The Harwood Arms, Fulham

I last, and first, visited the Harwood Arms over a decade ago, at a time when Scotch Eggs (that's posh runny-yolk Scotch Eggs, not the little breadcrumbed rubber balls you get in the picnic section at Asda which was all we'd known previously) were becoming a delightful and exciting novelty in London gastropubs. The life of a noughties food blogger involved a lot of chasing around town for the latest greatest food thing, and though it seems rather pathetic and shallow now, it was great fun at the time. It probably seemed quite pathetic and shallow to lots of people at the time, too, actually, but that didn't stop us.

Anyway the Harwood Arms became known for its venison Scotch egg, a concept that had my name written all over it, so dutifully trotted down to Fulham to check it out one cold February evening. I loved it, of course - even then it was something approaching London food folklore, attracting awards and column inches from all over - and so it's a pleasure to report that in 2020 the Harwood are still right on top of their Scotch egg game. There's more venison meat than there used to be - this can only be a good thing - and it now comes with a little pot of tamarind (I think?) mustard sauce, but otherwise it was every bit as good as I remember, the platonic ideal of the posh bar snack.

But sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. I should probably start by telling you what is different about a meal in the Harwood Arms in 2020. There's the Covid thing, of course, which means staff wear plastic visors and there's bottles of hand sanitiser everywhere, but the tables I think were fairly well spaced out beforehand, and doesn't seem to have affected the happy atmosphere inside. Back in the day, half of the pub really was a drinking pub - they even used to do a quiz on Tuesday nights - but that has long since been abandoned and now the whole building is a restaurant and only a restaurant. I understand the reasons for doing this of course, I just think calling it a gastropub these days is stretching the term a bit.

And one more minor criticism to get out of the way - the Harwood arms say they have a "focus on game and wild food", which is great, but we're right in the middle of game season at the moment, the specialist butchers (the ones that I've seen anyway) groaning with pheasant and partridge and grouse and mallard, and yet the only vaguely gamey thing on their menu is venison. And I like venison - who doesn't? - but this still felt like a bit of a missed opportunity. I will counter that though by saying that there's every chance in these fraught times that the Harwood have decided the risk of putting on unusual game on the menu and not having people order it is too much to take, and there's only nerdy foodies like me that really miss it.

Anyway, that's as much as I have to say about the Harwood Arms that isn't unqualified praise. From the moment their house soda bread arrived, flavoured with Guinness and treacle and boasting a wonderful biscuitty crust, we knew things would turn out alright in the end. A nice salty whipped butter just demanded you slather about obscene amounts of it, turning an already dangerously addictive bread into an exercise in almost tortuous self-denial.

Porthilly oyster and English sparkling wine soup was absolutely perfect in every way, a warm "champagne" velouté with an incredible depth of seafood flavour, studded with chopped oysters and with a little quenelle of ice cream floating about inside. The texture and temperature contrasts just magnified the effect of the soup, and proved yet again there's a hundred different ways you can serve oyster and for them to never get boring. The beignet on the side was a little parcel of whole oyster and seaweed, deep-fried like a mini fish and chips, and I'm never going to say no to deep-fried oyster, but really the star of this starter was the soup, a quite extraordinary achievement in every way.

And yet, impossibly, that still was not to be the best of the starters. This, their Jerusalem artichoke and truffle tart, is the most stunning bit of pastry work I've had the pleasure to sample in almost as far back as I remember. In fact, in terms of savoury pastry, it's probably unbeaten. Not only was the mixture powerfully flavoured, with a salty, umami richness that made the most of the unique artichoke flavour while still retaining a soft, light dairy touch, but the base too had a delicate firmness and wholesome butteriness that made you wish it would never end. And then on top of that, pickled trompettes, parmesan and shavings of truffle, all of which only added to the beguiling complexity of it all. A swoop of some kind of mushroom purée just threw a final punch of umami loveliness and completed the utter masterclass.

It's not much of a criticism to say that the mains didn't quite live up to the stellar standards of the starters, but by most other places standards they were still great. Haunch of fallow deer with hen of the woods was attractive, refined and very easily enjoyable, with a sticky, herby sauce that the kale soaked up quite agreeably. I enjoyed it very much.

Monkfish was presented on the bone, golden-bronzed on the outside and lifting off into chunks of fresh, meaty flesh. This by itself would have been worth ordering, but the initially innocuous-looking side of cauliflower turned out was studded with little salty cubes of smoked eel, and all surrounded by a creamy, sherry-spiked sauce. It's these little touches of invention and surprise that really sets the Harwood Arms apart from so many similarly-pitched, and similarly-priced, rivals.

Full disclosure - I didn't really try the truffled parsnip and chestnut loaf but I did sample one of the parsnip crisps it came with, and it was lovely. Being a fully committed meat eater I'm wary of judging wholly vegan versions of classic dishes by my own standards because, as someone who's used to the satisfying "completeness" (for want of a better word) of butter, eggs and cheese, even the very most accomplished vegan alternatives will, for me, always fall short. This doesn't apply, of course, to dishes that are meant to be vegan, such as gazpacho or pan con tomate, but I didn't want to try the Harwood Arms nut loaf and complain it was missing cheese. But I will report that it was eaten without any complaint by the person who ordered it so there you go.

To stick to the £37.50 two-course version of the menu we shared one dessert, and blimey was it good. Pear and caramel trifle with frozen Babycham was as fun to eat as it was to look at, studded with little elements of burnt sugar, sherry-soaked spongecake and a delicate Babycham granita which is almost certainly the only worthwhile thing to ever result from a bottle of Babycham.

A lot has changed about the way Londoners eat over the last ten years, and the sign of a great restaurant is one that keeps to its original remit - refined, inventive gastropub food in a relaxed atmosphere - but constantly upgrades and tweaks its offering to stay relevant as time goes on. No doubt I would have found much to enjoy at the Harwood Arms if they'd served a menu largely unchanged since 2009, but would they still be spoken about as amongst the best in town if they had? Almost certainly not. As much as we may wish it weren't the case, staying still in a London restaurant is the equivalent of pedalling backwards elsewhere - we're a fickle lot, us Londoners. Rest on your laurels and we'll eventually forget you ever existed.

But the Harwood Arms has done way more than survive, first, the evolving attitudes to pub food, and then Covid - it's a restaurant confident and comfortable in its skin, serving a menu at once recognisable but also surprising and imaginative. Correct me if I'm wrong (and I'm sure you will), but I can't think of many £37.50 menus that would serve that oyster soup, or that astonishing artichoke tart, and still make it feel like it was the most natural and easy thing in the world. And yes, I may miss, while the pandemic rages on, a starter of smoked pigeon or roast pheasant for main, but I've every confidence these things will return once nerves settle. In the meantime, there's still a million and one reasons to head for Fulham and to make a booking. You won't regret it.

9/10

Dip In Brilliant, Fulham Broadway

The Brilliant, in Southall, is some people's favourite Indian restaurant in London. Of course being the hopeless restaurant spod I am, the moment, nearly eight years ago now, I learned that it was at least someone's favourite restaurant I persuaded a friend to take the train to Southall one evening to check it out.

Long story short, I wasn't that impressed, but then the mid-range of Indian restaurants is a very competitive market. I know where I am with top end Mayfair joints like Jamavar and Indian Accent, where all the food is spiced and cooked to perfection and costs an arm and a leg. And then at the budget end there's Tayyabs and Lahore Kebab House, where the meat is a little more... mysterious but you can feast until you're all chopped out for £15/head. The problem with the £25-£35/head bracket is, in a word, Dishoom. Can anyone really do better than Dishoom? If you were going to spend £12.90 on 3 lamb chops, instead of £7.60 for 4 (Tayyabs) or £28 for 3 (Jamavar), would you really risk anywhere that wasn't Dishoom?

Dip In Brilliant, a more casual, proto-chainy concept from the Brilliant owners, is, I get the very strong impression, trying to mustle in on Dishoom's corner. From the quirky, casual menu descriptions ("Top dips", "Brill Grill") to the mid-range (though by no means top-mid-range) price points, it's a restaurant aimed at people who know they like black daal, and lamb chops, and comfort-fusion things like "Desi Chilli Cheese Potato Skins" (have you ever had Dishoom's "Chilli Cheese Toast"? You should, it's great) but are sick of the queues at Kings Cross.

All of which is perfectly fine - nowhere exists in a vacuum, and there's no such thing as a truly original idea, certainly not in restaurants - but if you're going to start a new, mid-range Dishoom-a-like, you're going to have to make pretty darn sure your product measures up where it counts. And from the very first tray of lacklustre chutneys, the tomato and mango versions of which, sweet and gloopy, tasted bought-in even if they weren't, it was clear this was no Dishoom. Mini poppadums were mixed in with colourful little corn snacks of various kinds, and the mint & coriander chutney was OK even if it was a bit heavy on the vinegar, but this was hardly an auspicious start.

The best thing about the mixed grill - sorry, "Brill Grill" - were the seekh kebabs, which were moist and nicely sausagey and with a very decent chilli kick. Next in order of success were the cubes of tandoori chicken, very slightly on the dry side and needed more spicing, but were still OK. Then the king prawns, again slightly overcooked and in need of some more robust flavouring but still edible. But finally lamb "chops" were just weird, leathery morsels of bland meat - not a hint of spice or seasoning - clinging to a collection of mysteriously-shaped bones. The idea they'd hold their own next to any others in town, never mind the best, is laughable.

Other bits were, thankfully, better. Naans were light and bubbly, slicked with ghee and easy to demolish...

...raita was, well, raita, but there's nothing much wrong with that. I wasn't even that irritated by the pansy on top...

...and finally, fair do's, the black daal was very nice, thinner and less richly flavoured than the best examples but I can usually find something to enjoy in even the most ordinary black daals. I think the effort and knowledge required to cook these things means there's a certain minimum standard - I don't think I've ever had a truly bad one.

But despite that, not much of the above was worth the money they were asking for it. An £18 mixed grill puts you in contention with some serious London curry houses, likewise charging £4 for mini poppadums and dips, which are provided free at most places. There's every chance that in the 8 years since I visited the mothership the Brilliant in Southall it's turned into more my kind of restaurant, but I have to say, if Dip In is anything to go by, I'm better off sticking to what I know. And what I know is that I can get in the queue at any of the Dishooms and enjoy some of the finest Indian food in town for about the same money. Did I mention I just really, really love Dishoom?

5/10

Manson, Parsons Green

There are few experiences more surreal than being the only customer in an empty restaurant and being comprehensively ignored by every member of staff. Certainly, there are times in life where the ability to make yourself invisible would come in handy - to avoid having to contribute in work meetings perhaps, or if you find yourself on the front row of a particularly confrontational stand-up comedy gig - but in a restaurant, it's not ideal. After a period staring thirstily towards Manson's handsome bar, while groups of waiting staff prodded importantly at cash registers and generally got on with the kinds of things waiting staff do when there isn't a customer at the other side of the room waiting to be served, I was beginning to wonder if the District Line had finally done what it has been threatening to do all these years and I'd died somewhere en route to Parson's Green. Not having been a particularly good Christian (I could never get over that whole "believing in God" stumbling block sadly) I began to worry I was trapped in Food Blogger Hell, condemned to pitifully flap for attention for all eternity, hungry, thirsty and forlorn.


In the midst of this existential panic, my friend arrived, helpfully reassuring both that I was not dead (at least not yet) and, by the fact that she'd managed to get from the front door to the table without being greeted or even noticed, that if I was in Food Blogger Hell, at least I wasn't alone. And then, finally, we managed to get served, and for the few precious minutes it took us to drink our aperitifs (sparkling wine and rhubarb, very good indeed but you'd hope so at £10.50 a glass) all was well with the world.



It wasn't that the food at Manson was bad, exactly - most of it was fine, some of it was good, and it did all look the part - but it was occasionally quite... odd. Take my starter of turbot with pigs trotter sauce; the sauce very well executed in that classically-trained way, being perfectly reduced and rich in flavour and colour, it just didn't sit very well with the fish - it felt like a sauce meant for a bloody hunk of rare venison or aged beef steak. And the fish itself was the strangest texture, not dry exactly but dense and congealed - fresh fish should break into moist flakes, but this split apart like meat jelly and I really missed a nice crispy skin. Caraway-cured sea trout though, paired with lightly pickled vegetables, was a more successful experiment and the pretty coils of Romanesco broccoli made for a very attractive plate of food.



Catastrophically underseasoned Mallard (as in, it was completely unseasoned) spoiled what could possibly have been a better dish, although even without sodium's helping hand I didn't detect much flavour in the meat. It was presented in a deep bowl which at first I thought was strange until I realised the duck and the salad vegetables were sitting on top of a wonderfully rich game soup of some kind - I could have easily just swallowed a pint of this on its own as nothing else was worth the effort. More ill-advised experimentation also affected my friend's roast gurnard - let's just say there's a reason you don't often see parsnips and fennel seed yoghurt on the same plate, although even that aside, the fish was overcooked and dry.


In the manner of a line manager tasked with motivating his staff, I will follow up bad feedback with good by saying the cheese course at Manson was very nice. Consisting entirely of British and Irish cheeses, a number of which were unpasteurised and unfamiliar to me, we particularly enjoyed a nutty semi-hard Doddington and lovely fluffy unpasteurised goat's. Some of them had sweated slightly under the heat of the bar where they were kept but nothing too disastrous and they were generous both with the portions of cheese and the basket of crackers. I suppose it's not rocket science, serving cheese, but credit where credit's due.

I'm prepared to believe that I didn't get as much out of an evening at Manson as others might. It is, after all, a lovely room in a nice part of town and although staff got off to a bit of a shaky start, once it was all underway dishes arrived at a good pace and usually with a smile. But I'm afraid there were enough mistakes with the food, and enough weird textures and odd flavours, to make me uncomfortable and I can't honestly say that I'm confident enough in their ability to pull off a good - even normal - meal to warrant a return visit.

6/10



I was invited to review Manson

The Harwood Arms, Fulham

The Harwood Arms, a handsome Victorian pub a stone's throw away from Stanford Bridge in Fulham, is famous for its Scotch Eggs. Not many places are famous for their Scotch Eggs, because not many places do them very well. If all the Scotch Eggs you've ever eaten have been those processed rubber balls you buy in the multipacks at Iceland, I don't blame you if you're wondering what all the fuss is about. By way of an explanation, let me show you this:



Crispy, flaky breadcrumbs cover a whisper-thin layer of spiced Venison meat, which in turn surrounds a perfectly soft-boiled egg. It's a pleasure for all the senses, not to mention a marvel of engineering - how they manage to get the yolk so soft while the white remains firm and the meat not overcooked must be a result of many hours of trial and error. Topped with a light sprinkling of Maldon salt, the Harwood Arms Venison Scotch Egg is worth a trip to Fulham alone, but lucky for me I found the time to sample some of the rest of their menu as well.




My starter of pigs trotters and ears was a bit of a Curate's Scotch Egg. The strips of deep fried ears weren't overly flavoursome but were useful for dipping in the herby tarragon mustard. However the trotter meat on toast was excellent - sausagey and yummy, and ideal with the accompanying expertly-seasoned salad. A good, British starter and a sign of a confident and experimental kitchen. Highlights of the rest of the starters were some huge, meaty oysters and a perfectly decent onion quiche.


Main course was a generous - in fact, slightly overly generous as it turned out as I had to leave some - portion of grilled Ox tongue with a vegetable gratin. The gratin had a good, deep flavour but a rather odd texture - quite thick and gloopy. But the ox tongue was good, well seasoned with attractive grill marks on it and a rich beefy taste like hot pastrami. Again, a solid gastropub dish that had "inspired by St. John" written all over it, and was none the worse for that.

I also shouldn't go any further without mentioning the cute little bags of house bread that we were served. They contained a very nice white bread with a lovely crust, but a truly extraordinary soda bread which they bake in-house. Sweet and moist, with a perfect crust and lovely depth of flavour, it is the best bread I've tried all year and almost the highlight of my entire meal. Spread with the provided salted butter, it's a delicious reminder of the enormous advantage of having a kitchen confident and skilled enough to bake its own bread; it's baffling why even the very top restaurants (the 3-star Gordon Ramsay restaurant for one) sometimes don't bother when the results can be this good.

It was just as we were finishing our main courses that the evening's entertainment began. Tuesday night at the Harwood Arms is Quiz Night, and there was no escaping it even in the restaurant half of the building. Such goings-on probably wouldn't be for everyone, but I found it quite charming that despite the top-end food the atmosphere was still unselfconsciously that of a normal neighbourhood boozer. A normal neighbourhood boozer with homemade Scotch Eggs and the best bread in London. Now that's my kind of place.

8/10