On Café, 31 Clapham Park Road, London SW4 7EE (020 3759 0162). Meal for two, including service: £50
Early on in this job I discovered it could exemplify the “observer effect”. That, by writing about a restaurant, I could fundamentally change it, and not for the better. I gave a glowing review to a tiny French place down on the south coast. Ah, the fish soup. Oh, the cassoulet. Shortly after my review appeared, I started getting letters – it was that long ago – telling me the food was dismal and the service worse. I recalled that, on the day I’d visited, there had been fewer than a dozen customers. Weirdly, in the aftermath of my positive review, crowds of hungry people had descended and both front and back of house had buckled under the strain. I had single-handedly turned a great restaurant into a terrible one. Bravo, and so on.
I worry about wreaking havoc on this week’s restaurant in the same way, for it is so small, fine-boned and delicate that a stampeding crowd of dribbling, hungry people could well be more than it could bear.
There are just 15 seats. As far as I could see, there isn’t a kitchen brigade. There’s a man. He may or may not have a friend. It’s so small and simple they don’t even have a booze licence; you bring your own. That said, the menu is in two clear parts and I am certain that one of these would benefit markedly from an uplift in trade. I’m going to cross my fingers and hope the other bit could also survive it. Because the place deserves the crowds.
On Café, close to London’s Clapham Common, belongs to chef Loretta Liu, who trained at the Raffles Hotel in her native Singapore and in the kitchens of some big-name chefs. Here she does two things, both of which she has written books about: dim sum and patisserie, including macarons for which she has gathered a following. The much flashier Yauatcha in Soho does something similar, but it’s buried under neon lighting and fish tanks and nose-bleeding prices. Here, you walk into what looks like a caff selling intricate cakes. The chiller cabinet’s top shelf is full of those macarons in Candy Crush colours. Below are eclairs, choux buns, tarts and slices of gateau, all intricately accessorised. They could be worn at Ascot as fascinators.
Then you sit down and they give you the dim sum menu. It doesn’t require vast culinary insight to see the connection between these two halves of the menu: the production of individual items, the pastry work, both steamed and baked, the emphasis on the visual. The dim sum are around £4.30 for three and are exceptionally good, in a rugged sort of way. I’d almost describe them as artisanal were it not for the fact that the word has been violated by stupid, uncontextualised overuse courtesy of people who are to genuine artisans what Roy Chubby Brown is to comedy.
The pieces of scallop and king prawn inside translucent crystal skins of potato starch and tapioca are so fresh they practically pop between the teeth. Duck xiao long bao – the increasingly popular soupy dumplings, their peaks turned to a satisfying twist – burst with ginger, five spice and sesame. Chicken buns, punched with lemon thyme, garlic and fried shallots, are a little on the doughy side but satisfying for all that.
From the fried list, salt and pepper squid, with ribbons of deep-fried chilli, banishes the recent memory of the dreadful version at the Astor Grill. The batter, bulked up with semolina, has spring and bite. There are fried pork Beijing dumplings, seared to golden and crisp on one side, white and soft on the other, leaking stock as you bite in, as if they are the soupy dumplings’ little siblings. At one point, I see two loaves of Kingsmill 50-50 slip back into the kitchen; surely not the base for the prawn toast? It’s not quite the buxom wonder found at Alan Yau’s Duck and Rice, but it’s much more than serviceable at half the price.
A salmon Thai green curry dumpling sounds like an innovation too far, but in reality is just pieces of lightly spiced fresh salmon and lemongrass inside pouches of crystal skin. A dredge through the syrupy dipping sauce heavy with ginger and garlic and they slip away very nicely. They’ve also sourced a very good chilli oil. A sizable dish of prawn fried rice, the most expensive item on the menu at £8.50, makes up for not being quite fried enough by containing a generous portion of fresh prawn.
The room is a long way from some of the flashier dim sum outfits in the centre of London, the likes of Royal China and, yes, Yauatcha. But the quality really isn’t. And here it comes with a side dish of charm.
Then there is the patisserie. At the top of the cabinet there are the macarons at £4.30 for three: there’s wild strawberry and jasmine, or green tea and azuki bean, raspberry and dark chocolate or black sesame and candied ginger, and so much more besides. Below are the cakes, all at £4.20 each. There’s an individual salted caramel and chocolate tart, the dark surface buried beneath shards of meringue, brownie and crumbled biscuit. A lemon choux-pastry bun, with its glorious giraffe-marked crust, has creamy curd inside and is topped with yuzu and micro basil. A strawberry and clotted cream gateau is a precise oblong, with a shiny jellied surface as if it’s all dressed up for a sophisticated children’s party.
They look fabulous. And they almost taste fabulous. The problem, I think, is lack of footfall. The chocolate tart was still in its prime, but the rest were tired. They had been in the chiller cabinet a day or two longer than was good for them. As extravagant as it sounds, most high-end patisseries – and this place is right up there with them – would dump the stock if it hadn’t sold after a short period of time. On Café simply can’t afford to do that, so they’ve lingered.
Which is why I’m now encouraging the crowds to descend. Make your way to Loretta’s tiny café down by Clapham Common. Hit the dim sum. Then clean out that cake cabinet on a daily basis. God knows it’s worth it. Thanks to the BYO drinks policy, our gross over-ordering still only yields a bill of £60, and the low, satisfied purr that accompanies the discovery of an absolute gem.
Jay’s news bites
■ Less rugged than the On Café dim sum are the bundles of joy at A Wong in London’s Victoria, reviewed here recently. Chef Wong wanders restlessly around China cherry picking the bits he’s interested in. His xiao long bao are a masterclass in the restorative powers of ginger in broth. Look out for his Chengdu street tofu, under a dressing of soy, chilli, peanuts and preserved vegetables. And do not miss the sweet duck-egg custard buns (awong.co.uk).
■ A tipoff for something close to home (by which I mean mine). To coincide with Caribbean Food Week at the end of August, Windrush Square in Brixton is to play host to the first Caribbean Food Festival, on 26 and 27 August. Expect cooking demos, music, street food stands and an introduction to lots of dishes that aren’t jerk (facebook.com/caribbeanfoodweek).
■ The team behind the much-admired Arbutus in London’s Soho have parted company. Chef Anthony Demetre will take Arbutus to a new site. Meanwhile front-of-house manager Will Smith is to open a hotel by Loch Lomond. Lucky Loch Lomond.
Jay Rayner’s new book, The Ten (Food) Commandments, is out now (£6, Penguin). To order a copy for £5.10, go to bookshop.theguardian.com
Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @jayrayner1
