Paradise Garage, 254 Paradise Row, London E2 (020 7613 1502). Meal for two, including drinks and service, £120
The detail which catches my attention lies at the very bottom of the first gnarly Asiatic porcelain bowl delivered to our table at Paradise Garage in London’s Bethnal Green. It is a slick of lemon gel beneath an airy pillow of sweet pea mousse, served with halved radishes and some thick poppadom-like crackers, to get you started as you scan the menu. The unexpected hit of citrus makes me look up from the automatic process of dip and nibble and dip. Without it, the mousse would have been a fine thing: an agreeable and earthy way for chef Simon Woodrow to declare intent. But with it the whole bowl flashes and sparkles. Just as the palate risks being dulled by sugars, so it comes alive. It makes me think somebody somewhere likes me; it is the smart touch of a kitchen that’s happy to let details accumulate.
If I was asked to choose a restaurant that sums up where the best of London eating is at right now, I’d send them here. It’s not that it’s located in a refurbished railway arch, or that light bulbs dangle from the ceiling, their filaments in view; that plates tend towards vintage bits of overly fancy mismatched crockery, or that the walls have white splash-back tiling; that the bar is topped with bark-edged sliced logs and there are cages above full of pots of herbs. Granted, all these things are so damn 2015 you could set your calendar by them, but it’s interior design and the sort of thing best left to the likes of Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen to shake his cuffs over.
I’m more interested in the mood: in a noisy elbows-on-the-table room, wherein the inked and bed-headed staff serve seriously impressive food, call you “my darling” and don’t so much pour booze as foist it upon you. The food here draws on a nerdy and very contemporary fascination with curing, fermenting, butchery and charcuterie; where ideas are in the service of great ingredients rather than the other way round. In all this I am a little late to the party, for Paradise Garage is the third venture from chef Robin Gill, who has already made a huge noise with The Dairy, which he opened in 2013, and The Manor, both over in Clapham. Irishman Gill did time with Michelin-starred boys both here and in Italy, before a lengthy stint at Le Manoir with Raymond Blanc.
Le Manoir has the sort of kitchen garden calculated to make even the most devout carnivore horny, but it appears to be have been Gill’s short periods with the big names of Scandinavian food, including René Redzepi, which have whacked the biggest thumb print on the dishes his restaurants serve. It’s not earnest and doctrinaire, but it does more than nod to its northern European setting.
At Paradise Garage even the sourdough comes with a smoked butter flavoured with whisky, which they have churned themselves. There’s no alcoholic kick, but it tastes pleasingly of the way old, damp whisky barrels smell. I like the way old whisky barrels smell. This bread and butter quickly become a compulsion.
From the list of snacks at £6.50 each come two charred hunks of sweetcorn, with a thick, savoury emulsion made with hemp seed, and more toasted seeds. Cubes of carefully seasoned and dressed raw venison come with a single “preserved” egg yolk, and stalks of lightly bitter watercress which appear to have been lightly pickled.
From the list marked “Garden” there are charred pieces of globe artichoke, complete with leaves to be pulled off and dragged over the teeth, alongside dollops of light, milky curd, a sprightly salsa verde and a couple of charred padrón peppers. No, I’m not sure what they were doing there, but we liked them. A whole slow-cooked egg, wobbly beneath an overcoat of salty lardo, with a couple of charred onions, and raw mature spinach leaves sprinkled with oily fried breadcrumbs, is one of those textural experiences you either like or run screaming from. It doesn’t matter how well it’s done. Slow-cooked eggs always end up with a white that makes you fear someone who handled the plate had a thick cold. The flavours – of pig and yolk; of charred onion and toast – make sense. But more is left on the plate than comes off it.
No matter. We are in the land of small plates, priced at between £7 and £12, and there will always be something new along shortly. A perfect charred sardine comes away easily from the bone because to do otherwise would be bad manners. It is matched with the crunch and sharpness of freshly pickled and spiced raw veg. Most of the time, and apart from their own salamis, meat features here more as flavouring than star turn. Even on a beef dish, the meat served pink, it is the thick smear of miso sauce, the mushrooms and the vigour of fresh hazelnuts which enthral the tongue. (Special mention, though, must go to a chicken liver “faggot”; it has an earthiness and depth that speaks forthrightly of life blood and gastric channels.)
Two pieces of Iberico pork shoulder, served a shade of pink calculated to make nervous people raise placards, come with nutty coco beans and a sauce rich with anchovy. But it is a crisp, burnished square of pig’s head which, here, catches the attention.
Desserts make their point through buxom soft fruits, tuiles and crackers, but are essentially scoops of soft creamy things. There is a ganache of caramelised white chocolate, like the frosting someone forgot to pipe on to a cupcake; or scoops of beer ice cream made with Innis & Gunn, alongside a slab of crunchiness made with toasted barley and shameless amounts of melted sugar. It suggests desserts are not quite this kitchen’s forte, but it’s not a problem because many other things are.
The cooking is decidedly idiosyncratic. I can well imagine being buttonholed late at night by drunk people who went and didn’t like it. And certainly there is a restlessness here which could send the kitchen off down blind alleys marked “bitter” or “slippery”. But the riskiness is part of the appeal.
In the name Paradise Garage there is a joke about all convention being parked, but I’m far better than that. So I won’t make it. Just try the food.
Jay’s news bites
■ Artusi in Peckham, south London, looks more towards Italy than Paradise Garage, but they share a belief that good food, showing off ingredients to the best of their advantage, should not come with pointless flummery. Go there for lamb sweetbreads, octopus, panna cotta with nectarines and a general sense that all is well with both the world and the bill (artusi.co.uk).
■ Le Chabanais, the London outpost of hip Paris bistro Chateaubriand – not much liked by this column or any other – is no more. Chateaubriand chef Inaki Aizpitarte has severed his ties with the backers. The site has reopened under a new name, 8 Mount Street, with a new chef, Adrian Miller.
■ The crowd-sourced review site Yelp has promised to investigate after James Lewis, marketing director of London’s Gauthier restaurant, revealed on Twitter that one of the site’s users had offered to post positive reviews at £4 a pop. “We don’t tolerate this behaviour” Yelp replied on Twitter (gauthiersoho.co.uk).
Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk
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