Cellar SW4

As is always the way when a new gaff opens up just around the corner from your home, when you stand outside Cellar as a Clapham local, you find yourself scratching your head for simply ages, thinking: “I know this wasn’t here three days ago, but what was here?”  It’s the mystery of urban living, the inability to recall the shop or business or bar or service that occupied the same dozen square feet at the end of your nose only a matter of hours before.

Cellar sort of fits a tidy little niche, a wine bar serving interesting and unique wines, none of them well known or even widely available, along with platters of meats and cheeses.  The establishment has been set up by the same minds behind Dvine Wine round the corner on Landor Road, an outfit that specialises in selling organic and biodynamic wines.  So I’m going to come out and call this – this is a local business (even if the owner is a very friendly and personable Aussie) with proper local routes. 

The interior is done up as a niche (and, forgive me, cliché) little wine bar should be: it’s filled with old wooden wince crates on the wall and includes a bar made from old wine crates, which was pretty cool.  Even the candle sticks are made from old wine bottles – in particular, Craig Hawkin’s esoteric labelled bottles.

The wines themselves are what you’re here for, though, right?

Not to be outdone by any other reviewer, we went through pretty much the whole gamut of wine options available, starting with a white (for GrubsterGirl) and an orange (for me). 

What, I hear you cry, on earth is an orange wine?  Put simply, it’s a wine that’s orange.  Put more sensibly, it’s a white wine that’s made like a red wine, so instead of separating the juice straight await and allowing it to ferment, you leave it on the lees for longer – in some cases, apparently, for up to a year – which I can imagine would be very tricky to handle. 

My example of an orange wine was Cosimo Maria Daphne.  It felt old and oaky, a little like a red, yes.  It was also pretty powerful and lots of hard work, so good as a sipping wine perhaps, rather than something to take with a meal. 

GrubsterGirl’s white wine was a Chenin Blanc, specifically the Craig Hawkins “C”.  This was much lighter, a bright, fruity and floral wine, with cantaloupe notes and a distinct sweetness, but still with lots of robust flavours.  

Next up, rosé.

Again, two distinct ends of the spectrum.  The lighter rose was another Cosimo Maria Masini, this time the Mathilde.  Dry and oaky, as GG put it: “think sunshine and easy drinking”.

The darker rosé, however, was the opposite.  The Los Frailes Monastrell Rosado was much sweeter, bursting with red fruits and winter berries (think redcurrants and cranberries) and with that enduring richness on the end that you find in some rosés.

Then there’s also the food.  I can’t really resist a good charcuterie and/or cheese board, and they had both on hand.

Then onto the red.  We actually went for the same red – the Hewitson Ms. Harry Grenache Syrah Malbec.  Again, this is relatively easy drinking, but that’s no bad thing for a wine bar – the last thing you need in that context is something you have to struggle with.  This was full bodied – think woody, smoky, rich and buttery.  Lovely. 

They also had lovely olives served in an even more lovely teacup and saucer (actually a great innovation, as it solves the question of what happens to the stones). 

The thing is this, though.  Neither the meat nor the cheese board was cheap.  So I felt the portions were, to be frank, a bit stingy.  But that’s really the end of my criticisms.  Solve that issue (either drop the price or give more away) and you’ve got yourself a lovely little spot to drop in at.

The Manor

For a while, there was not much around my neck of the woods to get too excited about (food-wise, that is).  Sure, you had the Abbeville Kitchen behind the Common and Trinity on the Pavement – but there was nothing that the real food aficionado would have heard of.  Don’t get me wrong, I always thought we had it good – and we do – it's just it sucked a bit that people would ask what there was nearby then stand with the blank face of incomprehension as one reeled off a list of very decent but unknown restaurants before blurting out "Brixton Village" and denying that it was, actually, quite a long way away.

That's changed now.  Now we have The Dairy, which everyone seems to have heard about and which everyone does rave about.  Rumour has it that there's a certain French tyre manufacturer's star in the offing, although I don’t know about that.

This post, however, isn’t about The Dairy but about its newborn baby sister, The Manor, that's acquired a site around the corner that was until recently occupied by a (pretty grim) Spanish place.  Now, with stripped walls, bare bulbs, the obligatory faux historic set of antlers and some even more faux graffiti – as one companion put it: "trendy – almost achingly so" – it has become something altogether smarter, nicer, classier.  In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's a joy to eat there just for its surroundings, which despite the cold industrial chic design is somehow warm and welcoming.

But if the environment is good, wait until you get your hands on the victuals.  Oh my.  Dealing in what I would describe as 'modern British', they have nailed what it means to serve really very decent plates of honest food without, I am relieved to say, falling into the same trap as Big Brother The Dairy: small plates with big prices.  We opted for the seven course tasting menu, which at £42 a head may sound steep but really isn’t bad at all – not given both the quantity and the quality.

But before we got there we kicked off with a round of Bloody Marys.  Like all good bartenders, the resident barkeep eschews the old ways of slopping some tommy juice into a glass, adding a dash of heat and sauce and mixing in a puny measure of voddy.  Oh no, this is something altogether more refined.  The vodka is smoked.  The mix is made up of all manner of things, including (in addition to spice and Worcester) port, sherry, fresh horseradish and olive brine.  The garnish includes cucumber (which is also to be found in the juice mix), the scent of which matches a Bloody Mary so insanely well I'm left wondering how it wasn't dreamt up before now.  The accompaniment is a stick of celery filled with a  tomato reduction jelly, a playful twist on the Bloody Mary's more usual accessory and those boats of cream cheese your granny used to serve up as pre-dinner snacks.  The result was terrific – blew many a Bloody Mary out of the water.

And then, as we sipped our sharpeners and passively argued about whether we should be getting the tasting menu or ordering a la carte (I won): Lo, there appeared before us snacks in the form of seaweed and wasabi delights, served on a crispy cracker.  Served on slate slabs.  Awesome.

The first course of our seven course feast was, rather cheekily, bread and butter.  I use the term 'cheeky' advisedly, and carefully.  And I mean it.  Don’t, please, call something 'seven courses' then basically make the cover a course.  It's not.  Just give it away free.

Of course, I can’t complain too much because it was insane.  Seriously.  Freshly baked sourdough rolls served in their own little jute sacks (all together now, Awwwww...) served with whipped butter and crispy chicken skin.  One matey said of this offering: "Can I just have six more courses of that?"  Tempting.

Also, rather nicely, they didn't hesitate to accommodate both dietary requirements and veggies – which is nice; all too often when you say someone doesn’t eat this or that you get a blank stare and are told you can’t have the fixed / tasting menu.  Not here.  To keep her bread happy, the one vegetarian of our gang was delivered a separate serving of clotted cream and buttermilk butter, whipped up by the on-site pastry chef.  And whilst we were presented with a little slab of mixed South African sausages, our resident salad muncher got a rather beautiful looking snack of crab meat, wrapped in celeriac and sprinkled with hazelnuts.

But at last, the first (proper) course arrived: The hilariously named cod face.  Served with a creamy sauce and seaweedy rice crackers, this was a nice dish but just shy of the mark, I – and my fellow diners – felt.  Although none of us could quite put a finger on why – one saying it needed chilli, another saying it needed more cream, yet another querying if there was enough cracker to provide crunch - and I felt it just needed a squeeze of lemon.  Still, nice enough, if only that.

Next up: cauliflower, grue de cacao, medjool dates and yoghurt.

Not a combination you'd naturally go for, but holy cow it was good.  Like, really, really good.  My childhood memories of cauliflower are of overcooked mush in school dinners, or sticky slop masquerading as cheesy comfort food, so I seldom get too excited about it on a menu.  Until now that is, because this was wonderful.  It tasted of cauliflower – not always a good thing, I grant you, but in this context spectacular.  The accompaniment of the sweet date, sharp yoghurt and bitter cocao nibs were perfect.

The next fish course took the form of monkfish, served with ceps and salsify cooked three ways: puréed, roasted and pickled.

This was a polar opposite to the cod face – exciting, zingy, wonderful.  My only complaint was the smear of salsify purée – totally unnecessary and very unappealing.  As my neighbour said: "tempted to send it back, saying I've got a dirty plate".  But that aside this was fantastic – quite a few declared it their dish of the day.

Curiously, the only meat took the form of a game bird – specifically a hay smoked partridge breast and the beasts leg, confited, served up with fermented grains, puffed rice and parsnips.

This was (by a whisker) my dish of the day.  The two textures of bird – soft, smokey, delicate breast and more meaty, crunchier leg – was delicious.  The grains were also excellent, with a hint of sharpness that took the edge off the game.  And then there was the parsnip as well – let's make no bones about this, parsnip and game birds are just perfect partners.

Perhaps unadvisedly we chose to have the optional extra cheese course next – baked vacherin (my favourite cheese), honey from The Dairy's rooftop hives, shaved chestnuts and raisin bread.  I say 'unadvisedly' only because we'd already eaten a tonne of food, not because it was bad.  It wasn't; on the contrary, it was another triumph.

The first of the puddings followed: mandarin sorbet, mandarin segments, mandarin marmalade, kept company by goat's cheese snow.

This was a triumph – the dish that the partridge so narrowly beat for dish of the day.  It was wonderfully refreshing, with the creamy snow muting the zing just a touch (in a good way) and the marmalade adding a hint of bitterness somewhere at the back.  A fellow diner said of this dish: "I could eat a dozen more bowls of just that."  I don’t disagree.

And finally: course seven, pudding two.  Jerusalem artichoke ice cream with thinly sliced Jerusalem artichoke shavings, 'smashed' crème fraiche (frozen and snowed, in reality) and poached quince.

WTAF? (I hear you cry.)  Jerusalem artichoke ice cream?  Yes, actually.  And yes, before you ask, it's really, really good.  It's almost like caramel, in a sense, without being so sweet.  The shaved artichoke as well was a triumph, adding a much needed crunch to the dish.  The crème fraiche was... well, not much really – I could have lived without it, but it didn’t detract from the dish at all.

Tasting menus are all well and good, but the a la carte menu also looks pretty damn tasty.  And, if you go that way, to finish it off you can climb up to the sundae bar and be treated to fresh ice cream mixed with all manner of treats.

Finally, of course, with coffee came some dinky little seed cakes, whipped cream and jam.  Served in a draw pulled out of a vintage apothecary chest.  Lovely.

In all, The Manor has nailed it, I believe.  This place has been transformed from a down-at-heel local institution to a first rate, smart restaurant serving up some of the finest eats around.  Happy days indeed.

 - GrubsterBoy - 


PS: There is, sadly, one exception to the brilliance of this place - the lavatories.  I don't usually write about that sort of thing, but they are, I'm sorry, hideous – they apparently blew the budget on the rest of the restaurant and ran out of money – something I can believe given that there are still posters for the predecessor restaurant in there.  Other than that, this place rules.

La Liegeoise, Wimereux, France

Last month I had to conduct a massive booze cruise to the north of France, in particular to bring back over 200 bottles of wine for a big party I was organising.  So me and a mate piled into GrubsterMummy's car and drove to France.  Specifically we were headed to Montreuil, a small town in the Pas de Calais which is home to The Wine Society's French operations - a much reduced list to choose from, but with the added incentive of a guarantee that each case would be at least £20 cheaper than buying from the UK. 

 

Of course, no trip to France would be complete without stopping off to enjoy the country's famous culinary skills.  So, on the advice of my boss, we came off the autoroute at Wimereux and sought out the finest lunch our crispy new €uros could buy us.  We hit La Liégeoise in the Hotel Atlantic.  The name gives it all away – the hotel is perched right on the Atlantic coast and you sit in the dining room looking out at the ocean.  On good days (which, sadly, did not include the day of our trip) you can take coffee on the terrace.

 

Our meal was a set meal – three courses, two glasses of wine per head and coffee for €30.  Nowt bad.

 

Boys being boys, we rejected the fish and vegetarian options and dived straight into the good stuff.  But before we ever got there we were presented with a little trio of appetisers: salmon mousse wrapped up in smoked salmon, a little onion tarte accompanied by a fishy mousse and a third mousse with a distinctly ginger flavour and little picked vegetables.  My friend's comment: "They certainly like their mousses, don’t they?"

 

By the way, if I am vague about the contents of things in this review it is for one reason only: I was not always entirely certain what I was eating.  My French doesn't go that far (last time we did this trip, in a cheap and cheerful little restaurant in Boulogne, I accidentally ordered horse meat for three of us), the waiters' English went less far, and my friend's French is non-existent.  So it was a very much a game of gesticulation and guesswork to figure out some of what we were eating.

We kicked off, however, with a dish of foie gras de canard.  Always a firm favourite.  The restaurant was even happy to substitute one of our glasses of free wine for a sweet wine to keep the starter company, which was nice.

The main course was a perfect example of the language barrier causing problems.  We had thought we were getting grilled venison.  We ended up with poached guinea fowl.  Don’t ask how we got there.  Still, it was nice enough – albeit with yet another mousse that really didn’t go.  I can't tell you what flavour it was, but it was not particularly nice. 

Pudding we substituted for a cheese plate, and were given three different cheeses, served with apricot and prune compotes.  The waited explained what they were but we didn't understand.  Again, nice enough.

Coffee came with little petite fours – guess what, more mousse!  This time a mango mousse on top of a green apple compote.  There were also sweet little passion fruit and white chocolate truffles.

Overall, the term I'd use is 'nice'.  I wasn't blown away by the meal, and there was perhaps an element of trying too hard on display.  But otherwise, it was good and very decently priced.

- GrubsterBoy -

Wild Honey

So, I might have mentioned that, at some point relatively recently, I got older.  Significantly older. 

 

So GrubsterGirl took me out for dinner.  TWICE.  To Michelin restaurants.  I literally couldn’t be luckier.  I've already written about round one (Story), but now it's time to talk about round two: Wild Honey. 

 

Wild Honey describes itself as "a contemporary Mayfair timeless classic..." which sounds like just too much marketing bullspin to me.  Fortunately, it fails to live up to the self-imposed wanky motto and churns out, instead, phenomenally good food – and drink.

 

In our usual style – and to be fair to other pretenders – we kicked off proceedings with a round of cocktails.

 

I had a vesper.  This was lovely, but I am slightly disappointed – more in myself than anything else.  I could certainly have had something more exciting, even if this was perfectly put together.

 

GG, on the other hand, did have something more exciting: a Professor Cornelius Ampleforths’ Bramble.  Sadly, this didn’t quite live up to the expectation.

 

It's also worth mentioning at this juncture that they serve a lot of their wines in 250ml carafes.  This is a flipping brilliant idea and one that all restaurants should have to do.  It gives pleasure in two ways: one, it lets you chop and change your wine throughout the meal; and two, it lets you not drink an entire bottle if you don’t want to.  Which meant there was more room for cocktails. 

 

Whilst we perused the menu we were brought a plate of spicy fried onions.  These were yummy.  However, they were a touch onion bhaji-esque, and so a little out of place in a restaurant serving otherwise contemporary British food.  I'm also not entirely sure why we had them, or what they were for.

My starter was vitello tonnato, a dish of cold, wafer-thin veal doused in creamy tuna dressing.  It was absolutely divine and, despite its size, not as frighteningly filling as you'd expect.  The veal was beautiful, moist and fresh, not at all dry.  The dressing was similarly perfect, with a hint of tuna rather than being overpowering.

GG had the crab salad with avocado.  The crab was delicate, fresh white meat – very tasty – whilst the avocado took the form of a sort of avocado and coriander soup.  Slight Mexican influences shone through – backed up by the accompaniment of a small plate of chicharrónes, a kind of Mexican pork scratching, that was slightly unnecessary.

GG followed her starter with slow-cooked short rib of beef, served with beetroot.  She definitely won in the main course stakes – this was simply amazeballs.  The beef was soft, tender, juicy, flavoursome – all of things anyone could want from such a meal, and perfectly offset by the beetroot.

But even if she did win, I came an incredibly close second.  I had slow-cooked neck and rack of Welsh lamb, served with braised radishes and a crushed pea and sheep's cheese accoutrement.  This was fantastic.  Top rate – fresh, springtime flavours perfectly complimenting one another.  I have a soft spot for rack of lamb especially, something this dish only served to remind me of.

GG finished up with honey ice cream and honeycomb.  I didn’t actually try this, but she seemed very content.

Whilst I went for the cheese. One negative comment here: it would have been nice to know what I was eating, but sadly this information was not volunteered.  (By the way, in case you're wondering - sure, those portions look small, but there's more than enough cheese there for one person.  Seriously.)

And then, with coffee, some delightful little petit fours arrived.

I'd also like to say a little thing about the staff.  They were wonderful.  Seriously wonderful.  Lovely people, that made us feel at home and never once stuffy or condescending – which is sadly all too rare.  There was a slight mix-up with the bill and the manager tried to take service off – it's the only time I have ever had to argue to have it put back on – he was absolutely adamant that we should not pay for service following an error, mistakes "shouldn’t happen at our level".  Needless to say, I won that argument – but it just goes to show, I think, the evident dedication to making your dining experience flawless.

All in all this was a fantastic meal.  Brilliantly executed dishes, great service, a really lovely spot. 

 - GrubsterBoy -