The Chicken Shop: breast chicken in london

No jokes, just brilliant.

So there’s a newish trend among good restaurants of offering only three or four main courses. They’ve all decided we don’t need choice, we need to be spoonfed (not literally unless it’s soup). Instead of choice they’re overselling what they do offer, through more provenance, endless buzz terms and the odd French word. Diners also aren’t worthy of cardboard menus anymore either, just paper ones. All we’d do is spill our jus all over it.

The founders of the Chicken Shop, the second restaurant attached to Pizza East in Kentish Town, evidently think the choice of four main courses is a bit much for the average consumer. Instead they offer one; one main dish, helpfully labelled “chicken”. They sidestep the fact that they are marinated in paprika and oregano overnight and spit-roasted whole at the back of the restaurant. Because that might confuse us.

And we have enough choices to make. We have to choose the size –quarter, half or whole; we have to choose what sauce to put on it – hot or smoky; and then we have the sides, and there a like... four of those.

I chose chips – the gorgeous crunchy numbers they serve upstairs at Dirty Burger – while my friend went for the awesome house salad – cos and avocado in a buttermilk dressing. Apparently buttermilk has almost no fat. Who knew.

The chicken and sides came in white enamel dishes, thrown onto the table by our busy waiters (we had three within the hour we had the table) with something bordering on care. Having dipped my finger in both the sauce bottles (sorry) I plumped for the smoky sauce. While the hot one was delicious zingy and lemony, the idea of eating half a chicken coated in the stuff made me sweat. The smoky still had a kick, but both sauces could have done with being a little stickier. Not only would it have helped the texture, it would have saved my friend’s dress a trip to the dry cleaner. No real complaints about the meat though – moist without being watery, smoked without being burnt and stacked with flavours so good I actually considered gnawing the bones. Luckily the waiter prematurely took away the bowl with them in, so I was spared the indignity.

Sometimes you feel a bit hurried – you only have table for an hour, and the queue is inside, so people watch and hover over you like vultures, knowing that every second you linger is a second longer for them to wait. But they can have drinks while they wait and it’s such a pleasant place to be – all old wood, smoky spit-roasts and people chatting animatedly despite having chicken in their teeth – that it doesn't matter.

The Chicken Shop seems to be one of those eureka moments – a concept so perfect it’s amazing no one has tried it before. That’s probably because it wouldn’t have been possible ten years ago, when the idea of fine dining was the Ivy. Now it’s these little secret places where you’re encouraged to eat with your hands; where you can take your food away to the nearest pub and eat there; where if you order the apple pie, the waiter brings the whole damn thing and lets you cut as big a slice as you want; and where people are happy to queue for 20 minutes for a bit of chicken.

It would be easy to overstate how good the Chicken Shop is. It’s very clever but in a simple way, and its food is very tasty but in an unambitious way. But you can’t deny that it’s probably the most satisfying and delicious places to eat in London – the fact it costs less than £20 for two courses, drinks and service is, frankly, ludicrous.

53-79 Highgate Road, Kentish Town, London
http://www.chickenshop.com/

   

Dirty Burger: worth its salt

Trashy as hell. Tasty as heaven.

I haven't taken a picture of the outside of Dirty Burger. It has to be seen to be believed, and it's very important that you don't quite believe in Dirty Burger. The reality is less satisfying. It's an ideal; a dream; a craving. 

It's also a shack, attached to the back of Pizza East in Kentish Town. It forms one corner of the kind of car park you don't expect to see outside of a Swindon industrial park. It's artfully designed to look like a cabin in the woods, and does so very well until you walk in and everyone's got thick-rimmed glasses and their polo shirt buttons done up so tight they are struggling to swallow their burgers.

But they have to swallow, because Dirty Burger burgers are so salty - so lip-wrinklingly salty - that you're addicted after one mouthful.

Given that they appear to have been assembled and then dunked in the Dead Sea, they are still damned fine burgers. The patties aren't a patch on meatLIQUOR, and nor is the sauce, but they don't insist on using American cheese which is a relief. Instead you get sticky, stringy, non-luminous cheese that sticks gleefully to the paper the burgers come wrapped in. You also get a slightly damp bap, which should be a let down, but it actually it helps the defiantly dirty textures as it all combines into one filthy, glorious cocktail in your mouth.

By contrast, the chips were crispy. So crispy. It was brilliant - almost like eating crisps - except for the bizarre lack of salt. It was as if the chef had lined the burger and chips up, seasoned the pattie, wondered off, come back and forgotten which one he'd seasoned. Still, those crinkle-cut fries were excellent, as were the unforgettable onion fries - essentially onion rings fried to within an inch of their lives in oil so thick even Michael Phelps would drown.

So I wasn't completely sold on the food, and my vanilla milkshake was a little sweet too - I say this knowing it's as banal as going a Mika gig and saying it was a bit camp. Somehow I still loved it all, like someone clinging on to a relationship despite all the bad parts: I LOVED that the food took 10 minutes to arrive despite being a fast food chain; I ADORED the fact that there were no seats and we had to sit on the fire escape stairs outside; I MISS the way it fell apart in my hands. The dream was nothing like I thought it would be, but it was still a dream.

Like the best rock stars, Dirty Burger is brilliant and flawed, cheap and nasty, and a slight disappointment when you meet it in person.


   

You can also read my review of Pizza East, which Dirty Burger is attached to the back of, here

Pizza East: topping the velvet

The recession must have been hard on Domino's. Not only did they get looted during London’s re-enactment of 28 Days Later, but gone are the days when students would spend £15 on a layering of bread, tomato and cheese. As a failing food critic, however, this is exactly what I found myself doing at Pizza East in Shoreditch.

Many may scoff at the idea of a gourmet pizza, but that is what Pizza East claims to provide . As a converted warehouse, its rustic decor echoes the strong and simple flavours that dominate the menu. At least I think it did, but the lighting was so poor we were partially guessing how the menu read.

I chose the wood roasted garlic and fennel mussels to start. They were delicious: the fennel adding a more interesting tang than the traditional white wine. My friend seemed less impressed with her fried artichokes; the batter was light and fluffy but it was poorly seasoned.

Shortly after refilling our wine tumblers (yes, tumblers) the waitress delivered our pizzas. My topping of salami, chilli and red onion was well thought through. Pepperoni often overpowers pizza, so separating the meat from the spicy flavours was inspired.

But it was the tomato sauce that set the pizzas apart. It was distinctive, rich and perfectly seasoned. The base was crisp and slightly sweet, complementing the heavier sauce. It was a pizza from a different world to chains like Pizza Express or Ask.

For pudding I ordered the intriguing salted chocolate caramel tart. While the salt surprised the palette and brought out the caramel it was too powerful, and always the last taste to leave my mouth. On top of this, the base was so tough I had to put my full weight behind my fork, prompting bemused looks from our neighbours. My companion’s delicious fruit crustata, despite looking like an apple-filled Yorkshire pudding, made me envious.

So having been delighted by the savoury sections of the meal the question is, can £75 be justifiable for a meal in a pizza restaurant? With Easyjet you could probably fly to Naples and have an authentic one for a similar price. It seems not many people are doing this, however, and Pizza East has just opened its second branch on Portobello Road.
Our meal was by no means flawless, but by giving the impression of offering something entirely new to the pizza chain cliche, Pizza East has a claim to making the best pizza in London.

• 56 Shoreditch High Street
  London
  E1 6JJ
• 020 7729 1888
• Pizzaeast.com
•