A Dish a Day: Polpetto’s Clams with Wild Garlic

Clams with wild garlic and crème fraiche

Today the spotlight is on the clam. Particularly the ones in the newly opened Polpetto in Soho: fiddly to get to and salty to taste, slightly sweet on the chew and enveloped in a thin coating of sauce (crème fraiche with wilted wild garlic). The fingers of focaccia are torn off to mop up the juices and collect the flecks of wild garlic flowers.

In between dishes are sips from a tumbler of a sweet bellini, softly fizzy and pink with rose and rhubarb.

The second best dish consists of slivers of cauliflower with the edges browned and wizened, a sculptural shard next to plump scallops, and hidden under the folded fat that is lardo. All on a cream-coloured purée of truffled cauliflower, which is utterly moreish.

Actually, joint second is a dish of Marinda tomatoes from Sicily which are naked bar a modest lick of oil. In short, I recommend that you visit Polpetto in Berwick Street, because it seems at home in its new home and you’ll soon feel at home there too. Especially when you've a bellini or two in hand.

The rude bottom of a Marina tomato

Polpetto 11 Berwick St, London W1F 0PL 020 7439 8627

Read my first thoughts on the original Polpetto.

A Dish a Day: The Rum Kitchen’s Jerk Fried Chicken Thighs

Ramblings from a voracious eater on the dish that made her day

The jerk chicken garnished with onion rings

Though a lapsed vegetarian’s weakness may be bacon, mine would be steak or fried chicken. And as this is a celebratory dinner (heralding one promotion, and the end of the week), we ought to eat in celebratory manner. Hence two rum sours, one classic daiquiri and a portion of fried chicken. 

Outside the Rum Kitchen are the clean lines of Carnaby Street’s Kingly Court. Inside is a holiday of Caribbean colour, tactile waitresses, reggae and rum. Diners are here for one reason only: to party. If they aren’t partying now, they will certainly be partying later. All this place needs is to do away with the tables, install a beach and a pool the colour of the ocean, and the beach shack it so aspires to be is complete. There is no standing on ceremony here, it’s fingers in as the food arrives. The chicken is crunchy with a heavy-handed deep nut-brown batter but delicately spiced - too delicately perhaps (I’d like more allspice and ginger in mine). Stacked on top are onion rings (light and crisp), pineapple slaw (where is the pineapple?), and ‘rum jerk bbq ketchup’ (satisfying, fruitily tart and scotch bonnet hot). It’s not the best jerk chicken I’ve had; I’m not sure whether my St Kitts sister-in-law would approve, but when you’re nursing that daiquiri and you know the lie of the evening land ahead, it will be the best £7.50 you have ever spent. 

The Classic Daiquiri

Rum Kitchen, 1st Floor, Kingly Court, Carnaby, Soho, W1B 5PW

A dish a day: Bocca di Lupo’s Rabbit Saltimbocca

The voracious eater on the dish that made her day

Every now and then, an evening falls into place. When you can, with half closed eyes, sit back and appreciate how right it feels and let it swim over you in that moment. Last night, London thrilled in a way I’d forgotten it could – I’d been away in dreamlike Brazil for three weeks on honeymoon; the cold rain quickly washed away any vestige of sun and samba – but wandering the streets of Soho surrounded by lights blinking and the sound of spirited drinking, I knew there was a reason this was my favourite city.

That moment last night happened in a dimly lit Bocca di Lupo, on a first date back in London with my new husband (I’m still stumbling over that word – I’m a terrible newlywed). We’d done that classic Soho thing of wandering from restaurant to restaurant after drinks, admiring yet annoyed at the queues outside each one. But of course, on the quiet of Archer Street, peering into the window of Bocca di Lupo was like looking into the warmth of your grandmother’s fireplace through a frosty window. It was irresistible. It was nostalgic. I’ll always remember my first visit here, when I ate one of the best pasta dishes of my life – rigatoni with guanciale (cured pigs cheeks); a simple dish but for some reason impossible to recreate.

To be honest, I could talk about the whole menu – the ungovernable cream of burrata (pictured) which licked the aubergine beneath, the clever clever salad of wafer thin radish and celeriac (layered with the salt tang of pecorino, bursts of sweet pomegranate, uplifted with the unmistakable whiff of truffle), the teal that was squashed open and grilled to perfection, and lay on a bed of deep red treviso.

But it was the first taste of saltimbocca that made us truly relax. We’d been frantically talking – about what Antonio Carluccio was eating (he was sitting on the next table, tucking into a treviso salad), about the future, about the crazy two weeks since coming back to work – and ate frantically to match. But when it arrived, the meal felt complete. Under a blanket of prosciutto was flattened rabbit loin – pale and glistening. Before each piece could reach our mouths, we would run it over the serving plate again, mopping all the rabbity Marsala it could; on bite - a little salty, a little sweet, a little tender, a little crisp.

After the meal, we ran over the road to Gelupo for some salted caramel and fresh mint ice cream. We huddled over a table and shared three scoops. It didn’t matter that we were in the thick of winter. This was what we were coming back for – the cold, the wet, Bocca di Lupo and a whole host of dates in the best city in the world.

Bocca di Lupo, 12 Archer Street, London, W1D 7BB, 020 7734 2223

Kaosarn, St John's Hill: Guaranteed Good Times

‘Why don’t we go to Kaosarn instead?’ The text from wine-botherer Ruth Ford read a year or so ago when I suggested we visit some upstart of a restaurant in Brixton village. ‘I’ve heard not-great things about ___, but Kaosarn will be guaranteed good times.’

We didn’t end up going for some reason or another, but that epithet stuck with me. In my head, Kaosarn became the unfaddy, honest restaurant we all needed round the corner. 

Oh the excitement, the unfettered joy we felt when we heard that Kaosarn was opening on St John’s Hill in Wandsworth. The lead came from a tweet from Luke Mackay that the much-loved Thai canteen was making its way westward, expanding from its Brixton home closer to my home. 

St John’s Hill has had a strange relationship with restaurants - so often has some unsuspecting and naive budding-restaurateur arrived and fled within the year. St John’s hill is no Northcote Road - sans gloss and prams, but it’s lately had an influx of good things happen to it. Joining the rather brilliant Fish Club, French deli and Chinese Good Earth Express were Ben’s Canteen, which recently hosted a dinner from Roganic’s ex head-chef Ben Spalding, and two new popular drinking establishments - the Plough and Powder Keg Diplomacy. 

Thrown into the mix is Kaosarn, the Thai canteen with the cult following. And the ‘Hill’ has been screaming - aching, in fact - for a place like this. 

Opening today, it was manned by a full staff of efficient ladies and led by the industrious Gisele. Much more of a restaurant than the cafe in Brixton, the space is roomy and light (there’s a back room that can be hired for private functions as well), with tables lit intimately with candles. The menu is so extensive (the first page already divided into starters, salads, noodles and soups) we had to reign ourselves in. Armed with four bottles of Chang beer from the offie across the road, we were ready. 

On Gisele’s recommendation we started with moo ping - skewers of tender pork, sticky with sauce and dark and shiny with the caramelisation of palm sugar. It was a confident and competent start to the meal. 

The tom kha gai - chicken pieces in a hot coconut soup - was a compact explosion of flavours - laced with chilli and lemongrass and flavoured with slices of galangal and plump mushrooms. 

Hot tiger prawns and bamboo with red curry paste had the lick of Thai basil and was sprinkled with Thai aubergines and green peppercorns. The menace of red chilli slices thrilled through this stunning dish - our favourite and the one that will draw us back. (Pad prig gang on the menu)

Yum woonsen - warm glass noodle salad with prawns, minced pork, peanuts, chilli, coriander, red onion and spring onion was light yet satisfying. The balance of sweet sugar with the tang of fish sauce was right on. I could eat bowls and bowls of this. 

Though it was the first night, there were no nerves, no cock-ups and by seven o’clock was almost full. Kaosarn will live up to its Brixton reputation and draw the food-loving crowd to St John’s Hill, light up nights out and provide what they’re known for: guaranteed good times. 

Kaosarn

110 St John’s Hill

SW11 1ST

020 7223 7888

BYO, cash only (cash machine across the road), takeaway

The Gilbert Scott: A thoroughly British affair

Evangelists occupy the Gilbert Scott restaurant. This is no place for indifference. The security guard chats for twenty minutes about the wrought iron from Coventry with Olympic fervour next to the now-famous staircase in the Spice Girls’ Wannabe video. The front of house enthuses about Marcus Wareing who pops in at least once or twice a week to run the team here with head chef Oliver Wilson. A grail for history-lovers, artists, models and academics who take refuge from the British Library, the newly refurbished St Pancras renaissance hotel (which houses the restaurant) is an ode to the skill and splendour of British architecture and industry. 

So prescient is the personality of the St Pancras Renaissance that you almost feel short-changed by the simplicity of the bar and dining room. Unfairly so, as the ceiling is cathedral-high, the marble twinkles and is splendidly grand and altogether impressive. It’s shiny and polished and, quite frankly, splendid. 

It’s such an exhibition of the best of home manufacturing and design that one can only wonder about the food. 

It would follow that Marcus Wareing seems a good fit, after all, he is a Lancashire craftsman who evolves already staunchly British dishes to become iconically British. This is the Wareing whose care has won Michelin stars for the likes of Petrus and brought Prue, Oliver and Matthew to their knees with the wibble of his custard tart in the first ever Great British Menu.

And so a charming evangelist at front of house takes us to the bar, where the evangelist barman serves us up a spiced virgin mary (for my pregnant friend Claire who’s saving her drinks for the main)...

...and an a-pear-itif cocktail (Pear Grey Goose, Sipsmith gin, cucumber, elderflower), fresh with that taste of English gardens. A most elegant drink with the cool of the cucumber wrapped round an ice cube in a coupe glass.

We’re taken through to the impeccably elegant dining room, and dinner begins. Claire’s Portwood Farm asparagus are fat and sweet, accompanied by a burnt butter hollandaise. They are unspectacular but wholly delicious. 

My bone marrow with snails is a quite perfect dish. Juicy snails, deeply dark in taste and look, sit affably on the jelly of the marrow. Spooned onto toast soaked through with garlic butter, it’s almost creamy in its richness and overall, exquisite in conception.

We take a quick break to sneak down to the kitchen table, a front-row view (for up to ten people) of the cool mechanics of the steam-lined kitchen. The curious can also peer at the wines kept behind the table. 

Back up to our table, our mains are ready to serve. My rump of veal is a solid symphony of flavours - wild garlic and sage accompany the pink, surprisingly meaty and juicy veal, lifted by the sweet of plump roasted onions. 

Claire’s coral-pink scottish sea trout is a succulent and slim fillet under a blanket of crisp skin. It’s a well-executed dish. We expect something cold and salady from our side order of peas, lettuce and lovage but with the latter wilted and thickened with a touch of cream to mellow its pungency, it is a welcome surprise. 

For pudding we have Mrs Beeton’s snow egg, a variation of the French dessert ile flottante - poached meringue atop a light and cold custard or creme anglaise. It is slightly ‘ile’ heavy (I'd love more custard), but cleverly lined with marmalade in the middle and the smooth almost foam-like richness is cut through with the crunch of caramelised almonds. 

Claire’s warm chocolate cornflakes makes up for all those times you were deprived pudding as a child; the dessert is almost unforgivably rich and a nod to the glory of the chocolate crispy cake. 

There is a sort of humour and pride that laces the Gilbert Scott menu; where else outside of Cumbria will Kendal mint cake be an ingredient? I would certainly love to pop in for a peanut butter ice. Either way, I do believe for those who arrive in straight from the Eurostar, the Gilbert Scott should be the first stop for a happy and glorious view of London town. By the end of the meal we are satiate, evangelistic, and terribly proud that the British are such devilishly good cooks. 

The Gilbert Scott

St Pancras Renaissance Hotel

Euston Road

London

NW1 2AR

020 7278 3888

Website

Helena and Claire were guests of The Gilbert Scott.

New Year's Hix

Lose yourself with a Nick Strangeway cocktail in Mark's Bar downstairs at Hix

I don’t make New Year's resolutions. I just don’t. Whether it’s down to laziness or divertive sensibilities, I’ve never been wont to shackle myself to a half-arsed promise I’ve made to myself.

Except this year, I do. I’m at dinner in the Draft House. It’s New Year’s Day, all ten of us weary with effort. In hungover despair one happy chap asks us all to declare what resolutions we have made. Slight panic. And then I remember that I’d been to the V&A not long ago, peered at Annie Lennox’s trousers and Grace Jones’ marvellous sculptured body in the Postmodernism exhibition. Perhaps I can make something up about that.

So I do - something about being more cultural. But I'm actually hiding a more guilty secret, and couldn’t quite bring myself to announce this to everyone else.

I’ve given up red meat for January.

I'm not sure when or where I came to this decision, or what influence I was under at the time. This is all a bit shock-horror for me. I’m already struggling to turn my head from the Draft House burger. I opt for macaroni cheese instead to comfort me through the pain.

Cue dinner last Friday night. Where better to really test how good I am than a place admired for chops and steakage.

Woe. I am at Hix.


Best part of the pig? Can't resist a spot of crackling with Bramley apple.

I’m deep in the Soho joint from ex-Mr Caprice Holdings that opened in 2009. Surrounded by models, fat cats and joyous art (Sarah Lucas’ Fray Bentos pie mobiles a humorous jib at my predicament), I really think I’m going to buckle and just go meat.

Gluttons for punishment, we ask to see the steak board to ramp up the temptation. We consider the virtue of the rib chop, the Barnsley chop, the rose veal, the Porterhouse. Oh the Porterhouse - so angry-looking and huge in all its rumpy, sirloiny, fillety glory.

‘But no!’ I say to myself while crunching through shards of salt-flecked pork crackling dipped in Bramley apple sauce. ‘Tear yourself away from the dastardly red of carnal lust’. Well, actually the boyfriend reminds me of my said resolution and suggests perhaps that I might like the Dover Sole instead. Why, of course I do. Yes.


Heaven and Earth. No purgatory, thank you.

We share with the much lauded Heaven and Earth starter. A meatball-sized sphere of black pud kept in shape with the merest hint of caul fat, atop a cloud of buttery apple and potato mash.


Digging in.



Broadstairs Dover Sole.

Then the beast of a Dover Sole on the bone arrives, all chargrilled and meaty - bigger than most of the chops on that board. Its coat of criss-crossed chargrill gives the usually delicate flesh a punchy flavour and the slather of creamy bearnaise and cut of lemon juice elevates this simple dish. It's fresh and unfussy, and a fresh, unfussy herby lettuce-heart salad accompanies.


Gamekeeper's Pie

My boyfriend tucks into gamekeepers pie - venison packed in pastry goodness, piped with parsnip mash - each piped dot with a caramelised light casing that bursts when bit. The venison gravy is deep and sweet and the meat is dark and falls apart through the care shown with slow-cooking. (I decide, as I chew, that this resolution thing doesn’t count if the meat is not on my plate.)


Bakewell pudding

Dessert is joyous. Mouthfuls of spotted dick with custard, and flakey, crisp Bakewell pudding with almond ice-cream - a naughty cube of almond brittle hiding in the scoop, which in my tipsy state is as exciting as a kinder-egg to a five-year-old on a long car-trip to Wales.


A less than spotted dick. Custard-covered pud.

Onto Mark’s Bar downstairs, which, in my mind is one of the main reasons to come to Hix. Nick Strangeway’s cocktails are superb - intelligent and considered, without being try-hard. A couple of these usually make me superb at bar billiards and walk funny. All I know is that I’m won over (or conquered by) a Temperley Sour, which is ostensibly a well-dressed Somerset cider in a coupe glass and an egg-white top, but on second and third sip - so much more.

By the end of the night I make another New Year’s resolution. Steak board and cocktail menu, I resolve to conquer you.



Hix
66-70 Brewer Street
London
W1F 9TR
020 7292 3518

Phoenix Palace does good Dim Sum

BBQ pork puff pastry
As a child who tried resisting all things Chinese - violin lessons, the Last Emperor, belching at dinner - there was one thing that attached me like an umbilical cord to my culture.

Thank God for dim sum, without which I might have been lost to cheeseburgers.

Xiao long bao - Shanghai dumplings with pork
Yum cha, that Cantonese tea-house tradition during which dim sum is served, is for the greedy. One is never full, and there is always more. Order as many of those small dishes as you possibly can, and talk loudly. With your mouth full.

The traditional time for yum cha is midday, Sunday, when all the aunties get together and “wah!” at how tall you are, how pale you are, how fat you are now - it’s a sign of family.

Octopus patties with vinaigrette
Lunch is elevated from a meat-and-two-veg affair to being the excited heart of the Chinese community. The meal is a sequence of rituals. There are rules you should learn. Serve tea to others before yourself. Tap fingers on the table to thank those pouring tea into your cup - a gesture not, as my friend thought, a sign of impatience or atrocious manners. Cock the teapot lid to show that the teapot needs refilling.

Stir fried choi sum and turnip patties with XO sauce
If you can successfully navigate the ritual of yum cha, you warrant inclusion. Golden Palace in Harrow, the hub of the Chinese community in the suburbs of northwest London, had been the scene of many dramas before it closed down. It was where boyfriends were first taken to meet the family, where celebrations and commiserations were held. My parents judged on whether guests would gutsily try that chicken’s foot. Or at least laugh if they didn’t.

Chickens' feet with black bean sauce - a childhood favourite
There is no more Golden Palace, sadly. But, keeping things palatial, our alternative is Baker Street’s Phoenix Palace, which is consistently delicious and does all the traditional dishes, like char siu bao and siu mai, but (refreshingly) innovates too. The sort of restaurant you might see in Hong Kong, the huge familial place has a soundtrack of chopsticks clacking in hungry fervour under the chat and you may very well find yourself near Chinese grannies seated by their begrudging but respectful iPod-wielding grandsons for their big Sunday lunch.

Look out for me if you’re ever there, and say hello. I shall be proffering cartilaginous chicken’s feet with my chopsticks to see if you're worthy of company.

Vietnamese spring rolls

Suckling pig with jelly fish

Grilled chicken gyoza

Mixed seafood crispy noodles



Phoenix Palace
5 Glentworth Street, London NW1 5PG
Tel: 020 7486 3515