Weekly Review: Henri
Chef Jackson Boxer balances expressiveness, accessibility, and tastiness.
Quick hit: Intriguing take on French classics in the heart of Covent Garden.
Details: Booking advised. Covent Garden. £££.
Restaurant website. More on Instagram.
Find it on Google Maps. 14-15 Henrietta St, London WC2E 8QH
15 years ago, Covent Garden had become such a tourist trap that Londoners wouldn’t really go there, unless it was for the theatre or opera. With a handful of notable exceptions like the Ivy and J Sheeky, the restaurant scene was pretty dead.
Since that time, Covent Garden’s assortment of owners — the largest of which is Capital & Counties — have pursued a concerted strategy to make the area a destination for shopping, fun, and food. And it’s mostly worked.
Today, there’s a landmark Apple Store. Floral Street has transformed into a haven for interesting brands. And the food scene is tremendous. Especially in Henrietta Street.
On that short connector between the old market and points west, you can find Cora Pearl, the Oystermen, the London branch of Din Tai, and gluttonous Ave Mario.
Henrietta Street was an early base for Chef Ollie Dabbous as he started the journey to Hide and a Michelin star.
And now it’s offering a West End home for Jackson Boxer at Henri.
Boxer has already accumulated an impressive list of accolades. Under his leadership, Brunswick House became a dining destination. He’s got a bevy of other restaurants scattered about.
Henri is billed as Boxer’s take on a Parisian bistro. The decor certainly delivers. Entering from Henrietta street, you arrive in a space that could just as easily front onto Avenue George V.
But if the decor veers slightly towards comfortable Parisian cliché, the food doesn’t. It’s like Boxer and his team went round to the best cafes and bistros in Paris, picked the most intriguing dishes, and then considered how to make them even more interesting.
I opened with “raw tuna, green tomato, and melon.” There’s a lot of this sort of thing going on in London right now, and at a later lunch, a fellow diner observed that too many chefs are just doing “fake Asian.” This wasn’t fake or really very Asian. The green tomato added the acid the tuna needed, and the melon brought notes of sweet and sour to the plate. Smart.
My friend started with “grilled snails, green garlic, and veal rice.” This was a singular triumph. She described the rice as wonderfully rich. Almost over the top. And the snails. A textural contrast to the almost-crispy rice, amped up with green garlic sauce. But who grills snails? They’re so easy to over-cook. A few seconds too long, and you’re eating a pencil eraser. The kind of chef who puts this on the menu is probably also in the running for a stunt job on the next Fast & Furious movie.
For mains, I went for cod with crab bisque. My friend did the little gem, parmesan, and anchovy salad. Both were excellent. The salad was a clear homage to that wonderful little salad you get in the best Parisian bistros. But like everything else, it was pushed a bit further. The cod was the tiniest bit over cooked, but the bisque was the right balance of shellfish flavour, cream, and booze.
The wine list goes deep on France, as you would expect, but has some interesting options from elsewhere in Europe. There’s a bit more “hip” to the wine choices than I would like, but the chef is named Jackson Boxer, so the dose of hip was always going to be substantial.
I should mention that other reviewers’ experiences with Henri have inconsistent. In the Standard, David Kelly had a particularly bad experience and wondered if Boxer was overstretched. We’ll find out in the coming months if Henri can maintain consistency and keep finding new twists on the Parisian bistro experience.
For now, I am happy to recommend it for a Professional Lunch. The vibe is great for a conversation. The food is intriguing and encourages discussion. Service was attentive. The location is great. It’s certainly worth a try.
Thanks for reading this week’s review. Could you let me know in the comments if you’ve been to Henri and what you thought? And please subscribe if you haven’t already.