8.75/10
Telephone 020-7403 1342.
Address 152 Tooley Street, London SE1.
Open Lunch, Tues-Sat, noon-2.30pm; dinner, Mon-Sat, 6.30-10.30pm.
Price Three courses with wine, £40-50 a head.
On a recent trip to Lincoln, I came as close as anyone would care to come to having a fist fight with a 5ft 2in Anglican cleric. Restrictions on space preclude a full account but, briefly put, I took mild umbrage on finding almost all of Lincoln Cathedral cordoned off to visitors (something not pointed out until after you'd made the donation). He, meanwhile, took severe umbrage at the suggestion that this exclusion zone was no more in the spirit of Jesus than the presence of a cardboard cutout advertising the building's role as a set for The Da Vinci Code. All that bleating about the scandalous liberties taken with the holy scriptures ... and the minute they see a few bob in it, the church hugs this blasphemous work to its pious bosom.
The fallout from this incident was a dose of such intense paranoia that I found myself suspecting this week's restaurant of also trying to cash in on Dan Brown's book, albeit in a more subliminal way, by naming itself Magdalen. "You're not serious?" said my friend when I posited the theory. "Please tell me you're not."
On reflection, it was a struggle to understand how naming itself after the alleged mother of Christ's children, and co-founder of the Meringovian bloodline, could be of much commercial benefit to a small place near Borough Market that has been opened by three owner-chefs whose pooled CV includes stints at the Fat Duck, Le Manoir Aux Quat' Saisons and that most celebrated of foodie pubs, the Anchor & Hope.
"I love this place," said my friend, steering me away from my demented musings. By this time we'd been shown, by a very expert Spanish waiter, to a table in a warm, handsome room upstairs with a striking cream and aubergine colour scheme, antique mirrors and floorboards, pretty, modern chandeliers and a small bar in one corner. "It's got a great buzz," said my friend, "but not so that you can't hear. And everyone seems engrossed and well looked after."
From a menu possibly more influenced by the gastropub than the classical French technique of Raymond Blanc or the crazed, chemistry-set genius of Heston Blumenthal, we began with two very different but equally superb dishes. Hot foie gras with caramelised blood oranges, served with a glass of chilled port we didn't realise we'd ordered (perhaps the acoustic isn't so hot after all), drew a hushed, "My God, this is awesome. It's like a silky, buttery mousse - and what a combination with the oranges. Perfect balance."
My starter, from the other end of the profit margin spectrum (the ingredients must have cost all of 7p), showed a grasp of how to recycle unloved avian parts worthy of a Cantonese street market: it was a small Le Creuset bowl full of duck giblets (head, wing, gizzard and, best and most flavoursome, neck) in the sort of rich, spicy, amazingly delicious broth you might imagine a Jewish mother serving up in a Warsaw kitchen in 1932 (if you're on mescaline).
The main courses were both admirably hearty, but mixed in quality. My shoulder of rabbit with white beans and stewed tomatoes was glorious, the meat slow-cooked to a melting flakiness and enlivened by a potent grain mustard sauce. My friend's smoked haddock was cleverly matched with gentle sauerkraut, garlicky morteau sausage and a good butter sauce, but the fish was so desperately salty even by smoked fish standards that you feared inviting a stroke just by glancing at it. "Yes, but it's beautifully cooked and presented," said my friend, appointing herself as leading counsel for the defence in tribute to the foie gras. "I think it's the fishmonger's fault."
Given the splendour of everything else, not least the trio of English cheeses with which we finished (notably a wonderful Colston Basset), perhaps it was. But even if someone in the kitchen did have a mishap with the salt cellar, we forgive the holy trinity responsible for Magdalen, in the true spirit of her namesake's putative lover, for they know exactly what they're doing, and have created a heavenly little enclave in south-east London.
