These two new London restaurants live up to the hype, writes TOM DOORLEY.
RICHARD CORRIGAN’S new restaurant is at the Park Lane end of Upper Grosvenor Street, the epicentre of moneyed London. It used be Nico Ladenis’s place back when nouvelle cuisine was morphing into . . . oh, whatever came next. The new fit-out is very carefully done. It combines luxury without decadence, is dark but far from gloomy, cosy and club-like rather than excluding, quirky and mildly eccentric rather than just fashionably challenging.
And the food is outstanding: meticulously gathered flesh of crubeens served in crisp beignets with beetroot and draped with four-year-old Jabugo ham; Cornish crab sitting atop a golden, crabby jelly, served with the lightest imaginable melba toast; woodcock cooked just the right side of rare, the innards spread on toast, the head neatly cleft (impeccably correct game cooking); linguini cooked in red wine with bone marrow and pecorino, fabulously intense, sharp, salty, savoury, rich, weird but wonderful.
Then rare roe venison in buttery pastry with lightly pickled cabbage, and haddock and lobster simply steamed with butter. A plate of ripe, buttery Durrus cheese and, for pudding (and this is a pudding kind of place), some warm carrot cake. I should stress that this was between two.
Next day, I staggered round to Bocca di Lupo in Archer Street, a thoroughfare so seedy that surely it cannot have been named in honour of the literary peer (as distinct from pier) of Weston-super-Mare? Anyway, it’s two minutes walk from Piccadilly Circus. This ultra-cool-restaurant-of-the-moment has been created by Jacob Kenedy, former head chef at Moro, and his business partner, Victor Hugo.
The idea – and it’s a very brave one – is to do lots of regional specialities from throughout Italy, in the kind of menu that allows you to graze or to blow out, depending on your mood.
I can report that grilled polenta topped with sauteed porcini and draped with melting lardo is, in fact, every bit as good as it sounds. And that bone marrow, Barolo and radicchio risotto, which should have been rich and unctuous, tasted as if it had been made with rather weedy vegetable stock.
However, rustic pork and foie gras (how rustic is foie gras?) sausage with farro, a kind of chewy cracked wheat, and porcini was scrumptious and one helluva a dish for £13. Lamb prosciutto with marinated pecorino was very hoggety and rather good, while a simple salad of tart blood oranges, finely sliced red onion and fresh oregano had my companion grimacing and reaching for the San Pellegrino. Personally, I thought it was one of the loveliest things I’d eaten . . .well, since the night before at Corrigan’s, and the best value I’ve had for a fiver.
We finished up with some calzoncelli, little crescent-shaped pastries, filled with chestnut and dark chocolate scented with anise, that were deep-fried until just crisp and then dusted with a little sugar.
Most dishes at Bocca di Lupo come in starter and in main course portions; the cheapest is a starter portion of bean soup at £4, the dearest a combination of lobster and pasta at £24. An average starter is £7, an average main is £14.
At Corrigan’s, starters average about £8 (the cheapest is consomme with pumpkin at £6), the vast majority of mains are under £20 (the dearest is turbot at £24).
THE SMART MONEY
Crab salad, some excellent bread and a glass of Picpoul de Pinet weighs in at a little over £14 at Corrigan's. At Bocca di Lupo you can have a glass of vino da tavola, a small dish of cotechino and lentils and an espresso and expect a bill for just over £11. tdoorley@irishtimes.com
WINE LIST
Corrigan’s list is mainly organic and biodynamic, very eclectic (the Rotgipfler grape is new to me, but like Pinot Grigio with attitude), with some very sound value such as Château Tour des Gendres Bergerac (£22.70), Domaine La Ferme Saint-Martin Côtes du Rhône (£17).
Bocca di Lupo, with every excuse to do a 100 per cent Italian list chickened out, but the selection is decent rather than brilliant and offers reasonable value. Villa Tonino Inzolia from Sicily is a very zippy white for £17.25. Pinot Nero Coltrenzo from the Alto-Adige is elegant and delicate for £26.50.