Telephone: 020-7485 8442
Address: 53-79 Highgate Road, London NW5
Rating: 14.5/20
'He's a shagger," said Buttercup. "Oh, definitely," said Daisy. "He's got shagger's eyes. Anyway, I heard from Cosmo..."
Jonquil stayed quiet. I stayed mouth open wide. Agog, at any rate. Who wouldn't? It was just as well that the conversation was so diverting, because it took a little time for the food to get out of the kitchen of the Highgate and on to our table.
The Highgate is a relative newcomer to London's Kentish Town. It sounds as if it was supposed to be a gastro-pub, but it isn't. It's that second generation development, the gastro-bar, forged out of an old warehouse, and with something of the vaulting scale and utilitarian character of its original use. The ground floor is the bar bit, with floor-to-ceiling windows and acres of tables, while downstairs is a fair-sized dining room, decked out in what seems to be referred to as "contemporary", a kind of 1950s-pastiche minimalism, metro-smart, but a bit impersonal for me.
The food is every bit as contemporary - seared cured trout with frogs' legs and watercress purée; herbed gnocchi with green beans and Parmesan; roasted gilt-head bream with caponata; breast of chicken with chickpea salad and harissa. Just going through that little lot, I reckon the menu touches down in six countries. It didn't surprise me to learn that the chef, Jamie Polito, had come to the Highgate by way of Kensington Place (classic French), Odette's (modern British) and Coast (fusion funk), and it wasn't at all bad. It wasn't great, but there were plenty of oomphy flavours to each dish.
Actually, what we had was two crispy squid with watermelon and chilli salad, and one warm salad of quail, pickled girolles and foie gras among the first courses; with grilled rib-eye with mushroom compote, green beans and chips; roast neck of lamb with sautéed potatoes, spinach and lamb jus (or gravy, as we like to call it); and cod with runner beans, brown shrimps and crab butter.
The warm salad was a toothsome autumnal assembly, and a diverting play on soft (foie gras), medium (quail breast) and hard (walnuts), with the pickled girolles somewhere between each, and bringing a soft, elegiac pungency to the party.
The lamb dish was a fine, simple matching of elements, nicely cooked. The rib-eye steak had been deftly handled, though the meat could have done with more hanging for the sake of flavour. But every now and then a lack of technical grip let things slide a bit. The squid dish was potentially an outright winner if only it had actually been crisp and not relaxed and laid-back. The sauce with the cod was copious and murky to a degree that clobbered everything else on the plate. And when it came to pudding, while Jonquil's crème brûlée was textbook stuff, my chocolate mousse was too sweet for either my or its own good.
The bill seemed almost an irrelevance. It was £144.69 all in, but the total included three bottles of cheery Huia Pinot Noir from New Zealand at £26.50 a bottle, and in terms of entertainment it was better than a night at the theatre any time.
· Open Mon-Sat, 12.30-3pm, 6.30-10.30pm; Sun, 12 noon-4pm, 6.30-10pm. All major credit cards. Wheelchair access and WC.
