New Restaurant Review Roundup 2022
Part Two: North, South (and a boat in the middle)
In case you missed last Monday’s issue, we are currently in the process of trawling through the all the restaurant openings we’ve told you about in the last 10 months, to see which of them are worth paying a visit to.
Just to recap the rules: They have to be restaurants we’ve mentioned in the newsletter; the reviews have to come from publications that actually write reviews, not just puff pieces in return for free grub; and if Giles Coren has reviewed somewhere for The Times then we totally ignore it, because Giles Coren is a detestable slug.
Last week we stayed in and around the West End, today we’re going to head north and south (via a floating restaurant) to try out Islington’s newest Desi pub, oysters with gooseberries in Stoke Newington, Peckham pork and prawn bean curd rolls, microplaned goat’s cheese in Brixton… And something called ‘The Veganator’.
The Tamil Prince, Islington
Islington seems to have attracted a lot of new restaurant and bar openings over the last year, but the most anticipated and written about must be the Tamil Prince on Hemingford Road. The Prince is actually a pub (or as Grace Dent puts it in her Guardian review, “a pub-shaped restaurant that serves beer”) converted by former Roti King chef Prince Durairaj, former JKS general manager Glen Leeson and a shit load of Farrow & Ball, from what used to be The Cuckoo pub “into a rather sleek, unofficial, south Indian reincarnation” of Roti King, with cocktails by Simone Pugi from Bar Termini in Soho.
From the “short yet meaningful menu” (which is about 50% vegetarian) Dent tries the “intensely seasoned” grilled tiger prawns, the channa bhatura (“a giant’s pillow of deep-fried dough with a satisfying chickpea curry”), the “thick, soft, spongy dosa” with “a brutally delicious chilli coconut chutney” and then moves on to paneer butter masala, Thanjavur chicken curry and “a dark, creamy” dal makhani.
The verdict: “Just plain great”. The food is top notch and the place is dog-friendly, the cocktails are “imaginative” and the staff are “upbeat” and more than happy to supply extra rotis when required.
Kate Ng’s review in the Independent is worth a look if only because they seem to take their own photos over there (as opposed to the Guardian, which seems to rely on styled pics) so you can get a really good idea of what those giant tiger prawns look like, not to mention the huge, puffed up channa bhatura. There’s no picture of the dal makhani, but it is apparently “rich and flavourful” enough to make it “a worthy contender to Dishoom”. In fact, for Ng, “every single dish was utterly delicious.”
Like Grace Dent, Joe Mackertich in Time Out can’t help but admire the excellent paint job (“the shade of green on the walls is the best shade of green I’ve seen for ages”) and is seduced by the “eye-catching” channa bhatura, which is described here as an “inflated pufferfish-sized bread balloon”. He also has the prawns and he also says “it all tasted amazing”.
Marina O’Loughlin went to visit for the Times in July and called the channa bhatura “sensational” and heaps more praise on the okra fries which make Marina wish she “liked beer more”. She does mention that those prawns are 32 quid... but then goes on to say “they are vast, less like prawns and more like three small lobsters” and, in the end, she “can’t wait to see what they serve up next”.
Completing the rave full house is Jimi Famurewa in the Standard who, despite visiting in the middle of a heatwave, says the Tamil prince inspires “plate-licking, wanton lust” (although he does call the dal makhani “oddly forgettable”).
Valderrama’s, Islington
While we’re in Islington we should pay a quick visit to Valderrama’s, the Upper Street sports bar that was opened by chef James Cochran of lockdown fried chicken hit, Around the Cluck.
Jimi Famurewa got to go here for dinner too, and it’s probably fair to say that he didn’t enjoy it quite as much as the Tamil Prince. Although he seems to enjoy the chicken burger with its “weighty, craggy, buttermilk-fried piece of bird, gushing flavoursome succulence, and accessorised with squirts of blue cheese mousse, bacon scratchings and a fiery lick of scotch bonnet jam” (a note to critics: please don’t use the word ‘gushing’ in restaurant reviews - even if you’re trying to be nice). But the Jerk Hash Brown is a “bronzed coffin of shredded potato with a rigid outer edge and scant spicing” and the tricked-out doughnut dessert is just “sloppy”.
Hot Dinners’ ‘test drives’ aren’t as reviewy as we might like, but they do take some good photos, which is not always a positive thing… For example, their snap of Valderrama’s ‘crispy buttermilk chicken thigh with chip shop curry sauce’ makes it look pretty vile, but it is apparently “a must-order …a perfect bar snack combo”. They somehow followed that up with a Chicken Royale burger “that took us so long to eat it that it lost structural integrity before we could finish” and a doughnut of “banana and caramel mousse with salted peanuts.” We have type 2 diabetes just from writing that.
Valderrama does a veggie burger as well. The Islington Gazette were brave enough to order The Veganator (which comes with “gochujang chilli paste, Asian slaw, peanuts and coriander”) and it is, according to their reviewer, “a good thing if like me you miss the basic taste of chicken.”
Coming up on Wednesday
In our subscriber-only edition, Harriet Thorpe, journalist, editor and author of new book The Sustainable City, explores just a few of the ways in which the built environment can help reduce our carbon footprint, combat gentrification, increase prosperity and preserve history.
Subscribe to LiB today to make sure you don’t miss it:
Cadet, Stoke Newington
Francis Roberts (formerly of Westerns Laundry), and Tom Beattie (formerly of P. Franco) opened the “exciting new wine bar” Cadet (pronounced ‘cad-ay’) on the site of an old chicken shop on Newington Green Road in July.
There’s not been tons of reviews so far, but Eater London did publish a really good look at the place by James Hansen (with great photos by Michaël Protin) at the end of September, and even though that article manages to use the words ‘carcass’, ‘tongues’, ‘gizzards’ and ‘belly’ in the first paragraph, it still makes Cadet sound unusually good and a fitting successor to “the dearly departed Terroirs”.
That Eater article praises the “architectural paté en croutes; verdant and wobbling jambon persille; and a mousse de canard that spreads like a face pack,” on the menu at Cadet, and in their ‘test drive’ Hot Dinners call the paté en croutes an “absolutely gorgeous bit of charcuterie,” but for £12 they “would have loved a slightly thicker slice”.
London on the Inside went to Cadet shortly after it opened and were impressed by the transformation of “an old burnt-out chicken shop” into a “sleek, stripped back and modern” wine bar with a “great vibe”. As for the food, the “delish and perfectly pitched” dishes they tried included “a spectacular stew of borlotti beans enriched with lamb fat and garlic; fresh tomato, sliced white peach and fennel pollen; mussels with cucumber and dulse; and oysters with gooseberries.”
Finally, GQ included Cadet in its list of the best wine bars to hit in London, calling it “the statement new opening of the year so far” and the menu “an evolution of the formula P Franco introduced to a hungry, thirsty city midway through the last decade. In other words: essential.”
Caravel, Hoxton
Before we go south of the river we have to go to Hoxton and get on a boat.
Caravel is run by brothers Fin and Lorcan Spiteri, the offspring of Melanie ‘Rochelle Canteen’ Arnold snd Jon ‘Session Arts Club’ Spiteri, so expectations for their floating restaurant on Regent’s Canal were high.
When Marina O’Loughlin climbed aboard for the Times she was “seduced” and “enchanted” by the romance of the place which is “lit by so much whimsical charm I worry that I’m in imminent danger of being ambushed by Wes Anderson”. That romance isn’t ruined by the food. A starter of duck croquette, which comes “in the shape of a rubber duckie, as though Magritte had had a hand in designing the menu” is “excellent: greaseless, crisp and rammed with succulent confit bird,” while slow-cooked lamb is both “thumping” and “butch”. O’Loughlin sums up the cooking as “just like its setting, designed to be lovely”.
In the Hackney Citizen Gabriel Wilding is also tempted to indulge in a bit of romance aboard Caravel, describing the restaurant as the type of place that demands “starry-eyed whispers and lingering hand caresses”. She’s not impressed by that duck croquette, (”lacking the richness of the celebrated bird… even the wild garlic aioli can’t save it”) but the white crab and fennel tagliatelle is “an understated sea-drenched, lemon-infused trip of the light fantastic” and the lamb is “a homecoming of warmth and feeling.”
The love affair continues in Time Out, where Kate Lloyd awards Caravel five stars and the title of “the best date restaurant I’ve ever been to” thanks to that lamb again (“like a fantasy-tier Sunday roast”) and the “pure indulgence” of a caramelised banana and almond tart. LotI also calls Caravel “ an absolute ideal date night spot” while Hot Dinners sums it up as “beautiful and welcoming and the food is among the best we've had recently”.
Mambow, Peckham
Down to Market Peckham now, just across the road from Peckham Rye station where chef-owner Abby Lee opened her modern-Malaysian restaurant Mambow (although we should say ‘opened again,’ as Mambow first arrived in Spitalfields in 2020, but fell victim to lockdown).
Marina O’Loughlin is again on duty for the Times, and after refusing to call the restaurant ‘Mambow number two’ she orders “all the starters and main courses on the short menu” and raves about the “primal, sexily swampy” cooking that comes her way, even if the “excellent food,” has to be “eaten with plastic cutlery beside a fine-smelling rotisserie chicken joint that rejoices in the name Rotorious”.
Angela Hui braves the “slightly soulless Boxpark-like co-working space and cultural hub” that is Market Peckham for Time Out and digs straight into the deep-fried bean curd clusters which “look and taste like unbelievable crunchy and crispy mini-explosions” before moving on to the jackfruit curry, which is “comforting, creamy and full of complexities.” and the “life-affirming sarawak black pepper chicken”. It’s four stars from Angela and you get the impression it might have been five if it wasn’t for the “obscure and vibeless location”.
LotI also orders the black pepper chicken curry, and the yellow jackfruit curry, but they reckon the “must order” dish is the spiced fried chicken with sambal mayo. Overall it’s “a great place for a quick dinner and a couple of drinks after work” especially if your commute takes you past Peckham Rye station.
Finally Hot Dinners mentions that, before 5pm, Mambow offers a “Hainanese Chicken Sando with chicken fat chilli sauce” served in-between slices of sourdough from Camberwell bakery Frog (now Toad) and call the five spice pork and prawn bean curd rolls one of the”best snacks we've had of late - something that's definitely worth crossing town to get your hands on”.
Rarebit, Elephant & Castle
Back in May, when we saw that Rarebit was opening in Elephant & Castle we said we were “suspicious of restaurants that ‘specialise’ in one kind of dish, mainly because when you’re forced to create multiple variations on a theme, things tend to get a bit silly” but we were encouraged by the promise that there would be a “wider menu” than just gourmet toasties.
There haven’t been gangs of broadsheet reviewers breaking down the doors of Rarebit since it opened, but Paloma Lacy went down for the South London Press and enjoyed “the best rarebit I’ve ever tasted” as well as the peaches and burrata and the “scallop and nduja mac and cheese, with crab bisque”. Overall it’s “deliciousness and luxury on a variety of small plates” even if “the menu is heavy on cheese”.
We did find one other review from the writer, Peter Morrell who visited for dinner and tried the rarebit (“masterful”) seared mackerel fillet with pickled fennel and salty fingers (“worked very well”), that scallop and nduja mac and cheese (“an inspired combination.”) and the London Smoke & Cure meat board (“high on quality, and taste”).
Bottle & Rye, Brixton
Depending on your views on the gentrification of Brixton and the market in particular, Bottle & Rye was either your most anticipated or most eye-rolling south London opening of 2022. It does seem to have won people over though.
That might have something to do with the giant disco ball they’ve hung from the ceiling, or it might have something to do with the fact that co-owner Robin Gill, who cut his teeth at the Dairy in Clapham, has installed chef Ben Hughes-Gage to churn out dishes like ‘pig’s head brawn with cornichons’ and ‘steak, with garlic salt frites’ to a crowd who don’t want to traipse up to Stoke Newington to visit Cadet.
Marina O’Loughlin loves the place. Glossing over the gentrification discussion (“encroaching bougieness has been happening here for a while now”) before tucking into “raw scallops, shavings of watermelon and yellow mirabelle plums” and “summer tomatoes with slivers of fennel and microplaned Ragstone goat’s cheese” and dipping into a “regularly updated list of entirely low-intervention” wines which will win over “the naysayers armed with preconceptions and muttering darkest imprecations about footy smells and murky sediments.”
Food magazine Palate went down there in August and (after reminiscing about The Dairy) had “an intensely unctuous” time with some “fat Cantabrian anchovies,” a “spectacular” lamb’s tongue and onion dish, and a “hulking pig’s head terrine” which is described as “muscular but supple” (food reviewers are weird). We do however appreciate the description of the disco ball “swirling circles around the walls as if The Mysterons did ABBA”.
The Handbook went during the heatwave so they stick to lighter dishes like smoked eel brandade with homemade crisps. (“exquisite”), anchovies on toast (“a gorgeous, pillowy creation”) and pumpkin seed pesto and courgette tart (“irresistible”). They don’t have a bad word to say about the place.
It’s a similar story in Time Out where Liz Darke declares the Cantabrian anchovies on toast, “the best thing I've eaten this year…. Since lockdown, even.” and the barbecued lamb rump “ melt-in-the-mouth”. Although that lamb is £18 for “four medallion-sized slices of meat fanned across a cereal bowl of veggies” which seems “a little stingy” to Liz.
Walter’s, Dulwich
We have to quickly mention Walter’s in Dulwich because, while it hasn’t had loads of reviews yet, it is one of the restaurants that we’ve managed to try out since it opened.
Before our review though, we should probably see what Jay Rayner has to say in The Observer (as he does this for a living and everything). Jay is a self-professed “comfortably paunchy middle-aged” bloke who likes the fact that they’re playing “the soundtracks of both The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink” when he goes to Walter’s for dinner, plus it’s the on the no 3 bus route, just ten minutes from his house.
On top of those very Rayner-specific plus points there are more relatable reasons to visit Walter’s. It’s the second restaurant from Rob Hampton and Matt Lovell, the team behind Oystermen in Covent Garden; the servings aren’t tiny (“that’s a fair old heap of braised lentils beneath the sizeable roasted guinea fowl. They haven’t skimped on the crushed new potatoes with the lamb rump either”); the service is “charming”; and there’s a “broad wine list that, on its first page, features two wines of the week discounted by roughly 25%”. Rayner’s only complaints are that the “non-meat dishes are clearly not front and centre of anybody’s thoughts” and “a lemon posset has failed to set”.
When we went on a Friday evening a few weeks ago, we sat at the bar (you can specify that when you book if, like us, you prefer to sit nearer the booze) and had a great time. The cocktails are excellent and the Greek red wine they recommended to us was so good we had to message them on Instagram the next day to find out what it was called (they replied straight away with the details - now that’s service). And the food was great. Nothing fancy or ‘made-for-Instagram’; just solid, bistro-style cooking.
But, above all, Walter’s is not too ‘Dulwichy’. Maybe it’s because it’s separated from Dulwich Village by the South Circular, but it didn’t feel like it was trying too hard to impress or favouring style over substance. Its location does mean however that it’s not only a ten minute drive from Jay Rayner’s place but also from Herne Hill. Which means there’s a chance Boris Johnson might become a regular (if he doesn’t end up moving back to SW1A of course).
5 little bits
The Elizabeth Line’s Bond Street station opens today. When he took a tour last week, the mayor called it “arguably the most beautiful, stylish, spacious station in Europe” and “a really important boost this part of London needs”. Westminster Council also updated their plans for Oxford Street last week, announcing “a new, streamlined approach,” which involves “wider pavements, well positioned seating, additional and attractive greening as well as enhanced lighting” (since when did green become a verb?). Sadiq still thinks the council should go further though, telling the Standard a few days ago that his “dream is still for Oxford Street to be pedestrianised.”
Speaking of ‘greening’… The old Blackfriars Crown Court (which is currently undergoing a £180 million conversion into a “next-gen workspace”), is going to have “an urban forest rooftop” with more than 100 trees, and 10,000 plants, along with (the developers promise) “extensive access for the local community and the public, with community gardens and collaborative neighbourhood uses, a rooftop restaurant, bar and swimming pool”.
The Telegraph has an interview with the Met’s Pc Arron Lewars, whose photographic memory has helped the ‘violence suppression unit’ make “more than 80 positive identifications” in the past year, including the arrest of one of “London’s most wanted men in a crowd at Notting Hill Carnival - even though only his chin was visible.”
Chinatown lost one of its institutions last week, as Jen Cafe shuts its doors. The restaurant has been around for two decades, but on Friday, Eater reported that “the iconic jade-fronted cafe on Newport Place” is “now empty; its windows covered with sheets of white paper.”
A new large-scale mural commission is being installed at Brixton Underground station next month as part of the Art on the Underground series. ‘Endurance’, by Shanti Panchal launches on 10 November and depicts “three scenes of Londoners… including an artist, an NHS worker, a waiter” alongside “buildings, statues and sections of open public space that draw on the Brixton neighbourhood”.