Column

Gastro gnome

I was in London this week and whilst the tremors of the world economic crisis were evident, this did not prevent me from having a good time.

In fact, there were less “Masters of the Universe”, the arrogant investment bankers, hogging tables and braying for expensive champagne. Reservations at some of the best restaurants were easily available.Perhaps this is one of the flip sides of the impending recession.

Whether many of the high class London restaurants will survive the loss of significant clientele only time will tell, but there are several new restaurants which have opened recently adding lustre to London’s reputation as the dining capital of the world.
The really hot new restaurant is L’Autre Pied at Blandford Street in the Westend.It’s young chef, Marcus Eaves, is able to conjure up the most amazing combination of flavours in the most imaginative presentations.

Take a rolled breast of lamb, oven dried tomatoes, crumbly polenta with a sticky black olive jus, this gives an indication of his sensibility.Not much for veggies, I am afraid as it is modern French cooking with strong Mediterranean undertones.

The enterprising Alan Yau, famous for the iconic nouvelle Chinese, Hakkasan, the dim sum marvel Yuatcha and the value for money Busaba Eathai, has scored, in design terms, with the magnificent Sake no Hana in St James.This restaurant with its sushi bar on the ground floor and the dining room on the first can be approached through an escalator from a sinister black lacquered tunnel.

Yau provides the complete Japanese experience in St James — the building has been redesigned by the cutting edge Japanese designer, Kengo Kuma to recreate the Roponggi District of Toyko.Alongside this edifice to Japanese design, he has also opened a cheap and cheerful noodle bar with the elegiac name Cha Cha Moon in deepest Soho where you can dine under a bamboo ceiling.The concern though is that Yau is turning to extravagant design to camouflage the lack of new gastronomic direction.

One of my favourite chefs and, one of the few who can write, Rowley Leigh, has just opened a new restaurant called the Le Café Anglais in Bayswater next to the old Whiteleys. Leigh is a no-nonsense chef of the old school who uses first-rate ingredients, is obsessed about seasonal food, cooks impeccably and ensures that service is efficient and unobtrusive.

I went there for Sunday lunch and ordered as starter a Rowley’s omelette which I rate the best in the world, it was oozing richness inside and fluffy softness outside.

I then ordered the Roast Beef and Yorkshire pudding. This, of course, is the English classic, but prepared well it can be outstanding.Yorkshire pudding is the most underrated of dishes, cooked with style and panache, it is nothing like the soggy tasteless horror which many remember, but an excellent foil to the succulent beef.

The menu is extensive and reflects Rowley Leigh’s choice of some very witty combinations, think mackerel and gooseberry sauce.The setting is also extraordinary, great pains have been expended to reproduce a classic belle époque brasserie, gleaming brass rails, banquettes, art déco lights, and a hugely stylised carpet circa 1911 reproduced from old pictures.The entire effect is grand, the area being huge. Highly recommended.
Email: javed.gaya@gmail.com