Italian jobs

The pursuit of value has recently taken the Tract to no fewer than three West End Italian restaurants, which I think merits some kind of group write-up. The impetus has been my phone company giving me two months’ free membership of the Gourmet Society, an organization through which punters can claim discounts at a range of restaurants in return for an annual membership fee (about £50, if you’re interested.) Now unfortunately it turns out that a good 60% of participating establishments are run by the likes of Signor Prezzo, and of the legit options there are frankly too few that excite any interest for it to be worth paying for. But since I was free-rolling, I thought I’d check out what there was. And as it happened, what there was, was mostly Italian. So, in chronological order:

Chelsea’s Elistano is a restaurant of the sort that usually gets described as ‘neighbourhood Italian’, and it plays the role pretty well. Tagliatelle with wild mushrooms was satisfying if predictably unspectacular, while the saltimbocca (veal wrapped in sage and prosciutto) was a generally strong dish made better by a very good accompanying mash. It could do with being slightly cheaper (main courses are £16-£18), but it’s not a bad choice if you live nearby.

This rib-eye turned out to be a bit disappointing

I recall Via Condotti off Regent Street opening to a fair amount of critical acclaim a couple of years ago, but thankfully it no longer attracts (if it ever did) the hype, absurd difficulty of getting a reservation, and passive-aggressive table turning that afflict newer media darlings such as Bocca de Lupo. The overall impression that I got from our visit is that it was a bit hit-and-miss. Annoyingly, most of the misses seemed to land on my plate: poached egg with chickpea puree and grated parmesan carried the vague promise of heartiness and depth but was aimless, bland and lukewarm; similarly, the rib-eye steak was a cut of nowhere near enough inherent quality to justify its bare presentation and almost total absence of seasoning. In the interests of fairness, however, I should say that the crab tagliolini was reportedly outstanding, and that the reasonable pricing of the dinner menu (£27.50 for three courses or £32.50 for four) means that it doesn’t cost you too much to try your luck.

Linguine alle vongole at Al Duca

Somewhat better was Al Duca near Green Park, a restaurant owned by the same group as Via Condotti. It offers a similar menu, identically priced, but I found the food more consistently solid: amongst other highlights, linguine alle vongole was heavily flavoured with salt and garlic but not to the extent of overpowering the subtler strains of clam, chilli and parsley, while calf’s liver with raisins and pine nuts displayed a similarly judicious balancing of flavours.

Calf's liver

While these experiences were all perfectly pleasant, I have to confess that they confirmed in me a slight ambivalence towards, if not Italian cuisine in its entirety, then at least Italian cuisine in the form in which it tends to get presented in a particular genus of metropolitan restaurant. To my mind the menu of the latter too often displays a broad lack of invention, producing food that is unchallenging without being (and here I suppose I am leaning purely on personal taste) correspondingly comforting. Armed with a 25% discount I was very happy to visit the trio above, but without one I would probably rather direct my scarce resources elsewhere.

Silly sausage

I’m afraid it’s strike two for the self-styled purveyors of Good British Grub. After SF’s demolition of Albion (see ‘Putting the knife in’, 23 June, below) it was my turn to get angry last weekend, this time at s&m off the Portobello Road. The initials of this chain stand for ‘sausage and mash’; it is a testament to the poverty of its cuisine, however, that our party of four (heterosexual) men would probably have derived more enjoyment from communal participation in the other entendre that its witty name generates.

As well as the aforementioned bangers, s&m’s menu offers other ostensibly alluring items such as roast pork and crackling butty and steak baguette. Except when we went they were out of the roast pork and crackling butty. And the steak baguette. Never mind, if the restaurant is called ‘sausage and mash’ we’d be alright choosing from the eight proposed variations on the dish wouldn’t we?

Well, no actually. I’m not quite sure where to start. With the inconsistency between the sign outside proclaiming ‘more banger for your buck’ and the appearance on my plate, at a cost of £8, of two measly sausages? With the dry, unloved, inept mash? With the lukewarm, gloopy, tasteless gravy? With the fact that whoever is responsible for s&m apparently thinks ‘bubble and squeak’ means mashed potato with a few peas in it?

No, we really don't

Or, perhaps, with the whole cheerfully ironic, old-fashioned yet hip, archly knowing yet transparently crass and cynical vibe of the place? Because what grates almost as much as being served sub-standard bangers and mash in a restaurant that claims to specialize in it, is being served it in surroundings bathed in such a horrid example of the uncritical mass-produced retro-mania so frequently passed off as cultural insight that it made me want to scream ‘What the f*** is wrong with the present?’ In case the plethora of Beatles record covers and newspaper cuttings on the walls weren’t enough for its patrons to get the picture, s&m is also decorated with patronizing black-and-white pictures of our forbears, overlaid with tediously unfunny captions; the arrival, towards the end of our meal, of the phoney Cockney tones of Dick van Dyke over the café’s airwaves only served perfectly to condemn the utter falsity of the enterprise. Don’t go.

Old school

Racine on the Brompton Road arguably has a role in London’s gastronomic micro-history as the originator of the ‘bistrot de luxe’ movement, which comprehends the much-fêted Galvin on Baker Street and the newer Chelsea Brasserie in Sloane Square. In my opinion, however, it is to be cherished more simply as a rare locus of well executed vieux cuisine, where heavy, meat-centred dishes inhabit a menu peppered with enough unglossed ‘vollaile à la X‘ and ‘sea bass sauce Y‘ to make you wish you had a copy of Larousse Gastronomique handy.

The most recent meal I had there was also the most enjoyable. First up was a curious-sounding garlic and saffron mousse with mussels. This combination of flavours did not, as might be the case in many restaurants with a more modern sensibility, come in the form of a delicate, knowing amuse-bouche, but rather as a straight-up, gen-u-wine plateful of herb-flavoured dairy product. Unfortunately it collapsed before I had time to take a decent picture of it but I can confirm that it was truly a fine dish: the garlic and saffron notes combined to excellent effect, while the briny tang of the mussels, presented without shells and occupying an unusual role as, effectively, a garnish, provided the perfect counterpoint to the richness of the mousse.

Pork à la Barigoule

For my main course I took a punt on pork chop à la Barigoule, which turned out to be a hefty, well cooked slab of meat in a vinegary artichoke sauce (subsequent research reveals it to be a dish of Provençal origin.) While not as outstanding as the mousse, this was still a faith-restoring incarnation of a cut of meat usually associated in my mind with utterly flavourless school dinners. As for dessert, I can’t help feeling that Racine’s selection is rather anticlimatic; after such a stout meal, however, the small pot of vanilla cream and prunes that I had was probably as judiciously chosen as it was well prepared.

It has to be said that Racine is not exactly value-town: many of the main courses push or exceed £20, while the wine list leaves scant room for the budget-conscious drinker to hide. If, however, as the nights draw in, you feel in the need of some hearty yet thoughtful cuisine, you should definitely consider treating yourself to a meal there.

Alimentary Tract, Hong Kong edition

Regular readers will know that the Tract’s writ usually runs no further than London; on a recent visit to Hong Kong, however, I was lucky enough to be taken to a couple of great local restaurants, which I hope merits this geographical excursus.

The first, Lung King Heen in the Four Seasons hotel, has the distinction of being the only Chinese restaurant in the world to hold three Michelin stars. This unique status is in large part due to the fact that Hong Kong as a whole fared rather poorly when Michelin launched its first guide to the territory last year. To some extent this may be a result of Cantonese gastronomy’s traditional indifference to niceties of decor and service; more fundamentally, it must prompt reflections on the usefulness or desirability of applying a particular set of critical norms half-way across the world from where they were developed. (Tokyo, a city whose culinary culture displays a much more obvious synergy with that of the French motherland, was predictably awarded more stars than a small nebula.)

Soup, one of the glories of Cantonese cuisine

Certainly the tenor of Lung King Heen’s menu, which offers a number of dishes comprising clever refractions of traditional cuisine through the use of western ingredients, seemed in places markedly akin to the ‘modern European’ style prevalent in fancy restaurants the world over. This did not, however, prevent the food from being very enjoyable. Although the meal we had initially made a fairly understated impression on me, some of the dishes still stick vividly in my mind some weeks after eating them. Bamboo pith, brassica and dried mushroom soup virtually exploded with an aroma that was put into relief by the crunchy, maw-like texture of the pith; wagyu beef with morelles very neatly juxtaposed the smokiness of the mushrooms with soft, buttery meat; dessert was a miscellany of delicate, perfect renditions of Chinese standards including tong yuen (unconventionally deep-fried to good effect), lotus puffs and mango pudding.

Wagyu with morelles

While the atmosphere was pleasant and relaxed, it must be said that Lung King Heen’s decor is almost entirely characterless: much like that of the violently bland Four Seasons lobby that precedes it, it says ‘international luxury hotel’ and little else. The ambience of the next restaurant I visited, the Ning Po Residents’ Association, definitely did not say ‘international luxury hotel.’ This dining club, originally set up by adoptive Hong Kong-ers who missed the Shanghainese food of their hometown, is located on the fourth floor of a drab office block; the thrifty staff dispense napkins only to those determinedly fussy enough to ask.

Twiglets are a highly-prized delicacy in China. Only joking! This is deep-fried eel.

Yet at the business end of things, the food is pretty solid. As is traditional, our meal began with a selection of (mostly) cold appetizers: wine chicken, jellyfish, mock goose, and my favourite, deep-fried eel in a sticky vinegar and sugar sauce. Next came treats including sweet-and-sour fish, salted and deep-fried duck and some excellent siu long bao. All of this was accompanied by delicious white rolls of Shanghainese bread, light, chewy and slightly sweet. For dessert, there was another Shanghainese speciality, Eight Treasure Rice, a pudding made up of black glutinous rice embedded with dried fruit and nuts, surrounding a red bean paste interior, and served with osmanthus syrup.

'Eight Treasure Rice'

The only serious downside to the experience was, bizarrely, the dish being consumed by the next-door table. Chao doufu, roughly translated as ‘smelly bean curd’, must rank as one of the most antisocial delicacies known to man; the curd in question managed (and I say this without exaggeration) to pervade the entire restaurant with the smell of old socks. This aside, I was able to look back on a very satisfying trip to a city that knows, if not how to impress the inspectors, then certainly how to eat.

Not quite Pham-tastic

The name Pham Sushi came to the ears of the Tract with the highest recommendations, and it was with some excitement that we approached its door along an otherwise downbeat street in Moorgate. We came out very full, but rather perplexed as to the reason for its reputation.

As its name suggests, the establishment is run not by émigrés from Japan but by their versatile Indochinese imitators; and indeed, barring some token Japanese ornamentation, the ambience inside Pham is more akin to the relaxed Vietnamese cafés to be found on nearby Old Street than a conventional sushi den. In itself, this is of course no bar to the quality of the food; in Pham’s case, however, it did unfortunately prove to be something of a pointer.

The core of the menu is at least reasonably priced. At £2-£3 per two-piece portion, the nigiri selection offers solid value, which I immediately exploited by reeling off a list that led our waitress to believe I’d ordered for SF as well, rather than simply myself. When it came, the nigiri were palatable enough but somewhat artless, each piece of fish having been plonked on top of a veritable tumulus of largely otiose sushi rice. Salmon sashimi at £7 for six pieces was however fine, soup udon at £6 a good example of a simple dish that an inexplicable number of restaurants manage to render tasteless.

Cornucopia

Pham also offers more ambitious creations, with various ‘new-style’ sashimi dishes testifying to the pervasive influence of Nobu, and being correspondingly dearer. I tried and enjoyed a plate of three barely-cooked scallops accompanied by a jalapeno salsa and a chopped coriander and onion garnish, though for £12 I could probably give it a miss next time. A less felicitous result of such culinary license came in the form of the ‘crunchy’ tuna roll, a frankly insane item that appeared to be an attempt to cram as many textures into one square inch as possible. Salmon, tuna, asparagus and some kind of red mayonnaise-like sauce came encased in deep-fried rice, a combination which we concluded was more intriguing than pleasant.

To sum up, then, Pham is decent enough within its limits, and its takeaway service is worth investigating at lunchtime if you work nearby. Yet the more mediocre sushi I eat, the more I feel that it’s a peculiarly pointless gastronomic category: expending a lot of energy on arranging small strips of raw fish on a plate is inherently a ridiculous enough enterprise that if you’re going to do it, you might as well do it very well; at the same time, it’s hard to go even to a budget sushi chain and not end up spending a lot more money than a simple meal merits. At any rate, the next time I’m in the area, I’ll be sticking to Life (see ‘Holy mackerel’, 10 May, below.)

Putting the knife in

While CB has been doing a fine job showcasing some of South Ken’s hidden gems, it struck me recently that OT and I are lagging behind in covering our adopted east end home, which despite being home to some great restaurants, is still widely associated in culinary terms with jellied eels and cheap curries.  For this reason we diverted a planned trip to Chinatown’s Baozi Inn towards Terence Conran’s Albion, which forms part of the ambitious Boundary complex—home to two restaurants, a bakery and 17 guest rooms.  Situated just off Shoreditch High Street, early reviews have made predictable reference to the venture as  a ‘cool addition’ to the ‘trendy east end’, focusing on the proximity of the venture to private members’ club Shoreditch House and the self-consciously zany youth culture of Brick Lane.

Mentions of the actual food have been sparse, and so it was with these lazy cultural stereotypes in mind, that I made the short journey up Bethnal Green Road hoping that the Albion would live up to the hype of its fawning Time Out review and deliver decent cooking in addition to a predictably slick image.  I was admittedly already a little ill-disposed to the place following an earlier scout on the website, which revealed the Albion is styled as a ‘Caff’.  This cynical and pretentious self-fashioning evokes for me the worst of Jamie Oliver’s tedious everyman lexicon—alongside other notable offenders such as ‘matey’ and ‘pucka’—and while I’m never sure that, however irritating I find him, the face of Sainsbury’s is artful enough to affect this ugly colloquial bonhomie, that Conran and Co. are, there can be little doubt.

These reservations aside, on arrival we found the Albion an attractive prospect: its facade is cleaner and more inviting than that of its neighbours, and with a row of bright red tables sheltered under large cream awnings outside, its exterior certainly has something urbanely continental about it. However, this stylishness doesn’t ignore the rougher Shoreditch aesthetic of its surroundings entirely: with the building’s interior retaining a fashionable dose of its warehouse past, it forms a light and airy dining area accessed through a rather half-hearted delicatessen which doubles as a queuing area during the busy weekends.  Arriving mid-afternoon on a humid Sunday, my dining companions and I had to wait a good 15 minutes to be seated, which seemed a decent endorsement of the Caff’s food.

A great British menu?

The menu we were presented with shed a bit more light on the thinking behind the Albion name, with a host of pies, sandwiches, puddings and fruit crumbles that were presumably meant to evoke warm sentimentality for school dinners, or at least the simplistic British staples that might be found in the recipe books of a young Delia Smith.  And the choice is fair enough I suppose: while hardly the most exciting, and certainly, bar a rogue inclusion of some asparagus, not the most seasonally appropriate selection, there’s no reason why these dishes—executed with care and decent ingredients—shouldn’t be pretty satisfying fare.  Unfortunately, the consensus on our food was that each item was lacking the bold flavours one might reasonably expect from the range of rustic and comforting dishes we selected; and unfortunately, this headline restraint did not privilege any subtler or more refined elements—it seemed merely to confirm the food as bland.  One friend who tried the kedgeree, and who was familiar enough with the dish to be able to respond readily to a neighbouring table’s request to explain her meal’s ingredients, commented that there was an overwhelming presence of butter and a disappointing lack of spice; and similarly, OT was underwhelmed by his stinking bishop and turnip pie, which was only mildly redolent of the normally powerful cheese, and which, if the amount of salt he added is a reliable indicator, must also have been criminally underseasoned.  Fish pie was merely ok—again, not offensive, but unremarkable; while my chicken and crayfish pie—the menu’s most expensive individual item at £12—contained only two miserable looking pieces of mangy crayfish that looked so junior that I doubt they’d had any chance for swimming lessons before they were plucked from the river. In this quantity and state they added nothing to a dish that came cooked in an unexciting white sauce in which some decently tender pieces of chicken competed for attention with what seemed to be half a St David’s day worth of leeks.  Make no mistake, this was a chicken and leek pie, and an average one at that—a far cry from the acclaimed Stargazy pie that Mark Hix contributed to the Great British Menu, and which I expect influenced its inclusion on the menu here.

The pie was alright, but why was I using a butter knife??

With a name like Albion, this is exactly the kind of dish that the Caff should be nailing.  Sadly, perhaps what the archaic English name most coherently communicates is an evocation of the past miseries of British dining, characterised by dull and uninspiring food, and produced in a manner that seemed smugly uninterested in the development and cross-pollination that the country’s cuisine has undergone since the second world war.  Indeed, while these kinds of dishes probably do have a justified place in the country’s pubs and restaurants, they do so best in the hands of chefs like Hix or Fergus Henderson, who recreate them today with an enthusiasm, playfulness and genuine interest in their culinary heritage.  In the cynical hands of an establishment like the Albion Caff, the most compelling message they send is that they’re probably best left in the past.

And so, despite the pleasant trappings, the more I think about the ethos of Albion the more I feel the designers have created a monster.  Take the cutlery, for example: a fork and a butter knife.  The inclusion of the latter item, in place of its more standard and functional relative, tells you of a venture that is desperate to win you over with artifice and superficial frippery.  Or there’s the scones: products presumably of the vaunted on-site bakery, the one I tried may as well have been made three weeks before in the Antipodes, such was the freshness.  The old-fashioned truth about the Albion then, is that too much thought has gone into making the place appear cool, while there hasn’t been nearly enough time and effort spent working out how to produce decent food.  To my mind it’s a great place not to be seen in.

A couple more South Ken places

Continuing with the South Kensington theme (see ‘Gelato!’, 26 May, below), I thought I’d mention two local eateries that are easy to pass by, but reward the curious gourmand. The first is the Oriental Canteen. Its simultaneously bold and fading awning, and the human activity it generates at lunchtime, lend it an aesthetic pleasingly reminiscent of a backdrop from Streetfighter II…

but I for one had walked past it for some years without ever considering that it might serve food worth eating. This was a mistake, since it actually provides creditable plates of rice and roast meat for about a fiver each, as well as a perfectly competent selection of stir-fried dishes. (In terms of food it is certainly to be preferred to the cheerfully cheap Paper Tiger down the road, though those who relish slightly odd dining experiences are better directed towards the latter.)

The second, perched on another edge of the same street corner, is the Polish institution Café Daquise:

This quiet facade, camouflaged by dirt and the lettering of another age, is the entrance to a restaurant that long precedes the recent Polish influx into London, and has been serving up the earnest staples of central and eastern European cuisine for decades. The dishes are presented in gloriously understated fashion; dessert is visible through the glass panes of a cake cabinet (does anyone know the proper name for those things?) that is surely the mark of a restaurant unrenovated since at least the 80s. In the past I’ve particularly enjoyed the uncompromising Bavarian pork knuckle; on my most recent visit, however, the surprise highlight was the blinis that accompanied a smoked salmon starter: fat and oily, they had a strength of character beyond that of the more modest version I’m used to.

The lunch deal of two courses and coffee for £10 is definitely worth it if you’re in the area.

A legendary bit of heart

Situated handily opposite a well-stocked Chinese cake shop in the heart of Soho’s Chinatown (review to follow), a trip to Leong’s Legends for a first-class take on Dim Sum, followed by a post-prandial lotus seed bun or egg custard tart, should be considered one of London’s most unique and satisfying culinary experiences.  Dim Sum (translated from Chinese as ‘a bit of heart’) is an addictive lunchtime treat and my friends and I have spent many a Sunday afternoon slowly but surely working our way through a wide selection of steamed, fried or oven-baked fast-food treats.

Char siu puffs

It’s a uniquely social dining event, as each dish, democratically chosen, appears in portions of three, to be divided between us and washed down by a regularly refilled pot of chinese green or black tea (there’s a potential for clashing here if you visit a dimsum eatery in excess or below multiples of lucky number three – but we can go into dimsum etiquette in a wider compendium piece planned over the next few months).  All great fun then and, you’ll be happy to find, relatively, dimsum cooking in London (and, particularly, around Gerrard Street) adheres to certain widely observed recipes and standards, with the exception of more trendy travesties like Dim Ts (where everything tastes like vinegar).

Leong's knock up a pretty solid kung po chicken

So, how does one tell a good, standard issue dim-sum-diner from something a little more distinguished?  The clue is in the formulation – most things at Leong’s are just that bit more refined.  The quality of execution, the level of flair and the clarity of the ingredients and the tastes are at a higher level at Leong’s, Hakkasan and Royal China (review to follow).  I’ll focus, then, on what really stands out at Taiwanese Leong’s.  Firstly just to get the worst out of the way, after you’ve been shepherded towards your table by the solemn, surly maitre d’, you’ll find that the decor is pretty strange.  It has a tacky nod towards the literary allusion of its name (based on the classic 16th Century Chinese epic text the ‘Water Margin’) with a weapons rack of plastic spears and axes, but then veers towards a gambling-den gloom, with low hanging wicker lamps (mine wasn’t working the last time I visited) and slatted fence-like dividers.  If you can resist the temptation to play poker or swig whisky with a fedora hat on rather than focus on the paper dimsum menu though, your persistence will be rewarded with some unusual and extremely well made dishes.

Not for the faint-hearted: tofu and 'thousand-year egg'

Particular highlights include the rubbery baozi (eastern Chinese) specialty Xiao Long Bao – parcel-like dumplings holding delicious, subtly flavoured seafood soup which envelopes the mouth (I recommend you eat this with the spoon provided to keep it intact) – and the 1,000 year duck egg: if you can get over its rotten, uninviting appearance (my fellow-diner recently couldn’t) then you’ll be able to savour a challenging but extremely satisfying combination of fish-paste, pungent egg, sweet chilli sauce and cool, neutral tofu.  Everything else is done with care and attention, with a particularly full-flavoured Har Gau (prawn dumpling) and a highly recommended added extra, the tender Taiwanese beef noodle soup (a ‘favourite’ on the menu).  If you hang on for dessert (though you’d be forgetting about that great cake shop if you did) the egg tarts or the mango custard are fine too.

So, if you want to sample the most pleasurable of social dining experiences, do go anywhere you can find in Chinatown and if you wan’t that extra ‘bit of heart’, then you could do a lot worse than Leong’s Legends.

Leong’s Legends, 4 Macclesfield St, Chinatown, W1D 6AX – Tel: 020 7287 0288

Gelato!

Pineapple and pistachio... mmm

If you find yourself this summer at one of the South Kensington museums, and in need of refreshment, you could do worse than take a short walk to Oddono’s gelateria on Bute Street. Established (apparently) by the descendant of one of the peninsula’s finest confectioners, it serves possibly the best Italian ice cream I’ve ever tasted. Care over the quality of ingredients translates into exceptional clarity of flavour, embedded in gelato of impeccable smoothness. As a personal highlight, I’d single out (after some deliberation) the Piedmontese hazelnut, though the strawberry sorbet is very good as well. The only problem is I live round the corner and have developed a financially ruinous addiction to the place. Oh well… as Oddono’s themselves say, in a rare example of a cheesy food-marketing slogan that actually has a ring of truth to it, ‘life’s too short to eat bad ice cream.’

Holy mackerel

I stumbled across Life after my favourite Japanese restaurant, Ikkyu, was converted into central London’s five-millionth branch of Prêt-à-Manger. Luckily that rather brutal cloud had a silver lining, for the restaurant and bar at the top of Old Street is terrific.

Check out the presentation

Ikkyu was a restaurant enjoyable for atmosphere and style as much as food; so too is Life, but in a completely different way. While Ikkyu stood for quiet traditionalism, Life showcases the modern Japanese talent for cultural disorientation. The restaurant appears straightforwardly minimalist, but on closer inspection the small cacti on its window-ledges turn out to be ridden by Star Wars figurines. It’s usually almost empty, but the last time I went a long table was taken up by a classical costume party of the kind more readily associated with some college drinking society’s visit to their local curry house. Downstairs, barmen in black tie supervise a Shoreditch-style dive, on one wall of which a projector endlessly repeats scenes from The Fifth Element; just next door, a small retail space stocks exorbitantly expensive Japanese trinkets for the (largely absent) connoisseur.

Hiding out in the downstairs bar

This could all, of course, be complete wank; the reason it isn’t is twofold. First, the food is excellent. Pride of place in the Tract’s collective opinion goes to the vinegared mackerel, with its extraordinary depth of both texture and flavour; this magnificent item, however, is more than ably supported by a range of both traditional and innovative sashimi, nigiri and maki. (Camembert unagi proved slightly too mental, but, well, credit for giving it a go.) Amongst the ‘main courses’, the silver cod stood out on a recent visit: it came with a glaze that was intensely sweet and umami-laden without being in the least cloying, and was cooked perfectly. Unsurprisingly, none of this is exactly cheap, but at £30-£40 the average meal at Life represents pretty good value when compared to both high- and low-end Japanese options in town.

Silver cod with miso glaze

Second, Life enjoys a conceptual harmony that few restaurants could comprehend. Because nothing about the place really makes sense, everything makes sense. The measured wackiness of the decor and the joyfully exquisite presentation of the raw fish don’t just co-exist, they explain each other. Even the name suggests some kind of deranged yet justified tilt at microcosmic order.

Standard

Needless to say, this combination of good food and aesthetic coherence is not common. It’s also a combination dear to my heart – making Life the perfect point of departure for my contribution to this blog. Here’s to some good eating ahead.