Matt Healy X The Foundry, 1 Saw Mill Yard, Leeds LS11 5WH (0113 245 0390). Snacks and small plates £3.50-£9. Large plates £18.50-£29.50. Desserts £7. Wines from £20
You wait ages for a toasted cheese sandwich to come along and then three turn up at once. The first was last week, courtesy of the Cheesy Toast Shack in St Andrews where flaked Arbroath Smokie danced off merrily with mature cheddar, amid the tight embrace of quality sourdough. The second was at Owt (“anything” in Yorkshire-ese, but then you knew that). It’s a compact, daytime food outlet inside the Kirkgate in Leeds, the Victorian covered hall from which I used to sustain myself as a student, on a carefully balanced diet of bacon baps.
Owt’s schtick is simple: they cook from what’s available on the market stalls surrounding them. The Kirkgate may now have its Istanbul street food operators and pimped hot dog stands, but it is still home to great butchers, fishmongers and greengrocers. The day I went, Owt’s main offering was a crisped and golden cheese and ham sandwich made with the good stuff, the seasoned surface suggesting that it, too, had been buttered before being grilled. There were roasted vegetables, a rocket salad, a cup of potato and herb soup and another of coffee, all for £6.50. A blackboard outside announced that the veg had come from Carlos and Lucy, the meat from Aga and the bread from Bluebird. They also have cake. Lots and lots of mostly vegan cake.
And so to the third of those toasted cheese sandwiches: a precision engineered number, sliced so that every angle is at 90 degrees, bronzed in all the right places and filled with the punchy, paunchy umami of blue cheese and caramelised onions. If Owt’s toasted cheese sandwich is a comfortable pair of jeans, this is pure Chanel. And yet it’s merely the support act. It sits alongside an impeccably seasoned disc of steak tartare, full of softness and just the right amount of acidity and piquancy, topped with the sunshine promise of an egg yolk. You scoop up the tartare and nibble on the sandwich, with the certain knowledge that eventually you will slap one on top of the other.
It was made for me by Matt Healy, the inked and bearded Leeds-born chef who came runner-up on MasterChef: The Professionals in 2016. His restaurant occupies a space of raw brick, concrete floors, filament light bulbs and nowness, within the Round Foundry redevelopment of buildings from the city’s industrial past, just south of the centre. There’s a huge neon sign on the wall bearing the legend “Food to swear by”. Given that I muttered “Bloody hell, that’s good” over the steak tartare, it’s not wrong. Only I didn’t say “Bloody” or “hell”.
What’s intriguing about this dish, and the others surrounding it, is the simplicity. You won’t identify any ideas here that could be described as massively innovative; instead, it is a collection of well-trodden paths, walked with precision and care, and all at an extremely good price.
Healy has created a proposition that can work in many ways. At the top of the menu is a list of charcuterie and cheeses, plus a few nibbles for those who just want something with a drink. We get a plate of sourdough which comes with a scoop of pre-whipped Marmite butter for the grown-up child within, alongside a bowl of chorizo in cider, for the adult hovering just behind them. The bread goes quickly because there are too many possibilities to dip it in and drag it through.
From the small-plates list comes a plank of smoked eel. It perches atop a perfectly made celeriac remoulade with a mustardy kick. The fish is dressed with discs of pickled radish for crunch. It is in no way radical, but it is special. The sweetest of clams bathe in a wine-boosted broth thickened with olive oil, and handfuls of coriander. Newly arrived spears of asparagus are placed under a translucent shroud of lardo. There is half a soft-boiled egg. These are things that need to be introduced to each other. They get along very well indeed. The simplest dish is shredded savoy cabbage with pancetta and the squeaky crunch of hazelnuts. It’s less a recipe than a great idea. Any reasonable cook could taste it and immediately know how to do it at home. They’ll wish they’d thought of it first.
We share a main course of roast chicken with morels, broad beans and peas. At first, I’m a little disappointed. It features two pristine slabs of cream-coloured breast, rather than the darker promise of thigh. Healy knows what he’s doing. The skin is crisped, the meat tastes of something, and there’s a mighty chicken gravy to bind it all together. There is also a little more pancetta, because that can never hurt. It’s a roast dinner governed by the same sensibility that made the toasted cheese sandwich. Throughout the meal he can be seen at the open pass tending to his plates, his big meaty forearms and Captain Haddock beard, a killer disguise for pocketsful of precision, finesse and wit. We drink wine, something crisp and bright from Spain. We are happy.
Desserts are the most cheffy moments. Yorkshire rhubarb, from the nearby triangle, brings a scoop of sorbet, which is a disconcerting cassis purple. There’s a vanilla macaron, rhubarb gel and a couple of braised stalks. It’s the only dish that is more admirable than on point. Each element took work, but the finished item doesn’t quite swamp you with rhubarb fruitiness. No such issues with a dark and crisp-shelled pastry tart, with peanut brittle and salted caramel ice cream. It is a plate of shadow and sweetened light.
It should be noted that this was all tried in the first days of the first week of an entirely new menu. It didn’t show. It pains me to grouch about anything but I must: the bill carries a service charge, and the card machine then offers you the chance to pay a “gratuity”. “It’s if you want to add extra,” according to our waiter. That’s a little hopeful. I’m going to assume they’ve reprogrammed the machine. It’s a silly misstep that shouldn’t be allowed to stain the memory of a killer toasted cheese sandwich.
News bites
Anton Piotrowski won MasterChef: The Professionals in 2012, and has now gifted Liverpool Röski, the ambitious restaurant it deserves. Piotrowski’s cooking is built on huge flavours. The ever-changing menu might include sautéed langoustine under breadcrumbs cooked in wagyu beef fat or a meatless red cabbage Bolognese (roskirestaurant.com).
In Leeds it’s a sad farewell to the vegetarian Indian restaurant Hansa’s, a trailblazer for the city when it opened in 1986. After 33 years the deft Guajarati chef Hansa Dabhi has decided to retire from the pass, to run a cookery school.
Given my sideline at the piano I’m delighted to hear that the notion of dinner and show is going strong. Live at the Savoy is a series of performances over a new menu, inspired by the cooking of Auguste Escoffier, at the grand hotel on London’s Strand where the chef made his name. Jazz singer Judi Jackson kicks off the season next week and will be musician in residence (thesavoylondon.com).
Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @jayrayner1
