THE PERSEVERANCE: PEARL OF THE QUARTER

When I was resting between jobs (you'll probably remember my role as Pale in The Tinsley Players production of Lanford Wilson's Burn This) I kept a spreadsheet of restaurants which were due to open.

Exhibiting slightly alarming tendencies of the anorak variety (most men have them but usually keep them firmly under control) I would scour the trade rags and job sites for news about new restaurants and count down the days to when they finally opened. I would pitch up for a meal - barely giving the paint on the doors a chance to dry - usually to the bemusement of the staff.

Things change. Now with increased use of social media by PRs and Chefs most places are known about well before they open. Heston Blumenthal’s Dinner is a good example. It’s also made it pretty difficult to find those undiscovered gems that made all the list-keeping so worthwhile.

Or so I thought until recently when a tipoff from someone I follow on Twitter had me running to Google Maps (RIP A to Z). My contact had mentioned a pub which now had new owners. The lineage of the staff pointed to the Anchor and Hope in Waterloo. I'd got a similar tip from the same person about the rather wonderful Canton Arms in Stockwell so I knew it would be a lead worth following up.

The Perseverance is situated in a quiet road in an odd little area north of the Marylebone Road and just round the corner from the charming Marylebone Station, an area which has thankfully yet to be designated ‘a village’.

The pub has been stripped down, cleaned up and given a lick of paint to produce a casually elegant space which is dominated by a large horseshoe bar. At the moment there’s just a few tables to eat at but there are plans to open a 40 cover dining room on the first floor.

If you're a fan of bling or any sort of see-and-be-seen, er, scene then The Perseverance may not be for you. It's got a relaxed feel that I liked but the emphasis is definitely on the things that matter: food and drink. I'll eat a lot of meals in the forthcoming year but I like to think the ones I’ve had here will be up there with the best.

The menu was one of those that you look at and wish one’s capacity to eat wasn’t being slowly diminished year by year – I genuinely would have been happy eating any of the dishes on it (apart from the soup which I’m sure is terrific but which I hardly ever order in a restaurant).

Chef Justin Aubrey’s food is not of the shouty type that blasts the taste buds with over-reduced sauces and flavours that clamour for attention and which leave you feeling a little ill. No, this is deceptively simple stuff but made with good ingredients and a fine technique to give a surprisingly refined result.

For a starter the Monkfish Liver is probably as interesting and delicious a dish as you can get in London at the moment. Two decent-sized lobes of Monkfish Liver had been lightly browned in butter. They were soft with a delicate flavour of offal and of the sea. A sort of piscine Foie Gras. It had been paired with a salad of Parsley, Capes and Shallot to add a burst of piquancy.

A bowl of steamed Clams had the heady aroma of the bivalves best buddies: garlic and lemon. They were fresh and meaty and left a small puddle of shellfish broth into which I had to dunk chunks of the good homemade bread.

Saddle of Rabbit had been boned and stuffed with its own offal and some greens. The whole had been rolled and covered in bacon and sliced. It was moist and tender with that faint taste of game that rabbit has but with an offal hit. It came with a little jug of a creamy mustard sauce and a small dish of a rich Celeriac Gratin.

Another main course was an individual Wellington. Fillet of Bambi was covered with a mushroom duxelles in the classic manner and wrapped in excellent pastry. A slick of jus, some watercress and excellent red cabbage made for a fine dish to say goodbye to January to. This is seasonal food without making a song and dance about it.

Good pastry was also in evidence in the puds as well. Over a couple of visits there’s been a tart on the menu and the Lemon one particularly stood out in the memory with it’s crumbly pastry and light, zesty lemon cream. Three scoops of a Salty Butter Caramel Ice Cream had proper texture and just the right amount of bitter caramel taste. A similar number of scoops of a tart Granny Smith sorbet would be a good choice if you’d overindulged during the rest of the meal (maybe too much of the marvellous bread); a cup of their good Coffee with a Grappa would serve the same purpose.

The wine list has been intelligently put together with several natural wines available – if that floats your boat – but I was guided towards a terrific Beaujolais which seemed like it would go with anything. Like the food the prices seem pretty reasonable to me and if you don’t want to splash out on a bottle there’s plenty available by the glass or two sizes of pot.

When I’ve visited good, independent operations I’ve always bemoaned the fact that there aren’t more of them around especially in the central parts of the capital. With chains increasingly cluttering up our high streets the hope that we could have similar joints on every corner begins to look like a pipe dream. Places like The Perseverance make me think there’s still hope. Budding restaurateurs please take note or better yet pay them a visit, they’re nice people.

VINOTECA MARYLEBONE – A LITTLE WINE? EEEEEEEEE.....

Somebody asked me the other day why I hadn’t written a post for a while.

Well, there was Christmas and New Year when many places closed down for the holidays. There were the visits to old favourites that wouldn’t necessarily have blog-worthiness, the right blogicity if you will; but mainly it was down to that ennui with the London dining scene that strikes me de temps en temps.

Sure, there have been shedloads of new openings and the law of averages probably guarantees that some of them might have been adequate (almost), but merely reading the offerings of the majority just sent my feet to sleep.

Looky-likey, me-too menus are the last refuge of the lazy restaurateur. I mean, I like charcuterie as much as the next diner but it’s hardly the world’s most onerous task to buy some decent cured meat and cut it. As HS once said to the chef at a famous Wandsworth restaurant "Well sourced and sliced". In most cases very, very thinly indeed.

Luckily on a recent visit to the brand spanking new outpost of the rather wonderful and very successful Vinoteca I didn’t have to endure the heart-attack inducing excitement of Beer-Battered Fish and Chips or Rib Eye Steak with faux Triple-cooked chips on the menu.

To be honest I was a little worried about my prospective meal. Dos Hermanos have been frequent visitors to the original in Clerkenwell since it opened and despite a few changes in personnel it has kept the quality of its food and wine and the warmth of its welcome at pleasingly high levels.

The owners have always talked about not rolling out the 'concept' but happily in the case of this new branch they've managed to succeed with that difficult second restaurant.

Hidden away in a side street off the Edgware Road the setup at the new gaff will be familiar to anyone who's visited the mothership. Open kitchen, bar and a dining area with some tables so restricted of width my legs wouldn't fit. I spent most of the meal with my limbs akimbo (and if that ain't enough to put you off your Sauvignon Blanc nothing is).

Toytown tables aside, the experience at Vinoteca W1 continues to be a good one. Staff are friendly and enthusiastic, there's a great selection of wines by the glass and the range of food is interesting and prepared with care.

Pork Cracklings came as long strips which were dense and crisp. They gave my choppers a good workout but in an era where a lot of food has become very soft this is a good thing.

A big bowl of mussels and clams was notable for a particularly good broth that was devoid of the grit that plagues lesser examples and had me wishing their good bread wasn't served in such parsimonious portions. The mussels and clams were sweet and fresh which is all you could ask of bivalves.

Crubeens are made from Pigs Trotter which have been cooked, shredded, breaded and deep-fried. A serving of three of these blighters were excellent: hot and porky and with a satisfying crunch. A chunky sauce gribiche and a few leaves made a starter that would make grander places look very silly indeed. Intelligent wine pairings too: the suggested Sicilian white to go with this dish just made things better.

When I go for a meal I appreciate the little twists that show there’s someone with a brain and imagination in the kitchen. A big hunk of roasted Brill came on top of some decent greens with a sauce made from minced anchovy and chilli oil.

Sounds de trop, right? Wrong. Although it pushed the envelope of what would be a reasonable match for a non-oily fish it worked very, very well adding a hot, savoury (oh ok, umami) dimension to the dish.

Only a meanie would complain that the (unadvertised) potatoes were a prosaic and unnecessary addition and that the fish could have done with a little less cooking…so I won’t.

Pudding was a little game of let's investigate geometric solids with a Sphere of Vanilla Ice Cream atop a cube of Sticky Toffee Pudding. Light, not too sweet, it did exactly what it said on the tin.

I liked the Coffee too and in place of the usual Grappa I had a rather lovely, chocolately, dusky, Diplomático Reserva Exclusiva to help the chocolate truffles down and which had me walking down the road about a foot above the pavement, happy with the start to the new blogging year.

Oh and Vinoteca also do charcuterie. But I won’t hold that against them.

CAFÉ LUC: BRINGING THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO MARYLEBONE?

Almost twenty years ago to the day I was on my way home from work when I passed a new restaurant being fitted out for its opening the following week. I went in, had a chat with the owners and made a reservation. Unfortunately, in my excitement I’d made the booking for the same day as the opening match of Italia ‘90. Fortunately, the meal at Cibo was fantastic and the Italian staff kept me updated on the progress of the match.

So what? Well it’s just one example of the basic Dos Hermanos MO which has never changed in many years of eating out. We’ve always loved going to restaurants, talking about restaurants and having an opinion on them for over forty years. Even better is the excitement we get when visiting new restaurants. To paraphrase a man more talented than I:

It's not some game we play
It's in our DNA
It's what we do

I can’t speak for HS but my view has always been that at any new opening there are going to be hiccups, in both food and service, but the experience will probably be as good as it’s going to get. Most places will struggle to keep standards up – though some places do – after that initial period when everyone has an adrenaline high and are super keen, and newspaper reviewers are cluttering up the joint.

Café Luc was just a few days into its soft-opening period when I visited but it didn’t really have the buzz I would expect at a new restaurant. It’s the sister place of somewhere called Café Theatre in Ghent and owned by some rich bloke who also owns Le Pain Quotidien, a branch of which, not so coincidentally, lies just across Marylebone High Street.

The owners didn’t appear to be present though and the disconnectedness of everything: the food, service and general atmosphere, made be wonder if they had just faxed a menu to somebody in London and told them to just get on with it.

It’s a nice enough space as you’d expect from Stiff + Trevelyan although as usual with such places I always start wondering how the owners are going to claw all the money back. All was made clear when I read the menus. Bar snacks (not available when I visited) hover around the £7-£8 mark, starters are mostly in double figures, a Goats’ cheese pizza is the cheapest main at £11.50. Crikey, that must be some pizza.

I should point out that there was 50% off the cost of the food when I visited but future visits would require a well stocked wallet. Mind you I doubt if I’ll be returning: some tough bread and a pot of butter lightly glistening with frost was only the start of a downward trajectory of my meal.

Conscious I’ve not been eating enough seafood recently I decided stay with things fishy for my supper. Just as well as I got a whiff of something fishy as I was served a baked Scallop. It was a big bugger served in the shell which was sealed with pastry. It looked a little untidy outside and was a bit of a mess inside. The scallop hadn’t been prepped particularly carefully and wasn’t the sweetest specimen going and I’ve not sure cooking inside the shell worked for such a large specimen. There was a pale, strip of bacon and some chopped leeks. At a fiver it barely made ok, at full price I’d want the kitchen to put a lot more effort into the dish.

Ditto with the Shrimp Croquettes which slewed comically on a plate that was too large for its cargo. The croquettes themselves were cooked ok with a nice greaseless crust but the filling was too liquid for my tastes. To amuse myself while eating them I played hunt the shrimp. I didn’t find many of the little blighters which might have explained the filling.

Sea Bream cooked on a plancha (it says here) again didn’t smell like the freshest piece of fish I’m ever going to eat. It was a bit flabby and fell apart far too easily. We really have problems cooking fish accurately in this country. The onion compote underneath was ok. Best were the unadvertised bits of squid that had also had the plancha treatment and had that smoky taste that derives from the application of direct heat on cephalopods.

Spinach came with some unwanted cheese. Frites, well, don’t bother. Dull wines, served in funny glasses added to the unease with which I endured my meal: once I’d chomped my way through that scallop I was already to give up on the place.

I decided to soldier on as I was intrigued as to what speculums Ice Cream was. Answer: as ice creams go, not very interesting. The Salted Caramel and the Vanilla similarly shared the same Steve Davis tendency. At least the coffee was decent.

I’m not a frequent visitor to Belgium but during my last trip to Brussels my meals were characterised by competent, honest cooking which while it may not have thrilled had a generosity of spirit which made one feel totally happy to be there.

It was admittedly an early visit to Café Luc but I can’t seem them ever developing that same joie de vivre. Not much good news from Ghent these days.

COLONY: A LIMITED OFFERING

I received a few harsh e-mails and twitter comments after yesterday’s post about a dispiriting meal at Guerilla Burgers. The reason? I had the temerity to suggest that, if a restaurant was open and charging punters full price, they should be judged no differently than if they had been open for weeks.

Words like “bedding in” “teething problems” and “find their feet” were used suggesting that the restaurant would need time to find their natural rhythm and flow before it would be right to judge them. That might all sound reasonable enough, but seems less than fair to the punters, like my companion and I, who came in expecting that, as we were paying full whack and the doors are open, the restaurant is suggesting it is operating at full capacity.

For a restaurant to know that they are not offering the best of themselves but still to take the same amount of money borders, to my mind, on the fraudulent. To be fair Guerilla Burgers them selves did not offer up this as an excuse and posted a constructive response on Twitter. Good for them, but it is still leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.

Which brings us to today’s post, another lunch at a newly opened place, Colony. So new, in fact, that they were still painting the outside when I arrived to meet my companion, Nikki. My choice today was more driven by location than a desire to try somewhere new, so while I am sure I will receive the same shrieks and squawks from the restaurant sympathisers club, the fact that they were not offering a soft opening discount means that they too should come under the same scrutiny as they will receive from the critics in a few weeks time.

The menu at Colony is overseen by Atul Kochar, Michelin starred Chef of the recently refurbished Benares and is predicated on that all too familiar and scary concept “small plates to share” which normally allows you and your companions to construct a bill of dazzling proportions while still remaining hungry. Our server asked if we “understood the concept of the menu” to which if I had not been in polite company I might have replied “we order, you bring, we eat, you clear, we pay, we leave, right?”

Instead, I nodded that we did and he left us to our own devices as we chose. Just as well as I heard the menu being described to the next table by him as “Anglo-Indian inspired tapas”, which assumes that The Colony Club assumes most of their guests will never have experienced the Nashtas, or snacks on which the menu is supposedly based.

They also assume that most of their guests will be frightened off by any native descriptions on the menu, deeming only a few instantly recogniseable curry house words like “Tikka Masala” (not Indian anyway, guys) “Vindaloo” and “Biryani” as safe to include, the rest being given the full Anglo treatment. Not that it mattered as we were told that nearly 50% of the main dishes were not available for this opening day because, and here are those words again, there were “teething problems”

Teething problems, really? Was the opening date a surprise to you? We’ve known about it for ages. The odd dish here and there because of a missed delivery is acceptable. Half the menu is not. Particularly not when you are charging full price and a hefty price per dish at that. If only I had the gumption at the end of the meal I would have said “Sorry, my credit card is only working at 50%, so just charge me half”

That too left a nasty taste in the mouth, which is a shame, because as soon as I took my first bite of a small amuse of “chaat”, it was apparent that there is patently some ability in the kitchen. This was confirmed when the rest of our meal was brought out and we both agreed that some of the dishes were packed with far more flavour than their apologetic and polite descriptions on the menu gave credit for.

There were misfires of course. Two pieces of monkfish were mushy and overcooked, but rescued by fresh and excellent crab vermicelli. Proper Biryani should come with goat, but if Indian names are too scary for the punters I am guessing using Billy meat is right out of the window. Instead it came with lamb and rice that did not taste as if they had been cooked together the latter being spongy and the former slightly chewy.

Spiced Tiger prawns were excellent, for £15.50 for two they damn well should have been, but the cooking and ingredients were spot on. That Glaswegian classic, Chicken Tikka Masala was not bad at all, if totally alien to any Indian street vendor who has ever drawn breath and a side dish of aubergine was deliciously smokey.

Without dessert, all this lot brought the bill to £81 including a service charge, which was well deserved by the young staff who were, here it comes, finding their feet. It is a whacking amount to pay especially when you consider that they were offering such a limited menu. But, my main criticism has nothing to do with how new the restaurant is handling its early stages, but with the concept itself, which shoehorns this potentially glorious cuisine into an unsympathetic format by sucking all the spirit from it and making it as inoffensive as possible. That is not to say that you cannot serve Indian cuisine in a smart and attractive way (see below for the recent meal at Indian Zing, for a perfect example of how it can be done) but few restaurants achieve it and Colony on this showing is not going to be one of them.

I don’t think that will change, however long they are open.