Review: Ploussard, Clapham Junction

Ploussard is a new small-plates-and-natural-wine joint a few minutes from Clapham Junction at the foot of Northcote Road. This is obviously the classic hipster combination and of course there’s negroni on the menu and lots of natural wood on the walls, while the floor is distressed painted concrete. You get the vibe.

We picked five between two for lunch and it felt like a light lunch. Whipped cod roe was light and citrusy with good black seaweed crackers to scoop it up, nice addition of shards of pickled silverskin onion to add more flavour and texture. Blackened corn-on-the-cob with miso seaweed butter was nicely done, a good amount of blackening and the umami butter balanced the sweetness. Tomato salad with linseeds and oregano leaf felt particularly small… though maybe only because in classic small-plate style, it happened to come out all on its own between other dishes?

Slow roast lamb on crumpet with a topping of anchovy cream and a load of snipped chives was a really good eat. Fully flavoured lamb, soft and delicious, nicely springy crumpet and quite the salty hit from the anchovy. Bit of a signature dish, I reckon. Grilled duck hearts came with pieces of slow-roast Roscoff onions and a whipped puree of the same, along with some sweet hazelnuts. I liked every element of this little dish, but (and it might just be me) I liked them separately and didn’t really understand them together.

Still, altogether very good cooking going on at Ploussard and some nice dishes. Lunch was £26 each before drinks but we could have managed another dish (or two?) no problem. Both glasses of wine we chose were excellent finds, especially the Rhone valley orange wine I tried. I think Ploussard is a good place to have in your neighbourhood, I just can’t quite find a reason to rave about them.