Inviting You to U.S. Election Night Dinner. Your Views on Lunch? Critics & More.
Giles loves Cafe Francois. Sitwell on Marceline. Tanya hates 'inedible' Julie's. Hayward in Copenhagen for Kadeau. Jay slates Atherton's hot dogs.
Hello, everyone. I hope you had a fantastic weekend. London is feeling positively autumnal, and I’ve actually received my first invitation to a Christmas lunch. (But we have not yet turned on our heating.) What’s happening with you?
I’d like to start with a question for you:
Poll: What’s Your Favourite Lunch Vibe?
Imagine you’re planning lunch with a client or colleague. Someone you know pretty well. It’s going to be a small group. 3 or 4 people. It’s on a Thursday, and you probably don’t need to go back to the office afterwards. What sort of place would you pick for your lunch?
Join Me for U.S. Election Night Food & Wine
What are you doing on U.S. election night? Want to have dinner, some good wine, and talk political philosophy? For our next Conversation Over Lunch, we're doing dinner, and we hope you'll join us. To join, register interest here.
It's been great fun to partner with Sarah Parsonage and One Question on our Conversations Over Lunch. Since the first one in July, we've had some great lunches and some amazing discussions about leadership. It's only natural to stray — at least for one evening — into a discussion of politics. And the U.S. election is a natural jumping off point.
While I’m sure we will spend a minute or two on the horse race and prognostication, we will mostly try to remain more philosophical and see if we can focus on things that bring us together rather than pull us apart. To that end, we will be exploring the question: “What societal values do all people share, if any?”
Please do come along. Register your interest here. We’ll be at Noble Rot in Soho starting from 6:30 pm.
Hits & Misses
Mini-reviews of places that were either (a) good, but not quite good enough to do a full review and add to the Guide or (b) Had a flaw or two.
Hit: Camille
My friend Rob Alexander, an expert-level lunch aficionado and previous contributor of a review of Café Deco, recounts his recent experience at Camille in Borough Market. (I reviewed Camille a few months ago.) Many thanks to Rob for his submission. If you would like to contribute your own review of an interesting spot, please do send it along.
Camille is part of the new/old London French wave — Bouchons, Maisons and generally more garlic than we’ve seen for a while.
Camille is from the founders of Soho’s excellent Duck Soup and others. It’s a modern, stripped back room with zinc table tops, hard wood chairs and the menu on a blackboard. Oddly they also print the whole identical menu on paper — so perhaps the blackboard is more for effect than use (unlike Bouchon Racine where it’s the only source for what to eat).
It’s small plates and natural wines. We had a great Languedoc red capped with a metal crown/beer top. Light, fruity and a bit funk, but I realise that some aren’t fans including the founder of Professional Lunch. (Editor’s note: Correct.)
The food was great. Among the small plates:
Devilled egg with smoked eel. None of us had ever had smoked eel outside of Quo Vadis’ legendary sandwich. The smoke working well with spicy egg mayo. Boudin Noir aioli. Brilliant sausage, garlic mayo, pickled shallots. Chicken liver parfait was a really good example Shallot Tatin with green beans and dorstone showed very well balanced flavours, caramelised shallots, pastry, cheese and beans.
For bigger plates, there were lamb chops with mint and riesling. Not particularly french but very tasty with a great light sauce for mopping up with good bread. And potato pave & hay mayonnaise. The Quality Chop House’s contribution to London food. Crispy, tasty and probably quite bad for you. And finished off for the two greedy people with a Canele and prune.
Overall Camille is well worth its great reviews. The food is very good, simple, well conceived and well cooked. It’s a nice informal small room that works for an informal professional lunch.
What’s slightly weird is that I think it’s less French than it thinks it is. The name, the blackboard, the mostly French wine list, the boudin etc all say ‘we’re French,’ but there’s a lot on the menu that you could put in a contemporary British restaurant and it wouldn’t look out of place. It’s definitely a lot less full on French than Bouchon Racine. It’s not fakery. I just wonder if they started with a very French idea and moved on as they developed the menu.
But another great addition to Borough market which is getting a seriously high density of properly good restaurants (and cheese toastie stalls).
Critics Wrap-Up
✍🏻 indicates a review that you should read for the writing.
🍽️ indicates a place that sounds excellent and is probably worth a try.
✍🏻 🍽️ Giles Coren (Times) tries Cafe Francois in Borough Market, and the food sounds great. “We barely staggered to the end of it, hogtied by our own egregious gluttony in the final furlong.”
Catherine Hanly (Hot Dinners) also went to Cafe Francois. “The perfectly pitched menu, friendly and precise service and gorgeous interiors are really what are going to make this your new favourite hangout at the market.”
🍽️ William Sitwell (Telegraph) checks out Marceline in Canary Wharf, which I reviewed two weeks ago. “Normally it’s chefs who crave and deserve the light. Jeffrey [the sommelier] is a shining star without vanity, but simply wit and know-how. Go there for him, if nothing else.”
Charlote Ivers (Sunday Times) is in Canonbury for Goodbye Horses but is chased out after 90 minutes. “‘Will this be the best cheese toastie I’ve ever had?’ I ask, leaving the ‘for that price, it had better be’ unspoken. The waiter suggests it might be, but in the end it’s just a cheese toastie.”
✍🏻 Tanya Gold (Spectator) visits Julie’s, the rebooted and now much-reviewed spot in Notting Hill. It’s, er, not good. “We go to the front desk for the bill. Our food was inedible, I say, we couldn’t eat it. The woman hands me the bill with angry eyes, as if I have failed Julie’s because I do not understand it, and, in doing so, am unworthy of it.”
David Ellis (Standard) heads to the Marquee Moon in Dalston, with all of the cool kids. “The Marquee — handsome with its raw plaster walls and green Formica table tops — very much feels like a pub with grub. But it does not yet feel quite ready to be a restaurant.”
Tom Parker Bowles (Mail on Sunday) tries Mary’s, the new place from Jason Atherton that replaces Pollen Street Social. “If the atmosphere feels laidback, the cooking is anything but. Jason Atherton is back with a bang. Stop for a burger, stay for a feast.”
“Christina” from LOTI also tried Mary’s. And she headed to The Barbary in Notting Hill, noting the epic wine list. Her colleague Jules Pearson hits Khao Bird, which has taken over the kitchen in The Globe Tavern in Borough Market.
✍🏻 Jay Rayner (Observer) opts for a different Atherton outlet, the new “Hot Dogs by Three Darlings” in the dining hall at Harrods. Spoiler: It’s awful. Atherton “seems to have displayed an odd blind spot with detail. Pull up a stool at the circular counter… You’ll find a moist towel waiting for you. It’s fridge cold. But don’t worry. The sparkling water will be warm. (‘Shall I bring you some ice?’ the server says.)”
Andy Hayler (independent critic) reviews two Michelin starred Gymkhana in Mayfair. He gives it 15/20, which is a high score in his rating system. “Service was extremely slick, our waiter Darahan being terrific.”
He also tried Kitchen W8 in Holland Park, which has one star. “Kitchen W8 is a very enjoyable restaurant, serving appealing dishes with a welcoming attitude.”
Amanda David (Chatting Food) bravely tries Chop Chop in the Hippodrome Casino in Leicester Square. “I'll admit, I had reservations about dining in a casino.”
Daniela Toporek (Palate) heads to Little Cellars in Camberwell, “the little sister of Peckham Cellars, just down the road.” … “Little Cellars is a big hit, and if this is a taste of what can be found at its predecessor in Peckham, I’m more than eager to visit.”
Grace Dent (Guardian) was in Birmingham. Nick Lander (jancisrobinson.com) wrote up four restaurants in Rome. Marina O’Loughlin (independent critic) was in Malta.
Tim Hayward (FT) continues his rediscovery of fine dining at Kadeau in Copenhagen. “This is going to be as fine a dining experience as I’m ever going to have. It doesn’t ‘feel’ like fine dining, by any of the old standards . . . but it’s only available to a self-selecting set and conforms to a code that increasingly only they can experience and understand. I love it because, uniquely in my experience, it expresses the peak of cooking and the essence of hospitality.” I’ve been to Kadeau and strongly agree with Tim’s assessment.
Thanks so much for reading this week’s update. I hope you’re enjoying lots of fantastic lunches. Please subscribe if you haven’t already, and let me know the best lunch spot you’ve visited lately.