Kudu Grill, Nunhead

I imagine everyone has their own idea of a perfect Saturday. Mine goes a little bit something like the following: Meet up with friends slightly too early in a half-empty pub, go on to lunch somewhere interesting, go back to slightly busier pub and then depending on how things pan out find somewhere for a cocktail.

This is how things went last Saturday, and though every stage was a joy (there really is nothing better than a half-empty pub on a weekend morning, just ask Anthony Bourdain) the highlight of the day was, as expected, a long and lavish lunch at Kudu Grill, the latest branch of South London's favourite South African themed restaurants from chef Patrick Williams (previously of the Dairy family of restaurants, another set of people who know their stuff) and Amy Corbin (yes, that one).

Set behind the discreetly darkened windows of an old Truman pub on Nunhead Lane, inside is stylishly appointed - I particularly liked the chairs - and filled with happy chatter. As you might expect from a front of house with such pedigree, everything on that side of things went perfectly from the moment we stepped inside to the moment we left. I have no doubt that the Covid- and Brexit- related staffing issues are painfully real for those responsible for managing them, but I can only say from personal experience that, quite honestly, I can't remember the last time I had a bad time with service in London. That so many front of house teams can still shine so brightly with everything else that's going on is nothing short of a miracle.

Anyway to the food. 'Snacks' are charged extra on top of the (very reasonable) £28 set menu, a very clever ruse because they all sound so attractive you're immediately tempted to order all of them. Firstly, Irish rocks dressed in a fantastic tomato dashi and topped with salmon roe, making a beautiful case for letting a kitchen's imagination run wild on the dressing of oysters.

Biltong was decent - probably not the very best I've had but certainly enjoyable. I just wish I'd been able to taste more (or indeed any) of the advertised "Kalahari" spices, and a giant lump of inedible solid fat (that's it on the left there) probably should have been removed from the bowl before it reached our table. Still, no regrets.

The potato flatbread has, I'm reliably informed, already become a bit of a must-order item at Kudu Grill. Warm from the oven, and neatly divided into quarters, it arrives coated in a healthy amount of wild garlic dressing and draped in lardo. Each one of these things would have been notable enough by themselves, but together they were knockout, a bread course of the very highest level.

I found the grilled prawns a bit perplexing. The peri peri butter dressing was very nice, kind of a South African buffalo sauce, and in theory a great match with BBQ-grilled prawns. However the idea of splitting them down the back to devein but keeping the shells on seemed particularly un-user friendly, creating a far bigger mess than necessary, and added to this they were quite overcooked meaning the dry, woody flesh was incredibly difficult to separate from the carapace. Once we'd eventually managed to finish them I was absolutely coated in bright orange sauce up to my elbows, and deciding that the postage stamp-sized bit of wet wipe they'd helpfully given us (no finger bowl) wasn't quite up to the task, squelched off to the gents to wash up.

Steak tartare was much easier to eat, and in fact much more accomplished generally. It had a lovely gentle chilli note (presumably from the Harissa) and the crispy shallots sprinkled liberally on top added a nice amount of crunch (even if my friend thought it was a bit like eating a smashed up packet of ready salted crisps).

Of course, when it came to main courses there could only ever be one winner. Or rather, two in this case because each of us couldn't bring ourselves to order anything else even for the sake of variety. So, two pork chops it was, beautifully charred from the grill but still moist and bouncy inside, and coated with a liberal amount of "monkey gland sauce", another South African speciality apparently containing over 60 ingredients best described as a kind of a BBQ chutney... thing. Very nice, anyway.

Finally, a word on the sides. "Beef fat crispy fingerlings" were lovely things indeed, seriously crunchy on the outside and smooth as purée inside. By this point we were absolutely stuffed but it's a testament to their overall desirability that I still managed to squeeze a terrifying amount of it down.

And this is charred baby gem lettuce with lemon sesame dressing, another very successful product of the live fire theme.

The bill, with plenty of booze and all those extras and sides, came to £70 each, which I consider to be something approaching a bargain. Certainly in that plush room and cossetted by excellent service it felt like somewhere that could be charging a lot more, a little slice of luxury in a part of town rapidly getting more than its fair share of great places to eat and drink. To highlight this point, in fact, after bouncing happily out of Kudu Grill we bounced over to their sister cocktail bar Smokey Kudu under the railway arches at Queens Road Peckham and enjoyed a very sophisticated cocktail served by yet more brilliantly efficient front of house. As I say, it was a Good Day.

With the dark days of lockdowns stretching wretchedly into the increasingly distant past, you'd think that soon enough the fact of being able to eat and drink out again, and to experience the whole glorious business of talented people doing things they love, would return to become the norm, just another thing to eventually take for granted. But part of me hopes that the horrid memory of having to do without these places just holds on a little bit longer, in order to fully appreciate how wonderful it is to have them back. Happy 2022.

8/10

28 Well Hung, Nunhead

It seems that while parts of Central London still, despite a slew of restaurant and hotels reopening in the past few weeks, resemble something from a low-budget British zombie movie, the suburbs have travelled a slightly quicker path back to normality. With Londoners reluctant to get back on public transport, and many still working full-time from home, the Neighbourhood restaurant or local pub has become the first-choice for an evening out, and - anecdotally at least - some are doing rather well out of it. But whereas in the Before Times a local restaurant would hope to be busy on Friday or Saturday evenings and struggle more earlier in the week, the government's Eat Out to Help Out Scheme now means that Monday to Wednesdays are likely to be slammed, and weekends are quieter. As various restaurateurs have put it, Wednesday is the new Saturday, and Thursday is the new Monday.

So it was on a warm Wednesday evening that I got on the Thameslink to Nunhead, to visit an intriguing little neighbourhood restaurant a few steps from the Old Nun's Head pub. 28 Well Hung (who's that sniggering at the back) specialise in two main areas - high quality, grass-fed meat of various flavours and styles, and organic home-made flatbreads, baked to order on a gas-fired saj. And if there's anything I appreciate in a restaurant, it's high-quality meat and somewhere that bakes their own bread.

"Cull yaw" is a phrase you're going to be hearing a lot of in the near future, if indeed you haven't already. You can read more about these animals, and Matt Chatfield, the farmer who's attempting to reintroduce them to the world in this Vittles article, but briefly they are 8-year-old ewes too old for breeding, and in eating them you're not only enjoying some heavily-marbled, meltingly tender and superbly flavoured meat, but are actually helping suck carbon out of the atmosphere. That's right - cull yaw has a carbon negative effect on the environment. Oh, and the fresh flatbread was, as you might expect, excellent as well - soft and stretchy with a lovely flavour.

I'll start with the good news about the burger first. The beef was good, there was just the right amount of salad and sauce (mayo I think spiked with paprika, though don't quote me on that) and though I worried that the cheddar would be too chalky and strongly-flavoured, in fact it was nice and subtle and had a good gooey texture. But I'm afraid while flatbread has its uses in a variety of dishes, it doesn't quite do the job as a burger bun, making it very difficult to get a bite with all the elements together. In the end I ended up eating it with a knife and fork, which as any burger lover will tell you, is not an ideal outcome.

Onglet could have done with being a little warmer (we really wouldn't have minded if they'd just brought out things as they were ready instead of waiting and delivering everything at once), but still had a good flavour, that all-important onglet-y texture just the right side of chewy, and a very nice herby dressing which really lifted it.

Chips were 'air-fried' using one of those weird machines that health freaks get to convince themselves that a 1% drop in the fat content of their food is somehow the key to a happier life. They were fine - tasted a bit like oven chips - but really, if the rest of the menu is stuffed with dry-aged beef, burgers and cheese I wouldn't see anyone complaining if they'd used beef dripping to cook them, and you'd end up with a much nicer end product. I did like the chimmichurri though.

Staff are still grappling with the complexities of implementing the Eat Out To Help Out discount, and I don't blame them - it must be hard enough serving food in the era of Covid without having to make sure the 50% off only applies to food items and soft drinks, and whether or not to pass on the changes to VAT. Anyway their first go at the bill, above, was wrong, as there were only two of us and only entitled to £10 off each, so the final amount was actually £63.25, a very decent amount for more than enough food and a lovely bottle of tempranillo (actually £33 a bottle). If I was a Nunhead local, I'd be feeling pretty pleased with myself, and indeed every table was taken, inside and in the front and back gardens.

So the slow march back to normality continues. Once the threat of Coronavirus fades we can get back to worrying about our dying planet, and to that end the guys at 28 Well Hung are excellently poised, as a self-styled 'Regenerative Restaurant', to capitalise on the desire to not just have a nice evening out but to do something positive for the environment as well. So good for them, good for Nunhead, and once you've ordered your own portion of the cull yaw, good for you.

7/10