Review: BRAT, Shoreditch

BRAT is definitely very on-trend. There’s a natural re-loved feel about the big old workshop-like space that has been fitted out with plenty of re-purposed wood. There’s a massive open fire full of fiercely glowing red coals, ready and waiting for the big chunks of meat that are BRAT’s hallmark. And of course, it’s all intended to be sharing plates.

And it may be that we did it to ourselves, by not showing enough savvy in the selection of the dozen or so dishes that the four of us shared, but I ended the meal feeling on the one hand a bit dyspeptic from salt, fat and protein and on the other hand a teensy bit peckish as, truth be told, we didn’t seem to have eaten that much.

Anyway, at least an awful lot of the fat and protein we ate was of very excellent quality. And it kinda goes without saying that it was full of that lovely cooked-over-natural-fire flavour. Some of the nice things we had…

Clam and seaweed porridge was an unassuming bowl of grey goop, but it was the most comforting umami goop imaginable, a very soothing paean to the sea. Young leeks were braised to a meltingly soft bright green, with a dollop of milky fresh cheese. Lovely monkfish sashimi, I’ve never tried it before but as wafer-thin slivers of raw fish it has a slightly fatty texture that works great. Roasted squab was good too, and I’m a sucker for quince puree, but I’ve had bigger and better flavour from a pigeon before now. Mallard also very nicely cooked. Nice bit of duck, yeah. Their dessert list is short and focused on simple cult classics. A good creme caramel, a good rice pudding.

Overall I was a bit underwhelmed. Even though most things were jolly tasty. Lemme see if I can put my finger on why (and this may be a personal thing)…

Okay, let’s look at our other main dish, a Cornish mutton chop. It comes in at £23. It comes on a plate, is beautifully grilled, and sliced up for sharing. About the right amount of meat as a main course for one, perhaps, and some golden pieces of grilled fat. It’s all very muttony. But that’s all it is. Call me old fashioned (“you’re old fashioned!”) but it feels a bit cheeky, if you imagine instead the same mutton chop served with a flavoursome jus, perhaps some cavalo nero with pan gratata, maybe boulanger potatoes and a scattering of tiny cubes of mead jelly. Or whatever. You get my point. A fully conceived dish, not just a piece of meat for £23. There are a handful of vegetable side dishes to order at BRAT, and I wish we’d figured out that you need to order plenty of them!

But anyway. In my head BRAT is an emperor’s new clothes restaurant. It ticks all the boxes and presses all the buttons to make critics and savvy punters coo. But when you look at what you actually get on the plate, for me it just didn’t stand up to the price point – which is just over £50 a head before drinks, and that for not a big meal. To be fair, it might just be the indigestion talking, I can’t quite decide whether I want to give ’em another try.