Berners Tavern: Veni, Vidi, Vici?

Empires are funny things to us iPad-owning, European Union, One Direction, generation. Which, funnily enough, all represent an empire of sorts. Empire in traditional command & conquer, "do you have a flag?" meaning; is so remote to us that the brutality and suffering they perpetuated seems almost fiction. Empires are spoken of with some nostalgic pride in the UK, a great force now spent and rendered to the annals of history. While eschewing evidence that immigrants bring added value to us, while also conveniently forgetting we asked a lot of them to come in the first place, we are content to think that we were merely benevolent dictators. We bestowed upon them a parliament, democracy, cricket, medicines, road and railways. We even gave* them our religion (*ahem).

B.O.B's Lobster - A Contender or Emperor's New Clothes?

My diet seems to consist of burgers, burgers, BBQ, ribs, fried chicken and burgers. What London is missing is quality seafood, that is reasonably priced (Michelin dishes with one small lobster tail for £50 don't count no matter how good they taste) and preferably somewhere that doesn't involve a two hour queue. A lot of restaurants and pubs nowadays have a grilled half lobster on the menu. Burger & Lobster obviously have to be mentioned when talking about seafood, their £20 lobster rolls are a decadent, but affordable, treat. Only problem is that the queues can be fearsome - especially later on in the week. There are some other good options such as the classic Sheekey's, Green's, Lobster Pot, Wright Brothers who all either do lobster or specialise in seafood, but again, price can be an issue and you usually have to book Thursday onwards.

B.O.Bs Lobster

Burger & Lobster Review [Farringdon]: Catch of the Day

Back in 2011 London slowly started mirroring a very New York trend for single-dish restaurants; so much so the Graun even wrote an article about it. By 2013 it seems that despite our love of supermarkets and the mantra of "Choice, choice, choice!"; when it comes to eating out we prefer to take the less taxing route. Virtually every Soho joint is a 'singlet': steak, noodles, falafel, burgers, meatballs, even mash potato! Clearly fans of Adam Smith's work, I can appreciate that the potential to create something truly special, when you only have one dish to focus on, is that much greater. Burger & Lobster caught on early, opening their Mayfair joint in 2011 and they took the limited menu idea one step further by offering everything at the same price. No starters just a lobster roll, a burger and a whole lobster each for £20. Needless to say they became rather popular. Since then they have opened three other locations around London in Soho (Dean St), the City (St Pauls) and Farringdon. Because of the other trend of not taking reservations and my general lack of patience for queuing when I'm hungry, I'd never actually been before. To rectify this I met up with Clerkenwell_Boy and Burger Addict at the Farringdon branch. Will, who runs the whole network, kindly showed us around the kitchens and the tanks and answered all our annoying blogger questions. Thanks again Will, t'was very kind.

I think we're gonna need a bigger boat

Burgers: A London Sampling

Two slices of bread and a slab of meat, simple ain’t it? Although bread has been eaten for thousands of years in countless forms and humans have been eating meat for just as long, it took a surprisingly long time before someone thought to combine them. Bread was the original crockery; in medieval times stale bread was used as edible plates soaking up the juices of whatever was being eaten, leading to open–faced sandwiches. Bread is even used as the delivery vehicle such as for Shooter’s sandwiches or pain surprise. Despite the vague claim of a Jewish religious leader being the inventor of the sandwich, the widely accepted factoid has it that back in the 18th century the Fourth Earl of Sandwich was the first to have the bright idea to put cold meats between two slices of bread. Handy during a game of cards as marking your hand with sticky fingers is not a good thing. 

Fast forward a hundred years and some bright spark decided to put some hot mincemeat in a bun and the burger was born. No one knows exactly who the innovator was and frankly I don’t care, what matters is that it was created. What seemed like a relatively simple evolution has led to waves of innovation, debate, favouritism and politics. Burgers were big news in 1950’s America with Whitecastle pioneering the fact that burgers, uniformly shaped, could be made fast. Then McDonalds created the franchise and with these two weapons they unleashed a steady torrent of meat slurry into the face of Joe Public. They ate it and they loved it. 

Over the years our love affair for the burger has waned, becoming a symbol of everything that is wrong with modern society – greed, lust and excess. Greasy, fatty fried meat in a carbohydrate-packed bun served with oily chips, washed down with high-fructose corn syrup. Soon governments and media declared fast food as the 'food of the poor, the stupid and the gluttonous'. "Shame on all those that eat it!” they cried. Do it, and do it now; lest we have time to look at ourselves dunking our chocolate digestives in our tea and dripping on our copies of the Daily Mail. Acres of trees are cut down every week to ensure thousands of column inches can be dedicated to how we are eating and drinking ourselves to an early grave and taking the taxpayer with us. The face of this epidemic: the humble burger.

Outside of the world the Daily Mail seems to have created, the burger has made a comeback. The food culture of this, and many European countries, has exploded and people have decided that they will eat anything as long as it tastes good. Fuck the diets, what matters is taste. A form of self-fellatio, people run around endlessly like food junkies desperate to get their next fix. McDonalds is scorned and mocked, not because it is unhealthy, but because it’s shitty solidified grey sludge. Look at American chains such as In-N-Out. They are heralded by both the press and the public, yet the offerings are essentially the same. The only real difference is taste and one saying they care about the quality of what they are serving. Both are still high fat, high carb foods.

London has more than its own fair share of burger joints. Mega-chains such as McD's and BK as well as smaller chains and independents. Below I present six very different offerings from around the capital. A street food van, small independent types, dirty slices of Americana and one supposedly down-on-its-luck chain. Forgive me for not visiting the Golden Arches for comparison - I think we all know what that tastes like.

Bleecker Street - Simply The Best

I've written about these guys before and to signpost where this is going: this is, in my opinion, the best burger in London. Full stop, hands down, shake it all around. A more controversial point would be that I don’t even think anyone else is even close - maybe only the guys directly below. When I tell friends this I find it hard to describe why exactly. The bun is pretty straightforward and there are none of my favourite accompaniments such as pickles, pickled/caramelised onions or a spicy sauce. What it does have however is exceptional beef, tasty cheese and some moreish burger sauce. The bun is beautifully toasted giving a nice crunch and there are two thin circles of charred onion that gives a light smokey flavour. The cheese is pure Americana and gives a creamy blanket for the patty. Overall though, the star is the beef.

BrooklynFeast: A Cold Feast in Dalston

Streetfeast is one of a handful of London organisations that seek to bring street food to the masses. Between them, WeFeast and KERB, multiple events run every month to serving up incredible food at interesting locations with an party atmosphere.

Streetfeast had been in hiatus for a while and the BrooklynFeast was their return to the forefront with a rather trendy event in Dalston on a bitterly cold Tuesday evening. The venue was as hipsterish as it gets, an old car park which itself was a disused building full of shipping containers and beaten up old bangers. The team in charge had done a great job in filling the space. Plastic chairs and some floodlights this was not. Glow lights and back-lit signs were hung in and around and across the open spaces between the traders vans. Several large marquees were put up and filled with plentiful seating for a change. Best of all, they actually stuck their head out the window, realised it was beyond ‘just a bit nippy’ and rented a dozen heat lamps. For more pictures I’m sure Kate Beard from www.asouthernbellein.com/ took some great pictures so keep a look out on her blog.

London Street Food 2.0: Brick Lane, Kerb, Brockley, Red & Borough

The last time I wrote a street food post it included a multitude of traders over multiple locations. I thought it was an easy way of showing the range of cheap, quality fast food available to the average Londoner. This is the same. I appreciate its rather long but there are also lots of lovely pretty pictures to entertain those with shorter attention spans. 

I was happy when I saw the post getting widely retweeted because these guys work fucking hard and deserve greater publicity than they currently get. The London street food scene has exploded over the last year and there are some great characters and custom modified vans that are beginning to rival the culture found in New York or California. I love street food because it's a great equaliser. Huge bank rolls can only do so much if your product is pants. Put McDonalds onto the streets next to the likes of Burger Bear or BleeckerSt and they wouldn't last a day. Your advertising is limited to who can see your sign, twitter, and people like me. It's capitalism as its most simplistic - those that create a superior product thrive. those that can't match them fall away. Hopefully that means they'll be a race to the top, not the bottom as demonstrated by the recent Horsegate scandal in supermarkets.

Its a well known fact across continental Europe that markets give an area a sense of community and that's what is beginning to happen in and around these sites. Come summer I expect it'll be at its height. Cyncial or overly-manufactured vendors will be shunned. Passionate, hard-working, talented traders will continue to thrive. Vive la révolution. The (Burger)King is dead, long live the King.

Market Happiness

A Little Slice of History: Ben Spalding @ John Salt

A lost post of 2012, a wonderful evening at John Salt with Ben Spalding at the helm. This is probably the most pointless post of the, still young, year. Why post about a restaurant, whose head chef was usually mentioned in the sentence before his employer's, when he there anymore? Well, two reasons. Firstly, for preservation: to carbonite the evening in space. To 'Han Solo' Ben's cooking if you will. The main reason however is to show people a glimpse of what Ben's cooking is about and that like his Stripped Back street food joint proved, a chef doesn't actually have to have some fancy digs to be a great cook. As I write, this Ben is publicising the first of a series of events on EventBrite.

As was announed late last year, Ben and John Salt parted ways pre-maturely, leaving those with bookings a bit miffed I'd imagine (although provided with a very reasonable 50% discount). That being said, Neil Rankin who best known for wearing the gloves at Pitt Cue, has taken up the rather large mantle and by the look of my twitter feed doing a damn fine job. I'll be going along as soon as I can and I'm as excited as I was the first time around. This post wont go into the reasons why Ben left and frankly, I do not care. That's only half true. I don't care why he left, he is talented enough to pop-up somewhere else soon enough. I do care that I have to wait for that. See, beneath all the crowing and beard-stroking about his techniques, passion, skill and obscene work ethic (he produced his own salt for gods sake), Ben does indeed understand why things should be on a plate. Sure there are some air-balls - kiwi scallops and caramel covered bricks were duds. But there are also some wonderful little gems in things as ridiculous to see on a menu as 'rotten mango juice'. His is a talent that could no more be ignored than that guy who insists on trying to continue the conversation inside a lift.

Weekday 9 Course Menu

Battle of the Giants: Steak Wars

Prost - Senna, Ali - Frazier, Borg - McEnroe, Hendry - O'Sullivan. Since the first person to kick a rock into a cave opening, past an outstretched monkey, man has competed. And competition breeds rivalry. More enthralling than the rivalries and the heights they push themselves to be the best, are the spectators' intense love or hatred for one of the two. Great rivalries: the ones that last, are those where the two competitors are polar opposites. One cool, laid back and usually Nordic. The other an angry, brass young upstart, usually American. You can tell a lot about a person's character by whom they pick out of Ovett or Coe.

Sport and its competitive nature is a metaphor for many things in life. One of those mentioned less often is the rivalry within the food world. There are great examples: the American v Lafayette Coney hotdog war in Detroit, North Carolina v Kansas City for BBQ and the most famous the race-to-the-bottom: McDonalds v Burger King, to make the least edible burger (congratulations McDonalds, you just sneaked it with the McRib)

The reason I live (Note: Not a McRib)

Pitt Cue Co: Still a BBQ Champion

This post is almost redundant as Pitt Cue is not new, has a million and one reviews and is widely accepted as one of the best BBQ places in town (not a huge amount of quality competition to be fair). So why the post? Well, I've been a fan of Pitt Cue since the days under Hungerford Bridge and visited it numerous times the first few months after it opened. Due to work finishing times and busy weekends, I hadn't been back for quite a while and so thought a view as to how it is settling down may be in order.

Pitt Cue has navigated all the major issues of a new-opener. Waiting list system is locked-down, bar service upstairs is slick and the turnaround of punters is kept fairly quick as to facilitate maximum face stuffing by the number of London's carnivores. The buzz has died but the loyal and curious still flock to the doors. It has become a favourite, a staple, a solid choice; rather than 'that place you have to try near Carnaby street that has that huge queue'. The menu is becoming more adventurous and the guys behind the scenes are having a ball rearing their own piggies just for the joint. The quality of the food remains incredibly high.

Pitt Cue - Sunday 11:55am: The queuing begins

Wenlock and Essex: 30 Very Good Reasons

Burger season is upon us it seems and in a bid to out-do each other some of the Big Names have stepped up their game.

The latest to throw their hat into the ring is James Morgan of the Wenlock and Essex. Some lucky people may remember him as the kitchen behind the Two Nights Only events that created the infamous 40 Burger early this year. That burger supposedly involved 100 people in its conception and even the pickles were hand collected from Boston itself. Excessive food-miles if there ever was, but so worth it for a few extra inches to sea-levels. Recently he has unleashed the 30 burger. Thirty day dry-aged beefyness with a 30% fat content and only available for a month. Although its nearing the end of its run, the point of this review is to publicise the quality of James' cooking and his knowledge of how to deliver a great end product. There's even rumours of another special burger in the works so keep an eye on this one.

30 Burger - Oh the joy

Burger Breakout: Close to perfection

I'd been looking forward to coming to Burger Breakout for a month due to missing their opening due to work commitments. I'd heard frankly outstanding things from some serious burger fans and my expectations were set pretty high the night I managed to get over to Holborn.

Dave Ahern is the head chef at the Old Crown Public House and has made a culinary journey that mirrors my own imagined path through life. A respected food writer turned chef in early middle-age, he put down his pen and snide remarks about smears and foams and put on a apron. I've read his blog all the way through and felt a certain kinship with someone who finally had to balls to get behind a grill and see if he could do it better. 

Old Crown Public House

London Markets Tour: Kerb, Berwick, Real Food Festival

Working as I do over in Canary Wharf, I am in a street-food wasteland. There is one Wahaca van and a market once a month that is so full, crowd surfing above a sea of suits ad ties is the only way to get across it. In general, the only time I get tasty lunchtime treats are on weekends. Enough was enough and I took Friday off work in order to partake in a bit of a London tour and visit some of the major markets in London.

Kerb was the first on the hit list with some great traders due to be serving that day. The better half and I neglected breakfast in order to make the most room for the feast that awaited. Unfortunately a freak issue with power meant that when we arrived at 11:30am, we were told that it wouldn't be until 12 that we could eat. Safe to say I wasn't the most popular boyfriend right then.

Everything we ate was between £3-7. Overall it was a pricey day but then again most people don't eat like I do. For the experience, extra engagement with traders and friendliness of everyone we met, the value is superb.

We started off with  fiodena from the fabulous Gurmetti boys. A toasted and crispy foccacia with wafer thin wild ham and onion jam. Such a great sandwich on a cold day like this. The ham had bags of flavour and the fatty slivers that hung out the sides were gobbled without mercy. The onion jam was sweet and so moreish. Sharing was difficult. A photographer for the Evening Standard was taking pictures of London markets and yours truly may be in the paper next week receiving the below beauty from the boys from Parma and Turin (UPDATE: I wasn't :/).

Fiodena.

Gurmetti boys

Alyn Williams at The Westbury

The Westbury is one of the fairly grand hotels of London tucked away in side streets just off Regent Street. I am not usually a fan of hotel joints as they seem a little stifled in their creativity and act merely as bolt-on of the hotel itself like an attraction. As high quality hotel restaurants go, The Westbury is fairly standard. Dark shiny wooden panelling, beige cushioned couches, soft lighting, black hole-like atmosphere and old men dining with impossibly beautiful young women. These places serve a specific clientele and something that I enjoy in strict moderation. The venues lack individuality and become a blur of floor to ceiling wine racks and oak cheese trolleys.

That being said, Alyn Williams is another Marcus Wearing protege (see James Knappet at Bubbledogs), which immediately excites as Mr Wearing is known for his impossibly high standards. The cooking is an array of techniques, colour, and clean precise flavours. However, it lacks the joy and passion that Knappet clearly displays over at KT. The tasting menu we had started great but faltered as the evening wore on. Still, it was a great display of Alyn's skills.

While enjoying a £12 gin and tonic we were brought blue cheese pastry puffs that were rather heavenly and if I'm honest, I may have had about 6. The house bread was hit and miss, the soda bread was great but the aniseed bread with caraway butter was far too overpowering and unsuited with its flavours and felt a little odd to begin a meal with.

Cheese puffs.

The Cube by Electrolux: Lisa Allen

What do you do when your boyfriend AllThingsMeaty wins tickets to an exclusive lunch cooked by Lisa Allen but can't go? Answer: Go yourself and take a friend.

The Cube by Electrolux has been around for a couple of months now and is a pretty special sort of pop-up. It is an example of 'experience-dining' formed both through the location and briefness of the invited star chefs. It is something that has created a 'I have to try this before it finishes' buzz, similar to when the French Laundry opened at Harrods. These projects often fail to ignite the sought-after spark, but after seeing what it is all about, I was really pleased to read they are extending the project until December.

The location, above the Royal Festival Hall, overlooking the South Bank and Houses of Parliament, is arguably the best dining spot in London. The views far surpass that of the National Portrait Gallery restaurant. To get to the Cube itself, one must “take the singing lift to the 6^th floor" accompanied by an ascending C major when a host leads you up the stairs to the roof (at which point I imagine myself in some sort of spy movie). Left on the rooftop to mingle with the views, we were served champagne and canapés of Morecambe shrimps on toast and pork scratchings. Simple and delicious and gets the taste buds moving. Inside, we were welcomed by chef Lisa Allen, told to relax and even inviting us to help out in the kitchen.

The Cube.

Kitchen Table: Bubbledogs&

An unplanned solo visit to KT @ Bubbledogs& last week gave me one of the most enjoyable meals in many years. A 6.30 start time and I walked through the already heavy queue waiting for their meaty oblongs-delights to the dismayed cry of "Why do people keep walking straight in?!"

KT has had some great press recently and the concept and the owner husband and wife team are well documented. What they are trying to achieve isn't a gimmick or even food theatre to some degree: it is a sense of collective enjoyment that both the chef and the customer receive through serving some of the highest quality food in London while feeling inherently connected with the whole process. Service was sharp and fluid, and high levels of engagement with James and genuine warmth of the staff were striking. Let me be clear, KT is not a Wolfgang Puck or Marcus Wareing meal; its a place to watch someone do what they love, and despite some initial (misplaced) nerves after opening, the venue has grown hugely in all areas.

James' expertise is in powerfully flavoured dishes and allowing the simplicity of ingredients to do the work. He also has a dizzying array of natural herbs. The only option at KT is a 12 course tasting menu, each dish focusing on one major ingredient which changes almost weekly, reflecting both the chef's wide imagination and obsession with near-perfect quality ingredients. James would come over and explain each dish and was more than happy to discuss provenance and his thoughts behind each dish.

The Kitchen.

The menu

The Garrison: Solid gastro cooking

Bermondsey Street may be slowly being taken over by a certain Spanish conquistador, but it still has a distinctly London vibe with suited bankers nestled in among the bespeckled creatives. There is still an element of the old-school with some rather red-cheeked Old Boys looking rather confused the latest trendy new restaurant to pop-up where their favourite watering-hole used to be. Which leads me nicely to...

The Garrison Public House, just down from 'The Bridge', is a local gastropub in the heart of the Suits and Specs. While outside it retains the old fashioned green-tiled pub exterior, inside you'll find all the trappings of a trendy gastropub: lots of wood, antique furniture, low hung mood-lighting and distractingly attractive waitresses. To give some credit, apart from the mounted game on the wall, the furnishings were a little more tastefully done than in some other places, and I certainly wouldn't call it annoying.

Starters

Beef tartar with rocket. Pork rillettes with pickled samphire

The tartar was delicious, the beef wasnt chopped too finely and was so tender, chewing was optional. The seasoning was good (if a tiny bit under done) and the sharpness from the capers followed through nicely. I would have liked a little more tabasco and the raw egg yolk was missing.

Beef tartar. Hey dude, where's my egg?