Last week was rather epic in eating out terms. It all kicked off on Wednesday with a meal at the City outpost of Le Relais de Venise with some friends I was recently in France with. We needed an excuse to consume lots of calories while drinking cold rosé and feeling vaguely like we were still across the channel. And boy did it work – I know the place has had some flack for its ‘special sauce’ and faddy concept (and OK, it is a little bit like a French-themed Betty’s tearoom), but from the minute I walked in I felt like I was in France. I love that they write on the paper table cloths. I love the no-choice menu, and I love the fact you get two helpings of steak and sauce, with as many of those gorgeous little frites as its humanly possible to consume. After our third bottle of wine we were even smoking the things. HILARIOUS. We moved on to the Anthologist for a nightcap Aperol spritz. It’s the cocktail of the summer I tell you!
Thursday night was more local – a friend’s birthday in Camberwell, at none other than the highly-regarded Angels and Gypsies. Aside from being a sure sign of the area’s growing gentrification, the restaurant is bloody beautiful inside. Bare brick walls, stained glass windows and a big, imposing round bar bearing handsome ham legs and special wines on the blackboard. My mouth was watering before I even sat down. A flippant peek at the wine list resulted in an incredibly high pitched squeal as I realised that one of the most affordable wines on the list was none other than the wine I had tasted and brought back from my aforementioned trip to France. It was a Chateau Unang Côtes du Ventoux 2009, a blend of Clairette and Roussanne made on a small scale by a very passionate, Scottish biodynamic wine maker, and the very wine we’d travelled in my friend @sophiedening’s 30-year old Nissan truck (called ‘Le Mary’) to degust. Here we were, in the depths of Camberwell and there it was, one of the first things on the wine list, and very fairly priced at £18. We drank it throughout our meal, with dishes of deliciously creamy prawn croquettes, broad beans, peas and crispy, salty ham, steak with quails’ eggs and wonderfully garlicy sauteed potatoes.
Friday saw me fulfil a bit of a dream of watching some live Nadal action at Wimbledon, thanks to the very ample hospitality of Compass’ Restaurant Associates. As someone who worked for three years as a ‘night steward’ at the Championships (basically standing around from 8pm-8am with a walkie talkie, looking after the somewhat eccentric folk that sleep overnight for ground passes), it was rather nostalgic to be back, walking past the stewards in their high vis jackets, remembering the care-free days of uni. But this was to be an altogether more civilised affair than my summer job’s midnight lunches in the empty, neon-lit Media Centre, where we traded in coupons for hot meals. We lunched in the Gatsby Club – the RA’s corporate hospitality venue in the cricket ground opposite the tennis compound, and very good it was too. It started with smoked salmon and beets (pictured), followed by the most delicious stuffed quail with morels and an intense chicken jus. It was restaurant standard, and remarkable given that the room was seating a couple of hundred at least. About twenty minutes in I got to shake the hand of none other than the legendary Albert Roux, who had consulted on the menu and was doing the rounds.
After a few hours of tennis, during which the humourless Sharapova thrashed determined and plucky Brit Laura Robson, we retreated back to the Club for an afternoon tea of finger sandwiches, scones and clotted cream – during which a debate ensued as to whether to spread the cream or jam first. We concluded that jam should go on first, based on someone’s comment that the cream should stand proud above the jam. I’ll second that. An hour of Nadal and Muller followed, which was cut short for a very good reason: I had an evening reservation at Roganic, Simon Rogan’s new Marylebone restaurant.
Roganic stands next to Trishna on Blandford Street and Rogan (the Michelin-starred chef patron of Cumbria’s dazzling L’Enclume) only has the lease for two years. There is some talk that this could change, and I sincerely hope it will. In Cumbria, the chef’s food is centred on local produce – much of which is grown on his organic Howbarrow Farm, and sourced from small suppliers in the region. Here, the young chef @benspalding who’s at the helm, has a bigger net for produce, but the food is still reflecting Rogan’s light, inventive style and knack for flavour combinations. It’s a tiny, doll’s house-esque space decorated very simply, but in a very chic way (that’s down to Penny Tapsell, the chef’s partner), and the service is informed, relaxed and knowledgeable – just as it should be. This being Rogan, there is an element of surprise and fun – the dinner menu is ten-course and no-choice, and there are sweet little flourishes – like the fact that the creamy butter, which is jewelled with salt crystals is slathered on a ‘hand-picked’ Folkstone beach rock, and water tumblers are made out of recycled beer bottles by “convicts in Cardiff”.
A dish of salt-baked turnip with smoked yolk and sea vegetables was fantastic – the smokiness of the yolk adding a rich depth to the other ingredients:
But my absolute favourite had to be the Kentish mackerel, cured in seawater and served with an elderflower honey. Mackerel and honey? Who’d have thought that would be a nice combo? Simon Rogan of course! It’s a masterful dish, the fish lightly cured and falling-apart fresh, its savoury flavour lifted by the delicate, floral honey and the whole thing given a lively crunch by some very thinly-sliced onion and baby broccoli.
Another stand-out dish was the roasted brill with chicken salt – which are amazingly delicious little nodules of crispy chicken skin – which came with cockles and ruby chard. The brill was fresh and meaty and gave a great texture contrast to the crispy little chicken skin balls.
It’s great to see a chef like Rogan, who has, in more recent years, defined himself through his very regional cuisine and cooking from the terroir, coming to London and giving us city dwellers a taste of his restaurant. Let’s hope his presence on London’s restaurant scene is here to stay.