My first job in London after moving down in 2003 was in a small basement office on Wilson Street near Finsbury Square. On my first day, a Friday, the boss announced at 1pm that everyone would be going to the pub for lunch, where he ordered, over the next couple of hours, a good few pints of lager each and plates of chips. At some point mid-afternoon he half-heartedly suggested we return back to the office, where we drunkenly squinted at our screens for about 30 minutes until he decided, at 4pm, it was hometime. This, I thought at the time, was the kind of work attitude I could get behind.
That pub, our office local for many years, was the Princess in Shoreditch - even then, I think my memory serves me well enough to say, making a name for itself serving elevated gastropub food. Today, the place at first glance looks very similar to how it did almost 20 years ago, although I don't remember them serving Shoreditch Old Fashioneds (coffee-infused Buffalo Trace, Angostura, orange) in 2003. Downstairs the menu is of attractive, keenly-priced gastropub stuff like crab cocktail and beef wellington, and I'm sure it's very lovely. But on the first floor, reached via a precipitous spiral staircase, some real magic is happening.
Upstairs at the Princess of Shoreditch is where they serve their tasting menu - think the full Moor Hall experience to downstairs' The Barn. It is one of the capital's more ambitious menus, a £75 set composed of 11 individual dishes beginning with "Snacks", dainty little toasted cheese finger sandwiches, artichokes topped with crab, and clever salmon truffle things encased in a delicate layer of some kind of solid fat topped with chervil, which melted in the mouth quite wonderfully. The snacks were in fact quite reminiscent of those at the sadly-departed Greenhouse Mayfair, another place that liked to stretch its muscles in these kinds of cheffy directions.
Bread was a sourdough, a brioche, and - my favourite - salty seeded crackers which were worryingly easy to eat. There were two types of butter, too (no self-respecting restaurant can serve any less these days), one very potently truffled and another simply whipped.
Of all the dishes, though by no means a disappointment, "Sweet onion" is the only one I could really think could be improved. All the flavours were slightly muted, not least the onion soup itself which needed a lot more kick, and I could have also done with more of a hit from the little blobs of Keen's cheddar mixture dotted around inside the bowl. However - and it's a big however - this course arrived with little homemade potato chips, salt and vinegar-flavoured with - incredibly - a single sprig of chervil somehow incased within each one, like a prehistoric fern preserved inside a sliver of amber. I don't know how difficult these are to make, but I'm going to assume it's not easy, as I've never seen anyone else even attempt it. So full marks for invention and technique there.
Next, gurnard, perfectly cooked with a nice crisp skin and meaty, fatty flesh, on a bed of vegetable "risotto". The "risotto", in fact, managed to be a more accomplished bit of cooking than an actual Italian risotto I was served in Verona the week after, although in the interests of saving Italian blushes I think the Italian risotto was a timing mistake rather than a conscious choice.
Next, chervil chips aside, my favourite course - a single giant raviolo containing lamb shoulder, squash and goat's curd, and topped with pine nut and sage breadcrumbs. Its relatively simple (although perfectly attractive) appearance belied a deep, rich flavour of herbs and lamb, and it came surrounded by a thick, glossy lamb jus, also a top bit of technique as these kind of things can quite easily be too salty, too fatty or too bland. Not this one though, it was perfect.
Salt aged duck had a wonderful flavor and an even better texture, meltingly tender and with a carefully rendered skin. A potato terrine was a thoughtful and tasteful accompaniment, ditto a little blob of pickled plum, and a braised artichoke. The fact salt aged duck was served on a tasting menu and wasn't my favourite thing is far more an indication of how blindingly good most of the rest of it was, rather than any failing with the duck.
It's a strange thing that's happened in recent years, almost certainly connected to my increasing age, that whenever I get a tasting menu I'm disappointed when I'm only served one dessert instead of at least two. It seems rather unbalanced to have 8 savoury courses and only 1 sweet, so it was nice to see blood orange with a fantastic treacle sponge...
...followed by an arrangement of forced Yorkshire rhubarb, some stewed to a lovely firm texture and some I think freeze-dried, that also did very wonderful things with white chocolate and fennel.
This being an invite (thank you Tonic PR) I didn't see a bill but with a normal(!) amount of wine and service I estimate the price per head to be about £150. And as this is a tasting menu in London - and a bloody brilliant one at that - that is, in my opinion, right in the sweet spot. I would, in short, have in other circumstances happily paid for it, and I imagine - in fact I know - I'm not the only one.
At the end of the meal as we wiped up the last traces of white chocolate mousse with our fingers (nb. I saw "we"; this could just have been me) chef Ruth Hansom appeared for a brief chat about dinner and to apologise for the emptiness of the dining room of a cold Wednesday evening ("suits me just fine" I replied). I was going to mention about the Princess being my local back in 2003 until I realised she would have been about 6 years old at the time, so rather than embarrass anyone (not least me) and sensing she'd very much prefer to be back in the kitchen than making small talk with a slightly pissed blogger, I thanked her profusely and set off into the night.
The Princess of Shoreditch is, of course, and is hopefully obvious from the above, a brilliant little restaurant. But that all that ambitious, technically groundbreaking food should have been designed and created by someone still in the early stages of her career, is a rare and unusual thing. Most chefs spend their whole lives trying to get to the level she seems to have just been born with, although of course some of that is an illusion - she worked with John Williams at the Ritz (at the same age, I think, that I was still doing my paper round), probably the best introduction to fine dining any young chef would have been able to receive. What's amazing is that her food will only get better from here. Definitely one to watch.
9/10
I was invited by Frances Cottrell-Duffield of Tonic, and didn't see a bill. Sorry about the photos, blogging in winter is a pain.
No comments:
Post a Comment