Madame D, Spitalfields

I like to think I can put up with a great deal of discomfort in the pursuit of good food - noise, queues, darkness, annoying useless hand dryers instead of paper towels - but if there's one thing guaranteed to ruin my evening it's the dreaded phrase "communal seating". I don't care how many people you think it's necessary to shoehorn into your shoebox of a restaurant in order to turn a profit; there is absolutely no excuse for forcing people to squeeze in next to each other like tube passengers to eat their dinner. It's awkward, uncomfortable and completely counterproductive to the most basic levels of hospitality. If two strangers' elbows are clashing while they tuck into their starters your tables are too close together, simple as that.

With that in mind, Madame D's couldn't have got off to a worse start. Initial delight that they were able to fit the two of us in on a busy Wednesday night turned to despair after we saw where we'd be sitting - in the middle of a desperately overcrowded row of tables so close together that someone deciding they needed the toilet necessitated the whole table being pushed out into the middle of the room. I'm sure the extra £50 from a two-header made all the difference to that evening's profits, but is it really worth winding your guests up so much to achieve it?

Anyway, rant over - for now. I mention this only because the food at Madame D's is so good that it deserves a nicer environment in which to enjoy it. A much nicer environment. Naga chilli beef puffs weren't anywhere near as hot as the involvement of the fearsome naga would suggest, just full of meaty beefy flavour and surrounded by nice soft pastry.

Prawn crackers - presented in what I hope is an ironic plastic bag and not just picked up from the local cash'n'carry - came with an interesting Newari-pickle coleslaw (not as good as the Darjeeling Express Newari pickle, but not bad) and a genuinely lovely szechuan pepper sauce studded with pickled prawns, which impressed with a complex set of flavours and a good hit of chilli offset with cooling tomato. I'm not entirely sure why this snack, more often than not offered for free in Thai restaurants, cost £8.50, though. Maybe they were very expensive prawns.

Hakka chilli paneer was another rich and satisfying set of flavours and textures, fresh vegetables and fearsomely hot chillies, studded with bouncy, salty cubes of cheese. It's abundently clear that the guys behind Madame D's (just as they proved at Gunpowder) are experts in constructing and presenting lively, characterful small plates Indian cooking. It's just a shame it has to be enjoyed while attempting to tune out the conversations of three different sets of diners within easy earshot.

The one large dish we ordered was this masala lamb noodles, served in a tiffin tin, and topped with a fried egg. Sort of an Indian-spiced spaghetti Bolognese (I'm sure they'll hate me saying), it was, like all the food that had come before, confident and inventive, rather unlike anything I'd seen before in London (other than the odd set of flavours at Darjeeling Express), and endearingly quirky.

Unfortunately despite the food - and the supremely attentive service, it has to be said - being so good, all everything else about Madame D's made us want to do was to wolf it all down as quickly as possible and get the hell out of there. Still, at quieter times, and perhaps if you managed to snag a table whose proximity to fellow diners was somewhat less than intimate, there's the potential for a really bloody lovely time to be had. So perhaps it's best, for the sake of my blood pressure, I just focus on the positives. Like those naga beef puffs, or the hakka chilli paneer. Lovely, calming, quiet, hakka chilli paneer.

7/10

Pitt Cue, Spitalfields

It's all too easy to lump in Pitt Cue with the myriad of other no-reservations, Southern USA BBQ restaurants that sprung up in the capital half a decade ago. It's true they were masters of the low'n'slow style, famous for their giant, treacly beef short ribs and delicate smoked chicken wings, and yes, it's also true that their tiny Soho premises and bourbon-based cocktail list was the template for a city-wide BBQ boom. They were, unquestionably, hugely influential - and hugely popular. "Pitt Queue" was the nickname given as the crowds snaked down Newburgh Street.

But the fact is, Pitt Cue was always a lot more than a BBQ joint. Tom Adams may be at the top of his game when it comes to putting flame to delicacies such as Dexter beef or Mangalitza pork, but his time working with Jeremy Lee has given his food a lightness and intelligence that always set him apart from the Smoke Shops and Grill Stacks and countless other rib-peddlers in London.

All this is plainly evident at the brand-spanking new Pitt Cue premises in Devonshire Square, where the run of a vast kitchen and some seriously impressive charcoal ranges looking like something from a medieval torture dungeon has allowed Adams to create a menu so comprehensively attractive that choosing from it isn't so much a case of picking which dishes you think you'll like the most than deciding which few would be the least traumatic to leave out. The only way of leaving Pitt Cue without a serious attack of the FOMOs is to book a nice big table and order the whole damn lot. Maybe twice. Sadly, there were just the two of us on my most recent visit and so what follows is the best two very greedy people could manage in one sitting.

"Potato cakes" from the Snacks menu were batons of pressed slices of potato, presented with a dipping sauce which I think may have contained some kind of fish roe. Reminiscent of the confit potato at Quality Chop, with an irresistable combination of golden crunch and soft filling, they were impossible not to love.

Oysters (rocks from Cornwall) came with a little dollop of house kimchi, not enough to overpower the shellfish but with enough of a pickle/chilli kick to turn it all into a fresh and exciting new thing entirely. It was a kind of turbocharged version of putting Tabasco on oysters, and I love Tabasco on oysters.

"Eel broth & bacon" was a beautiful (you'll have to take my word for it) bowl of seafood consommé dotted with pickled celery and gorgeous toasted walnuts. It was the best soup I have had the pleasure of eating in years, but as if that wasn't enough, it came with a slice of toasted sourdough draped with slivers of silky ham which added another meaty, fatty element.

"Dripping bread" was a loaf of dense, syrupy malt bread soaked in beef fat, and of course was brilliant. I'm not entirely sure it needed the extra serving of butter, but somehow we still ended up using it so maybe it did. Pitt Cue have obviously spent a lot of time on their bread offering, really making the most of the extra oven space since the move. There were a few different kinds on offer and all were world class.

"Dexter & Ogleshield sausage" was another supremely succesful marriage of excellent ingredients. The beef, firstly, was incredible stuff, with the flavour of fine aged steak but with a lovely loose texture, and the funky cheese brought out the best in the beef in the same way as Ogleshield does in the Hawksmoor burger. In fact, this dish could best be described as a steakhouse burger without the bun, topped with some delicate pickled veg.

The only main course we could find room for was a Mangalitza pork loin, a dictionary-thick slab of meat, firm of flesh and juicy with generous ribbons of soft fat, dressed with caramelised onions. Like everything that had come before it, it was a combination of impeccable sourcing and intelligent cooking that informs everything Pitt Cue do.

Ah, but we could hardly leave without ordering a portion of the legendary Pitt Cue bone marrow and mushroom mash, which was every bit as wonderful as I remember from Soho with its fluffy buttered potato and swirls of meaty jus. It may be unfair to single out this side as a signature dish when everything else had been so good, but there does seem to be something particularly special about this mash, judging by the numbers of people swooning over it on social media.

I've been focussing on the food, because that's what I do, but everything else about the place is clever and considered. The decor, while not making for great blog photos (to say the least) is classy and understated, the service is faultless, cocktails from co-founder Jamie Berger are still great (and still include Picklebacks) and the wine list managed by Crispin Sugden formerly of Goodman and Beast has loads of interesting (if occasionally punchy) options by the glass. We spent £100 between the two of us but without a couple of £15 glasses of wine the bill would have been more like £25 a head. You can even reserve a table so you don't even need to worry about getting there early to queue up. In short, there's really nothing to criticise at all - already firmly settled and confident in its new skin, it may just be the ideal London restaurant. What are you still doing here? Quick, book now.

10/10

Pitt Cue, in its new East London premises, is already in the 2016 version of the app. But if it's booked out one evening (which is more than likely), use it to see what else is in the area.

Taberna do Mercado, Spitalfields

Whenever people ask me which cuisine is the most badly represented or otherwise maligned in London my stock answer has always been 'Mexican'. Wahaca have a fair bash at it, and there are a couple of streetfood stalls that aren't completely hideous, but most of the time I'm baffled that food so full of joy and life on the streets of Mexico somehow morphs into Tex-Mex Las Iguanas slop when it hits these shores.

But perhaps I'm just more concerned about Mexican food in the UK because I know how good it can be when done properly. I've never been to Greece, for example, so the relative dearth of good Greek restaurants in London never really bothered me too much; perhaps if I'd spent many a happy summer holiday eating fresh sardines by the beach in Naxos then it would annoy me I couldn't do the same in London but nothing I've learned about spanakopita, moussaka, dolmades and the like really has me thinking I'm missing out on that much... (sorry Greece).

Similarly, and continuing in my efforts to insult the culinary traditions of as many of my fellow Europeans as possible in one blog post, Portugal. Unlike my knee-jerk prejudice against Greek food, I have at least actually been to Portugal - specifically Lisbon. I went to a chicken restaurant that the whole of Twitter said was the best in town - Bonjardim - to find a bit of overcooked bird without much to recommend it, and was doubly annoyed when I was charged extra for nibbling on a bit of factory baguette (this cover charge business is apparently a Thing over there). The next night we went to a Michelin starred place which served a kind of bland international cuisine that could have come from anywhere. And the famous Belem Pastel de Nata (custard tarts) were fine but hardly worth an international voyage.

So when I say that the food at Taberna do Mercado is better than anything I've ever had in Portugal, or any other Portuguese food in London (nobody say the N word), that's certainly true, but still not much of a recommendation. Let's start at the beginning, with an item on the menu under the heading "Snacks" called "Runner bean fritters and bulhão pato [white wine]". A giant mass of tempura batter, studded with onions and runner beans, slowly dissolving into a cold soup of some kind, it was exactly as weird as that sounds. Pulling apart the constituent vegetables into anything bitesize was a messy and difficult business, and although it didn't taste terrible, any of the batter that had come into contact with the white wine soup was the consistency of wallpaper paste. I have absolutely no idea what I was supposed to do with this, and £5 for a few beans and batter isn't exactly value.

Bisaro pork "cachaco" (smoked neck) was good, moist but not too fatty and with a nice paprika kick.

Alheira is apparently another type of Portuguese sausage, only these had been worked into strange misshappen croquette things with a faintly disturbing mushy texture. However, the "spring tomatoes" they came with were excellent, seasoned perfectly and with bags of flavour, and even the watercress on top was noteworthy thanks to a super dressing.

Our favourite of the savouries was this - Bisaro (a rare breed of pig from Fundão) pork tartare, Cozido (a Portuguese stew) broth and cabbage. Aggressive seasoning initially threatened to spoil it but once you'd got past the salty top layer it turned into an incredibly rewarding and commendably unusual dish, dainty cubes of flash-seared pork all smoky and tender from the grill, in a clear, rich broth. Well worth the £9.

But then a beef prego sandwich brought us back down to earth. The problem with a lot of steak sandwiches is that the steak either needs to be chopped into little bits (Philly-cheesesteak style) or impossibly thin, or impossibly tender (or all three) to be able to eat it without the entire filling being dragged out with your first bite. Which was exactly what happened here. There was nothing wrong with the beef, it just didn't belong in a sandwich, and combined with the tasteless dry bread and (though no doubt authentic) deeply unsettling seafood paste (dare I say Shippams? No, I'm not that cruel), it all added up to a very unsatisfying whole.

Which makes the dessert all the more bizarre. Because, somewhat against expectations by this point, it was completely wonderful. Not only did it look almost too precious to eat, with a luminescent orange center (thickened with pork fat, but don't let that put you off) resting in a port sauce dotted with oil the colour of rare gemstones, but the flavour was just as impressive, a salt custard flan so light it just dissolved in the mouth. As a statement of intent - accomplished, unique and brilliant - it's something Taberna do Mercado should be inordinately proud of. I just wish there'd be a few more dishes that lived up to it.

All said and done, though, at least this is something new - at least, new for London. And whether or not it does the food of Portugal (which of course I'm sure I've not seen the best of) justice, that's certainly not for me to judge. All I can tell you is it's a mid-priced European restaurant in the center of London that does a few things quite well, a few other things not so well, and one thing brilliantly. At least it's not another Nando's.

7/10

There's plenty of options in Spitalfields if Taberna do Mercado doesn't take your fancy. Use my app to find them.

Bleecker St Burger, Old Spitalfields Market

As a sort of comfort food double-bill with the excellent Sticky Wings, I thought I'd put down a few words on the equally excellent Bleecker Burger, veterans (I'm sure they won't mind me saying) of the streetfood scene, who are currently pitching up at Old Spitalfields Market from Wednesday to Sunday.

You'd think after all these years of Burgers In London that there wouldn't be much more to say about the subject. After reading this post you may still think the same. But though we may very well have reached market saturation in many respects, there is equally no reason to ignore, or even loftily dismiss, anyone as accomplished, talented and committed as Bleecker Burgers just because they have a lot more competition these days. So I'm sorry if you're sick of hearing about burgers, but if that's the case a) you really have come to the wrong blog, and b) plenty of people haven't. Including me. So there.

What we have here is the "Bleecker Black". Two medium-rare chunks of lovely, crumbly loose-minced beef, either side of a puck of rich black pudding. Seasoned and softened by a slice of melty yellow cheese, a touch of mild mustard and inside a good firm seeded brioche, this is a burger-lover's burger, the result of a true expert knowledge of what works and what doesn't when it comes to beef in a bun. Contrast, for example, the decision to use black pudding here (a departure from generic norms but one that only makes it burger with a twist, not transforming it into something else) with the bizarre selection of ingredients thrown together by some bandwagon-jumpers who had no interest in burgers at all before they realised there was money to be made. Mentioning no names.

I also tried these Angry Fries - chips (and very good chips at that) soaked in hot sauce (possibly Frank's but don't hold me to that) and a marvellous creamy blue cheese concoction of some kind. After finishing off two rounds of beef and a black pudding I'm afraid I hardly had room for more than a mouthful, but they were still memorable, the blue cheese flavour in particular having none of that disturbing staleness that seems to afflict cheaper versions.

I'd last tried a Bleecker Burger a couple of years ago when street food collective Kerb were still on that gravelled path between Kings Cross station and the canal. I remember being impressed but not besotted; the bun was a bit crumbly and the flavour of the beef a bit thin. But the joy of independent operations like this is that they're free to experiment with their butcher and baker and other suppliers; they aren't forced to nail down a recipe so the "concept" can be inevitably "rolled out". So Bleecker have tweaked their mince ratios, improved their buns, and over time ended up with this, surely one of the best examples in the city. And if you still can't bear to be anything so mainstream as a burger-lover, well, that's just your loss.

9/10

Le Bouchon Breton, Spitalfields

The Bouchon Bordelais has been a fixture on Battersea Rise for as long as I've been living in the area, and I walk past its front doors almost every weekend on the way to the shops and stalls on Northcote Road. I went once, a few years ago, for lunch. It wasn't bad - they served nice skinny chips and I quite enjoyed my steak (this being before the time I really knew what good steak was) - but a friend's mullet was nasty (the fish, not his hairdo) and for the price I paid I decided it wasn't worth the outlay so I've never been back.


But a week or so ago I noticed a new menu posted outside the Bordelais. Kind of a cross between a French bistro and Corbin and King (the brains behind the Wolseley, the Ivy and others), it now has a larger selection of more varied dishes, from a simple bowl of soup to a 500g steak frites, much of it quite affordable and all of it, I have to say, very tempting. Turns out the Bouchon brand had been revamped by none other than M. Roux of Le Gavroche fame, and even has a sister restaurant newly opened in Spitalfields Market in the East End. And it was this new branch, named Le Bouchon Breton, that I visited for lunch Friday last week.


If first impressions were all that counted, Le Bouchon Breton wouldn't be at all bad. The room is airy and pleasant, having done the best they can with what is essentially a goldfish bowl on the first floor of a brand new office development. It's perhaps best described as a Parisien bistro reimagined by Norman Foster, but I liked the fresh seafood counter out the front and the atmosphere was buzzy without being oppressively loud. It's populated by an impressive number of smart "French" (more of that later) waiters with a ready smile and competent manner, and after being seated and presented with those exciting menus, I was on a high. I should have left there and then.


The first sign of trouble was that after our initial meet and greet it took us a good fifteen minutes to flag down a waiter to order, and when we asked for a bottle of house white he insisted we waited for the sommelier. We only wanted house white, and the intervention of the sommelier would hardly have convinced us otherwise, but procedures are procedures and pointless pretentious flummery is pointless pretentious flummery I suppose. After another five or ten minutes and the sommelier had steadfastly refused to appear, we managed to grab another waiter who took our order for wine without complaint.


There was yet more time for the hapless service to flounder during the food order. "Madame, s'il vous plait?" one began to a member of our party who happened to be French. Instantly she rattled off her order in her mother tongue, only to be interrupted mid-flow by the blushing waiter who quietly explained that he was, in fact, Russian and couldn't speak French. A sweet, and rather humorous incident you might think, but it just reinforced the impression that in the effort for that elusive notion of authenticity the management may have inadvertently just created a French theme restaurant. "Go up to people and introduce yourself in French", you can imagine the management saying. "They'll be too stupid to understand or reply, but they'll forgive all kinds of horrors with the food if they think this is how the French do it". Kind of a Gallic TGI Fridays, but with more expensive wine.


The food, when it eventually arrived, was only OK. My French Onion Soup had a great big crouton dissolving soggily inside it and had clearly been standing under a heat lamp for a while. It also had no toasted cheesy crust on the top, although the actual broth was satisfyingly beefy. It was no better than the £2.50 example you can get from the Eat sandwich chains on Mondays though. And my main course of lamb cutlets in rosemary jus would have been a whole lot nicer had they used decent meat - Hawksmoor, just around the corner on Commercial Street, serves the tastiest cuts of lamb in London for exactly the same price. Here they were fatty and tasteless and drowned by the strong sauce. Opinions around the table from my fellow diners were similarly mixed; a steak baguette was dry and uninteresting, the lobster bisque was overly creamy and didn't contain enough lobster. The overall impression was of a restaurant trying to increase its margins by cooking smaller amounts of inferior ingredients, and you have to have real skill in the kitchen to pull this off successfully. Le Bouchon Breton may have culinary genius M. Roux on its management team, but it's only with him in the kitchen that it would stand a chance turning out food worth paying for.

Perhaps it's silly to criticize a French restaurant in London for not being authentic, but the tragedy is that I can see what they are trying to do. Affordable bistro style food covering all bases, recognisably French and served in an informal setting - it sounds like most people's idea of a perfect dining spot. The fact that Le Bouchon Breton falls so short just shows how difficult it is to get that balance right. This may not be the last I see of the Bouchons - the £12.50 lunch menu is still generously priced and of course there's the revamped Battersea Branch that might yet win me back - but the experience on Friday lunchtime was summed up quite neatly by a fellow diner as she peered miserably into her insipid lobster bisque - "We should have just gone to the Fox again".

5/10