Take Five

Chef Sharma of Grand Trunk Road and his sensational sorbet

In Britain, you needn’t travel far to taste the world. Whether you’ve been here a week, a year or a lifetime, you can’t help but notice what an incredibly multicultural place this is. London, for example, is the most culturally diverse city on earth, with more than 270 nationalities and 340 different languages present.

And it’s often said this diversity is what makes eating in Britain great. That’s because wherever folk go, their food goes with them. A back-of-an-envelope survey of our local high street, in a typical North London suburb, found a smorgasbord of delis, bakeries, groceries, cafés and restaurants representing over 40 different cuisines, from Persian to Polish, Indian to Italian, Mongolian to Moroccan, and every nationality and food fusion in between.

So, living here is a fantastic opportunity to sample the world on your plate, to become a global gourmet, to take a front row seat in an astonishing theatre of food. Here’s a Take Five taste of what’s on offer.

1. Flavours of India: Grand Trunk Road Restaurant, South Woodford Any reputable look at Britain’s culinary habits would be incomplete if it didn’t mention Indian food. Year after year, Indian cuisine tops the nation’s favourite food polls. Chicken tikka masala is commonly referred to as Britain’s national dish while bhajis, baltis and biryanis are all hugely popular. How did Britain get the hots for curries? The British love of Indian food dates back to the 19th century days of the British Raj. British colonials adored their curries and pined for them on return to the UK. Even Queen Victoria employed a personal Indian chef. In 1809, customers at Britain’s first Indian restaurant reclined on comfy sofas while enjoying their spicy meat and veg. Today we have over 8,000 Indian eateries, with more in London than in Mumbai.

As a young boy growing up in India, Dayashankar Sharma, Executive Chef of Grand Trunk Road Restaurant, spent many happy days at his mother’s side in the family kitchen. He watched, smelled, tasted and practised on little bits of dough she would give him to play with. As he grew older, he began looking at his mother’s cooking in a different way– wondering what might happen if he added this spice or that flavouring. After graduating college and deciding not to become a doctor, Chef Sharma asked himself, “what else can I do ... I can cook!”.

And so began a lifetime devoted to creating imaginative, authentic, memorably delicious Indian cuisine from the freshest and finest ingredients. He’s headed up kitchens at some of the world’s top Indian restaurants including London’s Imli Street, Zaika and Michelin-starred Tamarind, served as Indian food consultant for major international airlines, devised a prizewinning chicken tikka masala and was personal chef to India’s Prime Minister. Fast forward to 2020 and Chef Sharma is

WWW.THEAMERICANHOUR.COM Chef Sharma’s plump, mouthwatering grilled scallops

completely at ease in Grand Trunk Road’s small but perfectly formed kitchen in northeast London.

In partnership with acclaimed restaurateur and longtime colleague Rajesh Suri, GTR opened in 2017 with the single goal of creating 100% authentic Indian food. The restaurant has been named Asian Curry Awards best Indian restaurant in London for the second year running. But for Messrs Suri and Sharma, aka ‘the dynamic duo’, the most meaningful reward is customer appreciation. And GTR gets that in bucketloads.

The original Grand Trunk Road is an ancient trade route. It’s Asia’s longest road, built for 16th century traders, stretching 2500 kilometers from Kabul to Kolkata (Calcutta). Before setting up GTR, Rajesh Suri and Chef Sharma took to that very road for six weeks, immersing themselves in its vibrant sights, sounds, smells and flavours.

Every aspect of their restaurant has been thoughtfully, caringly put together– the contemporary design, tables set with flowers, linen and candles, flawless hospitality and service, and most of all the outstanding food and drink. Whether choosing fish, meat, vegetables or spices, Chef Sharma is passionate about sourcing only top quality ingredients, from local suppliers wherever possible.

GTR’s menu is simply beautiful. We had a chance to try several unforgettable dishes. The Delhi Ki Chaat starter delivered toothsome bursts of spicy chickpeas, sweet yoghurt, wheat and lotus root crisps,

fresh mint and tamarind chutney. Grilled scallops were plump and mouthwateringly fragrant with roasted garlic, red pepper and tomatoes. Kolkata king prawns in a delicate garlic and carom seed marinade were out of this world. One bite and we understood why customers come from far and wide for GTR favourite, Peshawari lamb chops seared in a unique blend of fennel, star anise, papaya and sweet pepper. Other specialties from the mighty grill and genuine tandoor include superb vegetarian options as well as classic Anglo-British dishes like masala, tikka and butter chicken, all given a Chef Sharma twist. And we counted no less than 10 kinds of freshly baked Indian breads, including a sumptuous truffle and mushroom naan. Full as we were, the Chef wouldn’t let us go without sampling his signature dessert: melting mouthfuls of avocado and rosewater, coconut and pineapple, blood orange and clementine sorbets.

From north to south, the UK is rich in Indian and South Asian eating places. A handful of others you might like to try are Delhi’s Winter and Mother India in Scotland, Lasan in Birmingham, Café Spice in Oxford, and Gymkhana, Dishoom and the Cinnamon Club in London. Grand Trunk Road Restaurant 219 High Road, London E18 gtrrestaurant.co.uk

2. Modern British with a Twist: Caxton Grill, Westminster One thing’s for sure. Long gone are the days when British cooking was the butt of jokes, dining out meant meat and two soggy, overcooked veg, paper thin sandwiches and vile coffee, and the UK had a reputation as “the nation that taste forgot”. It’s no exaggeration to say the past few decades have seen a nation’s cuisine truly transformed. Caxton Grill, flagship restaurant of St Ermin’s Hotel, offers an ideal introduction to what’s known as Modern British cuisine. St Ermin’s is no ordinary hotel and Caxton Grill is no

Steak from the Scottish Highlands any way you like it, Caxton Grill. Photo courtesy WixHill Ltd/St Ermin’s Hotel

ordinary hotel restaurant. With its magnificent courtyard gardens, lobby resplendent with sweeping staircases, dramatic balconies and elegant chandeliers, you’ll forget you’re in one of London’s busiest zones, a stone’s throw from Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament.

From its ancient origins as a medieval chapel dedicated to a Christian saint to its more recent conversion to a grand hotel in 1899, St Ermin’s history is filled with secrets. During the 1930s and through World War II it was the secret headquarters for British intelligence agents. It’s where the notorious Cambridge Five spies, including Guy Burgess and Kim Philby, met their Russian handlers. It’s been a hideaway meeting place for politicians and trade union leaders. Nowadays it’s one of the Marriott Group’s most luxurious hotels.

We are invited to test drive goodies from Caxton Grill’s new menu, celebrating the best of Modern British and European cuisine. That translates to choice cuts of dry-aged Scottish Highland beef, Welsh salt marsh lamb, freshest Cornish lemon sole, all cooked on the hotel’s unique Josper Grill. Sustainability is not just a meaningless buzzword here but a fact behind every item on the menu. St Ermin’s was an early pioneer in the London beekeeping movement and is an active member of the Sustainable Restaurant Association. Not many 4-star urban hotels can claim to source their menu as locally as this one does. Salads and sides are imaginative and wherever possible made with produce and herbs grown on its rooftop gardens or using honey from its 350,000 bees, who live comfortably as permanent guests in the hotel’s Bee & Bee apiaries. Guests can view them safely behind glass on the Bee Terrace or sign up for beekeeping taster courses.

The restaurant’s extensive wine and cocktail menu includes inventive non-alcoholic drinks as well as cocktails named for each of the infamous Cambridge spies. Desserts range from chocolate orange mousse and a first class tiramisu to a tempting British and Continental cheeseboard.

Other top London spots for Modern British food include Hawksmoor, the Wolseley,

Caxton Grill’s creamy Buffalo Mozzarella with majestic herbs & veg from the garden. Photo courtesy WixHill Ltd/St Ermin’s Hotel Young guests view St Ermin’s Bees at work, photo courtesy WixHill Ltd/St Ermin’s Hotel

Sweetings and Rules. Outside the capital, we’ve heard great things about Home and The Foundry in Leeds, Ginger Fox and Isaac At in Brighton and the Leaping Hare in Suffolk. Caxton Grill at St Ermin’s Hotel 2 Caxton Street, London SW1 caxtongrill.co.uk

3. East Meets West: Mei Ume, City of London There’s been a Japanese community in Britain for almost 200 years, although the most vibrant growth came in the 1980s when many Japanese firms set up banks and businesses here. The Chinese population dates back much further than this. The first Chinese to visit Britain was one Michael Alphonsius Shen Fu-tsung in 1687, a Jesuit priest who came to help translate Chinese works at Oxford’s Bodleian Library and was feted by King James II. By 1900, the growing Chinese community lived mainly around the docks in Liverpool and London’s Limehouse, the original Chinatown. The UK’s first Chinese restaurant opened in Piccadilly Circus in 1908.

Of course, you don’t have to be Chinese or Japanese to love sushi, sashimi, steamed dumplings and Peking duck. And should you find it difficult to choose between two cuisines, Mei Ume at the Four Seasons Hotel is there to help.

In no way does Mei Ume’s kitchen produce ‘fusion’ food. Far better than that,

Art on a plate: Mei Ume’s Spicy Tuna Truffle Karashi

it’s a place to savour the best of both worlds, side by side, under one luxurious roof. Simply entering the restaurant is a special experience, whether that’s through Four Seasons’ palatial front entrance and across the chic Rotunda or via the side entrance with its splendid gardens and design tribute to the building’s past as Port of London Authority Headquarters. We are next to the historic “Pool of London”, the stretch of Thames near Tower Bridge which for centuries was the vibrant heart of London’s global maritime trade, the meeting place of East and West.

Mei Ume is distinctive for many reasons. The restaurant itself is stunning, with grand ceilings, majestic pillars, period lighting and walls hung with colourful silk screens. There’s an extensive set of menus which nerdy diners (like the author) will love reading from cover to cover. If dumplings are your weakness, there’s a menu for that. Or better, come on a Saturday lunch when you can peruse the dedicated Dim Sum Menu. Mei Ume’s Peking Duck is the star of the À la carte Menu, served in traditional fashion, we’re told, across two courses. There are also small eats for sharing, a full range of sushi, uramaki and the like, hot stone rice bowls, a variety of seafood, meat and vegetable dishes, each one lovelier to look at than the last. The Bar Menu is, literally, a work of art, a 19-page booklet exquisitely hand-painted and calligraphed by resident illustrator Jung Ah Kim. The Drinks Menu includes six pages devoted to sake, such as a sparkling sake, several creamy, fruit-rich junmai daiginjos and Tosatsuru Azure Ginjo, made with pure, ancient deep sea water. If you want to have it all, opt for Flavours of Mei Ume Tasting Menu, a selection of 10 or so celebrity dishes. If all those menus seem bewildering, Mei Ume’s gracious multilingual staff appear magically at your side to help, or to persuade you to try dishes you may have otherwise overlooked.

We fall head over heels for the Korean seaweed salad, sesame vinaigrettemarinated to chilled perfection, spicy tuna truffle karashi, salmon tataki gently stroked by the grill and bathed in a heavenly yuzu miso sauce. Shanghai aubergine is melting tenderness scented with the sweetness

of fried onions. The thick, buttery sashimi is the best and freshest we’ve ever had. Even the simplest dishes like jasmine rice, enhanced by toasted nuggets of brown rice, are memorable. The Dessert Menu is tempting, with exotic sweets, teas and afterdrinks, but we only have eyes for Mei Ume’s paradise on a plate— fragrant yuzu sorbet atop scatterings of nibbed coconut and served with a delicate yet crunchy wafer, the whole ensemble evoking a tropical beach.

Longing for more helpings? You won’t go wrong at Manchester’s Live Seafood, Glasgow’s Mikaku, Brighton’s Bincho Yakitori, or London’s Dumplings Legend, A Wong and Sushi Atelier. Mei Ume, Four Seasons Hotel 10 Trinity Square, London EC3 meiume.com

4. Mediterranean Grills to Thrill: Berber & Q, Haggerston Millions of Brits, including the current Prime Minister, can trace their origins back to countries of the Levant (that’s the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa to you and me), either as a result of Britain’s former colonial presence in the area or because their families came as refugees from war, religion or poverty. These communities have enriched the UK in countless ways, not least with music, customs and food.

We are thrilled by the recent surge in popularity for eats from this region. Whether

Turkish, Moroccan, Lebanese, Israeli, Palestinian or Persian, these bold, flavourful cuisines are popping up all over the UK, from restaurant tables and supermarket shelves to cookbooks and celebrity chefferie. If you’re new to the world of sumac, za’atar, preserved lemons and mangal grills, we think Berber & Q Grill House is the perfect place to discover what all the excitement is about. The food stalls of Marrakesh’s Jma El Fnaa, Tel Aviv’s shipudim and kebab houses of Istanbul inspired foodie entrepreneurs Josh Katz and Mattia Bianchi to create Berber & Q from a lovingly converted railway arch in East London. Since opening day 2015, they’ve had nonstop queues and rave reviews, even from Jay Rayner. The duo haven’t looked back.

It’s all about the food here. Each dish coming from the open kitchen is colourful, fragrant with herbs, hopping with spices and kissed by the “beast of a mangal” charcoal grill and smoker, yet none is pretentious.

B&Q is indeed a grill house, tho’ not as you might suppose. Sure, there’s lots of smokin’ hot lamb, chicken, beef and seafood but plenty of grill-gorgeous veggies too. Select from snacks, ‘bits and dips’, ‘bigs from the grill’, small plates, shares, sides and wellsourced drinks in any combination. Expect bold, interesting results, like the smoked chicken — tender on the inside, crispy on the outside, frisky-spicy but not as an extreme sport, surrounded by preserved lemon salsa, skordalia and tangy house pickles. Coming from a background of Friday night dinners,

Bold, interesting and frisky-spicy: Berber & Q’s Smoked Chicken and friends, photo by Jerome Ryckborst

I particularly relished the cheeky pairing of handmade challah bread and juicy, honeyed merguez sausages. But whatever else you choose, absolutely don’t miss B&Q’s gobsmacking hummus, a mélange of tahini, chickpeas, burnt urfa chilli butter, golden raisins and toasted pinenuts served with fluffy cushions of homemade pitta or the butternut squash tahini spiked with n’duja and sided by luscious laffa bread. If we had to describe B&Q in one word it would be ‘heat’. That’s not just on account of the aromas and flavours coming from the restaurant’s open kitchen and grill, but also the radiant staff, glowing service and warm vibe at its heart. “Your first time?” pipe the Irish couple at the adjoining table as soon as we sit down and ponder the menu, “cuz everything’s amazing.” And they surely know because they dine here several times a week and live round the corner— presumably to be first in line when B&Q opens its doors. By evening’s end we are their new best friends, sharing food, drink and hilarious online dating stories. Berber & Q is that sort of place. Other Med-style eateries to enjoy include Persian Cottage in Middlesborough and Jasmine in Manchester, while in London there’s Honey & Co, the Palomar, Ottolenghi, Ceru, Balabaya and Gökyüzü (or any of the tasty Turkish picks on Harringay’s Green Lanes). Berber & Q Grill House 338 Acton Mews, London E8 berberandqgrillhouse.com

5. A Taste of Italy: Lina Stores Restaurant, Soho For more than 75 years Lina Stores delicatessen has been a beloved Soho institution, the nonna of Italian food shops, London’s favourite place for all things edible and Italian. Lina’s is renowned for its white and pistachio green frontage and interior filled from floor to ceiling with Parmigiano,

LIttle Bites of Heaven, Pistachio Sorbet and Fresh Cannoli at Lina Stores Restaurant

panettone, prosciutto and, of course, pasta. We pop into the legendary deli for a pack of tubetti and to get in the mood for dinner at Lina’s recently opened restaurant round the corner. The visit takes my companion back to precious childhood memories growing up in Herne Bay where her parents were Punch and Judy artistes on the seaside pier. On special occasions, her mother served the family a treat known as “Italian dinner”: a plate of spaghetti and tinned tomatoes topped with a crowning glory of Spam fritters. I suspect Lina Stores would have done very well had they opened a branch in 1960s Herne Bay.

London, especially its Clerkenwell and Soho areas, has long had a thriving Italian community, from waves of refugees fleeing 19th century Napoleonic Wars to thousands who emigrated after 1945 to escape Italy’s postwar poverty. And, as we’ve said, where folk go their food goes with them. “When Lina Stores was first founded, Soho was home to a thriving Italian community of butchers,

delicatessens, shops, restaurants and bars. Most of these independent businesses have slowly closed their doors but Lina Stores has remained a constant, a home away from home for many Italians like me in London,” says Lina’s Head Chef Masha Rener.

Lina’s Soho Restaurant continues the same time-honoured traditions as Lina Stores, from the familiar white and pistachio green design, furniture and tableware to the mouthwatering menu. Food philosophy here: simplicity and the very best ingredients. That means pasta handmade daily from Italian flour and fresh eggs, a seasonally-changing menu of regional dishes from family recipes, traditional wines and cocktails and the world’s best cannoli outside Sicily. Even on the damp cold Monday night of our visit there’s a lively buzz and full house, along with a warm, exuberant welcome from manager Stani and his staff. Our toughest decision is whether to dine upstairs with its counter seating, 1950s retro feel and fun view of chefs at work, or downstairs in the cosytabled basement, a cross between a Soho drinking club and an old-fashioned ice-cream parlour. Far easier to choose our food and drink, because Lina’s menu is comfortably brief and everything looks fabulous.

Our choices were all outstanding. Antipasti of aubergine, tomato and parmesan polpetti; radicchio and puntarelle in a light anchovy dressing; top notch Gorgonzola twinned with sourdough bread and sweet’n gently spicy pear chutney. Small plates of double ravioli, their pockets filled with Jerusalem artichoke, parmesan and ricotta; swallow-shaped rondini stuffed with Devon crab and scallop; and a glorious pumpkin and fresh sage ravioli with toasted hazelnuts, as scrumptious as any we’ve had in Italy. From Lina’s short but select wine and beverage list, we adore the white Gavi di Gavi and earthy, red Chianti Classico. Dolci are a matter of four choices, so we obviously need one of each, with extra spoons. There are not enough superlatives for Lina’s remarkable pistachio sorbet (made, we’re reliably told, with just sugar, water and premium Sicilian pistachios), except to say that this alone would have made the visit worthwhile.

Other yummy London Italian eats can be found at Trullo, Boca di Lupa, tiny, brilliant Enoteca Supertuscan and our current pizza fave, Radio Alice. Outside the capital, check out Sarti, Valvona & Crolla or Alchemilla in Glasgow and Marmo, Pasta Loco or Ripiena in Bristol. Lina Stores Soho Restaurant 51 Greek Street, London W1 linastores.co.uk

Take Five is our quarterly feature bringing the best of British to Americans in Britain. A special thanks to Val, Susannah, Jerome, Emeric, Ariel and our wonderful friends at Fraser Communications, Ryan PR and WixHill. You can get in touch with Judith at judith0777@gmail.com.