Review: Jeux Jeux, Waterloo

Jeux Jeux

Jeux Jeux

I’m always on the hunt for useful places to eat on the South Bank, so long a wasteland of chain restaurants and nothingness. So after a visit to Jeux Jeux I’m happy to report that you can enjoy a perfectly tasty Hiroshima-style okonomyaki here now.

If you’re not already a fan, okonomyaki is a kinda sleazy, comforting, moreish Japanese dish with the main ingredients being pancake, cabbage and usually some kind of protein, while the main flavours come from the generous lashings of okonomiyaki sauce (sweeter and a bit less spicy than our brown/HP sauce) and mayonnaise along with various other toppings. The Osaka style, most common across Japan, mixes the cabbage and protein with the pancake batter to deliver up a thick mixed pancake of stuff for toppings. The Hiroshima style, only common in Hiroshima (but there are apparently 2000+ okonomyaki joints there!) layers everything: a pancake, topped with meat, then cabbage, then a heap of noodles, and then a paper-thin omelette on top.

Tofu

Tofu

At least, that was how it arrived at Jeux Jeux, the first Hiroshima-style I’ve ever tried. Our friends have eaten a few in Hiroshima and they declared this pretty good, approaching (but not quite equalling) what they had in Japan. I was certainly happy. The beef added to mine was full-flavoured and tender, the buckwheat pancake at the bottom adding its nutty-hay flavour to the slick of okonomyaki sauce on top. We had a couple of side dishes: lovely sticky pieces of pork belly, and some friendly white cubes of tofu coated in a white panko crust and dipped in tempura sauce.

We drank sake, but most other tables had beer or sodas; it’s a very casual, simple and good-value place for a quick meal. The vibe is canteen-style. Not really a place to linger or settle in for a feast.

Okonomyaki

Okonomyaki

Review: Grace & Savour, Hampton-in-Arden

Grace & Savour

Grace & Savour

My previous review of Smoke gives a bit of detail about Hampton Manor, the location for Grace & Savour. Yes, we stayed here for two nights and had two knock-out fine dining meals in a row including a wine pairing here. Yes, the next day on the way home we did feel just a teensy bit over-indulged. Worth it.

Grace & Savour occupies a purpose-built dining room on the edge of the Victorian walled garden, and inside and out the whole thing is just beautifully and thoughtfully designed. I loved dining here before I’d eaten a mouthful. It’s an open kitchen with a bit of counter seating, but most tables also have a good view. The team are super-friendly with no fuss, and love talking about their food and drinks. Grace & Savour is very strong on careful, local provenance – it comes across as deeply authentic, at a time when frankly every other restaurant is touting this mantra as a selling point.

Jerusalem artichoke shells

Jerusalem artichoke shells

Fifteen splendid courses, so I’m going to have to stick to highlights! The first tiny intro, a lovely nugget of baked swede and crisp reindeer moss in a lake of very deeply comforting venison broth, was a real statement of intent. Lots of love went into that broth. The second bite might well have been my favourite dish: a Jerusalem artichoke skin, hollowed out and fried to crisp perfection, refilled with a j’choke cream and topped with tiny disks of tart apple. It was the sweet, caramelly, crispy texture of the skin that nailed it.

Oh, there was an absolutely splendid piece of stuffed partridge, packed with juicy game flavour, paired simply but effectively with red currants and spinach. I’m simply not smart enough to know how and why this fairly pared back combination was so very good, but it’s probably all in the quality of the bird and then how well it was kept and how carefully cooked.

Partridge

Partridge

The two seafood dishes are excellent. Scallop is very delicately done, sweet and soft with a distinctive honey flavour, with a lovely mussel broth. I’m trying to think if I’ve ever had scallops with honey before but it’s a really smart combination with the pungent sweetness of the honey adding complexity to the scallop meat. Then a chunk of cod is cured in some seriously umami grain ferments and nicely seared, served in a rich and smoky butter sauce; another good contender for dish of the day.

The venison main is simply a delightful piece of meat, flavourful and meltingly tender, with the richly dark venison gravy echoing back to the broth at the very start. I will confess to having lost focus a little on the desserts (wine pairing hitting home!) but the palate cleanser of sheep’s milk sorbet and rhubarb with shards of meringue was bright and fragrant, both flavours crystal clear. And… yeah… you (and the chefs) will have to forgive me. After a pre-prandial cocktail and eight drink pairings I tend to hit a wall somewhere in the desserts. It’s why I often don’t pick the wine pairing if I want to write a review! Let’s move along.

Epic cod

Epic cod

The menu, and indeed the whole experience, at Grace & Savour is well worth the £155 price tag. We enjoyed faultless cooking of stunning ingredients over a leisurely evening in a great setting. They have a passion for natural wines in keeping with their overall ethos, and all the pairings were carefully considered and truly delicious. On a final note, if you do come and stay at Hampton Manor to enjoy meals at Smoke or Grace & Savour (or both, like us!) then they offer the chance to get closer to the team, with a wine tasting and a walk around the walled garden, bakery and kitchens. Lovely touch and a true sense of hospitality.
Venison

Venison

Review: Smoke, Hampton-in-Arden

Smoke

Smoke

It being January and miserable, we took ourselves off to a country house hotel in darkest Warwickshire to do nothing but indulge. Recommended. And specifically I recommend Hampton Manor as a great place to unwind. It’s a big ol’ Victorian pile that has been given a warm country vibe with a mixture of big statements like the giant chandelier in the towering stairwell and little touches like the shuffleboard table in the bar and the vinyl decks in several of the common rooms. There’s even a boot room where you can pull on wellies to ramble around the grounds or the nearby countryside even in the bleak midwinter.

There are also two top-drawer restaurants vying for your attention. The very grown-up Grace & Savour, or the more down-to-earth Smoke. This latter occupies some old garden outbuildings made cosy but kept stripped back, and they’ve a mighty big barbecue grill in the kitchen to match the food to the name. It began as a bit of a summer pop-up but proved such a hit that they settled on the format for their 2nd restaurant, left chef Stuart Deeley in charge, and let me tell you all the smoke and flavour work very well on a cold January evening!

Nice snacks

Nice snacks

Two snacks kicked off the meal, a lovely little cheese tart in crisp and nutty beer batter and a crab taco with the pickled apple being just a bit forward. My starter was a very enjoyable salad of burrata and beetroot with a crunchy seedy furikake on top. Maureen’s was our first encounter with the grill: two big scallops with a really hefty and wonderful caramelisation on one side, splendidly chewy texture, bathing in a lovely veloute shot through with nibbles of jamon. Check out the photo – let me tell you inside those scallops the meat was still beautifully juicy and not overcooked. Nicely done. The maitake mushroom on the side was a good addition, doubling down on the chewy caramelised grilling.

Stunning scallops

Stunning scallops

Our main courses were very much the main event and both really knock-out dishes. I had a generous breast of guinea hen, smoked wonderfully so that all the flavour was fragrant rather than boorishly in-yer-face, grilled to perfection. The veg had also seen the magic grill; parsnips with blackened edges and excellent bite, cabbage with that uplifting charred flavour that makes scorched cabbage one of the best things in the world. Black truffle in the dark, silky gravy gave everything a hum of earthy decadence. Some chunks of delicately pickled root veg cut through the richness nicely. Maureen’s Iberico presa was, if anything, even better. Just an absolutely knock-out piece of pork, pink and soft and utterly packed with flavour off the grill. Juicy chunks of king oyster mushroom also carried that smokiness and another really generous grating of black truffle lifted the whole dish closer to heaven.

Iberico presa, loadsa truffle

Iberico presa, loadsa truffle

Very happy, we wrapped up with a piece of tarte tatin and a chunk of stilton. The tart was good, of the no-frills proper-chunks-of-apple variety. Paired very well with the cheese. The wine list here is focused entirely on natural wine makers, and every one of the four glasses we picked out (with the help of the deeply knowledgable and enthusiastic sommelier) were excellent.

The three course meal was £85 and that’s probably quite a high price point for the three taken together. But those main courses off the grill are already going to be on my “highlights of 2024” list and the location, the ambience and the service are all very special. It’s a proper occasion and I’d like to return.

The library bar in Hampton Manor

The library bar in Hampton Manor

Review: Sune, Hackney

Crisps with boquerones

Crisps with boquerones

Okay, so we should have said something. Then again, recognising when your dining room is too cold and fixing it ought to be part of the service. The lady at the table next to us kept her scarf on through her meal and everyone else kept their jumpers and cardigans on. A fella two tables over did the same very English thing as us: didn’t say anything until the end of the meal, when the lady bringing the bill asked how everything was and got a meek “well, actually it was a bit cold” out of him.

I’ve got that off my chest now. The weather had just turned from mild to bitterly cold that very day, and sometimes heating systems definitely take a day to get themselves caught up. So let’s put that behind us and look at our actual lunch at Sune, a sleek little modern restaurant overlooking the canal near Broadway Market.

Tartare on croque monsieur

Tartare on croque monsieur

Apart from the cold, service was friendly but a bit sluggish; our 3-course lunch spread out over 2 leisurely hours and that wasn’t our doing (heck, we’d have liked to have headed elsewhere for a warm-up much sooner!). Comfy seating and pleasingly solid crockery. The menu can work as 3 courses or small plates and the food is comfortably good.

Our snack is a plate of potato chips with egg yolk sauce drizzled over, scattered with chives and nuggets of boquerones. It’s a nice bar snack and I’m definitely going to take it home. Needed more of the egg yolk for that to really impinge on the crisps. Next up we have an unexpected marriage: steak tartare on top of a croque monsieur. This is actually one of those sleazily-good combos, the tartare heavily dosed with paprika, the bechamel more like gooey American cheese, the bread underneath from a soft white loaf. A bigger one of these would just be a really great filthy lunch.

Trout and mussels

Trout and mussels

The other two dishes were more restaurant-y. Salt baked celeriac had a great firm texture and beautiful flavour, served with lamb’s lettuce salad and caramelised almonds. The trout was full-flavoured and gently cooked, served on a luscious vermouth sauce with a scatter of sea veg and a couple of plump lightly pickled mussels. I guess we should have taken their advice and ordered a side with it; as a main course it was effectively just the piece of fish.

These four dishes ended up on the light side so we finished off with puds, actually perhaps the stars of the show. My burnt citrus sorbet has bags of flavour and little chunks of the fruit through it, and was topped with silky blow-torched meringue. Maureen’s pear tarte tatin was a gorgeous little number; the fruit, the crisp pastry and the slighty-bitter caramel all nailed. Refreshing dollop of milk ice cream on top.

I like the food at Sune, if it was in my neighbourhood I’d probably think of it as a local favourite. That said, it’s not really splendid enough to make me take another trip across town for. Of course we also didn’t have the greatest experience – but I’m very willing to just put that down to the weather and maybe a busy Saturday service.

Pear tarte tatin

Pear tarte tatin

Review: Flesh & Buns, Covent Garden

Splendid yakitori

Splendid yakitori

Flesh & Buns has a proper Japanese izakaya vibe, hidden down a staircase below Sevendials Market, with dark wooden decor and plenty of buzz (it’s quite a big place once you get down there). The menu also reads as a pleasing romp through the more sticky and crowd-pleasing side of Japanese cuisine.

We started with three of their small plates. Simple chicken yakitori was absolutely superb: two skewers of juicy chicken thigh, packed with flavour from the marinade, stickily charred on the outside. Didn’t come with any sauce or dip, didn’t need any. I’ve seldom, if ever, had better. Next up was a filthy thing they call “beef fat chips”. The chips are actually cubes of boulanger potato that have been dropped into beef fat, crisp on the outside and yielding within, wonderful umami beef flavour and a cheesy sauce to dip in. Finally, sweetcorn fritters, four small spheres light and crisp with a bright chilli-citric dipping sauce. So far, so yum.

Piglet

Piglet

Their signature mains are various dishes served with a pair of soft buns (think bao, but a little flatter and less elastic). We picked crispy piglet belly and portobello mushrooms. The pig belly was very good, flavourful and tender as you could wish for. The skin was more like a delicate glaze than a crisp topping. Went very well in the bun with slivers of apple pickle and shredded carrot. The mushrooms had been grilled with a peppery ponzu glaze and came with some very good pickled daikon, pickled cucumber and a thick horseradish sauce – all good. The two buns each weren’t really enough for this, but I guess we could have ordered more (others did). Instead, we left enough room to share some little round doughnuts with a full-flavoured “black sugar” custard inside and a frosty dusting on their crispy outsides.

All in all, a delicious meal. Probably £30 each before drinks, although we propped our bill up with a top-notch sake and a couple of very drinkable umeshu negronis to start (the umeshu makes for a sweeter drink than gin as a base, but not over-sweet and with a pleasing extra fragrance from the plum). If I fancied some sleazy Japanese food and was in the middle of town, I’d head back to Flesh & Buns for sure.

Beef fat potatoes

Beef fat potatoes