The Vine: Big Friendly Gastropub (BFG)

Six months ago there were demolition signs tacked onto wire fencing around the Vine. Stood at the grotty end of Kentish Town, far away from the teeming millions of Camden, it seemed inevitable that a clean-cut gastropub would struggle.

How wrong I was. Behind the wire fence and safety helmet signs it was being reborn with leather corner settees, fake crystal chandeliers and as much wood and bare brick as is structurally sound. It also boasts a comfy seated outside area, complete with European-style cafe umbrellas. As we sat and supped our rioja and watched the sun set, even the road that passes just ten feet away seemed silent and distant.

The backroom dining area is a huge, high-ceiling cylinder. It reminded me of the scene where the BFG dines with the Queen, shovelling whole plates of bacon and eggs into his mouth. The effect is an airy atmosphere, emphasised by the fact that the restaurant was nigh-on empty, that falls just the right side of modern gastropub design. In an attempt at tradition, the wine list was written on a blackboard. It was not exactly extensive, but hopefully being in chalk means it is changed regularly. Our Rioja Muscat got rather heavy after two bottles, but it is a compliment that we got that far.

The starter of grilled mussels with garlic, Parmesan and more garlic was delicious, and ensured that my companion and I were left alone for the rest of the meal. In fact, even while sharing the pudding I got the odd wave of garlic, which did little to improve the sticky toffee pudding.

The flavours of the main course were strong enough to hold back the starter though – my perfectly cooked salmon had a gorgeous crispy skin, although the tomatoes in the rocket salad were slightly under-ripe and, horror of horrors, a little too cold compared with the hot salmon.


These flaws are more than forgiveable at pub prices. Sadly, The Vine does not seem to believe in pub prices. Your classic steak will cost you £18.50, a salad at least a tenner, and anything in between ... well ... in between. At these prices you expect a level of perfection above what we experienced, even if the concept of the dishes were spot on.

Say what you will of gastropubs. They lack a little soul, try to be flashy and get caught between a good boozer and an average restaurant, both in price and outlook. But anywhere can be saved with a decent chef, something the Vine absolutely has. Close enough to a restaurant to be worth booking, and not too classy to ignore pub favourites like fish and chips, just accept your Goldfish card will take a battering and enjoy it.

86 Highgate Road, London NW5 1PB

0207 2090038

http://www.thevinenw5.co.uk/

   

Hache: I got no beef

At its heart, the burger is a trashy concept. When a group of friends decide to pop out for a cheap meal, they may rack their brains for an interesting idea, but somewhere in the depths is a voice that constantly whispers: ‘A burger. Go for a burger’.

So we swallowed our pride and hunks of reconstituted meat at McDonald's or, if we felt particularly daring, a Burger King.

But suddenly we didn’t have to, because some bright spark dressed up the burger in a floury artisan bun, put a real tomato in it and put the word gourmet in the title. A few years later, London’s best burger restaurant was born.

Hache is a small, dimly lit cove on Inverness Street, just within hearing distance of the teeming millions at Camden Market. Stepping inside at lunchtime is like putting ear plugs in, but the effect is quite to opposite in the evening. The small, lino-floored restaurant has a buzz that makes you forget the sometimes slapdash service.

The best thing on the menu has to be the Indian burger, which cleverly combines two comfort foods by adding spices to the beef, mango chutney instead of relish and a crispy (not to mention oily) onion bhaji on top. Impossible to eat with my hands and too delicious to waste time with a knife and fork, I ended up eating it in just six mouthfuls (surely a restaurant record) before sampling my companion's duck burger. Such a dish sounds ridiculous, not to mention strangely cruel (as if the cows deserved their sticky end), but ducks and bread go together right to the end. They also go well with the spring onions and hoi sin sauce Hache put on.

I have been three times now and am still to make a dent in the menu, which consists of no fewer than 15 beef burgers. If you are not a fan of beef I don’t know why you would go to a burger restaurant. However, Hache does not judge is patrons, and has graciously supplied variants from chicken and lamb burgers of several varieties, to avocado salads and falafel burgers.

In fact, the only place where choice is limited is the drinks menu, particularly in the beer section, which sticks to standards such as Becks and Corona. It may be a little over-fashionable at the moment, but the addition of some US craft beers or real pilsners would complement the heavy cuisine and myriad flavours much better, and be in keeping with the ’gourmet’ styling of the food. It would also be interesting to see more precise beer and food matching, such as having a Kingfisher to go with the Indian burger.

Despite this missed opportunity you’d be hard pressed to leave the restaurant not promising to yourself to go again, even if it can be a little pricey (the duck burger is around £12 without chips). But next time you hear that persistent whisper in your head, remember everyone is thinking the same thing – and go to Hache.

Hache
24 Inverness Street, London NW1 7HJ
020 7485 9100

http://www.hacheburgers.com 

   

Joe's cafe: not for builders

Joe’s Cafe rather under sells itself. It sounds like a builders’ cafe where the dress code is high vis jackets and paint stained trackies.

I can assure you that you would not make it through the door dressed like that – despite it being 12 foot wide. Joe’s is actually a subtle and beautiful restaurant. A book case runs through the centre, punctuated with the occasional 50-year-old bottle of wine or Vogue collection from the 80s.

The tables are spread out and the service relaxed. Money here is made slowly, in stark contrast to its Kensington clientele. We ummed and erred over the wine list, starters and mains. Even deciding between sparkling and still water took five minutes, during which our tireless waiter looked busy at the table behind us.

I started with fois gras on a mushroom wafer topped with sour cherries. This was rather hard to eat, being unstab-able and too wide to balance on the fork. So by the time it reached my mouth it was more like sour cherries, topped with fois gras and mushroom pastry shards. Still, the dish was appreciated for its sweet and sourness, even if the texture was all together too watery.

For the main I had water trout (what other kind is there?) with a French tartare sauce and a cold salmon, almost sushi-esque roll with an horseradish base. To be honest it was felt foreign on the plate, distracting me from the wonderful trout and if I hadn’t been famished would have been left well alone. However, the course was served with the first truly tolerable form of fried cauliflower I have ever tasted, and all it took was the addition of lemongrass.

As is the case in all good restaurants, my memory of the pudding is a little hazy. We had finished a bottle of wine before even choosing our food. Nonetheless my pudding choice was inspired. My raspberry baseless cheese cake was sweet and decadent, and looked a lot like a maoam, a hallucination helped by the fact that it was surrounded by cubes of raspberry jelly. The rubber texture juxtaposed the maoam nicely, and bizarrely added a drier flavour to the very sweet dish.

And so we enjoyed a final bottle of wine after the meal, staring through the missing wall that Joe’s calls a door, at the torrential rain we had to head into. The food is nothing special here, but there is an honesty to it; a kind of aspiring decadence that it never quite lives up to. But in the quiet and welcoming room and with a hearty wine from the Alsace inside you, you’ll never want to leave.




126 Draycott Avenue, South Kensington, London, SW3 3AH
020 7225 2217

   

Rioja Tapas Fantasticas: what it says on the tin!

Here’s an investment in the future. Next June will be the third Rioja Tapas Fantasticas, a festival that celebrates all that is great and good about Spanish cuisine.

It is held in the shadow of Tower Bridge, in marked contrast to the ultra-modern More London development, which houses more glorified accountants than the London Business School. 


Sectioned off from the rest of the capital and squinting in the rare sunshine we felt as if we were in Spain. Everywhere we looked people supped on 50p samples of reserve, chewed on spicy chorizo or air guitared along to the Spanish guitarist on a stage in the centre.

We had a wonderful chorizo sandwich from the City’s Barcelona Tapas Bar y Restaurante (clever name, si?) and some demonically spicy patatas bravas from More Than Tapas. The highlight however, was the Faustinos gran reserve – which was heavy, complicated but surprisingly free of tannins, making it more drinkable than it had any right to be on a summer day. What is more, my claims that I had drunk it before we found to be correct: you'll find it on the top shelf of Costcutter's wine racks.

From that discovery onwards it all gets a little blurry, so you’ll have to experience the rest of it for yourself. Put it in your diary and Google it next spring. I raise my Rioja: here’s to SEO success and a spate of visitors around about June time next year.


www.riojatapasfantasticas.co.uk/

The Laughing Gravy: secret's out.

I hate it when a restaurant calls itself "London's best kept secret". It isn't really is it? Because the only way of keeping a very prominent restaurant on Blackfriars Road a secret is to take out an injunction against everyone who walks past it. Ask Ryan Giggs if superinjunctions work.

It is in fact an excuse to not hire a PR company, hence why I had to pay for this particular meal. Fortunately the Laughing Gravy is excellent value, even if a glance at the menu makes it seem expensive. The starters are all around £8, but could be stretched to a main course, and my chicken liver pate with a delicious sultana jelly also had my salt content for the day and probably the weekend too.

You can order a burger and chips for £10, or a salad for roughly the same price, or you can have their more complicated meals for around £15. I chose the special: scallops with bacon and crispy fried vegetables. The classic dish was given a lift by the lemongrass, which cut through when you least expected it. The portion was huge, but I still managed to eat two helpings of garlic Parmentier potatoes, with emphasis on the garlic.

The red mullet with prawns and samphire looked fantastic too, and the steak...

Oh the steak. Shallots, mushrooms, roasted cherry tomatoes, Madeira sauce and garlic butter. I am kept awake by the fact that I didn't choose it.

For pudding I had an excellent chocolate fondant, baked to a crisp on the outside and so nearly gooey on the inside, but not quite. The salted toffee ice cream on top was brilliant though. It stopped the dish from being overwhelmingly sweet, and made me salivate to the point of embarrassment.

All the dishes had one touch that made it a cut above most British cuisine, certainly south of the river. The unimposing and light decor, huge portions and friendly but awkward staff made for an even more British experience.

Despite their veil of secrecy, the restaurant was busy for an early Friday lunch sitting. At every table suited city workers loosened their ties as the sun beat down through the glass ceiling. Get to the courts Laughing Gravy men, the secret is out.

www.laughinggravy.co.uk
154 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8EN
020 7998 1707

   

The Gay Hussar: are you Hungary?

Tired of burnt pans and the endless washing up, I decided this year to eat out on Pancake Day. Hungarian Soho Square Staple The Gay Hussar was offering a special Shrove menu, and mentioned something about deep fried pancakes. I was sold.


Shrove Tuesday is traditionally the day that Christians use up all their food stuffs before the 40-day lent fast. Given the amount of ingredients it used, the Gay Hussar must have a very full pantry indeed.

This may be partly because the restaurant was empty when we arrived. The ambience was more like a library. My companion and I whispered conspiratorially while exchanging guilty glances, worried that a waiter may come and “shh” us. Towards the end of the evening it began to fill, but by then we were too distracted by the glorious food to notice.

The downstairs room is a cosy mix between a living room and train dining carriage. The waiters were friendly and delighted to talk about the food, wine and history of the restaurant. Being just south of Soho Square, it has seen its fair share of the highlife. The walls are adorned with caricatures famous politicians and journalists that have eaten there, a social circle it fully justifies.

Their pancakes are world away from the lemon and sugar creations soon to be stuck to kitchen ceilings throughout the UK. My deep-fried goulash-stuffed pancake was as hearty as any British stew and had a depth of flavour that belied its simple roots, although the veal itself was slightly overpowered by the sauce.

Our bottle of Tokaji Muscat Blanc powered through, however. Its floral nose, sweet start and dry finish cut through the heavy sauces. Hungarian wine is not exactly a staple of restaurant lists, or indeed supermarket shelves, but their white wines are often worth a risk.

For pudding I had the walnut pancakes, made famous by Budapest celebrated restaurant Gundel, after which the pudding is named. The dark chocolate sauce and walnut and rum filling were savoury enough to stop the dish being overwhelming, and the raisins gave short, sharp bursts of sweetness. After such a heavy main however, the second pancake could have easily been replaced by some light cream, to balance the plate. Chocoholics would doubtless disagree.

The menu was traditional, varied and reassuringly expensive. The only flaw I could find was that there was too much on the plate: too much thought, too much food and, sometimes, too many flavours. But in hearty cuisine this is not necessarily a bad thing and I left contented, feeling like I had prepared for a 40-day fast.

www.gayhussar.co.uk (50% off you bill here)
0207 4370 973

2 Greek St, Soho, London. W1D 4NB

   

Bistro Rosa: a great night out ... catering included

I have never experienced bad service until now. We waited 20 minutes to give our drinks order, another 30 to give our food order and 30 minutes for our starters to be cleared away. All this meant that, an hour and twenty minutes into our booking we were asked if we would like coffees. I was so bemused by this point I wasn't sure whether the waiter was joking or genuinely thought we had had all three courses.

Gun to my head though, (and being in St Helier that could happen) I'd do it all again. Bistro Rosa may lack some of the rough-but-ready English service, but it makes up for it in fresh, glorious produce with a modern twist you wouldn't expect in the Channel Islands. Sat in the heart of the fish market you feel like you have discovered some hidden treasure, but from the fact we had to book well in advance, it seems the whole island thinks so too.

My moules were outrageously salty and creamy (and large enough in quantity to be a main), my monkfish with coconut and lime dressing and sweet and sour as I had hoped, and my chocolate cake decadent enough to redefine the term. The ambience in interesting, in essence you set up camp in the middle of a shop floor. The muzak pumped through the tinny speakers didn't help this awkward sensation, but added to the restaurants eccentric personality.

Our night was all rounded off with a superb drunken fellow diner, who was convinced my companion was "Off the American telly" and was insistant she admit it. He ended his night by vomiting in the one restaurant loo and stealing the waitress's coat. She left as cold as her service was.

A thoroughly recommended night out, and the catering was good too.

• Beresford Street, St Helier JE2 4WX
• 01534 729559