Hoxton

CUB Hoxton

Thursday, Friday, Saturday 6pm til late

155 Hoxton Street, London N1 6PJ

Sometimes something new happens. A paradigm shift occurs that changes the way we do things or see the world…I’ve been a fan of Ryan Chetiyawardana for some time. Going under the moniker of Mr Lyan He is the prizewinning mixologist and entrepreneurial spirit behind zeitgeisty joints such as White Lyan, Dandelyan and Super Lyan. He’s even managed to create cocktails to match successfully with Indian food at several of Vivek Singh’s restaurants (see my review here). Ryan has joined forces with an A-Team of corporate, creative and scientific collaborators including Doug McMaster of ‘pioneering zero waste’ restaurant Silo in Brighton, Krug Champagne, Belvedere and LVMH and Dr Arielle Johnson (food scientist at Restaurant Noma, now at MIT, Boston). Together they have created Cub which rather ingenuously claims to follow ‘a simple premise of bringing people together through great food and drink’. Your local Harvester could claim to do that. This is a much more sophisticated proposition and has the feel of a research project as much as a restaurant.Cub is on Hoxton Street in East London in the space that housed White Lyan bar. Unlike Hoxton Square which has become a hideous hipster Disneyland, the street has retained some edge and authenticity. I arrive with her Ladyship. She’s an ubercool grande dame in her nineties who has seen and done it all and the trendy young crowd look horrified as we totter in. It’s as if your dad and grandma had turned up ready to rave at your teenage party . However the staff were happy to accommodate us when we politely refused the offered table, being moved into a mustard yellow booth shared with three restaurant industry types. The space is cramped somehow shoehorning 35 covers into a space the size of an average chippie. Food and drinks are prepared together behind the bar. Our waiter convinces us to go for the set menu which includes four courses and four drinks. He’s absolutely right as there is a tiny a la carte menu and with the keen pricing of the set menu it makes little sense to do anything else.First out was a pretty coupe of Krug champagne with a ‘water jelly’, actually agar flavoured with olive oil and mandarin, and ‘spiked’ herbs. The mandarin flavour emphasised the citrus notes of the Krug and it made for an enervating opener.A salty chilled yellow tomato was given extra sweetness by slivers of muscat grapes and scented with a grape and lemon verbena dressing with a splash of Douglas fir pine oil for added Nordic appeal. This was really a delicious textural dialogue with layers of fresh flavours blended together – my only criticism is that it is maybe more of a summer dish. Our matching drink of chervil tops, Belvedere vodka and cider vermouth was a light, clean cider with a hint of the vegetal.

Bones Dulse was an intense and beautifully flavoured chicken stock with flakes of everyone’s favourite red algae adding a robust saltiness.

Stoneground sourdough bread from the E5 bakery was tangy with a fantastically crisp and rich crust – served with a creamy whipped butter made in-house. An unexpected glass of Halia saison style peach Pale ale from the Goose Island Beer Company had a similar yeasty sourness though not the expected lusciousness of the Georgia peach flavour.

The next dish poetically titled root, ripple apple and turbo whey featured revelatory flavours from the soft chervil and parsley roots with a massive umami hit coming from the brown rice miso whey.

Young cauliflower, black garlic and lemon thyme was another standout dish with the tender cauliflower florets sitting on a bed of cauliflower purée and salty feta with an acidic dressing giving the dish a real zing.

Rare tea, tea stems and compressed plum created a light, fragrant tea with a wicked sliver of plum soaked in absinthe and apricot and apple brandy bringing back the decadence. A lovely smokey peated barley ice cream (made with the grain from Scotch production) was served with apple skin and fig leaf oil. We finished with a sensuous blend of Square mile coffee, Cognac and Peach mixed with distillates of Szechuan pepper, Menthol and Capsicum.

CUB creates a new kind of offer for London; informal, eco-friendly, cutting edge, blurring the boundaries between gastronomy and mixology, no meat in sight, serving a wide range of highly creative food-matched drinks, and good value. It feels like the future is here.

Beagle Hoxton

397-400 Geffrye Street, E2 8HZ

020 7613 2967/www.beaglelondon.co.uk/

I’ve been going to Hoxton for years well before it became so trendy that even the train station sign is cool. From the mid 80s on I used to play at The Bass Clef jazz club which also became an important venue in the early drum and bass scene, the club nights subsidising the more swinging bass and drum sounds of the jazz cats. Watching an area you know change so radically is a bit like watching a child develop. Brats can become sophisticated, urbane and charming and the sweetest children can turn into monsters….

Beagle is a restaurant and bar situated in a couple of railway arches right next to the station. It’s the baby of Danny and Kieran Clancy who are music promotors and in the kitchen is James Ferguson, who used to run the kitchen at Rochelle Canteen, Margot Henderson’s (wife of St. John’s Fergus) critically acclaimed East London joint. I don’t know Margot but she has danced to my piano playing a few times-I admire a woman who will shake a blue stockinged leg-and on that basis I’m hoping for good things from Ferguson.

The Bar at The Beagle

The bar space is bright and buzzy and in the evening when lit up it looks pretty sexy. But down to business-we are here to sample the cocktail and bar snacks menu.

Hoxton Fizz and a Master Grey

We start off with a Hoxton Fizz (£8). It’s a cool cucumber, vodka, lemon juice and elderflower concoction and is a perfect cooler for an early summer’s evening. The Master Grey (£8) has more of a citrus flavour and tasted like a Tequila Sunrise that had gone to finishing school. It was a blend of blanco Tequila, Earl Grey, lemon juice, orange juice and marmalade.

With the alcohol starting to hit the spot it was time for some nosh. Grilled pepperoncini (£3.50) were hot and salty-without the kick of the now ubiquitous Padron peppers but still very good.

Brisket with red cabbage

Slow cooked beef brisket with pickled red cabbage( £6.50) needed something creamy to pick it up , maybe some horseradish, as brisket is a dry cut.

Smoked cod’s roe (£5) was tangy and had a depth of flavour like a proper Greek taramasalata. It came with really good toasted bread and was the best of the dishes.

Lady of Bergamot

For “dessert” we had a Lady of Bergamot made from Gin, Bergamot, lemon and egg white (£8.50). It was a kind of runny lemon syllabub cocktail and pretty good for that.

I’d be very happy if Beagle was my local hangout. The cocktails are reasonably priced and well made with distinct flavours and there is an attractive selection of local beers; the small but perfectly formed bar menu had some definite hits. I’d like to try the restaurant next to see how Ferguson fares on a bigger scale.

The Hedonist was a guest of Beagle

CUB – Review

CUB Hoxton

Beagle – Review

Beagle Hoxton