June 02 17

02.06.17 london food month edition

fame hungry The cult restaurants loved by the A-list

angela Hartnett clerkenwell boy and the A to Z no food lover should be without

A taste of things to come London’s new gen foodies

Grace Dent How she ate her way to the top

editor’s letter ‘Sure, LA, New York and Tokyo have great restaurants, but if you read Grace & Flavour every week here in ES, you’ll know I think London is the most exciting place on earth to eat. As creative director of the first London Food Month, running throughout June in every corner of the capital, I’ve decided to prove it. This fabulous ES food special, guest edited by me, is designed for glamorous yet greedy sorts who love to slurp, nibble and daintily gorge.

It’s for those who love carousing and cocktailing. We give you the inside scoop on London’s celebrity dining cliques: where they eat, who’s at the table and what they’re ordering. In ‘Made in Manhattan’, we look at why the chefs and restaurateurs who’ve conquered the Big Apple are so obsessed with bringing their magic to London.

Frankie McCoy has written us the definitive summer 2017 food-fuelled A-Z, with all the buzzwords you need to fake it as a foodie. I turn the tables on Instagram royalty Clerkenwell Boy and set him loose on my Grace & Flavour column, while I take you on a journey from Wimpy to The Wolseley explaining the peculiar turn of events that led a little girl from Carlisle who likes the supermarket chiller aisle to be, albeit temporarily for June, the queen of London’s food scene. Bon appétit. Remember, you can always start juicing again in July.’

COVER Grace Dent photographed by Morgane Lay & Jonny Cochrane. TIBI dress, £715, Fenwick of Bond Street (020 7629 9161).

MARNI earrings, £460 (020 7245 9520)

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The Ivy at LFM Night Market ‘The Ivy is bringing glamour to the street with its only food festival appearance this year — it will be serving its classic British shepherd’s pie at the Night Market.’

Wendy Tee, acting art director

PS. Look out for the stamp throughout the magazine to discover all of the exciting events on in June.

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The ES team pick five LFM events they are looking forward to

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Mews of Mayfair at LFM Night Market ‘Mews of Mayfair is starring at the new Night Market and I’ll be first in the queue for its signature truffle cheeseburger.’

Matt Hryciw, chief sub editor

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Ketel One Dutch Brunch at Paradise Garage with Symmetry Breakfast ‘Brunch with Ketel One vodka? Yes Please! Plus it’ll be super Instagramable what with it being in partnership with Symmetry Breakfast.’

Helen Gibson, picture editor

Lunch at the Groucho Club ‘I can’t wait for LFM’s collaboration with the iconic Groucho Club, with guest chefs such as Tom Oldroyd and Ren Patel hosting lunches throughout June.’

Natalie Salmon, social media editor

Visit us online: standard.co.uk/esmagazine • Follow us:

@eveningstandardmagazine

Bloodshot Supper Club ‘Not for the fainthearted, Bloodshot will finally be opening its doors to the public, having previously been for industry folk only.

I can’t wait to see what weird concoctions Robin Gill has up his sleeve!’

Clara Dorrington, picture desk assistant

@ESmagofficial

@ESmagofficial

Editor Laura Weir Acting Editor Charlotte Ross Deputy editor Anna van Praagh Features director Alice-Azania Jarvis Acting art director Wendy Tee Fashion director Nicky Yates Fashion features director Katrina Israel

Jonny Cochrane, Eyevine

Commissioning editor Dipal Acharya Beauty editor Katie Service Associate features editor Hamish MacBain Features writer Frankie McCoy Lifestyle assistant Lily Worcester

Acting art editor Andy Taylor Art editor Jessica Landon Picture editor Helen Gibson Picture desk assistant Clara Dorrington Social media editor Natalie Salmon Office administrator/editor’s PA Niamh O’Keeffe

Merchandise editor Sophie Paxton Fashion editor Jenny Kennedy Fashion assistant Eniola Dare Chief sub editor Matt Hryciw

Contributing editors Lucy Carr-Ellison, Tony Chambers, James Corden, Hermione Eyre, Richard Godwin, Daisy Hoppen, Jemima Jones, Anthony Kendal, David Lane, Annabel Rivkin, Teo van den Broeke, Hikari Yokoyama Group client strategy director Deborah Rosenegk Head of magazines Christina Irvine

ES Magazine is published weekly and is available only with the London Evening Standard. ES Magazine is published by Evening Standard Ltd, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, Kensington, London W8 5TT. ES is printed web offset by Wyndeham Bicester. Paper supplied by Perlen Paper AG. Colour transparencies or any other material submitted to ES Magazine are sent at owner’s risk. Neither Evening Standard Ltd nor their agents accept any liability for loss or damage. © Evening Standard Ltd 2016. Reproduction in whole or part of any contents of ES Magazine without prior permission of the editor is strictly prohibited

02.06.17 es magazine

capital gains What to do in London

by FRANKIE M c COY

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Global gastronomy

Illustration by Jonathan Calugi @ Machas; Getty Images

Too many cooks? Never!

Chefstock sees a different world-class chef take over the kitchen at The Westbury each Wednesday in June as part of London Food Month, including Ana Roš (above, voted World’s Best Female Chef and star of Chef ’s Table). Tickets £180. 7, 14, 21, 28 June (alynwilliams.com)

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street style

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Champagne supernova

Sipping pretty

Mere champagne simply won’t cut it, dahling — what you want is a glass of Dom Pérignon P2 2000, or ‘second plénitude’, matured for 17 years to be ‘older yet more energised’, according to DP’s chef de cave, Richard Geoffroy.

It’s served by the glass at Claridge’s and Rosewood London this month before it launches to a wider audience.

Available at Claridge’s and Rosewood London. Until 30 June (domperignon.com)

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Why choose one Carnaby Street restaurant when you can eat at all of them?

London Food Month’s Carnaby Street Eat offers the chance to try £5 taster dishes by more than 30 different places, from Dehesa to Dishoom and Darjeeling Express. Free entry. 3 June (carnaby.co.uk)

Shh, don’t tell anyone but the oh-so-lovely Charlotte’s W5 in Ealing Broadway has a secret Sipsmith ‘sipping garden’ for summer, with drinks incorporating local produce. Kick back with a Bee’s Gees, made with Ealing honey, Cocchi Americano, lemon and Sipsmith London dry gin.

Opens 2 June (sipsmith.com)

ivy league

The Ivy City Garden finds the world-famous restaurant taking root in Bishopsgate Gardens.

You can chow down on all the classics — shepherd’s pie, eggs Benedict — plus a truly incredible looking beef Wellington to share. 7 June (theivycitygarden.com)

last chance: Ollie Dabbous is closing the doors on his eponymous Michelin-starred Fitzrovia restaurant this month — book a table now or miss out. (dabbous.co.uk)

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night fever

London Food Month’s Night Market sees the capital’s top restaurants gather in Kensington’s Perks Field.

Join the opening party, fuelled by The Cheese Truck, Angela Hartnett and DJ Norman Jay (right).

2-for-1 with code ‘Food’. 7 June (londonfoodmonth.co.uk)

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Feeling wine

Sauvignon snob or Malbec mad? Get your ticket to London Wine Week asap.

The festival celebrates all things vino, with 100 bars offering wine flights, tastings, masterclasses and pairing dinners.

Just line your stomach before you dive in…

Tickets £10. 5-11 June (drinkup.london)

look ahead: Gird your liver, it’s Wine Car Boot on 10

June in King’s Cross, where you can sample the good stuff from London’s best wine shops and stock up on impressive bottles. (winecarboot.com)

02.06.17 es magazine

upfront Laura Craik on roasts with the most and the new It hair

Lady Gaga bags some Nando’s

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grin and bear it Like Wimbledon, the Chelsea Flower Show was one of those la-deda London events I’d never been to: it was in Easigrass bears Chelsea, for starters, at Chelsea and involved plants, two things not exactly riding high on my bucket list. Right now, though, I’m overwhelmed by a desire to surround myself with living things; to stare dumbly at tulips, peonies and hollyhocks nurtured with love.

Peace that passeth understanding is increasingly hard to find in this life, and while

es magazine 02.06.17

Perfect partners: Sunday roast and a beer garden

“I refuse to be parsimonious about the Sunday pub roast.

Stick a pint in front of me and I’m Warren Buffett” salvation may not come in a rose, its beauty heals the heart to some degree. That said, I did also love the Easigrass bears. They probably weren’t meant to garner as much attention as they did, but you get your lolz where you can these days. What can I say? Roses are red, violets are blue, sometimes a kitsch piece of topiary just tickles you.

Sienna Miller

take the easy root The latest follicular innovation to hit London?

Hair rehab. According to Maxine Heale, senior colourist at Hershesons, now is the time to remedy what she calls ‘colour abuse’, before sun damage wreaks yet more havoc on over-processed hair. Heale says that touching up your colour too frequently can cause overprocessing, making hair go brittle and dry, particularly if you’re blonde. Her solution? Focus the lightest shades around the face but tone the roots down (Sienna Miller has the look down pat), a process that should allow a typical four-to-six week appointment schedule to stretch out to 10 weeks or more. As there are few things more dreary (or pricey) than having your roots done, this is one blonde ambition time-pressed/cashstrapped Londoners can get behind.

Damian Lewis and Helen McCrory, The Bull & Last regulars

HOT Giles Deacon Has always been brilliant; thanks to Pippa’s wedding dress (above), he’s now getting the global attention he deserves

NOT Fidget spinners The new stress balls/ the new loom bands/the new most annoying things of 2017

Josh Shinner, Getty, Alpha, Alamy, Planet Photos

’m sure I’m not alone when I say I can’t afford to eat out as much as I used to. Certainly not as a family, an endeavour that even at Nando’s works out at £40 (No Bones chicken platter for two + extra fries and coleslaw + ‘bottomless’ soft drinks for two consumed surreptitiously by four + strict no-pudding rule followed by reluctant purchase of cheesecake and four spoons — yup, let nobody tell me I don’t know how to live). There is one meal I refuse to be parsimonious about, though, and that’s the hallowed Sunday pub roast. Basically, stick a pint in front of me and I’m Warren Buffett.

The Sunday pub roast is the queen of all meals, though never more so than when you’re a parent. Alas, they fail to teach you at NCT class that for the next 16 years, Japanese, Thai and Indian will be dead to you, thanks to your kids’ resolute detestation of raw fish, creamy sauces and anything spicy. One of my kids won’t eat burgers and recoils in fear at the sight of a pepper grain. It’s extremely limiting. While I’ve yet to meet a small child who can get through a roast beef dinner without complaining that ‘the meat is too chewy’, even the fussiest kid alive will eat a Yorkshire. Especially if you tell them it’s just a pancake with gravy, and there’s ice cream for pudding if they’re good.

All Londoners have strong opinions on the capital’s Best Pub Roast. Posh folk swear by the Harwood Arms in Fulham. East Londoners love The Marksman.

Ultimately, the company must be taken into account as much as the food. If you’re with the sort of freak who always orders chicken, The Stag in Hampstead does a great one. If you’re with someone whose lunch isn’t complete without a celebrity to rubberneck, The Bull & Last in Dartmouth Park is a good bet. If you’re with people who want their children to run feral while they get quietly pissed on Gavi, then any pub with a beer garden will do.

With the Sunday pub roast, everyone’s a winner. Except, possibly, the waiter.

THE most WANTED

iTECHOR plastic kitchen food set, £13.99, at amazon.co.uk

Club tropicana: Paula Cademartori and Kartell’s floral beach collaboration in Opal Fruit colours is baskets of fun

Paula Cademartori for Kartell bag, £254; shoes, £183 (kartell.com)

PHOTOGRAPH BY xavier mas STYLED BY sophie paxton

02.06.17 es magazine 11

FLASHBULB! Party pictures from around town

by FRANKIE M c COY photographs by james peltekian Portia Leslie Elizabeth Olsen

Camille Charrière

Tania Fares

Katie Grand Neelam Gill

Corinne Bailey Rae

Tory manifesto Regent Street

Dementia taxes and campaign U-turns were thankfully absent from this Tory party, as super designer Tory Burch celebrated the opening of her second London store with a pattern-tastic bash and guests including Elizabeth Olsen and Diane Kruger, who’d flown in from Cannes especially.

Caroline Issa

Erin O’Connor Diane Kruger Ella Catliff

Tamu McPherson

Martin Parr

Jeanette Lee

Bay Garnett Jarvis Cocker

Bobby Gillespie

Flo Morrissey

Rose Leslie

Tallulah Harlech

The bigger picture Dover Street Market

Donna Air

The Ivor Novello Awards are all well and good but the real party was afterwards at DSM’s Photo London Open House, where Novello ‘outstanding song collection’ winner Jarvis Cocker and Jeanette Lee fed Simone Rocha and Delfina Delettrez brownies and photographer Martin Parr ended up wearing Paul Smith trunks (emblazoned with Parr images) over his trousers. How very SS18.

Caroline Rush

Molly Goddard

Matilda Goad Delfina Delettrez

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Hannah Weiland

Fashion cash-in Kensington

Lara Mullen

Simone Rocha Mimi Xu

Robert Bensoussan and Elizabeth Peyton-Jones

It was a glorious summery evening for the announcement of the BFC Fashion Trust recipients at Megha Mittal’s Kensington pad.

Caroline Rush presented 11 young designers, including Teatum Jones and Osman, with grants totalling £450,000.

Livia Firth and Megha Mittal

GO TO eveningstandard.co.uk / ESMAGAZINE FOR MORE PARTY PICTURES

Flash fusion

Tamara Ecclestone

Novikov, W1 Who goes: Katie Price, Meg Mathews, Calum Best, Mel B, JLS stars Aston Merrygold and Marvin Humes, Lindsay Gwen Stefani Lohan, Rihanna, Rita Ora, will.i.am, Tamara Ecclestone, Gwen Stefani The first London restaurant of Arkady Novikov, a well-known restaurateur in Russia who has since opened Rextail and Brompton Asian Brasserie, Novikov attracts an eclectic range of slebs and pop stars. Katie Price and Lindsay Lohan are regulars, as well as the cast of TOWIE. The food is part panAsian, part Italian, so you’ll find saffron sweet corn dumplings on the menu along with 30-month aged Parma ham. There’s even a ‘private jet menu’ — if you’re running late for that Ibiza opening party, you can get food delivered straight to the runway. Handy.

Calum Best Meg Mathews

Rihanna

Lindsay Lohan

Hunger

names

Charlie CaselyHayford

Thomasina Miers

Florence Welch goes to Brunswick House and Skepta tucks into vegan Thai in Shoreditch (yes, really). Lily Worcester maps the capital’s favourite celebrity joints

Rex, Getty, Photoshot

Design classics

Dock Kitchen, W10 Who goes: Anya Hindmarch, Alexandra Shulman, Bella Freud, Thomasina Miers, Arizona Muse, Charlie Casely-Hayford Head chef Stevie Parle set up this west London favourite in collaboration with interiors guru Tom Dixon, who designed the space and whose showroom resides underneath.

The pair and their modern, rustic European cuisine (think grilled leg of lamb with purple sprouting broccoli and monkfish with brown shrimp and Anya spiced potatoes) attract a Hindmarch trendy design crowd, as well as high-profile fashion insiders — Anya Hindmarch has been known to pop in for a lateafternoon sausage and toast. Dixon can also be seen eating there, often by himself, most nights.

Professor Green

Alexandra Shulman

Pop core chicken

Pixie Lott Bella Freud

Chick ‘n’ Sours, E8 Who Goes: Professor Green, Jade Jagger (and family), Usher, Pixie Lott, Harry Styles Chick’n’Sours serves — you guessed it — fried chicken and sour cocktails. Carl Clarke and David Wolanski have recently opened a branch in Seven Dials, but it is the original in Haggerston that continues to attract the A-listers.

Usher regularly gets a delivery of its hot wings to his studio and Pro Green usually opts for Whole Fry Sunday.

Harry Styles tried to eat there recently, only to find out it was closed. Poor Haz.

Jade Jagger

Usher

02.06.17 es magazine 15

Miquita Oliver

Alexa Chung

will.i.am

Jerry Hall

The (very) top table Sweet N16 Nick Grimshaw

Caroline Flack

Andi’s, N16 Who goes: Nick Grimshaw, Miquita Oliver, Alexa Chung, Caroline Flack Ethereal back garden meets wholesome rustica at Andi’s, newly opened in Stoke Newington. Set up by Great British Menu judge Andi Oliver (mother of Miquita) and business partner Kelly Miles, the cosy eatery serves brunch by day (don’t miss the baked eggs) and brasseriestyle food (think classic steak tatare with egg yolk and Marmite soldiers) by night. The duo previously worked together at Sugar Shack in Homerton and The Birdcage on Columbia Road, which attracted the likes of Jay Z and Rihanna.

Lara Stone

Liz Hurley

Scott’s, W1 Who goes: Kevin Spacey, Jerry Hall and her husband Rupert Murdoch, Damien Hirst, Johnny Depp, Julianne Moore, Lara Stone, Tom Ford, Liz Hurley, Julianne Tom Cruise, will.i.am Moore With opulent art deco interiors and a menu ranging from traditional deep-fried haddock with mushy peas to octopus carpaccio, this glamorous Mayfair institution attracts everyone from supermodels to media moguls. Kate Moss is a regular and was recently seen sharing a fruits de mer platter with erstwhile beau Count Nikolai von Bismarck (having previously been snapped there with Naomi Campbell and Mario Testino). The outside heated area is popular — David Walliams and Kate Beckinsale were seen dining à deux (left), and Simon Cowell, Lara Stone and James Corden have all been known to bag an al fresco seat.

The Grime scene

Jay Rayner

House of fun

Benedict Cumberbatch

Brunswick House, SW8 Who goes: Florence Welch, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jay Rayner Thanks to the mismatched recycled furniture, this could be mistaken for a lighting shop, but don’t be fooled — a glamorous crowd flocks here for the seasonal British dishes. The menu ranges from Barbary duck with wild garlic and trotter to mackerel with rhubarb, fennel and pollen. Owner Jackson Boxer hosts Florence Welch’s birthday party every year and Benedict Cumberbatch recently celebrated his 40th there. Famously hard to please restaurant critic Jay Rayner even had his 50th there. High praise indeed.

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Florence Welch

Cook Daily, E1 Skepta Who goes: Professor Green, all of BBK (JME, Skepta, Wiley, Jammer), Emeli Sandé This vegan Thai-inspired café in Shoreditch has a loyal fan base of London grime artists — JME’s one of their biggest supporters.

Professor Green is another devotee; he recently tweeted, ‘I might move to Shoreditch so I can eat at Cook Daily every day.’ Based in a shipping container, this unpretentious eatery serves up generous portions of vibrant food in recycled cardboard bowls.

According to the head chef and owner, Wiley ‘Chef King Senathit’, Skepta usually goes for the ‘hard bowl’, a spicy dish made with yams, plantains, ackee and wholemeal dumplings.

Andi’s, Novikov and Brunswick House are all part of London Food Month (london foodmonth.co.uk)

VICTORIA BECKHAM dress, £1,395, at mytheresa.com.

MARNI earrings, £450, at Fenwick of Bond Street (020 7629 9161) Make-up by Sally Bahri using Tom Ford and Armani Luminous Silk Foundation.

Nails by Georgia Hart at Stella Creative Artists using Illamasqua

20 es magazine 02.06.17

From

wimpy to The wolseley

I

She grew up on Findus Crispy Pancakes and mince, but that didn’t stop Grace Dent becoming one of London’s most influential foodies. Here she spills on the highs and lows of the best job in the capital PhotographS BY morgane lay & Jonny cochrane

t’s 1983, on my 10th birthday and as well as Union of The Snake by Duran Duran on 7-inch vinyl and a can of Impulse ‘Suddenly Sassy’ body spray, I’m in for an enormous treat. I’m off to a fancy restaurant for a slap-up feed, as Minnie the Minx might say.

We’re going to the Wimpy in Carlisle for a hamburger. Perhaps even with a slice of melted cheese on top just like Arnold makes it in Happy Days. Furthermore, if me and my little brother David behave and ‘don’t show my mother up’ throughout the first course, we may be permitted something so magical I can hardly breathe with anticipation all day at school. A Wimpy Knickerbocker Glory. This, for the uninitiated, is a tall glass filled decadently with ice cream, lurid red sauces, squirty cream and topped cheekily with a glacé cherry. Stacey Henderson in my class reckoned she had one on her ninth birthday but we all reckon she’s making it up.

Stacey also says her uncle is David Van Day from Dollar. What a dreamer.

To put my joy for London’s food, seen every week in this magazine, in context, one must understand that the Cumbrian culinary landscape in the 1980s was a siltshaded smorgasbord of boiled potato, Mother’s Pride loaf and Findus Crispy Pancakes. Sometimes my father, who had been abroad with the Army, would make his exotic spag bol: mince stewed in Campbell’s condensed tomato soup. Sometimes we’d have liver, which I still hate to this day,

following years of being sent off on errands to the Walter Wilson butcher’s counter for half a pound of lamb’s internal organs.

I grew up in a mono-cultural Protestant landscape untroubled by spice or herb. It was meat and two veg, except after the big Asda arrived in Carlisle and we bought our first trunk freezer — the veg was frozen because peeling stuff was now considered a waste of time. I still adore supermarkets to this day.

Jetlagged and homesick in LA, I can often be found in Trader Joe’s, not buying, just pushing a trolley, looking.

Back at the Wimpy, that cold afternoon in October perched at our little table with immovable plastic seats welded to the walls, I have my very first taste of being a culinary trend-setter. ‘No, I don’t want the Knickerbocker Glory,’ I say, sensing that my 10th birthday was time for new swagger and maturity, ‘I’ll have a Brown Derby.’ The ‘Derby’, I know already, is a classier affair. A warm sugary doughnut, smothered in cream and drizzled in chocolate sauce. This, I know, is the kind of thing Simon Le Bon would definitely take you for after serenading you on a beach in a Save A Prayer video. Later on, high as a kite on refined sugar and trans-fats, I plan my bragging rights for tomorrow morning at Bishop Goodwin Juniors, to tell Stacey Henderson while we finish the giant mural of St Francis of Assisi made of old eggboxes. I’ve learned an important lesson today about the life-enhancing nature of food.

My anti-foodie upbringing is pretty unusual in my genre, and is no doubt why I always feel slightly different from the majority

of food scene folk. The landscape is teeming with moist-eyed souls claiming to have mastered souffle ‘at their mother’s knee’ or tasted langoustine during family summers circumnavigating the Aegean. I am not an anti-posh foodie, far from it. Some of my best friends spend weekends eating rhubarb grown in their father’s prize-winning organic estate, and shooting grouse that are normally too overfed to run in the name of sport. But due to various complex socio-economic and social mobility trends dating back at least 100 years, which I could explain with graphs and flipboards, there are just not many foodwriters around who existed during the Eighties on Mr Kipling individual apple pies, McCain oven chips and Space Dust.

“Becoming a restaurant critic was an accident.

A huge, happy one, but unplanned” Or, for that matter, who are the first person in their ancestral line to use chopsticks for anything other than to push up their nose and pretend to be a walrus. ‘But Grace, you’re a breath of fresh air!’, TV and radio bookers say, which we all know means ‘a bit common’. On any judging panel I am a semi-passable, diversity box-ticking foil to three white men in corduroy jackets called Caspar.

Becoming a restaurant critic was really an accident. A huge, happy one, but unplanned nevertheless. I was a writer and author

02.06.17 es magazine 21

“If you want my job, your photo will be in London kitchens with a Hitler moustache” The joy of eating out is, of course, about the food, but it’s about everything else, too.

It’s about front of house, the cliques and crowds, the ‘concept’ and plainly, whether during the first course, you’re already planning to go back. A general rule of thumb is, if, during your starter, you’ve already spotted a more charmingly situated table and found yourself plotting the gang you’d love to bring back here and sit in it, then it’s already heading for four stars. The modern restaurant critic needs to be a fast, punchy, reliable writer firstly, and a glutton or food expert somewhere after that. I say ‘reliable’.

My spelling has sent many sub-editors to early retirement. Many words I use in Grace & Flavour were only recently invented that morning. Still, if you want my job, you’ll be out three or four times per week, rictus grinning at mâitre d’s who hate you. Your face will be on a photo in many London kitchens with a Hitler moustache drawn on it by the commis chef. You’ll write —

22 es magazine 02.06.17

WTR shirt, £210; trousers, £290 (wtrlondon.com).

MIU MIU earrings, £300, at matches fashion.com.

Jacket, Grace’s own

Above, Grace Dent with LFM co-creative director Tom Parker Bowles and Angela Hartnett, and right, with David Hepworth, Danny Baker and Boy George

alongside your other jobs — around 52 times a year and at least 20 of them will be columns on the act of eating pasta in a tiled room. If you can fill a blank white Word document at 6am, during a bout of mild food poisoning, in the knowledge that the restaurateur spent £25,000 importing a chandelier for his bistro you’re just about to push to liquidation, you’re in with a chance.

O

h and don’t ever moan about it. No one cares. Quibbling about your food-critic lifestyle — the weight fluctuation, the paranoia, the deadlines, the mad chefs shouting on Twitter at 2am — is a bit like Candice Swaenpoel complaining that her G-string chafes while walking for Victoria’s Secret. You have hit the jackpot in life and that includes endless tours of restaurants, including the wine cellar, that you didn’t ask for. Or staff resolutely ignoring everyone else at your table until one of your guests takes a passive-aggressive huff. Or other diners taking photos of you gob-open eating and then putting them on Instagram, tagging you then getting upset if you’re not happy. Or no-reservation restaurants that are actually all reserved. Or being told every day by strangers online that I am their guiding light for recreational activities — in fact they love me, will possibly get a tattoo of

me — then two minutes later, by someone else, that I am an atrocious, dim-witted fishwife who mistook parsley for wild garlic and should be fed to pigs.

See, I’m moaning. ‘Oh, cry me a river,’ is the genre of expression I’m met with constantly when I try to quibble about a forthcoming T uesday-n ight n i ne - cou rse m icro gastronomical tasting menu. ‘I just want to eat toast in my underwear,’ is something I mutter a lot as I plaster on Giorgio Armani Liquid Silk over eye-bags and head out to another freshly painted room where I’m literally the last person the staff want to see.

I sneaked into a place in Hackney last week with flat hair, glasses and trainers, and ate without being noticed until the last course when the owner saw me en route to the loo, lost control of his knees and exclaimed loudly, ‘Oh s***, it’s you’. As I sat on the loo, face in hands, I could hear him through the freshly hammered-up MDF board shouting at the commis: ‘What did she order? What did she send back? How did no one see her?’

Grace & Flavour has meant that leaving my house is never relaxing, but at the same time, it’s a lifestyle that’s utterly addictive.

There is a magic in sweeping into a room and hearing a bustle of ‘thatsthatbloodygracedent youknowher’. No one retires or gives up being a restaurant critic through choice. We merely waddle on, menu after menu, hoping to get away with it until a skinnier thing with better writing, who looks nicer in pictures, takes our place. George Reynolds, Frankie McCoy — I see you. And I’m not liking how young, clever and brilliant you are one bit. It was a long way from Wimpy to The Wolseley, but now that I’m here, I’ll enjoy it while it lasts.

Eyevine

throughout the Nineties in London, without many practical skills other than being able to scrape a thousand words out of my head, often at a moment’s notice, on almost anything.

During the Noughties, when I worked for The Guardian and The Mirror, I suspected I should harangue editors harder for a restaurant gig as I was always the one in a crowd who could nail exactly why that £100 we gave to a culinary hotspot in Chelsea, Tower Bridge or Soho was a rip off. Or alternatively, why that particular pub was the perfect place to propose. My ire at Momo, on Heddon Street, for kicking me off my table midtagine as someone from popgroup Another Level needed seating, lasted more than a decade. I could talk for an hour without pause or deviation on the phone manner of restaurant receptionists along Exmouth Market. Along the way I learned to tackle rows of knives, forks and obscure cutlery and how to sound completely trustworthy with a wine list. I still loathe consommé, offal and negronis but can do a passable fake-appreciation. I loved analysing exactly who was eating afternoon tea at The Ritz or was in the back room at Vrisaki in Wood Green.

STYLE NOTES What we love now

SWATCH Wide Acres of Time watch, £92 (shop. swatch.com)

EDITED BY KATRINA ISRAEL

STELLA MCCARTNEY RESORT 2017

ART O’CLOCK

First he designed the Swatch pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale, now YBA Ian Davenport has turned his multi-coloured palette to a new waterproof watch. The summer is looking psychedelic. Available 12 June.

EQUIPMENT blouse, £270, at net-aporter.com REBECCA TAYLOR top, £290, at matches fashion.com MARKS & SPENCER trousers, £35 (marksand spencer.com)

HERMÈS scarf, £225 (020 7499 8856)

GIVENCHY clutch, £265, at matchesfashion.com

GO DOTTY

JESSIE HARRIS hoops, £140; earring (part of a pair), £260 (jessieharris.co.uk)

Fancy channelling Julia Roberts (post-makeover) circa Pretty Woman this polo season? Here’s our edit of summer’s best polka-dot statements. Yep, still classy.

FACE TUNED London jeweller Jessie Harris’s new collection of hoops and chandelier earrings twists to the surreal ALEXA CHUNG shirt, £265; pinafore dress, £985 (alexa chung.com)

STELLA LUNA sandals, £255 (stellaluna.co)

InSTARglam KA-CHUNG

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Unusual forms are shaping up to be big news in bags for AW17. This Valextra piece is the perfect example.

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02.06.17 ES MAGAZINE 25

Made in Manhattan

(eaten in London) New York’s hottest chefs are invading the capital, opening everywhere from Mayfair to Shoreditch. Hamish MacBain hails the food world’s new special relationship illustration by BY andrew nye

Getty, Splash

W

ith its historic connections to the Royal Family, afternoon tea and top hat and tailed doormen, Claridge’s could not be any more quintessentially London. It is perhaps the last place that you might expect to find a New York cocktail bar pop-up, even if said bar was voted No 1 in the world last year. But that is exactly what is happening this August, as The Dead Rabbit — the Big high-end New York grocery favoured by Apple cocktail bar that has been causing a Patrick Bateman and Hannibal Lecter, storm since opening in the financial district which makes Whole Foods look like Lidl by in 2013 — begins serving up the none-morecomparison (in one of its three New York NYC likes of the ‘psycho killer’ (white cacao, branches, a pack of prime porterhouse banana liqueur, cacao nib-infused Campari, steaks will set you back $225). Another Irish whiskey and absinthe; named after the three minutes from there, at Corrigan’s, none-more-NYC Talking Heads song) to you will find Dickie’s Bar, also opening patrons of the capital’s most traditionally in June, with cocktails by former British hotel.

Dead Rabbit mixologist Gregory Buda.

‘We love the juxtaposition,’ beams Mayfair — London, it seems — is about to go co-owner Sean Muldoon. His business mad for Manhattan. partner, Jack McGarry, adds that what they A few years back, there were long queues are bringing is ‘attitude… Our concept is — or lines, as they say over there — round the historic but we’ve adapted it with a young, dynamic team and high-standard cocktails.

So The Dead R abbit is different, not just for New York but worldwide.’

Talking of psychos, and The Dead Rabbit’s killers, London will this psycho killer month — just a three-minute Rolls-Royce (or yellow cab) ride away from Claridge’s — If it’s good enough for Hannibal: Dean & welcome its first branch of DeLuca in NYC Dean & DeLuca, the super-

block at the UK’s first Shake Shack in Covent Garden.

In September last year, people were getting up at 5am to grab a c r o nut f r o m Dominique Ansel’s Belgravia site. But this year it’s the turn of London’s more high-end, date night-friendly e st abl i sh ment s t o exhibit an overt New York influence.

The Dead Rabbit owners Sean Muldoon In January, there and Jack McGarry was an SW1 spin-off of Nordic-inspired Midtown favourite Aquavit. A London outpost of Fatty Crab, known for its Malaysian-inspired seafood, is rumoured to be in the works — as well as not one but two new hotel and dining offerings involving Robert De Niro (the new Nobu in Shoreditch and later The Wellington in Covent Garden).

Perhaps most excitingly right now, there is Marcus Samuelsson’s Red Rooster, a modernday Harlem institution that has served up its

02.06.17 es magazine 27

chicken, waff les and mac’n’cheese to the likes of Paul McCartney and the Obamas (who held a $ 3 0,0 0 0 - a - pl at e fundraiser there), and Chicken and waffles at which has just found a Red Rooster se cond home i nside Michael Achenbaum’s The Curtain hotel and club. It has been hugely talked about, even if Samuelsson laughs — really laughs — at any notion of his name being connected to a ‘New York invasion’.

‘I do know about the British invasion of the music scene in America, which has been very good for American music,’ says Samuelsson. ‘If we can have just a tenth of that impact, we should just finish up and go home. I’ll Red Rooster’s take that any given day!’

Marcus Samuelsson He’s being modest, of course. Samuelsson — who was born in Ethiopia but raised in Sweden before moving to New York in the early 1990s — has done more than just franchise out the formula he has been successful

with in Harlem. He’s had plenty of offers to open Red Roosters in various places — so why the capital? He says he chose east London because ‘Shoreditch and Harlem have similarities, in that there’s a little mystique there. You could have been to London 10 times and never been out east, just like you could have been to New York 10 times and never been to Harlem.’ He also notes that, as a child growing up in Gothenburg, London has always been his ‘first love as a city’.

“New York’s taste-makers recognise that London is the primary global food and drink capital that can rival theirs” Another draw is London’s rich diversity.

Samuelsson believes that ‘one of the most important things as a chef is you have to be a good listener to what the neighbourhood is’, and so has spent a lot of time adapting his menu to fit with the area. He enthuses at

length about the Indian, Persian and Jewish food he has been able to enjoy while he spends time here, and the street markets such as those in Borough. As such, while 50 per cent of the menu has a strong link with Harlem (‘because that’s important’), the other half is made up of dishes inspired by the eclectic local cuisine.

There’s also, clearly, a recognition among New York’s taste-makers that, increasingly, London is the primary global food and drink capital that can rival theirs. After all, The Dead Rabbit may be at the top, but London has the highest number of bars in the World’s 50 Best Bars list, with five entries in the top 10: the American Bar at the Savoy is No 2, Dandelyan is No 3, the Connaught Bar is No 4, with The Gibson at No 6 and Happiness Forgets at No 10. It also has plenty of restaurants in the World’s 50 Best, among them The Clove Club, The Ledbury and Dinner.

‘London is the No 1 city i n t he world for restaurants,’ says Philip Hamilton, CEO of Aquavit London. ‘I just Daniel Boulud knew that Aquavit would be greatly received here.’

At the same time, points out Daniel Boulud — the New York restaurateur who led the transatlantic charge when he opened Bar Boulud at the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park seven years ago — London has increasingly embraced the kind of relaxed approach to dining out that characterises New York’s scene. When he opened, he says, ‘the concept of an approachable, affordable bistro in Knightsbridge was kind of an oxymoron.’

“New york has nailed this incredible care and attention to detail with the food, but everything is relaxed and fun and enjoyable” James Lowe at the ever-popular Lyle’s on Shoreditch High Street — which will in July welcome Pam Yung, formerly of Brooklyn’s Semilla, for two nights as the latest NYC chef in its ongoing Guest Series — agrees. He spent some of his formative years (‘13 or 14

Lyle’s, above, and Jean-Georges Vongerichten, right

years ago’) working at Blue Hill in Greenwich Village and WD~50 with Wylie Dufresne in Manhattan, and says that the laid-back attitude over there had a direct influence on him when he opened his own spot. ‘WD~50 was a total game-changer for me,’ he says.

‘If you were doing a similar type of food in Europe at that time, it would be really over the top and fancy, with tonnes of unnecessary waiters and theatre. It was like, “Wow, they’ve absolutely nailed this incredible care and attention to detail with the food, but everything is relaxed and fun and enjoyable.”’ As well as Lyle’s, he cites the River Café in Hammersmith and the St John group as ‘understanding this ethos’.

No wonder more and more New Yorkers

Dominique Ansel’s legendary cronut

want a piece of the action. As Jean-Georges Vongerichten, whose eponymous restaurant in the Trump Tower on Central Park West has won three Michelin stars and who is opening a London restaurant at the Connaught this summer, puts it: ‘New York chefs feel comfortable opening in London because the culture is so similar.’ The French-born, New York-based chef says his new spot in the hotel’s conservatory will have a neighbourhood feel, with ‘an approachable menu offering something for everyone at all times of the day, a comfortable setting and a great address’. There are plenty of the latter in London — if New York wants to help out with the former, that’s good news for all of us.

The taste m

Ja

David Carter smokestak chef/ owner

Imogen Davis

native co-founder

Seb Myers

Elizabeth Allen

Snackbar co-creator

Shibui chef/owner

Freddie Janssen

Snackbar co-creator

30 es magazine 02.06.17

e makers Jamie Strachan Dark arts head of coffee

r

Zoe Adjonyoh

Zoe’s ghana kitchen chef/owner

Adrian Luckie Mama’s Jerk owner

Mandy Yin Sambal Shiok chef/owner

Andrew Clarke brunswick house chef director

They’re young, they’re talented — and they’re spicing up the capital’s food scene with their game-changing creations. Frankie McCoy meets the new guard bringing London Food Month to life PhotographS BY Louise Haywood-Schiefer

Elizabeth wears ZARA shirt, £29.99 (zara. com). BDG jeans, £50, at urbanoutfitters.com.

Seb wears FRENCH CONNECTION T-shirt, £25 (frenchconnection. com). Imogen wears H&M top, £12.99 (h&m.com )

02.06.17 es magazine 31

David Carter and Adrian Luckie

Elizabeth Allen

Elizabeth Allen has competed in MasterChef, earned Hackney’s Pidgin a Michelin star and is poised to open her own hyped fusion eatery — all by the age of 28. The chef, who was born in Maidenhead, raised in Singapore and now lives in Angel, got into cooking as a child and while studying architecture at university realised that ‘I much preferred being in the kitchen’. She entered MasterChef on a dare — ‘I made it to the last 12!’ — and then did stints at L’Enclume and Bubbledogs before taking on the role of head chef at Pidgin. Now she’s opening her first restaurant, Shibui, fusing European and Asian cuisines and serving an Italian-Japanese (‘Itameshi’) four-course dinner at Palatino on 2 June for London Food Month.

What would you be doing if you weren’t a chef? ‘Become an artist or, more obscurely, become a volcanologist. I’m strangely obsessed with studying them!’

Adrian Luckie

Canary Wharf-based Adrian Luckie’s street-food stand, Mama’s Jerk, isn’t just a jerk chicken stop — it’s a ‘legacy’. His greatgrandmother Mama Charlotte’s secret jerk sauce recipe was so good, the 46-year-old felt he had to dedicate his business to it.

After catering college in Lewisham, Luckie, born in Hackney, cooked French cuisine at various fine-dining restaurants but had a yearning to get back to Caribbean cooking.

When London’s street-food scene took off around 2010, he took the leap to set up Mama’s Jerk, initially trading at Vibe Bar in Brick Lane and now catering at London’s best markets, including LFM’s Night Market (7-18 June), and various festivals.

The real reason you’re interested in cooking? ‘I had a slight crush on my home economics teacher at school!’

32 es magazine 02.06.17

Mandy Yin

Growing up in Kuala Lumpur was all the inspiration Mandy Lin, 35, needed to become a chef; her childhood memories revolve around food. Now based in Enfield, she started her street-food stand, Sambal Shiok, in 2013, serving the Malaysian food of her youth with a twist, such as chicken satay burgers. Her pop-up laksa bar has taken over pubs and bars, from Fitzrovia’s Newman Arms to Blend Café in Haringey, and her chilli and peanut sauces are so good she sells them for £6.50 a pop. She’s currently seeking a site for the first Sambal Shiok restaurant and is hosting a six-course ‘Memories of Malaysia Supper Club’ on 15-17 and 22-24 June.

How spicy is too spicy? ‘When I did the first trial of my signature laksa at home it was nearly inedible as I was too generous with the chillies. It made me cough and cry!’

“My first trial laksa was nearly inedible.

The chilli made me cough and cry!”

Freddie Janssen & Seb Myers

Australian-born Seb Myers, 31, and Dutchborn Freddie Janssen, 34, have some seriously cool cooking credentials. Just name a zeitgeisty restaurant and they’ve probably worked there — from Sweden’s Fäviken, where Myers did a month’s stint, to Lyle’s in Shoreditch, where Janssen is marketing manager. The pair met at Sager + Wilde while London Fields-based Myers was head chef and they collaborated on a taco pop-up — at the time Claptonite Janssen was impressing Londoners with kimchi through her pickle and sauce brand, F A T. They’re now working on a new pop-up project, Snackbar, which will

Elizabeth Allen, Andrew Clarke and Johnny Smith

serve ‘international party food’ (kicking off at The Laughing Heart on 6 June) before they open their first restaurant in Hackney Central early next year.

What is your worst food disaster?

Freddie: ‘I tried to make coconut-stuffed candied limes for the first time at a pop-up, but after hours of shelling, colouring and boiling I was left with hot lime shells that were bizarrely blue!’

Jamie Strachan

Jamie Strachan, 33, might have become a barista when he moved from Inverness because he ‘didn’t know what else to do’ — but now it’s his career. After grinding beans at London’s cooler coffee shops such as Commune at Goodhood and Kaffeine, he joined Dark Arts, the hyper-cool Hackney coffee shop and roastery where bikers and the heavily tattooed sip filter coffee with names like Cult of Doom. Now he’s head of coffee, which also means working out ways to further disrupt ‘the homogenous coffee scene in London’.

Why should someone become a barista?

‘There’s loads to learn, it’s social and there’s no stress.’

Zoe Adjonyoh

Pestering her Ghanaian father Charles about all the kenkey, shito and other exotic ingredients he used to bring home was how Hackney Wick-based Zoe, 39, started her love affair with African food. Without extended Ghanaian family in London, she used cookery to establish a connection with her heritage. Her version of her dad’s delicious groundnut soup — peanut-butter stew — is a signature dish at Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen, the critically adored West African restaurant she set up in Pop Brixton in 2010.

She’s also got a pop-up at The Sun and 13 Cantons pub, where she’ll host a five-course ‘Goodness Ghana Me’ five-course tasting menu on 5 June, while budding stew stirrers can buy her new, beautifully shot cookbook named after the restaurant.

Best part of being a chef? ‘Providing a gateway for people to explore a new culture through its food — taking people on a journey through food is the most exciting thing!’

Edson Diaz-Fuentes

If Bermondsey-based Edson Diaz-Fuentes puts a bowl of grasshoppers and guacamole in front of you, don’t run — it was the signature dish at the 35-year-old’s critically adored Mexican restaurant, Santo Remedio, in Shoreditch. Born in Mexico City where ‘tacos are a way of life’ and as former head of menu innovation at Wahaca, he knows a thing or three about mini tortillas. At Santo Remedio he won legions of fans, including that Grace

02.06.17 es magazine 33

Imogen Davis and Edson Diaz-Fuentes

day jobs in 2012 to form the sold-out dining pop-up ‘The Young Turks at the Ten Bells’, then Smith, Willis and McHale raised £250,000 to open The Clove Club, the UK’s first crowdfunded restaurant. A Michelin star and world ranking later, Dalston-based Smith is now the impeccably charming FOH at the trio’s Britalian second restaurant, Luca.

How did you toast the World’s 50 Best?

‘We drank champagne, danced on tables, made new friends, then drank more champagne. Mint.’

Dent, with fillings such as pigs ear with salsa verde. Although the restaurant was forced to close last summer due to electrical issues, he’s in the midst of a Kickstarter campaign to get it back open and is hosting a taco fiesta with El Pastor and Breddos on 17 June.

Why are tacos better than burgers? ‘We eat tacos any time of day: breakfast tacos, as a quick snack or late at night after going out.

For us Mexicans, nothing can compete!’

Vauxhall’s Brunswick House — follow him on Instagram for stunning pictures of the day’s specials — while cooking fun street food like Sichuan chicken naan with the roving pop-up Dangerous Dinner Gang.

What music plays in your kitchen?

‘Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Ozzy, Metallica, plus lots of doom, stoner and sludge metal. Loud.’

David Carter

Manchester-born Johnny Smith, 36, came down to London to DJ in 2008. Now he coowns the 26th-best restaurant in the world, The Clove Club in Shoreditch. Pretty snazzy.

While Smith was working FOH in St John, he and friend Daniel Willis started hosting supper clubs, where they met chefs Isaac McHale and James Lowe. They all quit their

David Carter makes the best smoked brisket in London. Fact. Growing up in Barbados he moved to London in 2008 to become Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant manager, working with him at Claridge’s and the Savoy Grill before moving to sushi at Roka. In 2013 he jacked it all in, ordered a 4.5 tonne smoker from Houston and flew to the US to eat and cook barbecue. On his return he started Smokestak at Street Feast, serving pork and beef ribs and sticky, fall-apart brisket. Now the 31-year-old, who lives in Dalston, has his ‘grown-up barbecue’ Smokestak restaurant in Shoreditch and will be serving that amazing meat at LFM’s Night Market from 7-18 June.

Can you ever eat too much brisket? ‘In the first week of opening Smokestak we actually ran out of brisket by Saturday evening — that’s 200kg in just four days.’

Andrew Clarke

One look at the 39-year-old, heavily inked, Viking-haired Andrew Clarke confirms that chefs are definitely the new rock stars.

Although he started cooking to fund his rock guitarist dreams, Clarke became obsessed when working at Kent’s The Swan in 2002.

He was head chef there before moving back to London to work with Marco Pierre White and at Salt Yard in 2010, then setting up legendary Hackney restaurant Rita’s in 2013 cooking funked-up Japanese food such as octopus dumplings. Still in Hackney, he’s now creating beautiful British food at

34 es magazine 02.06.17

Johnny Smith

Good luck guessing what Imogen Davis’s other job is. The 29-year-old, who grew up foraging and eating only seasonal produce in Northamptonshire, was shocked at university to discover most people didn’t do the same.

Now based in Forest Hill, Davis is co-owner of Native, the ‘wild British’ restaurant in Covent Garden, but she also is ‘PA’ to Rufus, the hawk which keeps the All England Lawn Tennis Club pigeon-free during Wimbledon.

Believing ‘the land should dictate what we eat’, she opened Native last year with Ivan Tisdall-Downes, who trained at Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage. For London Food Month, two Native signature dishes will become fixtures: ras-el-hanout pigeon kebab with beetroot hummus and meadowsweet, and Kentish wood-ant fudge.

The weirdest ingredient you’ve found to be edible? ‘Ants — they pop like sherbet in the mouth!’

Jamie Strachan, Mandy Yin and Zoe Adjonyoh

Grooming by Rebecca Hadfield

Imogen Davis

Anchovies

Blame the craze for Portuguese food, or simply the fact that these salty little fish can enhance almost any dish: anchovies are cropping up on many more dishes than simply pizza. Try the fat, salty Ortiz variety on a slick of goat’s butter at the new Foxlow Soho (right); fried flawlessly to zhoosh up coconut rice at Zheng; or head to Bonnie Gull for an anchovy mayonnaise you’ll want to drown in.

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alphabet city eat your way from

to

Brindisa’s Catalonian brunch

Alamy, Carol Sachs, Shutterstock

Catalonian

Everyone’s au fait with regional Chinese; now it’s time to discover Spain, starting with Catalonia, the autonomous north-east region. There’ll be amazing Catalan cheeses such as Picos de Valdeon Azul, La Serena and oven-baked Torta del Casar at Sibarita (below) and sea urchin on Iberico lard toast when Rambla opens later this year. In the meantime, try Brindisa’s Catalonian rice brunch, with dishes including arroz de costillas, made with pork ribs and morcilla.

China’s national spirit, distilled from wheat or rice, is not something to be dabbled in lightly, so make sure you order some oolong-smoked quail to soak it up at The Tea Room in Soho, a newly opened speakeasy serving the danger drink — which has a distinct, powerfully musky smell and taste — by the bottle.

Pasta for breakfast, healthy fried chicken and waffles that look like fish. From the sublime to the surreal and the downright delicious, Frankie McCoy decodes the capital’s freshest food and drink trends

eater

Duck offal

Duck is a hot bird right now, and in our whole-animal, no-waste world, that means eating more than just the breast. At Duck & Waffle spin-off Duck & Waffle Local there’s deep-fried crispy gizzards (super-rich and tender with a slick of mustard, above).

Look out too for duck offal green curry or khao soi (creamy curried broth) at Smoking Goat’s Offal Monday.

US food website Eater is an institution, trusted by millions of food-obsessed Americans for industry gossip, dissections of new openings and area guides. Now Eater is coming to serve us millions of food-obsessed Londoners and rate the capital’s best restaurants. Prepare for a bun fight.

FideuÀ

Specifically, the baked lobster fideuà at Westerns Laundry (right), a contender for dish of the summer. Fideuà is a Valencian paella-like dish, the rice replaced with vermicelli pasta and baked so the top is crispy, the middle hot and gooey; scoff oodles of it at Barrafina’s fideuà feast on 20 June.

02.06.17 es magazine 41

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Gastropubs 2.0

HFC

Old-school pubs might be closing at speed, but in London there’s a new wave of public houses opening — with some serious food options. There’s the Langham, which is opening The Wigmore pub next door to the hotel this summer, with food overseen by Michel Roux Jr; Bocca di Lupo chef Jacob Kennedy’s Palquemine Lock in Islington; and the wonderful Prince of Peckham.

That’s Healthy Fried Chicken, obviously. Chicken legend Chick ‘n’ Sours is launching CHIK’N — a fast-food chicken shop, except one where the meat is free range and fried in zero trans fat rapeseed oil that will be converted into bio-fuel at the end. More importantly, it’s also serving its take on a McMuffin at breakfast.

Tee time

Not your average boozer: the Wigmore pub is new from the Langham

Ikoyi

London’s first high-end Nigerian restaurant opens in St James later in the summer with a refined version of the mighty jollof, a spicy tomato rice dish, taking pride of place alongside pepper soup and beef cured in katsuobushi.

Keep up your West African education at Chuku’s, a Nigerian tapas pop-up serving cassava bravas (left) and jollof quinoa.

Jaggery

These blocks of super-rich unrefined sugar, made of sugar cane juice or palm sap, are a staple of South Asian cookery. Apparently it’s good for digestion — a great excuse to head to Covent Garden and consume industrial quantities of Cinnamon Bazaar’s coconut and jaggery parathas (above) or to visit Talli Joe nearby, where jaggery adds molasses sweetness to the Masala punch.

Lagom

kensington

No, seriously. South Kensington is coming to life with Levantine spot Ceru (above) and the brilliant high-end Vietnamese Go Viet.

Naturally there’s London Food Month’s Night Market in Kensington Gardens, and now Dishoom is heading to the culinary wasteland of High Street Kensington.

‘Lagom’ means something along the lines of ‘enough is as good as a feast’ in Swedish; it’s also the name of the street-food stall you really need to know this summer. The hugely talented ex-Smokestak chef Elliot Cunningham uses live fire cooking to produce beautifully flavoured plates of barbecued meat, fish and vegetables.

Band T-shirts are so passé. From New York’s The Spotted Pig (left) to London’s Berber & Q, which is launching limitededition Mangal Monday T-shirts, restaurant T-shirts have become a must-have among London’s foodie hipsters. ‘I like the concept of chefs being the new rockstars and my Spotted Pig T-shirt highlights that,’ says Alicia Robinson, an app brand manager who visits April Bloomfield’s famous eatery every time she’s in the Big Apple.

While you can buy a toddler a Rolling Stones T-shirt, you’re unlikely to buy clothes with the logo of, say, Katz’s Deli in New York (above) without having scoffed pastrami there. And as Robinson points out, ‘It’s a great conversation starter.’ Even better if they’re no longer available. T-shirts from the iconic, now closed Chicago hot dog restaurant Hot Doug’s sell for $75 on eBay — and Bao’s ‘crying man’ T-shirt sold out weeks ago. They are ‘you had to be there’ merchandise. Because while anyone can take a perfectly filtered Insta shot, an oversized logoed T-shirt is real proof of your food credentials.

02.06.17 es magazine 43

Old food

N16

Trying times for South Londoners: Stoke Newington has become budding restaurateurs’ favourite patch. Jump on the Overground and head to Lacy Nook, Perilla, Dandy, L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele or cult hangout Andi’s.

momos

London loves a dumpling, and the little steamed parcel you need now is the momo, the Tibetan version. The main difference is thicker dough, which makes it more substantial — although you’ll still scoff a dozen, whether from street-food stand Momo Shack or filled with delicately flavoured chicken (above) at Darjeeling Express.

q uaffing while you shop

Sustainability rules OK, and bartenders are obsessed with ‘closed loop’ cocktails: new drinks made from the waste of old. Nine Lives in Bermondsey (opening summer) will use the skin, oil and pith of discarded lemon slices in cocktails and liqueurs; while Trash Tiki at The Curtain makes cocktails (above) using leftover tortillas.

A herb salad, above, from Perilla

Goo for it: raclette

P

asta for breakfast

Everybody loves pasta, but it’s not normally socially acceptable to scoff a steaming bowl of spag in sauce before lunch. Until now. Head to Sager + Wilde (right) and Palatino for breakfast spaghetti carbonara; or ravioli with unlimited spumante at Cantina del Ponte.

Raclette

The 3 and 6 Bar (above) at Fortnum & Mason serves classic cocktails to soothe weary feet; elsewhere find fashionable libations at Ralph’s Coffee & Bar at Ralph Lauren and Thomas’s café at Burberry on Regent Street.

Cheese toasties are all well and good but raclette — a big wedge of cheese melting wantonly and scraped on to new potatoes — is the way to eat hot gooey cheese this summer. Grab a cone of goodness from Wine & Rind in Tottenham or brand new The Raclette Bar in Clapham North.

London’s best cookbooks

‘Oklava: Recipes from a TurkishCypriot Kitchen’ by Selin Kiazim (£25, Mitchell Beazley) Move over Ottolenghi; Oklava head chef Kiazim’s recipes such as pomegranate-glazed lamb are the new go-to for posh dinners.

‘Prime: the Beef Cookbook’

by Richard H Turner (£25, Mitchell Beazley) From the co-founder of super butcher Turner & George, this covers everything from rearing and slaughtering to bresaola.

S eawater pizza

A Neapolitan fishermen’s trick of adding seawater to pizza dough, making it lighter and less crispy.

Find it in London Bridge’s O Ver and Battersea arrival Mother Pizza (below).

On the Side by Ed Smith (£20, Bloomsbury) Blogger Smith proves that side dishes can be more exciting than the main event, with recipes for vermouth-braised cabbage or warm radishes with anise.

02.06.17 es magazine 45

Taiyaki

America can keep its unicorn frappuccinos; the dessert to instagram this summer is taiyaki, a Japanese cake shaped like a fish (‘taiyaki’ means ‘sea bream’), traditionally filled with red bean paste or custard.

Queue at Chinatown’s Bake for its taiyaki waffle cone, filled with matcha tea ice cream, or have one with afternoon tea at Jason Atherton’s Sosharu in Farringdon.

Urban wineries Grapes and wine at London Cru

Why swan off to Bordeaux this year when you can hop on the Tube and visit a winery without leaving Zone 2? Both London Cru in West Brompton and newly opened Renegade London Wine in Bethnal Green import grapes and make their wine onsite — the latter is even holding wine-making sessions.

Verbena

Good luck finding a menu without the word verbena on it — chefs and mixologists alike are obsessed with the lemon version, which gives, yep, a delicate lemon flavour to dishes. It’s mixed with gin and aquavit at Red Rooster, gin and pineapple at Timmy Green and added to Dorset clams at Clipstone, while Gariguette strawberries and lemon verbena is this summer’s pudding power pairing: it’s on the new menu at both Sky Garden and Neo Bistro.

XU

Pronounced ‘shu’, this Taiwanese restaurant is the next step from steamed bun legend, Bao. And the menu looks fantastic: crab with chilli egg-drop sauce, and the hangoverdecimating pan-fried soup dumplings.

Shhh… get to Xu before the crowds

Welsh food

Luke Thomas (above) was Britain’s youngest head chef at the age of 18 at Cookham in Berkshire. Now 23, he opens his Shoreditch restaurant this summer. LFM will host a Young Chef’s Dinner at Bibendum. Tickets from £85.

27 June (londonfoodmonth.co.uk)

Rarebit — aka the world’s best cheese on toast — is brilliant. But that’s not all there is to Welsh food, as Tom Simmons (above) will prove at his new restaurant in Tower Bridge this summer. Get hyped for cockle popcorn, laverbread mayonnaise and lashings of Welsh lamb.

Z ero per cent alcohol

Apparently, people are drinking less alcohol.

Luckily, if you’re one of them, there’s the 0 per cent ‘spirit’. Seedlip — made like gin by distilling botanicals — is so popular in the cooler cocktail bars that it’s brought out a new variation, Garden 108, with herby, grassy flavours. Slug in some tonic and embrace the smugness.

Young chefs

Instagram accounts to follow

Kar-Shing Tong 58.4k followers @ks_ate_here Best for: up close, Technicolor oozing eggs, pimped street food and cheesy food puns.

Edd Kimber 118k followers @theboywhobakes Best for: beautiful cakes and tarts, natch. After all, Edd did win the first season of Bake Off.

Leyla Kazim 45k followers @ldncheapeats Best for: the tastiest, cheapest food across town — everything you see here costs under £8.

02.06.17 es magazine 47

beauty by katie service

Beauty Brew

RITUALS tea tin, £3.50 (rituals.com). ZARA HOME teaspoon, £2.99 (zarahome.com). SUMMERILL & BISHOP pink bowl, £55; blue plate, £145 (summerillandbishop.com).

MATCHAEOLOGIST Cloud glass chawan, £14; glass chashaku, £10 (matchaeologist.com). NEAL’S YARD tea infuser, £3 (nealsyardremedies.com). With thanks to Rebel Rebel

Drink your way to clearer, brighter skin with these antioxidant- and adaptogen-packed teas

An antioxidant-packed green tea and mint infusion — because a good digestive system underpins great skin

Blackcurrants are a great source of skin-energising vitamin C and beetroot adds cell-renewing vitamin A

PUKKA Blackcurrant Beauty tea, £2.49 (pukkaherbs.com)

The highest dandelion essential oil content in a packaged tea — great for spot-busting

DR STUART’S Skin Purify tea, £4.40, at victoriahealth.com

RITUALS Hammam mint teabags, £4.50 (rituals.com)

A brilliant tonic for eczema and dermatitis

VIRIDIAN Ultimate Beauty tea, £12, at victoriahealth.com

Goji berry tea boosts skin radiance

NEAL’S YARD Beautiful Skin tea, £6 (nealsyardremedies.com)

PHOTOGRAPH BY amy currell STYLED BY lily worcester

02.06.17 es magazine 49

feast

grace & flavour Guest reviewer and food influencer Clerkenwell Boy falls for the lobster at Breddos Tacos

“Breddos is the kind of place where you want to hang out and get drunk with the owners”

Ambience food

Jonny Cochrane; illustration by Jonathan Calugi @ Machas; Instagram/clerkenwellboyec1

I

’m always being asked to share my list of favourite London restaurants. Current choices include the brilliant Quality Chop House (famous for those confit potatoes), Moro’s little sister, Morito (the beetroot borani, studded with soft cheese, crunchy walnuts and fresh dill), Shawarma Bar (the hummus of my dreams), St John (freshly baked madeleines — worth the 15-minute wait), Sushi Tetsu (melt-inyour-mouth seared fatty tuna nigiri — if you can ever get a booking, as they only have seven seats)… and then there’s Breddos Tacos.

The duo behind it — Nud Dudhia and Chris Whitney — first met at university and, after moving from Manchester to London, lived in Dalston as flatmates. Like most good ideas, their taco dreams started to form after several pints at the pub, which led to a semi-drunken debate about the lack of good taco options in east London.

That night a pledge was made and just a few weeks later they built a makeshift taco shack in now uber-trendy Netil Market in Hackney. As the queues started growing each weekend for their signature short-rib tacos, it dawned on the boys that they might have a business on their hands.

Fast forward a few years and Breddos has become a regular fixture across the street-food and festival scene, gathering thousands of followers on social media and winning awards along the way. The pair have even published their own cookbook (about tacos, obvs).

Late last year Breddos finally opened a permanent taqueria on my doorstep in Goswell Road in Clerkenwell — with an open kitchen, bar and booth seating all around, plus a large

breddos tacos 82 Goswell Road, Clerkenwell, EC1 (020 3535 8301; breddostacos.com)

1

Margarita £9

1

Fried chicken taco

£4

1

Baja fish taco

£4

1

Kung pao taco

£4

1

Tuna tostada

£7.50

1

Pulpo tostada

£7.50

1

Lobster special

£13

1

Baked brioche

£6

1

Ice cream

Total

£4.50 £59.50

communal table in the centre. The dishes are inspired by the duo’s tequila-fuelled travels across Mexico, New York and LA. Breddos is the kind of place where you want to hang out and get drunk with the owners. Order a mescal margarita on arrival as well as everything on the menu.

The menu states that all tortillas are made in house with non-GMO corn, ground daily using a volcanic stone mill. All the meat is from Philip Warren & Son and all the fish from Cornwall.

When I turned up with my partner just before 5.30pm, the restaurant had already started filling up. From the taco selection we couldn’t resist our favourites: masa fried chicken with heritage tomato pico de gallo and habanero sauce (even Jamie Oliver is a fan) and the Californiastyle Baja fish tacos with cabbage and lime mayo.

The soft tortillas provided the perfect textural contrast to the crispy fried chicken and crunchy batter encasing the delicate flesh of the fish. The salsas added freshness and punch.

The pulpo and tuna tostadas both had dominant Asian flavours: black vinegar, Sichuan and sesame worked well with the slow-cooked, smokey octopus. The star by far was the daily special, Cornish lobster huarache: sweet, perfectly cooked lobster flesh served with a mussel escabeche and smoked chilli mayo on a delicate flatbread made with masa. At £13 it was the most expensive dish on the menu, but also the one that proved there’s some serious talent in the kitchen. For dessert we shared a generous buttermilk ice cream with Gariguette strawberry sorbet. Sweet and aromatic, it was summer in a bowl.

Throughout our meal, we’d been transported to Mexico, Asia and back to Europe — without the hefty airfare. The creativity in the kitchen and the quality of ingredients will keep me coming back time and time again.

Clerkenwell Boy is hosting Cook for Syria x London Food Month, an initiative at 180 The Strand, which will serve some of Syria’s most popular dishes. From 25 June to 2 July (londonfoodmonth.co.uk)

02.06.17 es magazine 51

feast

tart london Jemima Jones and Lucy Carr-Ellison knock up a clam broth with a difference

If life gives you lemons: Jemima finds roadside superfruit in Positano

Jemima Jones (left) and Lucy Carr-Ellison

Josh Shinner

C

lams, cockles, mussels, oysters, whelks, scallops, winkles — they sound like they belong in a children’s nursery rhyme. What they have in common is that they’re all molluscs, some of the nearly 100,000 different species around the world. For this recipe we are using clams (a bivalve like its sisters the oyster and scallop) but you could easily substitute cockles or mussels. If you want to experiment more with cooking molluscs, The Fish Society offers a very good selection on its website.

Clams come in all shapes and sizes. There are the beautiful, smooth verni, most commonly from France; the small, meaty surf clam with a shiny, taupe-coloured shell; and the venus clam, with the creamiest smooth shell. Cherrystone clams are large and carpet shell are small, while razor clams are long and narrow with delicious, sweet‑tasting flesh.

We often cook with clams as they’re the key feature in our favourite pasta dish: spaghetti vongole, packed with garlic, chilli, white wine and parsley. Here we are cooking them in a delicate broth. If you have time, pick up fish bones from the fishmonger and make your own stock. If not, then choose a good quality premade one — Ariake does very good bouillon sachets that you can keep in the cupboard until you need them. We recently served this dish from an interactive pasta station at a lovely arty dinner party. All the food was seasonal and there were lots of big sharing dishes served on a long communal table. We think that’s the best way to eat!

Serves 2

lemon sole and clam broth

200g clams (or cockles) 2 tbsp butter or olive oil 1 leek, chopped 3 cloves of garlic, chopped 3 sticks of celery, chopped 4 bay leaves 1 bulb of fennel, sliced ½ tsp chilli 600ml fish stock 50ml sherry A large pinch of saffron Juice of half a lemon 30g cold butter, chopped into small chunks 200g lemon sole, sliced into strips 150g peas Bunch of parsley, chopped

Soak your clams in fresh water for 20 minutes before cooking. Heat a little butter or olive oil in a saucepan and add the leek, garlic, celery, bay leaves, fennel and chilli. Give it a good stir and cook for 3 minutes. Add the fish stock, sherry and saffron, and simmer for 25 minutes.

Take off the heat and use a sieve to drain the liquid into a bowl. Discard the cooked vegetables, then pour the liquid back into the pan. Add the lemon juice then whisk in the butter a few chunks at a time. Bring to a simmer, add the clams and cook for 5 minutes.

Add in the lemon sole and peas and cook for another 2 minutes. Discard any shells that aren’t fully opened. Serve in warmed bowls, sprinkled with parsley, with a nice big hunk of bread and a glass of chilled white wine on the side.

02.06.17 es magazine 53

HOMEWORK BY lILY WORCESTER

blades of glory

Paper from GF Smith

These ergonomically designed knives will have you slicing and dicing like a pro

From left, Wüsthof Classic Ikon paring knife 9cm, £89.95, at Harrods (020 7730 1234). Kai Shun paring knife 8.5cm, £89, at boroughkitchen.com. Zwilling Pro pairing knife 10cm, £49.95, at Harrods (020 7730 1234). Global stainless steel GNSF-02 utility knife 11cm, £87.49, at selfridges.com.

Maple wood chopping board, £55 (conranshop.co.uk)

PHOTOGRAPH BY william Bunce

02.06.17 es magazine 55

escape

Street food: a restaurant-lined road in Lisbon

EDITED by dipal acharya

lisbon appÉtit

Where to shop

Getty Images; Alamy; Juan Baraja; Fernando Mendes

LX Factory A set of oncederelict industrial buildings, rescued and turned into artists’ studios, restaurants and hipsterfriendly boutiques, it’s easy to lose an entire day at LX Factory — pronounced ‘el-sheesh’.

Traditional classics, innovative fusion — and lots of custard tarts. Rebecca Seal tucks in to Europe’s culinary hotspot

Nice kitsch: from A Vida Portuguesa, pictured above

A Vida Portuguesa You probably didn’t know you needed a ceramic sardine or a bottle of local cherry liqueur, but you will once you visit this small chain of shops dedicated to reviving old Portuguese brands and products.

Where to drink

Rio Maravilha With views across the city, river and hundreds of metres up to Lisbon’s iconic red bridge, this excellent roof bar was extraordinary even before the addition of a huge, multicoloured sculpture of a woman with outstretched arms. It echoes the far bigger statue of Christ, visible on the far side of the bridge.

Manteigaria Pastéis de Belém’s custard tarts may be more famous but I like these wobbly-centred little beauties best. Listen for a hand bell ringing — this signals a fresh batch hot from the oven.

Foxtrot Buzz to be let in to this slightly secret art deco, family-owned cocktail bar. Bartender Hugo’s creations are outlandish and delicious — expect melted sugar, burning pine cones, Drink in the views smoked liquor and at Rio Maravilha plenty of theatre.

Feira da Ladra You’ll find everything from antique tiles to handmade lace and vintage lamps at this huge flea market, held every Tuesday and Saturday.

One of Mi Casa en Lisboa’s apartments

What to do

Taking a cookery course is a brilliant way to understand a city’s food culture. Two of the best are by Kiss the Cook and Cooking Lisbon; learn to make pork and clams from Alentejo or a seafood caldeirada stew, accompanied by excellent Portuguese wines to enliven the lessons. (kissthecook.pt; cookinglisbon.com)

What to see

Where to stay

Mi casa en lisboa María Ulecia is well-known for creating beautiful holiday apartments, furnished with her collection of Portuguese mid-century furniture and art, as well as her own gorgeous handmade ceramics. Her latest opening is a huge house in Graça with four B&B rooms. Breakfasts are particularly special, served with local cakes and jams and the chance to learn how to make them, plus once a week a different local chef hosts dinner for guests (a true foodie, Maria knows all the best chefs and places to eat in Lisbon). From €120 for a double room (micasaenlisboa.com)

Lisbon is incredibly pretty, especially the medieval Alfama district (right).

The best way to see it is from a 100-year-old tram, clattering along the steep cobbled streets. Many façades are decorated with hand-painted tiles — to learn more, visit the Museu Nacional do Azulejo.

Where to eat

Estrela da Bica This cool, laid-back little restaurant is in the picturesque, hilly and newly trendy Bica neighbourhood.

Visit for reimagined Portuguese and Brazilian dishes with the occasional cleverly chosen ingredient from further afield, such as ceviche or ramen noodles.

Restaurante Ponto Final Catch the ferry to Cacilhas on the far side of the mouth of the Tagus river and walk for 10 minutes past graffitied industrial buildings until you reach the last restaurant before the suspension bridge. Order a few traditional Portuguese fish and rice dishes (above), and take in one of the best — and leastknown — views back over the water to Lisbon’s towers, domes and terracotta roofs.

Cantinho da Paz Goa was a Portuguese colony for centuries and today there are many Goan families living in Lisbon, including the one who founded Cantinho da Paz in the 1960s. Don’t miss the lightest, crunchiest samosas and coconut pickles.

Cantinho Lusitano Run by a husbandand-wife team, this tiny, simple spot is a perfect place to try petiscos, the heartier Portuguese version of tapas. Try broad beans with cumin, baked octopus and garlic shrimp.

Getting there

TAP Portugal flies direct from London Heathrow, Gatwick and City Airport to Lisbon up to 12 times daily, from £42 one way. (0345 601 0932; flytap.com) ‘Lisbon: Recipes from the Heart of Portugal’ by Rebecca Seal (Hardie Grant, £25). Photography: Steven Joyce

02.06.17 es magazine 57

my london

angela hartnett as told to lily worcester

Home is…

East London, Spitalfields — I’ve lived there for 14 years now.

I’ve got a little garden, which is nice, and my partner and I have just got some bees, so we are waiting for our first honey, which should be fantastic.

Best meal you’ve had?

One recent highlight was Elystan Street, Phil Howard’s place in Chelsea.

The food (right) is just delicious. I went for Sunday lunch with friends at one o’clock and we were still there at half past six. That’s a sign of great lunch, that you’re still there five hours later!

Biggest extravagance?

Before Christmas we had people round for supper and had loads of white truffles, so that was quite an extravagant one. It was a great day.

58 es magazine 02.06.17

Who’s your hero?

Fergus Henderson from St John. His influence on London restaurants is second to none.

So many chefs have come out of his kitchen and now run their own restaurant. To me he is a great culinary hero.

Favourite pub?

The Golden Heart (below) around the corner from where I live, run by a lady called Sandra who’s had it for about 40 years.

She doesn’t do food, just crisps.

It’s a proper old boozer.

The LFM star collects Elizabeth David books, shops at Spa Terminus — and has been known to enjoy a KFC when hungover Earliest London memory?

Probably visiting Fortnum & Mason — my grandmother, if she came up to London, would always go there to have Welsh rarebit.

Best thing a cabbie has ever said to you?

I was going to work at The Connaught and I’d been out the night before. I was a bit hungover, so I was eating a KFC sandwich in the back and the driver goes, ‘Gordon’s not going to like that is he Ange!?’ I said, ‘Gordon doesn’t have to know.’

Favourite London shops?

I love La Fromagerie in Marylebone. Patricia Michelson’s produce (below) is incredible; she gets the best of the best. She’s been doing it for more than 20 years now, so she really knows her stuff.

Down at Spa Terminus in Bermondsey you’ve also got brilliant shops — there’s The Ham & Cheese Co, which does lovely charcuterie, The Little Bread Pedlar, which does wonderful breads, and then you’ve also got Steve the honey man.

Best place for a nightcap?

If it was after work probably Little House, which is across the road from Murano.

Who do you call when you want to have fun?

Jason [Atherton] and Marcus [Wareing]. But if you really want a fun night, you go out with Margot Henderson. We usually end up dancing on the tables and drinking too much.

Best piece of advice you have been given?

You’re only as good as your last meal. Gordon always talks about consistency, making sure everything is as it should be.

Angela Hartnett will headline the Night Market at London Food Month. 7-18 June. (londonfoodmonth.co.uk; muranolondon.com)

Alamy

Where would you recommend for a first date?

I once went on a really unusual date with a choir boy — choir man, rather — at Westminster Cathedral (above). I met him there and he showed me around the whole cathedral. I was there while they were practising and then we went for lunch.

What do you collect?

Elizabeth David cookery books (above); I’ve got first editions of most of them.