Barrafina Drury Lane: Exquisite Spanish Tapas to Queue For!

Name: Barrafina Drury Lane

Where: 43 Drury Lane, London. WC2B 5AJ, http://www.barrafina.co.uk/restaurants/drury-lane

Cost: The recommendation is to order around 3 small plates per person. The average spend per person is £40 (drinks excluded). Plates of small eats range from £2 to £14.80, chargrilled meats from £7.50 to £18.80 and desserts from £2.50 to £6.80 (or a Spanish cheese platter for £12). 

As would be expected, there is a wide range of sherries by the glass or bottle, starting at £4.50 per glass. The wines, whether sparkling, rose, white or red, are exclusively from Spain. The entry level white is an El Circo Macabeo from Aragon (£19), with a matching El Circo Garnacha red wine at £19. Tempting options include an Albarino from Rias Baixas at £32, and the magnificent Vina Ardanza Rioja Reserva 2007 at £56. 

About: Opened in July 2015, the third and latest branch of the Barrafina group, led by Sam and Eddie Hart, this restaurant looks very much like the founding, Michelin-starred Barrafina on Frith Street.

With exposed brickwork and a lovely beige marble counter set around the open plan, stainless steel kitchen and high red leather stools, the look is modern yet warm and convivial.

But the best thing is that it is a great set up for people-watching and also for studying the Spanish chefs doing their thing - I really enjoyed this aspect of Barrafina.

There are no separate tables, and all 23 diners are seated at the counter. Like the other branches of Barrafina, regrettably the Drury Lane outfit does not take reservations for groups of fewer than 8 people so you need to take your chance. There is a private dining room downstairs where groups of 8 or more can be seated.

Fortunately on the evening we attended, there was no queue although there were only two spaces left. Waiting time is minimal at lunchtime, but in the evenings it can be quite a different story

What We Ate: The menu at Barrafina is not too long, but the dishes read so temptingly, the main problem we had was choosing what to order. We started with their deep-fried courgette flower (£7.80) – beautifully presented with a scattering of red amaranth and Espelette pepper, it was crisp on the exterior but stuffed with an unctuous goats cheese and orange honey filling.

The pan con tomate (£2.80 each) featured some intensely flavoured and fleshy tomato, with a smack of chilli heat, virgin olive oil, parsley and crunchy toasted bread. So simple and yet so good.

The insanely moreish  chipirones (£6.80) were deep fried and super-crispy baby octopus, served in a paper cone with lime, smoked paprika and sea salt – so delicious and a very generous portion too.

The crab bun (£8.80) was a lovely toasted bun filled to the brim with a deliciously creamy bisque of crab spiked with brandy and habanero chilli - a blissful combination.

The soft shell crab (£10.80) was huge, served with fried spring onion, red chilli and garlic, with a Japanese dressing of mirin, soy sauce, sake and sesame oil, and a dollop of saffron aioli to give it a Spanish twist.

Next up was a toastie of deliciously grilled sourdough bread topped with celeriac puree, morcilla de Burgos (black pudding), sliced courgette and fried quail eggs (£8.50).

Pork belly with mojo verde (£12.60) featured unctuous and meltingly tender pork with crisp, caramel-like crackling in a rich jus. The mojo verde was a zingy and herbacious green herb sauce of parsley, coriander, spring onion and vinegar.

The baby gem lettuce with shavings of bottarga, pine nuts, pancetta and shredded Manchego cheese (£6.80), featured a delicate sherry vinegar dressing.

To finish our red wine, we decided to share a Spanish cheese platter at £12 including Manchego, Hermecenda from Cataluna, and my favourite Picos (a lovely blue cheese made from sheep and cows milk from Asturias) as well as dried figs and quince jelly.

For dessert, we shared a portion of the spectacular signature Torrijas (£6.80). A traditional dish of fried bread soaked in milk and egg, coated in sugar then fried in oil until caramelised, the luxury Barrafina version is enhanced with custard, and served with a lovely creme fraiche ice cream and caramelised nuts. This is a magnificent dessert, and in my view merits a visit to Barrafina in its own right.

What We Drank: We had a refreshing glass of La Gitana Manzanilla from Hidalgo - a yeasty, salty and tangy aperitif at £4.50 per glass. With our meat dishes, we had a glass of Viña Ardanza Rioja Reserva 2007, at £10.50 per 125ml glass. With a classy nose of blackcurrant and vanilla, this had lovely red cherry fruit, refreshing tannins despite its age, and a finish that went on and on with layers of complex fruit, leather and spice.

To follow, we had a glass of Humilitat 2012 Massard-Brunet Priorat (a blend of garnacha and carignan), at £8.50. With dessert, rather than the full Monty Pedro Ximenez, we opted for a glass of the semi-sweet Alameda Oloroso Cream sherry from Hidalgo (£5.50). Tawny coloured, with lovely nutty flavours and gentle sweetness, this was a good accompaniment for the Torrijas - sweet enough to complement it, but not so sweet as to be cloying.

Likes: The chipirones (deep fried baby octopus) were excellent, as was the pork belly, so unctuous. The torrija was also outstandingly good. In fact, there was not a single bad dish on our menu. Nearly every wine on the menu is sold by the glass, so it is affordable to purchase a variety of top quality wines. Service is friendly and helpful. 

Dislikes: None (on a night when there is no queueing). I have lost count of the number of times I have tried to eat at a Barrafina, but this is the first time I have actually eaten there. I refuse to spend hours queuing to eat, and the policy of not taking bookings is part of an annoying trend in London. At present though, the wait at Drury Lane is not too bad.   

Verdict: With top quality ingredients, excellent cooking and super friendly service, Barrafina is one of the few top London venues for Spanish tapas, and the only one I would queue for, it is that good! Very highly recommended.

Sharing is Caring at SUDA Thai Cafe

Words & Photography by Marina Benjamin and Luiz Hara

Name: SUDA Thai Cafe

Where: St Martin’s Courtyard off Upper St. Martin’s Lane, Covent Garden, London WC2E 9AB, http://www.suda-thai.com/

Cost: Average spend is around £35 per person (not including drinks). The prices of each individual dish is shown below.

About: Tucked away in mega-hip St. Martin’s Court, just off the Seven Dials in London’s Covent Garden, Suda is a Thai-style Cafe from the creators of the much-loved Patara group of restaurants (reviewed here).

Suda is more street than suave, the concept being bites, sharing platters, and small tapas-style bowls. If Patara is sit-down formal, at Suda the vibe is fast and feisty, as befits a restaurant in the city’s go-go theatre and dining epicenter. We had a very enjoyable dinner for four on a sultry Friday evening in July and though Suda’s large dining room was hopping throughout the evening, service was consistently warm and welcoming. 

What We Ate: The food began with two sharing platters. The Suda platter is a cracking deal at £8.50 per person (minimum two people) and delightfully arrayed with a duck wrap, chicken and prawn dumplings, Thai fish and prawn lollipops, Thai prawn crackers, mini chicken satay sticks, and sweet potato curls. The lollipops were particularly tasty: moist and flavourful on the inside and crisp on the outside. The satay sauce – always a bellwether for Thai restaurants – was not too sweet and had the right note of heat to offset the tender satay chicken.

The Small Bites platter (£9.50 per person) offered encores of several Suda platter dishes, but also included marinated BBQ pork skewers that were a little fatty but compensated by some delicious grilled lamb chops, charred to perfection yet still pink and juicy. Crispy noodle-wrapped prawns were accompanied by a number of dipping sauces that were sweet and sharp by turn: a lovely play of tastes on the palate.

Reaching the main courses, we discovered that Suda excels at curry. We had the Small Bowls version, which allowed us to sample five curries whilst still leaving room for more adventuring through the Suda menu. If you’re a fan of Thai curries, we’d recommend it very highly.

Our Small Bowls carousel featured four of Suda’s meaty curries and one vegetarian curry, and all were satisfying in different ways: Gaeng Kiew Waan (£4.25) is a lovely green curry with chicken that packs a surprising back-note of heat, while Gaeng Garee Gae (£4.75), or yellow lamb curry, was mild yet complex.

Gaeng Massaman Gai (£4.25) is Suda’s take on classic Southern Thai chicken massaman and was appropriately deep and rich, ringing with playful undertones of cinnamon. Gaeng Panang Nua (£4.25) had long notes of mild curry spice amplifying well-cooked sirloin beef. The lone vegetarian curry, Gaeng Kiew Waan Pak (£3.95) didn’t let down the party: it was rich with vegetables and flavour, and medium-spiced in keeping with its meatier siblings.

Accompanying the Suda curry extravaganza was a very passable Pad Thai (£10.50 or £16.50), with juicy grilled prawns and with lime segments and crushed peanuts on the side, DIY-style. With these dishes we had Kao Mun (£3.50), mild coconut rice that was a perfect complement to the curries.

Suda’s dessert menu is simple but classic, and we managed three offerings between us, all perfect for a warm summer evening. Kao Niew I-Tim Ka-Ti (£3.95) was a perfectly judged take on a Thai classic of sticky sweet rice with homemade coconut ice cream, the latter being rich and oily and properly coconut-y in a way that is often hard to find. Kao Niew Mamuang (£5.95) was another sticky rice variation, this one with juicy chunks of tangy-sweet mango. But the real sweet treat was Gluay Hom Tod (£4.95): banana fritters pan-fried until crisp and golden, the heat sealing and intensifying the banana’s almost treacly richness, and served with vanilla ice cream topped with honey and sesame.

What We Drank: We began with cocktails from the tempting drinks menu: the Long cocktails were especially interesting, offering a distinctly Southern Asian twist on the classics. We tried a Pandan mojito - white rum with mint, pandan leaves, fresh lime, and vanilla liquor finished with soda – and a Suda passion, featuring rum with fresh passion fruit muddled with bitter lemon and sweet oranges topped with soda. Both were marvelously refreshing, but our group agreed that the cool and zingy savours of the Hendrick’s fizz – gin shaken with cucumber, fresh coriander and lemon juice – made it the refreshing star of the specialty drinks menu (all £7.45).

Many people assume that beer is the natural beverage with Thai food, but we were more than happy throughout the evening with Monsoon Valley Classic White (£19.50), a crisp Chenin Blanc/Columbard blend straight from Thailand that held up well to the curry carousel and was very drinkable on its own. It was another nice surprise in a menu full of them at Suda.

Likes: we loved the variety offered in the three different sharing platters we tried, they made for a very sociable evening, the curries were particularly good!

Dislikes: None.

Verdict: Suda is a great place for easy-going Thai cooking – it is affordable and now with a selection of sharing platters on offer, there is so much to sample from. Recommended. 

Huge 20-Inch Pizza and Bold Flavours at Homeslice Pizza

Name: Homeslice Pizza

Where: 13 Neal’s Yard, Covent Garden, WC2H 9DP, http://www.homeslicepizza.co.uk/

Cost: 20” pizze at £20 each, or individual slices at £4, soft drinks £2, craft beers £5, Camden Hells Lager priced at £2.50 and £4 for half or full pint, £4 to £5 for a 125ml glass of wine.

About: Homeslice, in the heart of Covent Garden in the busy Neal’s Yard, serves pizza by the 20 inch size, all at £20, or individual slices for £4 for three of the most popular flavours.

Flavours change seasonally, with one or two pizzas making an appearance every few weeks. On our visit, beyond the Margherita and Caprese, there were also some unusual pizza toppings including: Calabrian peppers, chervil and Lincolnshire Poacher; celeriac with wild garlic, cows curd and roasted hazelnuts; chorizo, corn and coriander; and braised beef brisket with pickles on a barbecue sauce base.

Owned by a Kiwi and two other business partners, Homeslice started as a street-food venue in East London in 2011. Their first permanent restaurant in Covent Garden opened in May 2013 with a new branch opening in Fitzrovia's Wells Street in the summer of 2015.

This is pizza not as you know it - expect some unusual but surprisingly great flavour combinations.

With plain wooden tables, benches and floors, paper plates and no cutlery, no menu and blaring rock music, to state that the place has an informal feel about it would be an understatement. But not in a bad way - I enjoyed the raucous vibe of the place, the chatter and the eavesdropping possibilities.

On the Sunday evening we were there, the queue was long. Homeslice does not take advance bookings so queuing is to be expected.

What We Ate: The 20 inch pizzas can be ordered with up to two flavours, and we opted for a combination of (1) goat’s shoulder with savoy cabbage and sumac yoghurt and (2) anchovy, caramelised onions and Kalamata olives.

The sumac yoghurt had a refreshing tartness and flavour that cut through the richness of the goats shoulder, with the cabbage adding a crunchy texture. We really enjoyed this unusual topping. The anchovy pizza, a more traditional combination of flavours known as the Napoletana, was also very delicious.

Pizzas are served whole on a large wooden platter, and diners cut it for themselves. The dough is thin, proved for 36 hours, and cooked through in a smouldering wood oven to give a delicious charred flavour. A standard pizza is 9 inches, but here they serve 20 inches, so it is more than enough for two people.

The pizza is served with no cutlery, and the base was so thin and soft that we had to roll it up and eat it with the fingers like a wrap. But it's none the worse for that. So be prepared to get your hands dirty.

What We Drank: For wine, there is a choice of house red, white or Prosecco (£4.50 per glass). Bottles of unlabelled 1.5L house wine are brought to the table, and diners are charged for the volume they drink as measured by a ruler when the bill is requested.

With a limited choice of unlabelled house wines, we decided to go for beer, and that was a good decision. We had a pint of Camden Hells lager (£4.50), and a 330ml bottle of Pressure Drop Pale Fire pale ale (£5), with some lovely toasty hoppy, aromatic flavour, this was a great discovery and an ale I shall be looking out for from now on. All the beers on the menu are brewed in London.

Likes: we loved our choice of pizza and craft beers, it was refreshing to be served tap water freely available on arrival.

Dislikes: tables are cramped (the pizza occupies 90% of it). There is no drinks menu, and waiting staff, while friendly, did not on our visit know the prices of drinks.

Verdict: Homeslice serves huge 20” pizze with bold flavours and creative combinations of ingredients that work a treat! There are no frills, but if you come prepared to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty, there is some great pizza and beer on offer. Recommended.

A Return Visit to L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon

Words & Photography by Matthew Brown and Luiz Hara

Name: L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon

Where: 13-15 West Street, London WC2H 9NE, United Kingdom,
http://www.joelrobuchon.co.uk/

Cost: We sampled dishes from several of the restaurant’s menus. A La Carte starters range from £17 to £49. Main courses are more consistent, and vary from £34-49, while desserts are all £11. The restaurant also offers 5- and 8-course tasting menus, priced at £95 and £129, and each can be extended to include either a “Sommelier’s Choice” or a “French” wine pairing. As well as set lunch and pre-theatre menus (2 courses for £31, 4 for £41) there’s an additional menu of small tasting dishes (from £16-29) that features some of the restaurant’s most innovative items.

The wine list is extensive, and though the top bottles are stratospheric, there is a good choice of bottles under £40. There is an extensive spirits selection, and a strong cocktail list (£11-15) that is also available in the restaurant’s biggest secret, its cosy penthouse bar.

About: L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon is the London outpost of a superstar chef with restaurants all over the world, from Bangkok to Bordeaux and Las Vegas to Tokyo. Robuchon was named ‘Chef of the Century’ in 1989 and his ingredient-led cuisine shows great attention to detail. The London restaurant is led by Head Chef Xavier Boyer who has worked with Robuchon for 13 years, and shares his determination to reinvent classic French cooking.

Open plan kitchen by Chef's Table at L'Atelier Joel Robuchon

This restaurant opened in 2006, in a striking black townhouse on Covent Garden’s West Street. Inside, the emphasis is on glamour. The downstairs dining room offers bar seating around a sleek open kitchen.  As if this didn’t provide enough drama, there’s also a vertical garden on the back wall and irresistibly good lighting throughout. The second floor dining room is larger and has a more conventional arrangement of tables, but the drama returns in the third floor bar which features a roof terrace, a modernist fireplace and deep red leather armchairs.

L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon is one of my favourite ‘splurge’ restaurants in London, I wrote about it in The London Foodie previously, see earlier review here.

What We Ate: We began with an amuse bouche of foie gras, port wine and parmesan foam that was rich and well-executed and set the tone for the dishes that followed, all of which used indulgent ingredients with impressive finesse.

For our first course, we had a well-presented dish of fresh crabmeat, served in crisp ravioli of pressed turnip with a sweet and sour sauce.

It was followed by poached egg with Comte cheese cream, from the tasting ‘Découverte’ menu. Served on a rich black truffle coulis, the egg was poached to creamy perfection.

Next, we had poached turbot in a Champagne sauce, from the Gout de France menu, served with cockles, clams and shiitake mushrooms and a superb spiced Champagne foam.

For the main course, we had wagyu beef. The quality of the marbled wagyu was excellent - crispy on the outside and rare but firm inside.

We enjoyed it with soy spinach and Robuchon's famously buttery pomme purée (see earlier review here).

Dessert was a cylinder of crystalised sugar that contained layers of milk chocolate mousse, lemon cream and ginger ice cream. The sugar cylinder offered much more than presentation - along with the caramelized hazelnuts it gave a contrasting crunch to the soft layers inside.

What We Drank: Veuve Clicquot is the restaurant’s house champagne, always a good sign, and our meal began with those familiar, fizzy brioche notes.

Our first pairing was a 2013 Godeval Godello Valdeorras from Spain. High in acidity, its crisp lemon notes were a great accompaniment to the crabmeat and pressed radish.

The next glass, like the truffle dish it accompanied, was more powerful. A 2012 Riesling from the famous Schloss Johannisberg,  was light in body but with high enough minerality to stand up to the unctuous truffle.

Our third white was a 2011 Terlan Pinot Bianco ‘Vorberg’. Aged in oak casks, it had a delicious weight of apricot fruit flavours and great length.

The red wine was a 2009 Bodegas Resalte from Ribera del Duero. With  blackberry and spice notes, it was an excellent partner for the wagyu beef. 

With dessert we had a 2011 Luigi Bosca ‘Granos Nobles’ Gewürztraminer, a rich, sweet wine from Argentina, with a plenty of acidity to keep it from being cloying.

We ended the evening with two cocktails in the third floor bar and lounge. The first, a Smoked Brooklyn, a variation on a Manhattan, was a more aromatic version of that classic drink. The second, featuring my favourite Japanese citrus fruit, was the Yuzu Pisco - fresh, pretty and delicious.

Likes: the crabmeat ravioli were excellent but Robuchon's buttery pomme purée is what got me to return!

Dislikes: None.

Verdict: L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon offers a truly unique experience – their Japanese inspired French cooking is light yet elegant and full of flavour. Their wine selection is second to none, and the ambience is glamorous, dark and soothing. Highly recommended.