Review: Barrafina, Charing Cross

Bustling Barrafina

Bustling Barrafina

One more blog in my ongoing series: “so are they still any good?” This time we’re at Barrafina, which we got into easily by the simple expedient of getting there before 6pm. Mind you, we only just made it; fifteen minutes later there was a queue.

So, the queue is still there, but are they still any good?

Hell yeah. As with Jose (which I love, but the internets ate my review – no, really!) the dishes tend to simplicity but the produce and attention to detail tend to absolute perfection. It’s just a brilliant demonstration of what’s great about Spanish food, in London.

Tortilla

Tortilla

The menu is unabashedly Spanish, so definitely engage the staff or your Google search. We chose ortiguillas, which are little bundles of tentacles from snakeshead anemones, breadcrumbed and deep fried. Each mouthful was a powerful iodine punch of the seashore, to be dipped in a friendly aioli.

Of course we had to try their tortilla. Here it is of the golden-and-oozing-interior variety, a sublime texture and about as indulgent as potatoes and eggs get.

Stuffed courgette flower was merely excellent. Escalivada was a simple dish of slow roasted red peppers and aubergine, dusted with paprika and served with aioli. Beautifully textures, soft but not mush. Star of the show was rather ridiculously four milk-fed lamb kidneys. And that’s it. They had been char-grilled to perfection and served on a little trivet above a smoking charcoal. The smoky barbecue scent, carbonised edges and sturdy iron-y pink meat was just gorgeous. Yeah. I’ve run my brain over my adjective list and that’s exactly right. Gorgeous.

Creme Catalan!?

Creme Catalan!?

Gorgeous puds too, although my one (slight) disappointment: I ordered creme catalan and for some inexplicable reason they’ve wrapped blobs of it in filo pastry and deep-fried them. The result was tasty, but not the tasty I had wanted.

Regardless, we waddled out very happy. You’re probably on £30 each for food, and the drinks list is excellent and fair priced. It’s not a place to linger at a relaxed pace; bar seating and the atmosphere is functional rather than warm. Nevertheless, we will most certainly be back.

Escalivada

Escalivada

Review: Trinity Upstairs, Clapham

Trinity Upstairs

Trinity Upstairs

Next in my review series “So… is it still any good?” is Trinity Upstairs, the relaxed small plate partner to the grown-up and Michelin starred Trinity downstairs. I was startled to find it empty on a sunny Saturday lunchtime, and only one other table joined us later. This is a travesty really, as we enjoyed one of the best value top-quality lunches I’ve had in a long time.

Trinity Upstairs is still definitely very good.

Brill and saffron aioli

Brill and saffron aioli

Snacks to start included crispy fried pork jowl with barbecue sauce dobbed on top, basically two bites of yum, and fried strips of brill with a vivid saffrony aioli to dip them in. The breadcrumb coating the brill was so fine and dry of oil that it looked more like tawny velvet.

We picked four small plates to make up a meal. In order of magnificence they were: a pleasant monkfish biryani which could have been braver in spicing the rice, roasted cauliflower with a raisin and caper dressing, home-cured salmon with melon, cucumber and mint, and char-grilled stem broccoli with a bagna cauda and roasted hazelnuts.

Salt caramel tart

Salt caramel tart

We just about had room for puds as well. Maureen’s was half of a beautifully roasted peach in a pool of velvety chilled custard flavoured with verbena. Mine was a perfect slice of salt caramel tart served with a scoop of very-salt caramel ice cream. The tart was an absolute beaut, sturdy enough to stand up but melting like vulgar silken cream in the mouth. Perfect nutty crisp pastry base. Great finale.

I was reassured a bit to hear from our waiter that the chefs who cooked our lunch were mainly up here busy doing mise en place for the evening’s sitting downstairs, and so the Upstairs space really doesn’t need to be full as it’s basically covering the cost of one waiter. Even so, come on people! £24 for a lunch I’d have paid £35 for and thought good value. You’ve gotta be kidding.

Pork jowl croquettes

Pork jowl croquettes

Review: Anchor & Hope, Southwark

Tomatoes on toast

Tomatoes on toast

I was a bit disgruntled on getting back to London after 10 years away. There are so many great places I wanted to eat, but what about reviewing them on the blog? Years and years after every major paper and hip London blogger has reviewed them? Bit late to the game, right? And then I had a brainwave. My new series of blogs will be cleverly subtitled: “Yes, but is it still any good?”

So. The Anchor & Hope. First of the great London gastropubs. It set the stage and changed the game back in 2003, when pub food was all lasagne and baltis. Reviews were gushing. But… is it still any good?

Yes. Yes it is.

The first thing that surprises me is that the pub is neatly split in two. There’s one half that is a classic rammed-after-work London boozer, and then behind a curtain there’s a pared back dining room of simple scrubbed wood and dark walls. They could have filled the place with dining tables and never looked back, but they didn’t. Bravo. Service is friendly and super-competent.

Duck hearts

Duck hearts

My starter was stupidly simple on paper and absolutely knock-down gorgeous to eat. Tomatoes, mint and cream on toast. These were big manzano tomatoes, sliced in half and slowly roasted until they’d firmed up from lost water, and developed a ginormous tomato flavour. The drizzled cream had warmed up and picked up a tomatoey stain and some of the mint, and cut the gentle acidity of the tomatoes perfectly.

Basically, I have a new favourite dish to try at home. Already tried it once, worked a treat.

Maureen’s gazpacho was rustic and freshly delicious, but she was definitely envious. Mind you, she won the main courses. Duck hearts that had been devilled in a darkly spicy gravy and served on flatbread with humous and tatziki. Anyone who doesn’t love a grilled duck heart is missing something. I stuck with a veggie theme and went for a courgette and girolle risotto. It had a splendidly summery courgette flavour to it, as they had put in bags of both courgette and butter. This was a hearty risotto! The big crispy ricotto beignet on top was delicious, a dark brown and crunchy batter with milky cheese oozing out into the rice.

And wouldn’t you know it, both the wines we picked by the glass were delicious and at friendly pub prices. The Anchor & Hope is still definitely very good indeed.

Courgette and girolle risotto

Courgette and girolle risotto

Review: Baker & Graze, Cheltenham

Salmon and fennel

Salmon and fennel

I’ve left Cheltenham now, and been living in Blackheath for a few months. Sadly there doesn’t appear to be any brilliant local place for lunch here; the best I’ve found is the local branch of Gails and an okay but pricey indie called Hand Made Food. Where is the Green Cafe of Blackheath? Where is the Baker & Graze?

Oooo. Baker & Graze! Cheltenham’s second finest and only a few doors down from Le Champignon Sauvage (Cheltenham’s finest). I can’t believe I never got around to writing a blog about them!

Baker & Graze have been in Cheltenham for only maybe 3 years now. They’re a cafe-bakery that nevertheless cooks up very real and brilliant one-plate lunches. Inside it is comfy, stripped-back brickwork & brass style, and quite often extremely busy. For good reason.

Let’s start with the baking. Probably the best sourdough loaf in Cheltenham (though they might have to fight for that prize with The Sandwich Box). But now let’s consider their sourdough doughnuts. So soft, yet so springy, with decadently generous fillings. I’ve taken boxes of these to parties and people have been talking about them a week later. Oooooooh… and how about a crisply flaky cruffin with a rich prune and chocolate interior. Lush financiers too. And I’ve only eaten a cinnamon roll to match theirs… once, maybe twice?

But it’s their lunches I love best. Plenty of great things on toast. An amazing slow-cooked Moroccan lamb with flatbread and scattered pomegranate. Splendid home-cured salmon with a fragrant and juicy fennel salad and a perfect poached egg hidden within. Or how about some real dedication to sourdough: pan-fried sourdough gnocchi? They came out like deliciously herby dumplings, crispy on the outside, soaked in a beautifully deep and rich venison ragu with a nice drift of parmesan on top. Now and again they also have an absolutely wonderful squid stew on.

They make a decent cup of coffee and keep a range of good quality softs and boozes to have with your food. Most of those lunches are around the £8-9 mark. I will be gobsmacked if you don’t love lunch at Baker & Graze.

Gnocchi and venison ragu

Gnocchi and venison ragu

Review: Gopal’s Corner at Victoria Market Hall

Gopal's Corner

Gopal’s Corner

I can still remember with intense clarity the best ever Thai green curry I have experienced. It was in a fairly random restaurant in Satun, a town on the southern border with Malaysia that had no interest for foreigners except as possibly a place to get a ferry over the border to Langkawi. It was like there were two dials, one labelled “fragrant” and the other “rich/earthy”, and both had been dialled up to beyond MAX yet miraculously still balanced each other. Instead of rice, it was served with a soft and flaky roti that tore into papery chunks and sopped up the greenish sauce perfectly.

Which is the tenuous connection with Gopal’s Corner, a Malay rather than Thai place, serving rich curries with roti upstairs in Victoria Market Hall. If you haven’t been, VMH is a buzzing food court with about a dozen offerings from tacos to bao to burgers and it’s about 2 minutes walk from Victoria station. Frankly it’s an extremely useful place to know.

And although I haven’t tried everything, I reckon Gopal’s Corner is probably the best food there. The curries do the same thing as that green curry in Satun: dial up both fragrance and rich earthiness to max. The roti are homely and flaky and tear into papery chunks that sop up the spicy sauce perfectly. The meat in the curry is almost secondary, but soft and good.

It’s also cheap; a bowl of supper for a few quid. See you there.

Gopal's roti and curry

Gopal’s roti and curry