16 All Saint’s Road, London W11 (020 7854 1808). Meal for two, including wine and service: £150
Occasionally a plate of food comes along that forces me to pause. The sound of chatter fades. The light around the crockery seems to dim. I focus. Yup, I’m really that sad. So it is with the lobster couscous at Wormwood in London’s Notting Hill. Usually I am suspicious of dishes built around luxury ingredients. The great Shaun Hill once told me the luxury trinity of lobster, truffles and foie gras can be a tedious straitjacket for a chef. While this falls deep into the “my diamond pumps are pinching” category of life’s troubles, I understand what he means. Just as a Tom Cruise movie is all about Tom Cruise, a lobster dish is all about the lobster.
And yet, here I sit staring at the Algerian-born, rapper-turned-chef Rabah Ourrad’s lobster couscous and I am silenced. Just as the lobster thing had almost put me off so had the news, solemnly delivered, that it was the chef’s “signature” dish. That sort of thing has always baffled me. I can well imagine chefs having favourites, but I don’t want to be told about them. I want to pretend everything on the menu is a little marvel; that the selection I am about to make is like Sophie’s Choice, only without the genocide. And here I was being told with a serious frown that it was something I must have.
For once they are right. You must have it. In the middle is a broad tian of toasty couscous, flavoured with finely blitzed roasted almonds, prunes soaked in manzanilla syrup and confit lemon; it is the university-educated brother to the equally fabulous couscous I ate at Harry’s Shack a few weeks back. In the deep, clean bowl, equally placed, are four small pieces of lobster tail. It is what gets poured into this moat that matters: a thick shellfish bisque, the colour of a tarnished Olympic bronze medal. There is the sweetness of long-roasted shellfish, but so much else, too. There are sugared caramel tones and a hint of bitterness and the waft of a boozy night ransacking the liquor shelves in a bar down by the docks. (Apparently the shellfish pan is deglazed with Armagnac before being finished with a touch of the wormwood-based spirit absinthe, the only obvious appearance of the restaurant’s name.) It is a bowl of fire and silk. Together these three elements – the nuttiness of the couscous, the nuggets of lobster, the deep tissue massage of the bisque – really do the thing. If it was mine, I too would want to sign it.
It’s all the more intriguing because, for various reasons, I hadn’t intended to review Wormwood. I’d even booked under my own name. At first I was certain I’d made the right call. I couldn’t quite work out whether it was a restaurant of ambition trying to pass as a neighbourhood place, or a neighbourhood place attempting to be more. The white textured walls and tiny tables and grey banquettes speak of elbows and slouch; but then the staff come and mutter about small-plate concepts and inspiration until your eyes are beginning to roll and you want to shout “hipster restaurant bingo” at the top of your voice. An amuse-bouche in a Kilner jar – but of course – doesn’t help matters. Apparently there’s a sweet fruit jelly at the bottom and duck-liver mousse on top, but it’s all far too cold and tasteless. It tastes like a plug of whipped butter which is not my favourite start to any meal.
But then the plates start to arrive. Yes, there are riffs on ingredients, which sometimes look less like inspiration than desperation. But Ourrad has a plan. Dr Gerkings & Mr Cucumber is an excruciating name for a dish, not least for what looks like a misspelling. What arrives isn’t. There is compressed cucumber in the lightest of garlicky yogurt dressings, so it becomes a solid tzatziki, alongside a chargrilled gherkin, a heap of an apple and cucumber granita with a pinch of Espelette pepper. It is as refreshing as a long drink of chilled water on a hot day.
A plate of cauliflower, both pickled and puréed, with smears of beetroot sauces, a hint of truffle and a flash of coconut goes the other way, bringing earthiness to a much-maligned vegetable. The silkiest hummus, whipped and passed and passed again, forms a bed for lamb roasted until it can be pulled apart, swamped in sticky lamb jus and seasoned with cumin and caraway. What makes it sing is the crunch from pieces of the crisped lamb skin buried deep within. It is the very best lamb shawarma you have ever tried, only in scoopable form.
ForTuna! may be another silly dish name – please stop – but you can’t fault the execution. One piece has been confited until buttery and cuttable with a spoon, and other bits cured in the vibrant citrus of sumac and the punch of zaatar; a piece has been seared on the plancha and another, air dried. So far so Mediterranean, but then come whispy Japanese notes from the nose tickle of wasabi to the seashore salt of nori seaweed. It’s a restless dish. The lobster couscous we know about. (But oh, that lobster couscous!) Only a plate of braised pork belly with seared black pudding merits a passing shrug. It’s solid cookery without being diverting.
Desserts look small for £8, but you wouldn’t want more of either. There’s a crisp pastry shell into which has been piped a thick lemony mousse, alongside a scoop of yuzu sorbet. A triangle of dark chocolate tart is as black and shiny as polished ebony. Both feel less like a course in their own right than a way to say goodbye to the main event of the savoury plates.
Some will find the Wormwood experience profoundly irritating. There is a breathiness to the service, an intensity in the way ingredients are pointed out before you’re allowed to eat them, which can be wearisome. And costs mount. With dishes priced between £12 and £19 for the lobster, and a wine list that laughs in the face of a bottle priced below £30 by only having one of them, your bill will dance merrily beyond £150 for two very quickly. But if you genuinely love impressive cooking, rather than see eating out as solely a vehicle for chat and natter, Ourrad’s food is worth seeking out. His are some of the most intriguing dishes to arrive in London in a very long while.
Jay’s news bites
■ Like Wormwood, Dabbous off London’s Charlotte Street, is a gastronomically ambitious restaurant attempting a low-key vibe. An absurdly hot ticket when it opened, it should now be possible to eat Ollie Dabbous’s food without waiting a decade. Go for the pulled veal belly with sprouts and seeds, or chocolate-soaked brioche with pecans and barley malt ice cream (dabbous.co.uk).
■ For those coming to terms with “no reservation” policies, MenuSpring has launched “eet”, which enables participating businesses to tell you how long the queue is. Green on your smartphone means there are tables now, amber there’s a short queue and if red, you’d need to have too much time on your hands to bother (eetapp.com).
■ Worrying news. The Savoy Hotel is considering the future of the venerable Simpsons-in-the-Strand, famed for its killer cooked breakfasts and the silver-domed trolleys, serving roast beef and lamb. Possibilities include bringing in a new operator or a big-name chef.
Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk. Follow Jay on Twitter @jayrayner1
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