Review: Caractere, Notting Hill

Caractere was our last meal out before lockdown began, and I lost the urge to post reviews while every restaurant in the country was closed. But it was written, so it’d be a shame not to finally put it up. Especially as Caractere was aces. And so…

I gotta congratulate the folks at Caractere for putting some character into their menu; instead of Starter, Fish, Main, Cheese, Dessert their courses are named Curious, Subtle, Delicate, Robust, Strong and Greedy. Kinda like an alternative Seven Dwarfs? Except there are only six. Anyway. Fun with menu writing aside, the food at Caractere lives right up to it’s name. Loved it.

I did something a bit different here. I asked for a vegetarian menu. I’ve got no plans to go plant-based, I was just feeling overloaded from a bunch of meaty meals in Germany. Everyone else had the fish ‘n meat. I probably perplexed the staff by trying a bite of every other dish, even though I was “the vegetarian”!

So. Curious was a perfect little pappardelle stuffed with soft ricotta and set in a pool of gently lemony cream. Meat-eaters had smoked herring roe and a little caviar with theirs. Didn’t need it. The pasta was delicate and silky but still kept its bite. This dish vanished fast.

Subtle wasn’t very. It was ribbons of celeriac styled like tagiatelle and still with plenty of earthy bite, covered in a heap of pecorino and black pepper, and set to humming with a few drops of some wonderfully sticky 25 year old balsamic. One of those real “why the f*ck can’t vegetarian restaurants cook vegetarian dishes as good as this?” dishes.

Delicate was for me a pair of beautifully roasted jerusalem artichokes topped with a salad of various bits and puddled with a delicate veloute whose flavour I couldn’t catch. J-chokes are fairly dominant. And there was nothing delicate about my trumpeting later that night. Monkfish and stone bass alternatives were both splendidly seared pieces of fish.

Robust for the meat-eaters was a very splendid piece of rosy veal, packed with flavour, lovely jus, paired with sturdy mushrooms and confit potatoes. I was equally happy with a wonderful risotto, dramatically coloured black and white and orange. The rice had perfect bite, the red wine reduction added a velvety strength, and the blackened crumble of burnt parmesan was just vile cheesy naughtiness! Robust indeed.

Strong was a fine piece of stichelton. Well-kept cheese can develop such an enormous mouthful of flavour and a whole world of scent. Greedy came for me in the shape of a white chocolate mousse in a delicate shell, light and amiable with flavours of bright pink rhubard. Must admit to envying the bergamot tartlet with preserved lemon across the table – really magical flavour in just one mouthful.

The tasting menu is £80 at Caractere. We were warmly looked after, helped to some good wine choices (the wine menu is strong on Italian), and generally had a great evening. I think they deserve to do well and I wish them all the best through the horrible COVID-19 crisis.