THE MALL TAVERN: I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG II

The Prawn Cocktail Years have a lot to answer for, although if Simon Hopkinson and Lindsey Bareham hadn’t written their retro-cooking classic then as sure as Dib Dabs are Dib Dabs somebody else would have.

Yes - there’s a bit of a retro revival going on and it ain’t pretty. Fondues are the dish de nos jours and it’s easier to find a gourmet Sausage Roll than a decent pint of ale in a pub these days. The kids are just lapping it up.

And why shouldn’t they? As HS’s book Eating For Britain (buy it now!) shows there’s some great dishes from our past that are worth reviving. The trouble is the current trend manifests itself as putting a crappy, dried-up Scotch Egg on the menu. Wither all the creativity? And more importantly, could it be found in West London?

The Mall Tavern is yet another take on the modern gastropub, part of a chain owned by the Perritt Brothers. In the way that better examples of the genre are, it didn’t look like a chain gaff and according to the blurb had a good chef at the helm. There were rather too many French people there on my visit but the pub can’t help being in Notting Hill. Maybe as another retro measure they could put up a sign saying No Dogs, No Work Shoes and definitely No French.

But I digress. Massively. One of the USPs of the pub appears to be the range of snacks. Anything that gets people to eat a little something whilst drinking is obviously a good thing but the food on offer has to be up to snuff otherwise you’d be better off with a pack of peanuts.

I'm don't know where Cauliflower Fritters comes in the pantheon of great British bar snacks and I'm not sure they're a suitable match for a pint of Old Hooky but both were very good in their own way. The beer was well-kept and only slightly-annoyingly served in a jug (hey, groovy).

The fritters were small florets that had been blanched but still left with a bit of a bite and lightly battered. Served with a curried mayonnaise dip they were like a little veggie nod in the direction of our subcontinental, imperial past.

Lamb Scrumpets - another new one on me - were rissoles of meat that had been breaded and deep fried. Larry was pretty fatty but since the frying was good they weren’t de trop. I also liked Dorset Meatballs – little porky spheres in a tomato sauce with lots of fennel in the mix. More Old Country than West Country.

Asparagus should be really good at this time of the year but the specimens I had here weren’t. Chopping up the thicker bits and mixing them with shallots was a good idea but none of it had much of that lovely asparagus taste. Disappointing.

I am a sucker for Chicken Kiev although I have no idea when I last had one. Probably in a restaurant called La Cazuela in Fuengirola c1990 which served “The best Chicken Kiev on the Costa del Sol”. I think it came with kiwi fruit, but in those days everything came with kiwi fruit.

Chicken Kiev should be a fairly dense piece of fowl with garlicky, buttery juices just bursting to get out and splatter you and your beige slacks. This one opened with a wimper.

The Scotch Egg shape, while aesthetically pleasing didn’t work with the result that the chicken meat didn’t envelope the sauce properly. The crisp coating was good but it had come away from the chicken. And the filling wasn’t great with large unchopped bits of garlic strewn hither and thither.

A hash brown was more a sort of thick Rosti. A bit heavy going it was the wrong sort of starch to accompany an already rich plateful. Coleslaw done well is a fine dish but this one was poor – a mixture of finely shredded vegetables does not a slaw make.

Chips tasted ok but would have been better crisped up a bit. The kitchen must have had a heavy Friday night because they’d mislaid their vegetable peeler.

A decent sweet rescued things somewhat. A couple of big slabs of Neapolitan Ice Cream gave me a real À la recherche du temps perdu moment.

In spite of an indifferent main course the relaxed surroundings, good beer, a bit of original thinking in the snack department and smiley efficient service contributed to me having a pleasant time at The Mall Tavern.

It was only later, whilst indulging in a bout of post-meal analysis (Dos Hermanos do it all the time), that I felt a little short-changed. The kitchen can obviously cook but in a dining room where initially I was the only one eating it should have been better.

I’ve talked about this before but sometimes the difference between the merely competent and the excellent is the love and the effort the kitchen puts into the food. Details are important. If you’re not going to slip into the morass of gastropubs you’ve got to keep your standards up. Gastros that fancy themselves a cut above please take note.

PESCHERIA MATTIUCCI: A LITTLE BIT OF NAPLES IN W11

It's always a shock when you leave behind the slightly suspect cooking of the UK and become re-aquainted with how they do things on the Continent. Decent food is a given there but there's also an understanding of ingredients and their preparation which we don't quite grasp in this country. Here, everything is effortful, contrived. There, it feels unforced and natural.

It's nice then to be able to report on a meal I had recently in Notting Hill which took me back to my recent trip to Naples. Pescheria Mattiucci is a small deli-cum-fishmongers-cum-cafe just off the Portobello Road. It doesn't have a sign so even though it was a Saturday with the market in full swing it was pretty uncrowded: a few people browsing the goods imported from Naples; a couple knocking back an espresso and yours truly.

There's no menu here and I suspect the majority of people visiting for food come in the evening as they only had a couple of dishes on at lunchtime. I ordered both of them and asked the genial owner if they could prepare one of the small selection of fish on display. He picked out a specimen of Pargo, which looked like a Sea Bream.

It's licenced too, so soon after arriving I'd parked my fat ass on one of the barrels that serve as seating and was sipping a very pleasant white from Campagna - one of several Italian whites on offer - whilst regaling the staff with tales of my recent Naples trip, complete with photos (no groaning please) and a little Q&A afterwards I munched on walnuts, broad beans, dried olives and some good bread with peppery olive oil.

The first of my dishes, a sort of roulade of Monkfish, the layers interspersed with pumpkin flowers and wrapped around some prawns. It came with a pumpkin puree, intense in colour and flavour, which was enlivened with a little chilli. Across the top were spread the small buds of pumpkin flowers. It had all the characteristics that I look for in a fish dish: flavour, balance and a light touch.

The second of my "starters" was a piece of meaty red tuna wrapped around more pumpkin flowers mixed with a creamy ricotta cheese. There were also some Neapolitan chillis in the mix which gave the dish a nice kick.

Lack of a proper grill in the kitchen meant my fillets weren’t cooked with the skin on making them less interesting than they could have been. Still a good delicate taste to the fish though. Sides of artichoke and a small blob of a oil-enriched potatoe puree made this into a proper main course.

There didn’t appear to be any dolci going so a couple of espressos – the proper, thick, handpumped stuff like you get in the Mother Country – rounded things off nicely.

A bill of just over £50 probably reflects my over-enthusiatic embracing of market-priced fish and the interesting range of Italian whites. In any case it was well worth the money considering you’d pay the same or more for a worse meal elsewhere in London. I know because I do so, on a regular basis.

Finally and crucially though, joints like Pescheria Mattiucci do make me think London isn’t yet a completely lost cause. Just a shame that after all the hype over a number of years we need the Italians to come and show us how to do things properly.

THE LEDBURY: HIGH ON THE HILL

It’s that time of the year again and my turn to find somewhere suitable to treat HS to a slap-up birthday meal. Unfortunately, I couldn’t fob him off with a couple of pints and as much grilled meat as he could handle - he wanted to eat posh.

When it comes to food, DH prefer the simple over the ornate. We like food to taste of itself and the many high-end meals we have experienced over the years have failed on this point. The tendency is to overwork the raw ingredient into a lukewarm lump of protein which tastes nothing like what it orta. Fine if you’re young and easily impressed by the fripperies of fine dining but disappointing for oldies like us.
Still we’re nothing if not persistent and my suggestion of The Ledbury met with fraternal approval.

My first impression of the Ledbury was that it was a sort of halfway house for Aussies, such was the profusion of Antipodean folk in this attractive restaurant in London’s fashionable Notting Hill. In other words an agreeable place to get them integrated into normal society after years of pie floaters, bad beer and, of course, over-exposure to fireworks being let off the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Misgivings about Australians and fine dining aside we had a terrific time at The Ledbury. The food hit some real highs that both had us as excited as, well, a couple of Hermanos in very excited mode.

Being a serious sort of restaurant you do get lots of extras. The best of these were the stunning warm Bacon and Onion Brioche which was light and savoury. They kept bringing ‘em – we kept eating ‘em. The other was a mini-sausage roll which was up there with the best we’ve tried. Definitely, one that could and should be rolled out into the main menu. The little Beetroot Meringue filled with Foie Gras was ace as well.

Sometimes the amuses can be the highlight of the meal but happily the standard was kept up for the starters. I enjoyed the little show and tell with the Baked Celeriac and the taste was a revelation. Vegetables will never seem the same again. Equally as good was the Croqueta of Middle White Pork which HS insisted on sharing: it was his birthday meal – I had no choice. HS wasn’t so keen on his Lasagna which he described as a ‘bit solid’ but I liked the subtle flavours.

The real excitement came in the main courses. So excited in fact that our hands were shaking when we took our snaps – hence the cruddy pictures. As regular readers of the blog will know we are in love with Spain and all things Spanish so it was natural that we went for dishes that were at heart very Iberian (although the ingredients were French).

Shoulder of Pyrenean Lechal Lamb (baaaaa) had been cooked sous-vide for 24 hours. I’m usually a bit sceptical about this method of cooking but the results here were stunning: a very intensely flavoured piece of meat that just tasted of, well, Lamb. The accompanying Truffled Mash and Celery were good but unnecessary – the meat was the dish - although I can understand why they were there

On a par with Larry was my Suckling Pig. Beneath a crisp, crisp exoskeleton was exquisitely sweet meat which was up there with the best (and we’ve eaten a lot of cochinillo) . The accompaniments were pleasingly minimalist too although we both despaired a bit at the tendency to schmear sauces instead of puddle them. So sue us - we’re curmudgeonly

I was struggling at this point of the meal, owing to over-indulgence in bacon brioches, no doubt, so the sugar hit of an elaborate dessert was un peu de trop. Still polished it off though. HS, however, enjoyed his new season Rhubarb-based dessert which looked a bit scary and other-worldly but disappeared just the same. I was just happy quaffing the Ice Cider – a new one on me – which in a similar way to an Ice Wine can stand alone as a course in itself. PFs were out of the question but a custom PF carrier for the same was kindly provided. I’m guessing this happens a lot.

I think it’s true to say we, and more importantly, birthday boy, really enjoyed The Ledbury. It’s not overly formal, the service was friendly and professional. It’s an agreeable place to sit and eat food and, most importantly of all, they passed the Dos Hermanos Napkin Test™ with aplomb. Hey, it’s not much but it’s ours.

Feliz Cumpleaños Hermano !

THE COMMANDER: GONE FOR A BURTON

Blimey, the lasses of Notting Hill can’t half gab and on a Friday night in The Commander Porterhouse and Oyster Bar they were in full voice. As more and more bottles of Italian White Wine were ordered and consumed the volume level rose higher and higher resulting in a Battle Royal against the Sound System. There was only ever going to be one winner as the PA wheezily pushed out some music of the noodly jazz sort.

Still, they do say that when you’ve got a pain in one part of your body you should distract yourself by causing pain in another part. Ah, that’ll be food then. Or perhaps the service. At least the latter had the benefit of a chirpy friendliness although there was a lot of headless chickenry about as well.

Given the name of the place you immediately think of an American Steakhouse and sure enough as you start to scan the menu there’s plenty of Crustacea on offer. But there’s only three steaks and all weigh in at a puny 8oz. Of the mighty Porterhouse there’s no sign. Bizarrely, there’s also a small section of Nigiri and Sashimi. Much of the stuff (even the Chacuterie Board) is marked with that ominous phrase “MARKET PRICE”. A more suspicious soul than myself would think it was a ruse by the owners to upsell.

It certainly caught me out. My six oysters were over twenty quid which is up there with J Sheeky’s and Bentley’s. Unlike those places these were pretty poor specimens. They’d either been opened earlier or when they were opened the precious juices inside - which is one of the pleasures of eating them – had been poured away or used in stock. The result was a sad, dehydrated appearance instead of the nice plump bivalves they should have been.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a menu with Foie Gras on it. Probably because restaurants which sell it don’t really want their places firebombed. Mind you, with a misconceived preparation like I had here it would seem PETA’s job is being done for them. The foie was all right - a bit more searing would have improved it – but it was totally overwhelmed by the Cherry Pancake which would have been ok in an American, sugar rush, breakfast kind of way but had no right being married to the delicate, buttery taste of engorged duck liver.

You don’t see Gurnard on the menu too often either. A shame as it’s really quite tasty. Here it came simply grilled. The kitchen hadn’t overcooked it but it was still a bit dry – maybe it had sat on the pass for too long. There was some saffron mash which didn’t taste of saffron and some pats of garlic and lemon butter which didn’t taste of garlic or lemon and which were propped up against the fish in the hope they might melt. I reckon the half-life of plutonium would be shorter.

There would have been some chips on the side too but the description “SKIN ON FAT CHIPS” should have come with the warning “DOS HERMANOS - LOOK AWAY NOW”. Luckily their homemade Ice Cream was pretty good.

Even with the opening week 25% discount, the meal including a decent pichet of Picpoul and a very nasty one of oaky South African Chardonnay was still north of £60. Another nasty taste was that their card machine is programmed to prompt for a gratuity even though the bill already had a hefty 12.5% added. Classy.

Obviously, cutting back on the market priced items and foie gras will bring the total down to a more reasonable level but for the moment the cooking doesn’t really cut it. That and the fact you’re a couple of minutes away from the far superior Hereford Road really makes the choice of eating in this vicinity a no-brainer.