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The Hedonist

CUB – Review

November 23, 2017 by Adrian

CUB                                                                   Hoxton

Thursday, Friday, Saturday 6pm til late

155 Hoxton Street, London N1 6PJ

+44(0) 203 6933 202/cub@mrlyan.com

Sometimes something new happens. A paradigm shift occurs that changes the way we do things or see the world…CUB interiorI’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.IMG_2779Cub 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.IMG_2794First 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.IMG_2782A 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.

IMG_2784Bones Dulse was an intense and beautifully flavoured chicken stock with flakes of everyone’s favourite red algae adding a robust saltiness.
IMG_2783Stoneground 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.

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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.

Cinnamon Bazaar – Review

January 31, 2017 by Adrian

Cinnamon Bazaar                              Covent Garden

28 Maiden Ln, WC2E 7JS
020 7395 1400/cinnamon-bazaar.com
Exterior

Chef Vivek Singh of The Cinnamon Club fame has come up with an exciting new offer in Covent Garden and I’ve been invited to meet him and try out the food and drink. Vivek told me that this is the project in his career where he has had the most fun so I’m excited to see how that manifests itself on a plate.

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Inspired by the streetfood stalls in Indian bazaars the restaurant is a fusion of food and drink in a creative partnership with Ryan Chetayawardana (a.k.a. Mr Lyan) whose bar Dandylyan won the Best New Bar In The World award. This is a serious coming together of talents.
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 India inspired cocktails have a habit of going horribly wrong. I had a terrible take on a Negroni recently at Dum Biryani. However a Bazaar Old Fashioned (£10.50), a spiced whisky cocktail featuring coconut washed Indian Scotch, coconut sugar and burnt cinnamon was delicious and not too sweet. It was a grown-up accompaniment to the spiced olives and other bar snacks. Fiona really enjoyed her Masala Cola Float made with very organic Karma Cola, a product that will do for colas what Fevertree has done for tonics.
IMG_0137We started with a selection of chaats. Vivek explained that chaat as an Indian street food dish was both customisable and sophisticated. These were the best I’ve eaten and I would quite happily have munched on them all night (why not start a chaat restaurant Vivek?). Watermelon chaat was a wonderful balance of spicy crunch and the sweetness of the watermelon. The yoghurt in a Dahi bhalla chaat had a great sense of coolness from the spice. Jodhpuri kachori chaat were onion dumplings combining crunch and heat, and a Papdi Chaat was more traditional.
IMG_0116Kadhai spiced bullet chillies were like a spiced padron pepper-a perfect snack to go with the cocktails.
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For our starters a Lamb Galauti Kebab sat on a light, flaky saffron paratha and was moist and tender.
IMG_0123Curry leaf and cracked black pepper fried shrimp was a simple dish but so tasty!
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Tandoori chutney paneer tikka had a firm paneer with great spicing and was a lovely dish.
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Kabuli kofta was a rich, spiced, caramelised bullet of chickpeas in an intense tomato sauce.
IMG_0132Mains included a deconstructed Tandoori made of beautifully tender Kentish lamb. But I loved my dish of Kolkata spiced cod, mustard and red onion, caramel puffed rice which was a great balance of spice, flavour and texture. Annoyingly everyone else loved it too and kept trying to eat it…
IMG_0130Sides included a richly flavoured Lucknow style chicken biryani, an unctuous black daal and pokey spicy potatoes.
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For dessert we tried a carrot halwa roll with a sensational clove ice-cream. I eat out a lot and there wasn’t a weak dish here.
Bazaar interior
We were treated to a real feast at Cinnamon Bazaar. The quality and diversity of the food was terrific and the cocktail pairings worked brilliantly. But I guess if you have a top chef who understands the art of hospitality working with the best mixologist in the world it should be good!

Square Meal

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