The Cinnamon Club, Westminster

There was a time, back in the dim and distant past, when I was rather sniffy about high-end Indian food. It started, I think, with a rather unsatisfying experience at Benares in Mayfair, where I had a couple of little bowls of curry, some quite nice chicken tikka, and some mini poppadums and was charged about £45. Then not so long after I went to a blogger's dinner at Tamarind, which though better in terms of variety still felt a bit half-hearted, shackled (I thought) by the constraints of Michelin-starred dining when Indian food should be all about fire, spice and immediacy.

The thing is, I have a feeling that both of the above - Benares and Tamarind - were even at the time much better than I gave them credit for. Being a hopeless devotee of noisy canteen restaurants like Tayyabs, Lahore and Mirch Masala, I probably regarded the soft furnishings and silver service of the high-end as missing some vital element of heart and passion, as if whatever it is that makes Indian food so good couldn't possibly thrive next to fine wines and tablecloths.

Which is of course, not only completely wrong but slightly patronising. The French can have Arpege as well as their local bistros, the British can have Fera and a pie and mash shop happily co-existing. So why can't Indian/Pakistani food be just as much about tasting menus and fine dining as it is about queueing in Whitechapel for a mixed grill?

The only worry is that with new kids on the block Gymkhana and Trishna stealing all the awards, press and limelight, stalwarts like Westminster's Cinnamon Club can too easily be overlooked. But I am pleased to report that every table in this beautiful old library was taken on Tuesday night, and for good reason too - the food, every bit of it, from start to end, was absolutely superb.

That's not to say everything about the evening was perfect, however. Staff were a little thinly spread, and flagging them down for drinks was occasionally tricky. Martinis used room-temperature glass, meaning by the time they'd got to the table they were approaching lukewarm, and I think even though we were happy to plough our way through the £75 tasting menu (it was a Tuesday after all) it would have been nice for them to bring naan breads and chutneys without us asking.

But all the niggles were answered with things like this - king scallops with cauliflower and sumac couscous, perfectly crusted and packed full of flavour, texture provided by crumbly veg and a lovely dollop of sweet chutney.

And this - a moist, charcoal-grilled partridge breast, with a fresh raita and some expertly dressed salad. When the dishes first appeared your first reaction is one of slight disappointment; presentations seem dated and lazy, just thrown on a plate then sent out. But the flavours and techniques make up for it in spades - these are top ingredients treated with care and with a masterfully subtle command of spicing.

How else, for example, would you explain how a cube of chickpea with coriander chutney and spiced yoghurt was almost the highlight of the entire meal? Beguiling flavours and wonderful textures creating a single exquisite mouthful of joy. "I could eat about thirty of these I think" my friend said, as we were polishing up the leftover spiced yoghurt with our fingers.

King prawns with shallot raita again looked like nothing much special on the plate, but had been grilled to perfection, containing moist bouncy flesh and a deep, earthy spice mix.

A palate-cleanser of mint and lime sorbet (no complaints) came before a fillet of sea bass, a good crunchy skin covering soft, moist flesh. Underneath, curried chickpea and chorizo was like a fine, slow-cooked Indian cassoulet. Technically precise, but also packed with a balance of flavour that meant you never wanted it to end.

Roast venison with black stone flower and onion reduction combined classical French techniques with a few slices of perfectly moist deer loin, and some crunchy bits and pieces of root vegetables. Of all the dishes this was perhaps the most straightforward, but was still nearly impossible to fault - if you can't enjoy pink venison, roast potatoes and a thick reduced onion sauce, then there's surely something wrong with you.

I'm not entirely sure how to describe this - it was sort of a cross between yoghurt and cream, but was quite grainy in texture. In fact I didn't like it much, although the rice crispies were quite nice.

This sticky toffee pudding - sorry, spiced apple pudding - was more like it though, caramely and rich with a nice rich cinnamon ice cream on a little circle of brandy snap. I've never really had a dessert worth writing home about in an Indian restaurant, so the fact they've decided to go down the traditional English pudding route is understandable. I loved it.

And I loved much of the rest of it. OK, asking for bread was a bit annoying and I could have done with a colder martini but when you leave a restaurant grinning from ear to ear and determined to do it all again the first chance you get, you know you're onto a good thing. £115+service is not a trivial amount to spend on dinner, not by a long shot, but if you consider it's 10+ courses with about 8 glasses of wine, well, it's not really a ripoff either. This fine old institution is just a new set of tableware and a glass freezer away from being unassailable. Or perhaps the 90s stylings are part of its charm. Either way, here's to another 10 years.

8/10

Photos taken with a Canon 700D with 50mm lens, kindly loaned from Canon

I wasn't invited to the Cinnamon Club but for various reasons we didn't end up paying . Mentioning it here in the interests of full disclosure anyway.

Quilon, Westminster

My history with what I shall call, for want of a better word, "posh" Indian restaurants has not been entirely happy. I remember being vaguely impressed with Cinnamon Club many years ago, but that was mainly the stunning room (Old Westminster Library) and the fact that every other table contained an MP or two to gawk at. The food at Tamarind was pretty dull and although the service and setting was plush enough it was all very pricey for the fairly standard ingredients, even taking into account the location in the heart of Mayfair. The real low point was Benares, where I paid the best part of £50 for a meal that could have come from almost any high street balti hut, right down to the naans, bowls of bog-standard curry and chicken tikka pieces. None of the above were ever anything less than tasty, but then this kind of thing rarely is anyway, and I'm not paying four times over the going rate for white tablecloths and Molton Brown in the loos if all I'm getting on my plate is another bowl of chicken dansak. So after a while, I gave up and decided that it really wasn't worth paying over £20 a head for Indian food. A massive, ill-researched generalisation perhaps, but that's what this blog is all about.

So despite recommendations, glowing reviews and the fact that I worked about ten steps away from it for the best part of two years, it's taken me this long to visit Quilon. And when I was invited to review the place on Sunday I expected, in all honesty, yet another Posh Indian experience - silver service, white tablecloths, nice toilets, expensive, boring food. But actually, I was only half right. The silver service, the white tablecloths, the little scrapy things which clear the table of crumbs, these were all present and correct. What didn't go to plan was the price, which at £23 for 3 courses was fairly reasonable, and the food, which was utterly delicious.


It was a slow start, though. Mini poppadums were cute I suppose but the supplied tomato and coconut chutneys were rather dull. Much better were the pickles that garnished every table, including some preserved garlic cloves with herbs, and a great red mixed pickle. I didn't really think they needed to bother with the fresh chutneys but then I suppose these fancier places have to cater to a wider range of chilli resistance levels. On a similar note, various items on the menu were starred as being 'spicy' but in fact would best be described as 'mild' compared to more authentic eateries. One such dish was...


...these wonderfully moist fillets of Dakshini pepper chicken which had a brilliantly subtle flavour of green peppercorns and tangy tikka yoghurt dressing underneath. I couldn't decide between these and the masala dosa for my starter so Quilon very kindly brought me half portions of both. The dosa was, in all honesty, not quite as nice as the one at Jaffna House the other night but was still very good, and it was great fun spooning the sauce over the top and making it look like an erupting volcano.


Before the main courses came a warm glass of spicy curried tomato soup of some kind, which I'm going to struggle to do justice to with my perfunctory knowledge of Indian spices but take it from me, it was fantastic. Warming, comforting, fresh and exciting, I think I also detected some earthy notes of potato in there, but I could be wrong.




My main course - "Non-vegetarian catamaran lunch" - was actually several main courses, a kind of a mini tasting menu of South Indian cuisine. There was a piece of tilapia roasted in plantain leaf, subtly spicy and if perhaps slightly overcooked then forgivable thanks to the wonderful flavours in the sauce; a bowl of spinach poriyal had a good mix of textures and fresh ingredients; something called pachadi was a bit like a raita containing crunchy pomegranate seeds and cumin; and a richly flavoured and creamy bowl of mango curry went very well mopped up with an interesting type of bread I'd never seen before - an appam - which looked like an edible bowl with a thick, fluffy centre. Best of all these though was a simply wonderful chicken dish (a masala? I couldn't find it anywhere else on the menu) containing superbly moist pieces of meat and the richest, densest, most addictively flavoured tomato curry sauce I have ever eaten in my life. If I go back to Quilon, and I'm almost certain I will, it will be for this dish above all others. Pretty much perfect.



Dessert came with the lunch menu and was pleasant if unspectacular. The bananas topping the banana pudding were a little flavourless although the rum and raisin ice cream was good. I probably should have just swapped this course out for another bowl of that chicken tomato curry thing.


With a very good sweet mango lassie to start, as well as a bowl of lemon rice and another interesting bread - a paratha - the bill would have still come to under £30 a head which is fantastic value for this range and quality of food. I left Quilon absolutely stuffed and deliriously happy, but more importantly the whole concept of posh Indian restaurants actually started to make sense. At Jaffna House, although the food was delicious and the place charming in its own rustic way, eating in a poky front room off plastic tablecloths and having to ask several times for your drink isn't for everyone. Sometimes it's nice to enjoy slightly grander surroundings, and to be waited on properly, with charming, smart staff who know what they're doing. And for these occasions, if you don't mind paying slightly more, somewhere like Quilon makes perfect sense. It's easy, comfortable, fun, and in its own way, very good value for money. And if it turns out it's the only posh Indian I ever really see the point of, well, I will still be eternally grateful for its existence.

8/10



I was invited to review Quilon

Osteria dell'Angolo, Westminster

So, we've done Zucca, we've done Trullo. Each, in their own way, brilliant crowd- (and critic-) pleasing local Italian restaurants that punch well above their weight for their price point and together form almost a statement of intent regarding the direction that Italian cuisine can, and should, take in the capital. But what of anywhere else? Bloggers, and the network of similarly-minded foodies on Twitter, have a distinct pattern of behaviour - good places are highlighted and obsessed over weeks before they open (and occasionally even after), bad places are gleefully and publicly trashed, and everywhere falling between these two extremes is comprehensively ignored. For Sichuan you go to Chilli Cool, for burgers you go to Byron, for steak, Hawksmoor or Goodman. Anywhere else might as well not even exist, unless of course you're Cantina Laredo or Guerilla Burgers in which case we'll quite happily line up and give you a thousand reasons why you shouldn't go. It may not be fair, it may not even be particularly helpful, but that's just the way it works.



So, then, what of the hundreds of other mid-range Italian restaurants quietly peddling their wares in forgotten corners of the capital? One of them is Osteria dell'Angolo in Westminster, inside which I and Carla of BribedWithFood (who lived for many years in Italy and knows her stuff) found ourselves sheltering from the rain last night. We were there on recommendation of a number of ex-pats who spoke of an authentic vibe, friendly (and 100% Italian) staff and a mouth-watering menu of modern Italian food. I'm not sure quite how 'hotel breakfast bar' translates into an authentic Italian restaurant vibe, but Carla assured me that it felt true enough for her, and I can certainly vouch for the friendliness of the staff - if not always their competency (we noticed a diner across from us having to ask twice to be brought cutlery, as his food sat slowly cooling on the table in front of him). As for the food...


Unfortunately we got off to a bit of a bad start. Amuses consisted of a couple of smoked salmon and peppered cream cheese crostini, which would have been pleasant enough (if dull) if they hadn't been served on stale cold bread that crumbled unpleasantly in the mouth. How difficult would it have been to toast some fresh bread to order - surely it would have taken seconds? These had been kept refrigerated and tasted of laziness.


The house bread selection was much better. Foccacia in particular was moist and dense and with a lovely golden crust. A cheesy roll of some sort was studded with caraway seeds and went down very well. Even the cracker thingies (yes alright, Carla told me their proper name but I'd had a couple of glasses of wine) tasted delicate and fresh. Ironically, if we'd have just been presented with the bread basket and they'd left out the amuses altogether, we would have felt better off.



Starters were pretty good. A classic beef carpaccio with parmesan shavings definitely had a ring of the safe and familiar to it, but was no less tasty for that - the parmesan was nicely aged and the beef perfectly seasoned, although it probably wouldn't otherwise have been the most flavoursome meat. Octopus was better, with sweet and tender slices of seafood and some delicate slightly pickled veg.


In true Italian multi-course style, we split up the starters and mains with a single dish of squid-ink gnocci, which were fantastic. Dense parcels of heavily squiddy gnocchi sat in a silky sea-bass and bean sauce, garnished with a few broad beans. There was absolutely nothing not to like, and mopping up the rich sauce with the little spongey gnocchi was a delight.



Mains were more of a mixed bag. Carla's tuna looked like it could have done with more vigorous searing on the outside, but was nevertheless cooked properly medium and tasted fine. But I'm afraid my 'crusted veal' (kind of mini schnitzels) were soggy and tasted overwhelmingly of oil despite the presence of what would otherwise probably have been an interesting mix of herbs in the breadcrumbs. They were served on a bed of boiled celery and surrounded by some miniscule slices of spring onion and a thick, sweet jus which didn't cut through the greasy veal pieces at all. I left most of it.


Too full for dessert we ordered the bill, which with a bottle of white and a coffee came to £110 including service. It's more or less what we expected, and a few months ago I would have probably given it a point or two higher and praised their authentic dishes and not stratospheric cost, but what a difference two trailblazing new restaurants and the power of collective foodie opinion can make. Osteria dell'Angolo is not, by a long way, a bad restaurant, and I know plenty of people - normal, well-balanced people who just go out expecting nothing more than a nice meal and don't obsess over the latest restaurant openings like their lives depended on it - who would have a thoroughly decent evening here. Sadly, I am not one of those people. I can't help the fact I've been to Trullo and Zucca and know that there's better out there, and for less. I also can't help the fact that I know, heart of hearts, that I wouldn't ever make the effort to go back to Osteria dell'Angolo. I know that these are more my problems than theirs, and I'm pretty sure they'll continue to make a fine living serving nice, normal Italian food to nice, normal people and the world will carry on turning. For us obsessive types though, Osteria dell'Angolo is not good enough to be noticed, and not bad enough to be noticed. Sorry, but that's just the way it works.

6/10