Covent Garden

Barrafina – Review

October 28, 2015 by Adrian Leave a Comment

Barrafina Covent Garden

43 Drury Ln, London WC2B 5AJ

http://www.barrafina.co.uk

Brothers Sam and Eddie Hart are two of the main players in the gastro-renaissance of the West End with Eddie playing the louche cherub to Sam’s somber businessman. Their first venture, the smart Charlotte St tapas restaurant Fino, raised the bar for Spanish food in London. Fino has recently closed but their second opening, Barrafina just up the road from Ronnie Scott’s in Frith St, has become a Soho classic with locals and tourists queueing down the street. It is modelled on one of the great Barcelona tapas bars-Cal Pep -and chef Nieves Barrigan, who clearly knows her albondingas from her boquerones, has a Michelin star to show for it. Their other gaffe is Quo Vadis (see my review) in Dean St which is now a partnership with chef Jeremy Lee. It’s one of my favourite restaurants in town being civilised but with a raffish undercurrent that I love. The food is great too…

So those charming Hart brothers have decided to open a couple more iterations of the Barrafina brand keeping it local with the two newbies both being in Covent Garden. The Adelaide St branch has a glamour factor missing from the cramped original but Fiona and I have ben invited to review the newest opening in Drury Lane.

If anything the interior is a mash up of its two siblings. It doesn’t quite have the 1930s liner-style elegance of its near neighbour but it isn’t as cramped as Frith St. The real issue for me is to whether the Drury Lane kitchen will match the level and consistency of the other two.

I’m chatting up an attractive American viola player à gauche whilst ignoring her husband when a nutty and complex glass of sherry from the the Hart Bros own label- a Manzanilla pasada en Rama (£6)- turns up with some stupendous olives (£3.20).

Stuffed courgette flower (£7.80) has a featherlight batter and is stuffed with a cream cheese and slathered with honey. It’s a sticky sexy dish.

Cuttlefish Empanada (£7.50) would be called Black Rice Pie up north but neither name capture the unctuous piscine sensuality of this dish. The viola player orders the standalone black rice and I convince her to share with me as the husband explains how the Euro economies should put their houses in order…

Fiona insists on Chips with Brava sauce (£5.80) and who am I to disagree. The smoked paprika and mayo combo is ideal with dry crispy chips. In case you were worried about our alcohol consumption we had moved on to a bottle of Tzakoli Ameztoi 2014 (£6.50 per glass)- Tzakoli is the deliciously light mineral sparkling white you find when you are on a txikiteo-the Basque equivalent of a pub crawl-around the bars of San Sebastián old town (Parte Vieja).

Razor Clams (£7.50) always seem rather rude to me. They are dead easy to cook but not that easy to find so I always order them when I can-as with snails the rubbery texture needs to be lubricated with oil and flavoured with garlic and herbs as they were here-yum.

The Caribinero (£16.50) is probably the poshest prawn you will meet with a price to match. Like a high-class hooker wearing NARS lippy she entices with her scarlet hue (named after the colour of the Spanish customs officers’ uniform) and packs more flavour than is decent. I sucked the juices out of the head and made a bit of a mess to be frank, but the viola player didn’t seem to mind…

Chipirones (£6.80) are baby squid-here deep-fried and paprika seasoned. I could stuff my face with endless amounts of these crisp squidgy squinfants.

Torrijas (£6.80) is a sort of ecclesiastical Spanish version of a French toast. Normally a Lenten treat, bread is soaked in milk and wine with honey and spice, then dipped in egg and fried in olive oil and before you can say triple heart bypass you have your Torrijas. I definitely felt spiritually enlightened and was about to convert the violist when I realised she had flown the coop…I drowned my sorrows with a smooth glass of Alameda Oloroso Cream made from blending old Oloroso’s with Pedro Ximinex (£6.50)-it was sweet but not too sweet but still with a raisiny backstory.

The Selection of Spanish cheeses (£12) featured a Manchego, a blue and a couple of others I was too drunk to remember. They were really good…!

All three Barrafinas are great places. With a no booking policy unless you are hiring one of their private dining rooms you now have three West End options for getting in. Prices aren’t cheap but for the quality of the produce, the standard of cooking and the buzz of the rooms complaining would just be bad-mannered.

Flesh & Buns – Review

January 12, 2014 by Adrian Leave a Comment

Flesh & Buns Covent Garden

Follow @Hedonisttweets

41 Earlham St, London WC2H 9LX

020 7632 9500/http://www.fleshandbuns.com

In a bare industrial basement near Covent Garden’s Seven Dials is Ross Shohan’s latest restaurant Flesh & Buns. Shohan was head chef at Nobu and more recently opened Bone Daddies, Soho’s hippest Ramen joint (Japanese noodles for the uninitiated)-but his new place specialises in Hirata. …OK don’t all put your hands up at once…Hirata are Taiwanese buns which you stuff with some salad, some meat or fish and some sauce. And that’s about that for the mains.

Soft shell crab @ Flesh & Buns

There is a mix of starters the highlight being a beautifully cooked soft shell crab in a tempura batter, served with a wasabi mayonnaise (£9.50).

Squid at Flesh & Buns

Squid came with a dry panko style breadcrumb coating and was mildly spiced with a Japanese pepper seasoning (£8). This was a less exciting option.

Hirata buns @ Flesh & Buns

So with Hirata the idea is to split and then stuff your two buns with lettuce, your choice of protein and then whatever sauce is provided. The bun is a light puff of dough which Chinatown bun aficionados would be familiar with.

Sole @ Flesh & Buns

Sole with a lemon mayo and pickled daikon (£14) came deep fried and in the process the subtlety of the fish was lost. Something more robust like mackerel, smoked eel or red mullet might be more suitable as a fish option.

Pork at Flesh & Buns

The Pork belly (£15) was the more traditional Hirata filling with the flesh being suitably melting and the pickled apple sauce matching perfectly. I have to say that pork Hirata had something of the hog roast at the village fete about it (a Taiwanese village of course)…

Masumi sake @ Flesh & Buns

There is a decent if small sake list-we drank a gentle Masumi sake (£7 for 125 ml) served rather dramatically into a wooden box until the cup verily ranneth over…

Flesh & Buns will give you a fun evening out with its loud rock’n roll soundtrack and youthful clientele but for The Hedonist it doesn’t have the atmosphere of Bone Daddies and despite some critics’ protestations the food isn’t quite as dirty/sexy as it would like to be.

Review-Balthazar

March 4, 2013 by Adrian 2 Comments

Balthazar Covent Garden

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4-6 Russell St, Covent Garden, WC2B5HZ

020 3301 1155/www.balthazarlondon.com/

Balthazar-Scarlet and Black or Cafe Rouge?

Bethnal Green Boy Keith McNally is one of New York’s top restaurateurs and is now making his London debut with the backing of Richard Caring, opening Balthazar, an all-day 150 seater Grand Brasserie in the refurbished London Transport Museum site in Covent Garden. It shares the same name as his New York flagship and there is a bakery attached to the restaurant overseen by Regis Beauregard, ex-Ritz head pastry chef.

There is no pretending-Balthazar is the hot table du jour. To get a table I had to go on repeat dial for an hour as the booking line opened and the restaurant was packed to the gills with food bloggers like moi and celebrities such as …Heston Blumenthal wearing specs that somehow made him look like Atom Ant. Now London is not short of faux French Brasseries and with Zedel, Colbert, The Wolseley and The Delaunay at the top end of the market there is definitely competition for McNally. However Covent Garden is undergoing something of a rebirth as a gastro-destination and there is nothing quite like this in the area and certainly nothing that has McNally’s transatlantic pulling power.

The room is dark wood and red leather, distressed walls and Art Deco flourishes. It’s a Hollywood set designer’s Brasserie wet dream and feels a bit fake compared to Zedel or the Wolseley which seem to be natural extensions of the pre-existing spaces. It’s also the doppelgänger of the New York room. None of this really matters except is there something a bit weird culturally about an Englishman opening a French brasserie in New York and then transplanting it to London? However none of this will matter if the food and vibe are great.

McNally has put together a crack team to realise his vision. Behind the bar is Brian Silva who had made a name for himself running the upstairs bar at Rules around the corner on Maiden Lane. He has put together a drinks list that combines classics with some house cocktails.

Negroni Finis

I ordered a Negroni Finis (£9.50) from the bar-a classic Negroni comprises equal measures of gin, Campari and sweet vermouth. This version replaces the sweet vermouth with Cinzano Orancio-an orange tinged vermouth-Byrrh, an aperitif made of red wine, mistelle (a part fermented grape juice), quinine, and passion fruit. The result is lighter and more fragrant than the original but retaining the complexity of flavour and delicious bitter Campari aftertaste. This was a great drink and perfect for pre-meal. So far so good-would the food stand up? The kitchen is overseen by executive chef Robert Reid, a man with real form, who had been in charge at Marco Pierre White’s 3 Michelin starred Oak Room in the Hyde Park Hotel.

Bread soon arrived-Poilane style brown slices and a small white baguette from their bakery next door. The brown was excellent with a wonderful malty crust.

For our starters we decided to share the Lobster and Black Truffle Risotto (£10.50) with cauliflower cream and black truffle butter. The rice still had plenty of bite and was encased in an unctuous sauce with plenty of lobster chunks and a deep rich truffle and lobster flavour. This was a very well executed dish showing a sense of care and precision from the kitchen.

By this point I was drinking a 2011 Daniel Chotard Sancerre (£10.50), an elegant manifestation of the grape with citrus and floral notes.

Roasted Fillet of Cod with crushed potatoes, olive tapenade and pistachios (£18.50) was a really well balanced plate of food. A good piece of fish presented Provençal style, not in any way showy but in some way recognisable as something put together by someone who constructed those amazing plates at The Oak Room and now working at a much lower price point in the context of the much larger turnover of a brasserie.

My friend Catherine ordered the Balthazar Cheeseburger (£16). Since this is the London iteration of a New York restaurant why not? It came encased in a brioche bun and garnered the comment that it ‘was not the best that she had eaten. ‘ However the real point of interest on her plate were the frites. The Balthazar frites had already been the subject of negative critical comment and in a joint like this should be perfect. Properly done they should be limp- these were hard and crisp all the way through and not in a good way. Sort out your frites Balthazar! However our garlicky side of Sauteed Spinach (£4.50) was impeccable.

At this point our waitress (who was tres jolie et agreable) forced dessert upon us. We shared a chocolate souffle (£10) which wobbled delightfully but was a bit too Hershey Bar in flavour for my liking. To help it down I drank a glass of Banyuls, Cuvee Leon Parce, Domaine de la Rectorie 2009 (£7 for 100ml). Banyuls is a fortified wine from Roussillon which drinks rather like a young port and it was a pretty good match for the souffle as neither of them were carrying the burden of intensity…

Balthazar is the hottest room in London at the moment. Go and enjoy that-and there’s some pretty good food there as well. And for the echt New York/Paris/London experience there is nowhere to beat it!