In an ideal world this would be a post about the 'proper' upstairs restaurant at the Hart, a serious (though not by all accounts stuffy) dining room serving seasonal British food in the heart of Marylebone village. Unfortunately, due to a combination of my own lack of organisation and the wild popularity of the Hart (despite it only being open a couple of months), the 'proper' dining room was full, and so on this particular Saturday lunchtime we settled for a series of the Hart bar 'snacks' served to our cozy, Christmassy corner table downstairs.
I say 'snacks' in inverted commas because the Hart team (also behind the brilliant Pelican in Notting Hill) do not do anything so straightforward as bar snacks as you might know them elsewhere. At first glance they may look like familiar stuff - pork scratchings, cheese straws, pork pie - but they're all made in-house in the same kitchen that's churning out the full A La Carte upstairs, and are level above what you might expect for the pretty reasonable prices they're charging.
These are the cheese straws for example - warm (probably not baked to order but at least nicely reheated) and crispy and gooey and topped with shaved gruyere (I think) - three giant pieces for £6.
Radishes were crisp and full of life and although I perhaps would have preferred the usual salt dip than the mayo-mustard (actually, ideally both), they were still extremely easy to enjoy. I wonder if one day we'll ever see the giant tennis ball-sized radishes in this country that I fell in love with in Seville a couple of years back? I'm keeping my eyes open.
The pork pie did seem like quite good value on paper (well, chalkboard) until you realise you're only served half of one. But it was a very good pie, with just enough salty, savoury jelly to season without being too much, and came with a dollop each of powerful English mustard and chutney.
The Hart make their own pork scratchings too (of course) and these were distressingly addictive - just the right amount of crunch without being tooth-shattering, enough soft fat without being sickly, and again seasoned perfectly. These disappeared almost as far as anything else on the table.
Sardines on toast came in the form of a kind of smooth whipped paté, evenly spread on excellent toasted sourdough. A fairly straightforward thing I suppose, but fish on toast in its many forms is one of my favourite things in the entire world (see also L'Escala anchovies on tomato-garlic bread) so I devoured this enthusiastically.
Next, chicken liver, a wonderfully cheffy silky-smooth version which spread like butter and tasted many times more rich and indulgent than its price point (£11) suggested. Toast was super thin and crunchy and melba-like and it also came with some very nice pickled pear (I think it was) chutney. No reusing of house chutneys in different dishes at the Hart, thank you very much.
And then finally the main event - something the Americans might call a loose meat sandwich but which the Hart call a 'mince roll'. A giant mound of gooey, salty, beefy rubble spilled out of and soaked through a toasted brioche bun, making the eating of it a rather messy but ultimately hugely rewarding process. When Quality Chop started doing their mince on toast back in the day I had optimistically assumed it would be the start of a new mince revolution, but I think it still feels to most people like too low-rent an addition to a modern British menu. Well, I love it, and I love the Hart mince rolls.
This wasn't an invite, but I was very kindly treated to this lunch and didn't see a bill. But with a couple of pints each (the beer list is good - we went for Deya Steady Rolling Man) and a mince roll each (I was hardly about to share, now, was I) I imagine the total would have come to around £140, so about £47 each - perfectly reasonable for a good couple of hours entertainment on a Saturday lunchtime. And the upstairs menu seems equally good value - starters £17 and under, no mains over £28 (not even the steak) - it's no wonder the place is popular.
The cliché always used to be that there were no good gastropubs in London and that you always had to travel out into the countryside for this kind of food without paying a fortune. Of course, it was never quite that black and white - the Drapers Arms has been a little slice of the countryside in Islington for many years, ditto the Red Lion and Sun, and more recently the Baring (Islington), the Audley and the Barley Mow (both Mayfair) have added themselves to the kind of places you can drop in for a pint of something interesting and a carefully crafted menu of modern British snacks without having to remortgage your house. And so welcome to Marylebone, then, the Hart - may London's gastropub tradition long keep evolving and maturing.
8/10
