tapas

El Parador – Review

January 12, 2017 by Adrian

El Parador Camden

245 Eversholt St, Kings Cross, NW1 1BA

020 7387 2789/elparadorlondon.com

I had heard rumours about El Parador in Camden for a while-that it is a little hidden gem, a family run tapas restaurant running for 30 years with a lovely garden and a favourite of celebrities and politicians. It’s the sort of place that you don’t tell people about because you want to keep it for yourself…So I was pleased to be asked to review it to find out what the fuss was about…After an initial glass of a deliciously nutty Fino (£4.70) we dug into Pure de Habas (£4.80)-broad bean, confit garlic and rosemary which came with some very serviceable bread. It was a warm coarse purée spiked with the garlic and rosemary flavours-rustic and gutsy flavours.Salteado (sautéed) de Solomillo were tender and richly flavoured goujons of steak marinated with garlic and black pepper and pan-fried with roasted yellow cherry tomatoes, port and butter. For the non-meat eaters Salteado de Calabaza con Espinacas (£6.50) was a luscious Mediterranean plateful of butternut squash roasted with oregano and and garlic oil then pan fried with spinach, feta and toasted sunflower seeds. It had that crunchy/squidgy thing going on and made me forget about the cold, winter weather outside. We were drinking a Guy Allion Sauvignon Blanc Touraine £27.50, a steely, grassy white with a hint of lime that was robust enough to stand up to the food.Goujons of tuna with asparagus, chilli, garlic and Madeira (£8) were seared to the point that the fish fell to pieces in your mouth (in a good way) with a hint of sweetness coming from the Madeira. I love the way the Spanish use fortified wines in their cooking. Salteado de Chipirones (£6.80)- a dish of baby squid marinated with chilli, garlic and coriander and fried in olive oil was as good as a similar dish I tasted in La Boqueria market in Barcelona. It had deep, rich flavours that created great memories of one of the world’s great food destinations.Salteado de Hinojo Asado (£6.20) were Fennel hearts roasted with garlic oil and honey and pan fried with roasted red chillies and cherry tomatoes. The fennel was a sultry, aniseed sensation-slow cooked veg in olive oil makes my life better.For dessert a dense almondy Tarta de Santiago with cream (£5) was an obvious choice but I couldn’t resist the selection of cheeses (£8). A mature Manchego was rich and creamy, there was an earthy Garrotxa the Catalan goats milk cheese, a poky Picon blue from Asturias and a soft, nutty Mahon Cows milk from Minorca-a great way to end the meal.Service is friendly and relaxed in a room that is cosy and warm and perfect for convivial gatherings or earnest chat. This is clearly a restaurant much loved by its Camden clientele and when I’m in that part of town it will become my local too.

Berwick Street – Soho’s High Street

September 25, 2014 by Adrian Leave a Comment

Berwick Street – Soho’s High Street

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I have been coming to Soho since I was a small child at the start of the 1960s. My cosmopolitan Jewish grandfather was a fiddle player with a taste for the finer things in life and Soho was always our destination for poultry, veg, wine, patisserie, coffee and any foods from the Mediterranean. Even as a child I could sense that Soho had a sense of otherness. It was foreign, louche and disreputable and somehow it felt like home…

Berwick Street was laid out around the turn of the 18th century and named after James FitzJames, the first Duke of Berwick, the bastard son of James II and Arabella Churchill. A couple of buildings remain from that period; The Green Man pub has been serving drinks since 1738 and antique lighting emporium W Sitch & Co, the oldest shop in Soho, dates from the 1870s.

Contemporary Berwick Street is a mix of quirky independent traders ranging from vinyl shops to traditional London pubs, bespoke tailoring, colourful textile shops, vintage clothing, restaurants, coffee shops and fashion boutiques. What is exciting about it is that there are no chains which gives it a very different feel from the average British High St.

Berwick Street Market pulses with energy with traders selling cheeses, cakes, street food, artisan bread, fresh flowers and seasonal fruit and veg to the locals, chefs and to the many visitors coming to Soho for a foodie experience. The weekday street food market features well-known stalls such as Pizza Pilgrims, Freebird Burritos and Banh Mi.

We are starting our Berwick St day out with lunch at the Salt Yard Group’s wonderful new restaurant Ember Yard. It specialises in grilling and I have covered it in a separate review.

From Ember Yard we visited some of the shops that characterise both the past and future of Berwick St. Berwick Street has long been associated with fashion and textiles. We popped in to Misan Fabrics at number 32, one of their three shops on Berwick Street, who supply luxury textiles to local tailors, fashion students, the film and music industry and the theatrical costume makers of the West End. They were showcasing some fantastic tweed and woollen fabrics and I was tempted to get a couple of suits run up locally. Other fabric stores on the street include Biddle Sawyer Silks, Cloth House, The Silk Society and Borovick Fabrics.

Universal Works at 40 Berwick St are a menswear operation originating, as Paul Smith did, from Nottingham. This is their flagship store and it’s a great mix of classic and contemporary styles at affordable prices. Other clothing outlets include Reignwear vintage, tailor Chris Kerr, Bang Clothing Exchange and destination sneaker store Foot Patrol. Menswear designer Oliver Spencer, British clothing brand Percival, Swedish denim brand Nudie Jeans and Underground Shoes, which stocks limited edition product and special collaborations, all add to the fashion mix.

From Punk Rock days, Berwick Street has been known as ‘The Golden Mile of Vinyl’ with central London’s largest concentration of independent record shops; Reckless Records, Sister Ray and The Music and Video Exchange as well as Sounds of the Universe around the corner on Broadwick Street and Black Market Soho on D’Arblay Street.

Independent cycle shop and cafe Soho Bikes at number 26 stocks state of the art bikes as well as offering a full service facility and having an excellent little cafe serving great coffee and pastries.

Gosh Comics at number 1 stocks vintage and contemporary comics, graphic novels and children’s books. It’s a mecca for children of all ages and well worth a visit.

Our final stop is hardcore juice bar The Juice Well at 4 Peter St. As well as smoothies, juices, milks and tonics they offer multi-day juice cleansing regimes. We sampled a couple of their juices which are bursting with flavour and intensity-a perfect detox after our Ember Yard lunch.

Berwick Street and its environs are playing a full part in the restaurant renaissance of Soho. As well as Ember Yard, there is chef Florence Knight’s Polpetto (see our review). Part of Russell Norman’s Polpo group it serves brilliant cichetti, small plates of classic Venetian dishes, and features an aperitivo bar and an open kitchen. Alan Yau’s Chinese pub concept, Duck & Rice, will be joining the mix and open later this year also alongside his high end dim sum restaurant Yauatcha. The diverse food and drink offering on Berwick Street also includes tea specialist Yumchaa, a handful of quality coffee shops including Foxcroft & Ginger and Flat White, and on neighbouring Brewer Street café-meets-gallery Apostrophe, and Damson & Co (see our review) who have invented the concept of a British Deli Bar. Around the corner in D’Arblay St. is bijou French bistro Blanchette (see our review) and Soho’s own little corner of Seville Copita (see our review).

Berwick St combines a strong sense of identity with a diversity of experience. It’s really worth spending a day investigating its shops and restaurants to get a sense of Soho’s past, present and future.

Ember Yard – Review

September 22, 2014 by Adrian 2 Comments

Ember Yard Soho

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60 Berwick Street, London W1F 8SU

020 7439 8057/http://emberyard.co.uk

As part of a day out in Soho’s Berwick St Fiona from London Unattached and I were invited to have lunch at the Salt Yard Group’s new restaurant Ember Yard.

Their restaurants (Salt Yard, Dehesa and Opera Tavern) are all tapas based as is Ember Yard but as its name implies the new joint specialises in grilling, using a charcoal grill burning plum and sweet chestnut and a high temperature Josper grill.

Interiors are comfortable casual in brown wood and leather and as we perused the menu we sank a cocktail each from their unexpectedly intriguing looking drinks list.

Fiona had a Geppetto’s Tonica (Gin, Homemade Tonic Water and Grapefruit bitters-£10) which disappeared without a trace.

My Smoked Sazerac (Smoked sherry brandy, Peychaud bitters and anise perfume-£10) was a gentle take on the New Orleans classic with the sherry brandy infusing the drink with a delicious smokey aroma. Perfect for lunch…

But it was the food that we had come for. There are a lot of excellent tapas restaurants in London now-would Ember Yard deliver?

Grilled Flatbread with Honey, Thyme and Smoked Butter (£3.50) was chewy, smokey, with a hint of sweetness and a great char.

Padrón Peppers (£4.50) arrived with blistered skin and were hot, salty and full of flavour.

Grilled New Season Sardines with Summer Herb Emulsion and Crispy Sea Purslane (£6.50)-this was a great dish; the sardines’ skin was blackened to a crisp acting as a bitter counterpoint to the firm sweetness of the fish. Ember Yard majors in pairing proteins with emulsions and the slick of herby mayo gave a vegetal edge to the dish.

Oak Smoked Basque Beef Burger with Tetilla and Chorizo Ketchup (£6.50) had a deep smokey flavour and was described by Fiona as “very, very good!”

Piquillo and Smoked Ricotta Arancini with Fennel Aioli (£6) were dry and really crisp on the outside with an aniseed kick from the fennel aioli-really moreish.

Buttermilk Fried Squid with Capers, Lemon, Sage and Squid Ink Alioli (£6.50) showed that the chef on the deep-fat fryer wasn’t a one trick pony. The squid ink alioli added an umami note the proceedings.

Hot Smoked Butternut Squash with Goats’ Curd and Grape Jam (£6.50)-the squash was grilled to within an inch of its life bringing out its inherent sweetness, and combined with the sourness of the curd and grape jam made for a squishy mouthful

of taste pleasure!

Burrata with Chargrilled Aubergine, Focaccia, Chilli and Oregano (£8)-I’m a big fan of burrata and freshness is key. This one was fine without being great but nicely paired with the herb and chilli pesto, aubergine and focaccia giving a blend of tastes and textures.

Chocolate and Turrón Cake with Cherries and Rosemary Cream (£6.50)-Fiona regretted getting the kitchen to hold the cherries as they would have added sweetness and moisture to the dish.

Chargrilled Italian Peach with Amaretti, Mascarpone, Honey and Thyme (£6) was a welcome return to the grilling station. The peach was dripping with sweetness and had a terrific depth of flavour. This was a delicious and sensual dish.

You can drop into Ember Yard just for some cheese or charcuterie or for something more substantial. I had read some excellent reviews but somehow wasn’t expecting this level of quality. Go and enjoy.

Thanks to Fiona for the loan of some of her photos as my battery had run out!