BARBECOA: MONSTROUS CARBUNCLE

Although I’m no fan of Prince Charles or his bizarre views on architecture – he seems to want all of London re-modelled to look like it was frozen in time around the early 19th century – I’m pretty sure we’d be of one mind regarding One New Change in the City of London.

Ok, so there wasn’t much there before but as we know, business abhors a vacuum. So instead of say, a nice large public space from which one could admire Wren’s masterpiece, we get the ‘Stealth Bomber’, a shopping mall as stealthy as Katie Price in a Shrinking Violet contest. A shopping mall filled with the sort of places you would only see if you walked for, oh, a few minutes in any direction. Be assured your Nando’s requirements are fully served by 1NC.

The prime location in this behemoth - which presumably came with a suitably stiff price tag - is occupied by Barbecoa a collaboration between Adam Perry Lang (who he?) and our own, cheeky, chappy, TV Chef, St Jamie of Oliver.

I’ll fess up now and say my attitude to JO is one of indifference. His early TV series, with its wobbly camera work and its slappy happy young ‘uns just got on my tits so I never watched it again. I hear he’s been doing stuff to help fat Americans recently (he’s got his work cut out) which is all fine and dandy although I tend to be more impressed by people who just get on with their good works without a TV camera and book deal in tow. So just a little bit of baggage then.

The weird thing was though, the closer the time for my booking the more psyched I became. I kept re-reading the menu thinking this could be really good. Even arriving at the restaurant and being led into the maelstrom of a fully-booked City restaurant full of cheap suits didn’t put me off. The smiley, friendly service also gave me good vibes. Then I started eating the food and toute de suite I was un-psyched.

The first problem I noticed was the quality of the meat or rather the lack of it. From the Pork Scratchings (which came with a schmear of mole sauce of cinnamon-driven weirdness), through the Pigs Cheek, Baby Back Ribs and Pulled Pork, and finishing with the Burger nothing actually tasted like good Pork or decent Beef. The website only states that: “All of meat and fish is British from farms in Scotland, Yorkshire and Surrey where animal welfare and breeding are of the highest quality”. Which means. Precisely. Nothing.

The second problem was the quality of the cooking and preparation which was mediocre – I can’t say abysmal because I ate some of it. Dishes were going out with little or no quality control. That’s the only explanation for the chips that came with my burger that were limper than Larry “Shut That Door” Grayson’s wrist (one for the kids there).

A little patty of Crispy Pig Cheeks was oily and underseasoned, the accompanying salad too salty. The Piccalilli had soft veg and uncooked spices which caught at the back of the mouth.

Anyone expecting anything to evoke BBQ from the US is going to be seriously disappointed. The sauce on the ribs was 1D and inoffensive. The one that smothered the Pulled Pork was very sweet, the whole making me feel quite queasy.

Then there were odd little touches as well like the overuse of fresh coriander and the dish of assorted leaves with my Pulled Pork (for constructing a rudimentary summer roll perhaps?). And apparently a slaw in JO’s universe is over-acidulated red cabbage and white cabbage.

Finally, there was the cost. Even with 25% off, every plate (or should that be plank) of food reminded you how much it must have cost to get this show on the road. I’m still scratching my head over how they came up with £11 for a few ribs.

Still, this is the City, where there’s little discernment but plenty of wonga swilling around – when I arrived a couple were just starting on their second bottle of Krug – so I’m sure the owners won’t have any problem getting their money back. Indeed, JO and his partner were already talking of a roll-out before the place was even open which tells you where they’re coming from (making Garfunkel’s look like great value perhaps?)

I don’t usually give advice regarding restaurants in the blog. If you want to know what a place is like you should always go and try it for yourself. In Barbecoa’s case I’m going to break with tradition and say save your pennies. Jamie doesn’t need the money and you, gentle reader, could do without a lousy, overpriced meal.

28-50: RESTRICTED LATITUDE

While nearly all restaurant reviewers and bloggers will write about the food they have eaten, very little will be written, if at all, about the wine (or beer) they have drank. It may be that they don’t drink, although I haven’t come across that many tea-total foodies. Sometimes the food doesn’t match that well with wine: Dim Sum only seems right with some Pu’er tea. Much of the time the selection of wine on offer is so limited and the markups so brutal that it’s a case of damage limitation – hence the ever popular second-from-bottom of the wine list strategy.

There’s group of people who regularly visit restaurants but for whom the food is of secondary interest. The wine enthusiast (or blogger) will talk about their meal as if it was constructed around the choice of tipple. The meal will stand or fall by the quality of the wine and not the food, indeed there’s a sense of palpable unease when they try to write about the food at all. Similary for food bloggers who know very little about wine (er, that’ll be me then).

Although I thought this strange at first, in fact it makes perfect sense. I suspect that there’s much more knowable about wine than there is about restaurants which can be very reliant on the right combination of ingredients, cooking, service etc.

Opened by the people behind Texture, Xavier Rousset and Agnar Sverrison, 28-50 Wine Workshop and Kitchen is, as you might expect from the name, a place where the focus is definitely on the wine. As I’m a bit of a naif when it comes to such things I canvassed the opinion of friend and bon viveur Gary Marshall who when I showed him the wine list just said one word: “Volnay”. Good enough for me.

Set in a basement at the Fleet Street end of Fetter Lane 28-50 is an exceptionally pleasant space in which to eat and drink. Bare brick walls, solid wooden tables, a bit of noodly jazz playing unobtrusively and, praise be, decent lighting. Although I assume the latter is for the benfit of the oenophiles.

There’s a shedload of wines to choose from by the taster (75ml), glass (150ml), carafe (250ml) and bottle. However, my eye was drawn towards the Winemaker of the Month selection for a little vertical tasting (hey, I know all the jargon) of three Rieslings from Domaine Trimbach.

To be honest I found the first two, a ‘08 and ‘04 a little lightweight for my palate with very little length. The ’97 (far left glass) was richer, more complex and with greater length than the other two. I know when I’m really enjoying a wine because I’ll keep sniffing and swirling and tasting, looking for more nuances.

The first of my starters was a relative disaappointment. Brandade with Chorizo and Sweet Peppers was a rather messily thrown together dish that looked pretty unappetising. The Brandade seemed to be receding, the toast was too thick and oily and there was a pointless piece of rocket shoved in the middle. Was this really a dish of the ex-sous chef of RHR? The fish and meat were actually of decent quality so it tasted a lot better than it looked.

A second starter, a Ballotine was a big leap in quality. Salty, porky Ham Hock and rich smooth Black Pudding had been rolled together and slices of it lightly fried. It was punchy yet still showed a great deal of refinement. Potato Salad used the the correct variety of tuber which provided a little bite. They had been dressed with a mixture of mayonnaise and finely chopped capers and cornichons to lend acidity and balance to the meat. Impressive stuff, if a little stingy on the portion size. Still better that than a big plateful of mediocre.

During a little self-enforced lull in proceedings I started on the Volnay. Gary does like his Burgundies but even to this untutored palate his recommendation was spot on. I was told that the ’97 Burgundies are drinking very well at the moment and for one moment I thought it was my swirling technique that was being admired.

Tastewise, there wasn’t a huge amount of fruit evident and it was quite dry. There was also an intriguing hint of, er, manure. Yes, definitely something of the farmyard but in a good, intriguing way. There was also a balance about the wine that was refreshing after having encountered far too many alcoholic fruit bombs. Yet again I found myself wanting to continue tasting to discover more. Wine is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?

I was so wrapped up in slurping and slooshing the wine that my main course was a bit of an unwanted intrusion, unecessarily distracting. Not so far from the truth as it turned out. If I wanted to know how the owners compensated for ungreedy markups on the wine I only had to look at the thickness of my Rib Eye steak.

Apart from the odd minute variety I’ve had this was easily the thinnest steak I’ve ever eaten. Its lack of thickness and decent ageing made it a very dull steak indeed. It was cooked perfectly of course but that hardly seemed the point - I just expected a bit more from an £18 Steak. Oh, and a small bowl of chips were an extra £2.95. I sort of understood the trade-offs at work here but it just took a little getting used to.

You wait an age for a Baba Au Rhum and then all of a sudden two come along. The one at 28-50 was possibly even more enjoyable than the one I’d had at Brasserie Joel. In this one the Chantilly was already an integral part of the sponge and you also got a little jug of rum on the side to pour over the pud. Only the accompanying strawberries didn’t work – not ripe enough – surprisingly, given what I’d had before, this was a case of less being more.

Despite my misgivings about the food, most of which I understand now - although I still don’t know why a good chef is here to put stuff on toast - I had a good time at 28-50: comfortable room, pleasant efficient staff, enjoyable wines. And if you can get past the fact that the food is actually the supporting act to the wine then I think you’ll have a good time too.

BAR BOULUD: DBs

I was thinking the other day about which London restaurants would make it in the hothouse that is the New York restaurant scene. To be honest it was a bit of a dispiriting exercise. Although, they don’t always deliver, there’s an excitement and a mission to please over there that we don’t always get over here. This also extends to their menus which, for some reason that I can’t put my finger on, always appear more interesting.

I felt that interest and excitement again when I set eyes on the menu for Bar Boulud, which has recently opened in the Mandarin Oriental. Not really surprising as, save for a burger or three, it’s the spit of the equivalent gaff in New York.

Apart from the execrable Palm - of which the less said the better - there aren’t many US restaurants that have made it over here but I guess if anyone was going to bring one over then it would be (successful) serial restaurateur Daniel Boulud who is building a restaurant empire to match other umber-chefs like Alain Ducasse and our own Gordo.

Outwardly Bar Boulud doesn’t appear very different to a lot of other places that have recently opened in London: anonymous décor guaranteed not to upset the big hitters staying in the hotel; a big open kitchen with a brigade of chefs beavering away; a phalanx of staff – heavy on the top brass – overseeing everything with very sharp eyes. But on this early visit Bar Boulud is a very different beast to the London norm. Offering a mix of French and US dishes it promises much but delivers as well.

A starter of Cromesquis de Tête de Veau could possibly have done with a little more draining of excess oil but they were still hot and packed with rich shredded calf’s head. A superior sort of croquette, they were nicely cut, by a rivulet of an excellent sauce gribiche.

Event better was to follow. The tasting plate of charcuterie from Parisien Traiteur Gilles Vérot was some of the best I’ve ever had. The cured meats were exemplary: silky slices of Jambon de Paris and nutty Lomo Ibérico, but the pâtés and terrines were even better.

Chunky, porky head cheese, Beef Cheek with Pistachio that that tasted of corned beef. Pâté Grand-Mère was Catherine Deneuve: smooth, refined, elegant. Pâté Grand-Père was more Gérard Depardieu: rougher but still rich with nuggets of foie gras. There was a nicely judged celeriac remoulade and a little bowl of baby vegetables à la grecque which disappeared very quickly – the staff soon replaced it with an even bigger bowl.

The DBGB Burger, a dish borrowed from Daniel Boulud’s Bowery restaurant of the same name and a nod to CBGB, a seminal punk rock venue located on the same street, was everything I’d hoped for. The burger was good and beefy and cooked perfectly to order – medium rare with a nice crust. I could have done with a bit more of the smokey, moist, BBQ Pulled Pork but that may have killed the taste of the beef. I didn’t notice the advertised Cheddar in the bun but it did its job anyway. All good messy fun.

Frites were decent enough although maybe a little more creativity in the chip department wouldn’t have gone amiss. Only minor failing and they were the only thing that stood between me and another burger.

A dessert of Grand Marnier Soufflé, although not tasting very much of that liqueur was one of the most ethereally light I’d ever had – each spoonful seemed to evaporate in the mouth. The Ice Cream I’d ordered alongside wasn’t so impressive – the texture too smooth and the flavours not assertive enough, but it might be a work in progress. The attention to detail evident in the food extended to some mighty fine coffee – an Italian blend – which was rich and dark.

All this comes at prices that, given the location (Knightsbridge) are very reasonable. Service was pretty good too for a new opening although some of the senior staff transplanted from the US were a little stiff to begin with. Their demeanour seemed to improve immeasurably after they saw Daniel Boulud shaking my hand and having a long conversation with me during his stroll around the dining room. As if to confirm this a (previously unavailable) copy of the menu suddenly became very available.

Anyway, M. Boulud will be around for a couple of weeks so if you’re going to visit now would be the time to do so. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that once he returns to the States high standards will be maintained. If they are and Heston Blumental’s restaurant - opening in the same building later on in the year – is any good then this might be some sort of tipping point for London restaurants. About time too.

CANTON ARMS: DOING THE LAMBETH WADDLE

If you’ve eaten out regularly in London during the past twenty years then it’s very likely you will have had food prepared by a group of female chefs who have not had nearly enough of the recognition they deserve. Like The Wrecking Crew – those session musicians who in the Sixties played on just about every hit going – these chefs have quietly got on with the business of cooking and turning out the sort of food that you’d want to eat every day.

People like Carol Cradock who cooked at Bibendum and Vinoteca, Rosie Sykes who was at Alastair Little and ran her own restaurant – the much missed Sutton Arms in Smithfield. Another of this band was Trish Hilferty who cooked at the Eagle, the first gastropub and who also ran her own place, The Fox in Shoreditch where I used to go several times a week for my supper.

That was several years ago and apart from writing some books I didn’t know where her career had taken her. That was until I pitched up at the Canton Arms in Stockwell on Saturday, where she’s opening up this new Ale and Food House - I think it’s preferred description - with staff she worked with at the Anchor and Hope and Great Queen Street (I’m sure you’ve all heard of those gaffs).

The setup at the Canton Arms will be familiar to anybody who’s visited the A&H or the Magdalen Arms in Oxford. There’s a pub bit and there’s a restaurant bit although you could probably eat what you want where you want – it’s that sort of place. Apparently, the aim is to not alienate the locals with any of the sort of fancy-schmancy nonsense you’d get North of the river. This playing it quietly for now extends to the menu which is pretty short and supplemented by a few bars snacks with (hallelujah) no Scotch Eggs to be had (the backlash begins here).

Speaking of bar snacks, irrespective of what I was going to choose for the rest of my meal there was no way I wasn’t going to order some Foie Gras Toasties. I’ve no idea if they’re an original idea - although I’ve never seen them on a menu – but they’re certainly a brilliant way of using that Breville toaster gathering dust in the cupboard.

I haven’t had a toastie since, oh, 1982 but I’m sure they never tasted like this. Rich, but in the nicest possible way they’re best eaten when the liver within has had a chance to go a bit runny. By accident I spilt some red wine onto my plate and some soaked into one of the golden-hued triangles. If anything it tasted even better. I’m putting this up there with the discovery of Fire and the Wheel…and it’s all mine.

A Cassoulet for two was the stuff of dreams - for Trenchermen (and women) and Hermanos, natch. The beans had been cooked so they retained a little bite and hadn’t disintegrated into mush. There were hunks of good Belly Pork topped with strips of crisp crackling and legs of good-flavoured Duck Confit. A layer of breadcrumbs added extra crunch. Only some fat sausages underwhelmed a little and got lost in the mix.

There was some moisture too so that the dish made for easy eating although next time I’ll take up on the offer of a green salad on the side, a Cassoulet really cries out for something sharp and vinegar based.. I made do with a dab of Dijon mustard, some of homemade Chutney and a glass of Marcillac.

Unlike many Cassoulets this one wasn’t overrich so a pud wasn’t out of the question. A little Chocolate Pot hit the spot, as it so often does, and a glass of a nascent Damson Gin made for a pleasant digestif although it didn’t prevent me waddling towards Stockwell Tube in the manner of the quack-quacks I had just eaten.

Bread from Di Lieto bakery is very good and apart from a bit of over-enthusiastic pouring, service was relaxed and professional, a A&H trademark.

I think the location should mean the Canton Arms will be frequented mainly by locals and not chinless yuppy hordes from Fulham (I don’t think they’d be able to navigate their way to Stockwell anyway) which I believe is the hope of the owners. So if you’re in the area pop in have a pint and a toastie or better still a plate of Trish Hilferty’s food and enjoy yourselves. Just don’t expect to find a fully formed Anchor and Hope Mark 2. Yet.

PS When I visited the Canton Arms had been open for three days.