Weekly Review: Duchy
A vanished kingdom's food traditions restored in all of their glory.
Someone at Duchy is a nerd. And when it comes to restaurants, I find that reassuring. Nerdiness usually means attention to detail and portends an excellent experience.
Duchy’s nerdiness came through very clearly when I read the first announcement that Chef Simon Shand and front-of-house wizard Alex Grant were getting back together to open a new restaurant.
They met while working at Leroy, the sadly-closed Shoreditch spot which held a Michelin star for a number of years.
Their new concept? A restaurant inspired by the Duchy of Savoy.
See? I told you. Nerdy.
The Duchy of Savoy (or Savoie, if you prefer the French spelling) was a major player on the European scene, starting as the County of Savoy in about 1003 when it broke loose from the failing Kingdom of Burgundy. The Holy Roman Emperor elevated the Counts to Dukes in 1416, and, over the next 400 years, the House of Savoy went on to control substantial territory from Lake Geneva down to Nice and Monaco then across to encompass the Piemonte region. At its height, the “Savoyard State” transcended the modern French / Italian border. Today’s French departments of Savoie and Haute-Savoie represent the original core of the Duchy.
After the Napoleonic Wars, the Dukes of Savoy also became the Kings of Sardinia. They played a vital role in the 19th century drive for Italian unification, and from 1861 became Kings of Italy. Indeed, all of the Kings of Italy, including Umberto II, who was deposed in 1946 when monarchy gave way to Republic, were from the House of Savoy.
There’s a connection in London, too. In 1246, King Henry III awarded some land on the Thames to his uncle-in-law, Peter of Savoy, who built a palace next door to the current site of Somerset House. It later passed to the House of Lancaster, and following the Wars of the Roses, the Lancasters were rewarded with a substantial legal independence from the English Crown.
In London, the land controlled by the Savoy estate became the Liberty of Savoy, a small territory between the Strand and the river where Royal writs and orders from Crown courts did not become enforceable until the late 19th century. And if you think that was a recipe for trouble, you are correct.
(You may have worked out by now that I, too, am a nerd.)
All of this history and geography is vital for understanding the food at the Duchy. We think of the food traditions of northern Italy, southeastern France, and Switzerland as distinct. They aren’t.
Pasta doesn’t stop at the (fairly modern) Italian border.
Framing a restaurant concept around on this rich history gives Shand the license to discover and explore that regional food heritage.
And there is fantastic territory to explore. Savoie is now one of the most fashionable regions for French wine productions. The French, Italian, and Swiss alps produce some of the best cheese in the world. Provence and the fertile plains around the Rhone River are a stone’s throw from Nice. Piemonte has some of the best food and wine on the planet, notably including Barolo, Barbaresco, and Gavi di Gavi. Genoa has been a global centre for spices and food staples since before Marco Polo.
So, if you were setting out a creative canvass on which to develop your restaurant idea, the Duchy of Savoy seems like a pretty fabulous choice. And because Savoy is largely forgotten, the idea feels a bit different.
It turns out that Grant was the nerd behind the concept, developing it from Shand’s suggestion that he wanted to do a bit of French and a bit of Italian. Grant found inspiration in a book called Vanished Kingdoms which covers the Duchy of Savoy in detail — one of many half-forgotten stories across Europe.
With the concept sorted, Grant and Shand set up Duchy in the old Leroy space. With a pleasant renovation, the familiar triangular room retains its great light and feels even fresher. Modern. Cool enough for Shoreditch.
And the food. Well. The food is outstanding.
Let me start with the bread. In Leroy days, sourdough was bought in fresh, daily, from a nearby bakery. But to be true to the concept, and to ensure all the bread was oven fresh to the table, Shand spent two weeks developing his own receipt for Alpine fougasse, a seeded and herbed flatbread. He’s now serving the 15th variation, and it’s genuinely one of the best, most flavoursome forms of bread that I have ever eaten.
Duchy’s menu is all sharing, and Grants suggested a total of about five dishes between two of us.
Early arrivals included a brown crab arancini, which was very good. Perfectly fried and topped with a creamy alpine cheese. It lacked only a tiny bit of seasoning.
There was also a plate of Vesuvio tomatoes with grilled beans and gratings of Monlesi — another creamy alpine cheese. This turned out to be one of the highlights of the evening. The tomatoes were bursting with fresh flavour and a hit of acid. The beans added sweetness, and the cheese delivered a creamy saltiness. Winner.
And then there was a combination I’d not experienced before: Foie gras grated over “Sun sweet melon” and served with hazelnuts. In this form the foie gras was basically a seasoning. It was a huge success.
Bigger plates included a lamb tortelloni from the specials board, which reminded me of a dish we ate at Piazza Duomo in Alba. It was that good.
The final savoury was smoked trout served with truly the best spätzle that I have ever tasted.
For dessert, we had roast peach gelato with a tiny hit of Campari. If I could buy the gelato by the kilogram, I surely would. I didn’t need the Campari, but I understood is appeal for palates that adore a bit of bitterness. The whole thing amounted to a fabulously cool and clever dessert cocktail. Like something you’d get in a top restaurant at a posh hotel in Monaco.
We drank a traditional Chardonnay from an historic producer in the Jura. (I asked the Somm to pick us a white wine from Savoie, but when I told him that I didn’t love skin contact or oxidised whites, he steered me firmly away.)
The whole evening, including wine, a glass of fizz, and a dessert wine was barely more than £100 per person. For me, that’s incredibly reasonable given today’s restaurant prices.
As we were leaving, Grant gave me some good news for the Professional Lunch crowd: Duchy will soon start doing lunch from Tuesday to Saturday, and will offer a set menu for £24. The atmosphere is almost ideal for meeting a colleague or client. The space is wonderfully bright and the vibe is very chill. And it’s the perfect distance to escape the City.
Shand was the head chef at Leroy when it held its Michelin star. It’s easy to imagine Duchy coming to Michelin’s attention, and soon.
We ambled back through Shoreditch very pleased with our evening, eager to get back to Duchy, and glad to see that the nerds are winning… again.
Quick hit: Stunning food and wine from the region along the French / Italian / Swiss border.
Details: Booking essential. Shoreditch. £££.
Restaurant website. More on Instagram.
Find it on Google Maps. 18 Phipp St, EC2A 4NU.
Thanks for reading this week’s review. What’s your favourite spot in Shoreditch? Tell me in the Comments. And please do subscribe if you haven’t already.
I let out my first ‘ooooo’ when you mentioned the brown crab arancini as this is right up my street.
Went for lunch this week. One of us tried the set lunch and the other went for a couple of starters which came to roughly the same price. Great place - will definitely go back