital for the best part of the last decade, but it is not like all he was doing was laying on a beach while he was in Brisbane. It was obvious from last night’s meals that he has returned to London with all his considerable skills in the kitchen very much intact.

Hermano Primero and I have quite a history with Bruno Loubet. L’Hippocampe (where Arbutus now stands) was the first place where HP ever dropped £100 on a meal in the early 1990’s. L’Odeon, one of the great gastrodomes that were all the rage fifteen years ago, was one of the first places I did the same. We both liked his brief foray into Moroccan food at Bruno Soho and his presence in the kitchens during the opening weeks of Isola’s existence even persuaded us to visit a gaff run by Oliver Peyton, our least favourite restauranteur in London.

Things were obviously not right as we approached the Millennium, however and HP’s last sighting of Bruno was disconsolately sucking on a cigarette outside of Mash, another Peyton joint just after the turn of the new century. He disappeared soon after and we assumed that his skills had been lost to consultancy and private dining in the way that so many good chefs of the time had gone (think David Cavalier)

When I found out, later on that he had opened up a series of restaurants down under in Brisbane to great acclaim, I assumed that he had decided to leave the capricious world of London dining behind for good. So, it was a surprise when rumours of his return began to appear on Twitter and even more of a surprise when they turned out to be true.

The Zetter Hotel, home of the former football pools company, may seem like an unlikely venue for a star chef to make his return, but they have done a great job with the room. I found HP already examining the menu at a table to the rear of the restaurant when I arrived and one glimpse reassured me that any fears of Loubet bringing back packets of galangal and lemongrass with him from Australia were unfounded.

The menu is supposed to present a modern, lighter take on Loubet’s bistro cooking, but appeared pretty much as we remembered and once the waiter announced that there was a starter of Scallops with Black Pudding (one of his signature dishes back in the 1990’s) the whole evening felt like putting on the most comfortable pair of slippers.

Our first tastes of our starters reminded us why we had always been such big fans. HP’s “Mauricette Snails and meatballs with royal de champignons” was Bruno’s cheffy take on a favourite dish of his mothers. Everything about it was, to use a word that HP repeated throughout the evening “textbook” with meaty snails, delicate veal meatballs and a tomato sauce that exuded sweetness. My own guinea fowl boudin blanc was even better, perhaps showing the new approach, with a feather light sausage of an almost mousse like texture sitting in a light broth studded with carrots, ham and barley flavoured with the addition of chervil.

I could easily have ordered every main course dish, but chose the veal dish of the day, which was a piece of rolled breast, served with gnocchi and leeks. HP went for the already much lauded dish of Hare Royale with onion raviolo and a puree of pumpkin and dried mandarin. Both dishes showed a richness that might well be considered unfashionable today, but although both were unapologetically full on, they were pitch perfect with no sign of the fierce reduction that seems to be the blight on so many meat dishes in high end places. The hare shredded perfectly to release its gamey steam, while the veal broke apart with just a touch of the knife.

The gnocchi were light, but retained a bite and the pumpkin purree with mandarin complimented the hare sauce in the same way a daube benefits from having a slice of orange peel as it cooks. HP said it again, as he spooned a blob of perfect potato dauphinoise from bowl to mouth “textbook”

Neither of us could recall what desserts were like at Loubet’s previous restaurants, which probably says more about our ambivalence than their quality. Here, almost inevitably, HP went for a selection of ice cream while I chose a chocolate tartlet with caramel and salted butter ice cream. The ice creams were disappointing with only a small scoop of morello cherry flavoured deemed worthy of him finishing. But, the tart was spot on, the casing cracking under the pressure of my spoon and the inside served slightly warm so the chocolate oozed out onto the plate.

With some coffee and fresh mint tea, it made a lovely end to a lovely meal and one that with a bottle of something punchy from the Laungedoc came to £117 including service. That seemed like a fair amount for three courses of excellent cooking by one of our all time favourite chefs, particularly when put in context of some of the more dispiriting experiences we have had recently.

It would be easy to go overboard with Loubet’s return to London particularly as he is obviously still cooking with considerable enthusiasm and producing dishes of the highest level. There should be more places in London like this, but then again there should be more chefs in London like Bruno Loubet.

A very welcome return indeed.