London Restaurants

As we gear up for Summer, London’s restaurant scene shows no sign of slowing down – read on for Bon Vivant’s guide of the best new London restaurants to keep on your radar for the next few months. Hutong at The Shard On the 33rd floor of The Shard, Hutong will showcase the cuisine of Northern China from the team behind Hong Kong’s Aqua Group. The 130 cover restaurant will be based on the restaurant of the same name in Hong Kong, with a menu inspired by the culinary styles of Peking, Shandong and Sichuan provinces. Hutong’s signature dishes in London will include Crispy deboned Lamb; Red Lantern crispy soft shell crab with Sichuan dried peppers; ‘Kung Po’ wok fried prawns with cashew nuts and chilli; Chilli spiced bamboo clams steeped in Chinese rose wine and chilli sauce and Imperial Peking. Hutong will be open for lunch and dinner as well as late night drinks with a three-storey high atrium bar, serving cocktails with an emphasis on gin and tea. Hutong will open in July. Tartufo, Chelsea From a chef who has worked at Gauthier Soho as sous chef and management who have worked at Galvin at Windows, Le Gavroche and Roussillon, Tartufo is a new Modern European restaurant on Cadogan Gardens in Chelsea. Situated on the lower ground floor of a red-brick Victorian mansion-block, Tartufo offers a fine dining experience with reasonable set menus (two courses £25, three courses £30, four courses £40). Casa Negra, Shoreditch Following last year’s successful Soho hit La Bodega Negra, Ricker Restaurants will launch Casa Negra in Shoreditch on 6 June 2013, adding to the group’s portfolio that also includes E&O, XO, Cicada and Eight Over Eight. Casa Negra will offer a menu of Mexican style street food, including ceviches, coctèls, aguachiles and tostadas, along with a number of different tacos. Casa Negra’s signature dish will be the Carnitas de lechon – a suckling pig ‘served at the table with fresh salsas and traditional garnishes’. Casa Negra’s dining room will seat 82, with space for 30+ at the bar, which will be open until 2am. The Grain Store, King’s Cross Following the success of Bistrot Bruno Loubet at The Zetter Townhouse (one of our favourite boutique hotels in London), chef Bruno Loubet will open Grain Store on 10 June in the redeveloped Granary Square area behind King’s Cross station, next to Caravan King’s Cross. The menu is said to be eclectic – ‘a culmination of Bruno’s extensive travels and the years dedicated to his beloved vegetable patch’. The bar will be headed up by Tony Conigliaro, the man behind some of our favourite London cocktail bars, including 69 Colebrooke Row and The Zetter Townhouse bar. aqua shard Aqua Restaurant Group will also launch ‘aqua shard’ on level 31 of The Shard offering contemporary British cuisine from chef Anthony Garlando, who previously worked with Pierre Gagnaire for several years. The 220-cover aqua shard will be split into two areas, with the Gin Wing focusing on gin and tea that will link up to Hutong on level 33 of The Shard. aqua shard will be open all day, serving breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner. Christopher’s Christopher’s reopened in the middle of May following a 4 month closure for a full refurbishment. Christopher’s offers a menu of modern American cuisine in a gorgeous dining room. A grand, sweeping staircase with gentle candle light takes you to a dining room with stunning detailing on the ceiling. The ground floor martini bar feels glamorous and elegant. Menu highlights include Maryland crabcakes and the lobster bisque with lobster dumplings, along with classic main dishes of USDA Prime steaks and surf ‘n’ turf. The Five Fields, Chelsea The Five Fields launched in Chelsea on 21 May 2013 as 40-seat restaurant with a modern, seasonal menu with a focus on rare herbs and vegetables, grown at the restaurant’s own East Sussex gardens. The Five Field

Balthazar80 Spring StreetSoHoNew YorkNY 10012USA+1 212-965-1414www.balthazarny.comPosted in the run-up to the US release, on 28 May, of The Breakfast Bible.by Malcolm EggsBreakfast at Balthazar, which turns up on listings websites when you Google 'best New York breakfast', is probably meant to be a bit of an event. For Seggolène Royal and I it was just opportunism. We stumbled across it – oh, that's Balthazar! – on the way to eat eggs somewhere else and I argued that we needed to seize the moment, that here was an unmissable chance to gain standing amongst my peers. A breakfast writer who has never tried Balthazar, I reasoned, is like a film critic who has never seen Titanic.When we left the restaurant about an hour later, I felt less like I'd been watching an important blockbuster than had been skipping through a CD-Rom labelled 'what people say when they free associate about Paris'. There had been dusty old bottles of wine on out-of-the-way shelves and meticulous waiters in black and white uniforms. There had been backlit Art Deco panels and the recorded sounds of melancholy violin quartets. Everything had been dark red, dark brown, goldy yellow or yellowy gold. A large part of the atmosphere in Balthazar is to do with the height of its ceiling. Few things make a person feel more instantly wealthy than breakfasting in a place where you can't imagine how they change the lightbulb. When my companion told me that the clientele generally consists of "tourists and powerbrokers" it made perfect sense, both categories tending to value high ceilings, along with pomp in general and a sense (real or synthetic) of history, above food.The food in Balthazar was forgettable. I feel about it as I feel about normal journeys between one mundane place and another, journeys in which nothing in particular happened and of which I have no recollection. I had brioche French toast with bacon ($18). My companion had sour cream waffles with warm fruit ($18). It wasn't bad (that would be memorable) and it wasn't good. By the twenties I will have no mental impression of it whatsoever. I will possibly remember the fact that they had toilet attendants complete with one of those trays of aftershave and boiled sweets, an unexpected echo of the terrible nightclubs I'd go to in the nineties (right up to the pang of guilt I felt when I left without paying for the privilege). I will also remember the fascinating and admirable way with which the waitress took on the task of defining 'granola' and then 'oats' to a quizzical couple from Germany. But I won't recall the tasteless bowl of cafe au lait or the French toast with applewood smoked bacon that came within a few minutes and without maple syrup.I'd been looking forward to visiting the new London branch of Balthazar but now I'm not so sure. If the original is such an underwhelming homage to a sort of fantasy version of a Paris bistro, do I really want to try a copy of that homage? The answer is yes, I do, but only because a breakfast writer who has never tried Balthazar London… etc, and so on.

When your next door neighbour is Milk and Honey, you're in good company... and up against stiff competition, M and H’s head barman looks pretty satisfied with his cocktail when I spot him parked up at the butch copper-topped bar at chef/ owner Jason Atherton's new cocktail lounge upstairs at Social Eating House. As, based on the evidence of my first rinse of the night, well he might. Despite its iffy name, the ‘Ooh-Arr-Tinez’ - a Somerset cider brandy spin on a martinez - is a success. One barman totally nails a Plymouth dry martini - always a litmus test - where so many others drown the gin in vermouth: wet, wet, wet? Because my name's Marti Pellow? When I stray off menu, however, things temporarily wobbly - one enthusiastic soul suggesting vodka as a key component of a smoky mescal old-fashioned. Suggestion declined. Blind Pig owes its name to those American forerunners of the speakeasy where, to outfox the authorities, hucksters would charge a steep admission fee to spectate a (legal) novelty attraction such as a pig or a tiger in a blindfold, plying their guests with complimentary liquor while they were about it. At £9 for The Rosefield (Chase Marmalade vodka, Punt e Mes, apricot brandy and Fernet Branca) the admission price here is about right and the handsome, if not entirely original, room - all 1930s film noir, wood panelled gin joint - looks like the kind of place a femme fatale in a Mickey Spillane novella would meet a hired gun to plot her husbands's demise. I can live without some of the wackier elements on the menu: Skittles-washed Ketel One, pickle brine, popcorn-infused bourbon and choccy alcopops (not all in the same glass, mercifully) aren't high on my agenda; but factor in bar bites such as rillettes, mac'n'cheese, cod brandade and duck fat chips with aïoli, and I reckon this little piggy will soon be bringing home the bacon for his master. 58 Poland Street W1F 7NR 7993 3251 www.socialeatinghouse.com

A recent disappointing meal at Hong Kong Diner had us looking around for another restaurant in Chinatown that served good Hong Kong style cuisine. I came across a lot of positive reviews for Old Town 97, the year being significant as that was the end of British rule in Hong Kong. We had a late lunch there one Saturday not too long ago. They have a great lunch deal – £4.80 for a dish of rice or noodles with a free bowl of their daily soup. We chose the char siu on fried hor fun which came out looking quite plain but turned out to be some well fried hor fun topped with a generic Asian brown sauce and some quite good sliced char siu. A bit of chili oil (excellent stuff) and it was a great dinner. The accompanying soup (pork bone, carrot and tomato) was a bonus. I wanted to try a dish that I’d only heard about online – ‘LSE fan‘ (or ‘LSE rice’, about £9.50); the story goes that the dish was either invented or made famous by an LSE student. On our queries, our waiter informed us that it was a honey and black pepper pork served with egg fried rice. It turned out to be more of a triple eggy delight – egg fried rice, fried egg and the honey and black pepper pork was topped with an additional eggy sauce. It was definitely over-the-top, excellent and certainly almost enough for two. Their drinks are very good there – here’s a milk tea and an iced lemon tea. Sadly, a second, more recent visit wasn’t as good. One of their specialties, Hainan chicken rice (£7.30), had overcooked chicken breast but tasty enough rice and accompanying chilli sauce. A little more care, though, could have been taken over the presentation of the rice. I wanted to try their crispy noodles. Fried noodles with mixed seafood (£8.00) turned out to be mediocre noodles in a wading pool of gloopy (albeit well-seasoned) sauce. It all seems to be a bit hit and miss. While it’s likely we’ll be back to try their beef brisket (thanks for the rec, Lizzie) and their hor fun in eggy sauce (two dishes I’ve heard good things about), as in most places in Chinatown, service left a lot to be desired. Depending on which waiter you get, service can be acceptable or miserable. Why do they do that? And poor Blai is extremely upset that by default, they gave him a fork when he sat down! Old Town 97 19 Wardour Street London  W1D 6PF

Dominique Ansel Bakery189 Spring StreetSoHoNew YorkUSA+1 212 219 2773www.dominiqueansel.comPosted in the run-up to the US release of The Breakfast Bible.by Malcolm EggsWhither the cupcake? At almost eight years since the craze started, it is on the verge of becoming an Age. Punk, by comparison, was a potent force for just seven. Isn't that depressing? One generation got to be excited about blue mohicans and Anarchy in the UK; ours is in a permanent hooha about (Wikipedia quote) "a small cake designed to serve one person, which may be baked in a small thin paper or aluminium cup".Recently, however, there has been an increase in what you could call 'cupdeath chatter', defined as the rate of cupcake obituaries uploaded onto news and snark websites. It started when the cupcake chain Crumbs Bake Shop saw its share price (yes, there are cupcakes on Nasdaq) plummet after announcing that its sales were down by 22%. ("Forget Gold," advised the Wall Street Journal, "The Gourmet-Cupcake Market is Crashing").Then this: Dominique Ansel Bakery unveiled their cupcake killer, a new breakfast-friendly pastry called a 'cronut', combining the texture of a croissant with the shape and fried-ness of a donut. For a couple of mornings it sold out really quickly. 'Are cronuts the new cupcakes?' hooted the international media.I happened to be in Manhattan just three days after the launch of the cronut; it seemed churlish not to pop in. We arrived late in the morning. Too late – not only had they sold out of cronuts, but all of the waiting lists were full. It was as if I was trying to secure a good apartment in 1970s Moscow. Nevertheless, after a conversation with their press handler they agreed they would hold one back for me the next day. So back we went.The interior of Dominique Ansel Bakery (there is also pleasant outdoor seating) almost entirely consists of a counter and a queue. Strangely, a leather-jacketed man was lurking near the doorway trying to persuade people to take business cards for his hairdressing shop. On the counter were gift packages of cookies and macarons. Early Belle & Sebastian was playing on the stereo. When I reached the front of the line I was handed a golden box containing a cronut ($5) plus another treasure: a kouign amann ($5.25), the traditional pastry of Brittany (it is pronounced "queen, a man"). Also, for the hell of it, I ordered their 'perfect little egg sandwich' ($5).I liked the cronut more than I like a donut. Biting through layers of fried croissant pastry, rather than the conventionally dense dough, you are surprised by its overall lightness. It feels delicate, and not too gimmicky, and like a distinct item in its own right rather than a Frankenstein-esque hybrid. You can imagine – if Ansel's secret method ever gets out – a cronut tradition emerging, and mass-produced cronuts becoming a standard at Dunkin' Donuts (Crunkin' Cronuts?), and people in a hundred years saying "did you know the word 'cronut' is a combination of the words 'donut' and 'croissant'?". Although it had a light pink rose glaze on top and vanilla cream in the middle, the sweetness had been kept just low-volume enough for a breakfast 'nut. But it was still very sweet (did it really need that cream?), which is one reason that I don't like Ansel's cronut as much as I like a good croissant, by which I mean the heavenly, slightly oily kind you get in Paris and not the bready muck you get at most places in London (apart, curiously, from Pret a Manger).And are cronuts the new cupcakes? Yes, OK, alright, cronuts are the new cupcakes. Happy now?I was most grateful to them, however, for leading me to the 'DKA' or 'Dominique's kouign amann', which I would go as far as saying was the flakiest, stickiest, butteriest and altogether best kouign amann I have ever tasted.And then there's the egg sandwich. Into a weeny brioche bun (the kind they use for burgers) was wedged a thick square of hot omelette, coated in melted gruyere. You probably wouldn't serve it

Moby remixes a track from a group he discovered in a London restaurant. Read MoreBlog: Societe PerrierRelated: DOWNLOAD | Dom Jesus (Vacationer remix)Click HERE to download the Delta Heavy remix of Neros...Download Mokhovs brand new remix of White...David Lynch Noahs Ark (Moby Remix)Free Download: Krewella Alive (Archie Remix)Download Marbles L.L. Remix EP Featuring Ta-ku, B.Lewis, GRANT and More

The wines did Canada proud On May 16, over one hundred wines from several dozen Canadian wineries were on display in London at a trade and media tasting at Canada House, Canada’s High Commission on Trafalgar Square. The wines did Canada proud. The world, or at least some of the top palates of London, got to know more about what Canada is doing and most were enthusiastic and excited by the developments, progress and most importantly the quality of the wines we are making. The guest list for the Rediscover Canadian Wine event included sommeliers from high profile London restaurants such as River Café, China Tang, The Cinnamon Club, Hakkasan and Manoir aux Quatre Saisons, buyers from The Wine Society, Marks and Spencer, Berry Brothers and Rudd, Harrods and Harvey Nichols, wine trade writers from business publications such as Drinks Business and Just Drinks, along with well-known wine writers such as Jancis Robinson, Steven Spurrier and Oz Clarke. The last time Canadian wines were featured in London was in 2010, when a group of Ontario wineries came to show off their “Cool Chardonnay” to rave reviews. This time around the varietal focus was expanded to include Chardonnay and Riesling, reds such as Pinot Noir, Bordeaux varieties or blends, Syrah and Gamay Noir, as well as traditional method sparkling wine from across Canada. And yes there was a smattering of Icewine. In other words, the main tasting which featured 18 wines from nine British Columbia wineries along with 71 wines from 28 Ontario wineries, sought to showcase the grape varieties and wine styles that many in the Canadian trade and media often put forward as what we do best in Canada. Apart from Icewine, Canada is little known abroad for any of our still or sparkling wines. To put our best foot forward, wineries from across Canada were invited to participate and submit their wines for a blind screening by a panel of wine judges, who taste both Canadian and foreign wine extensively. The screening took place at, and was supported by, the Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute (CCOVI) at Brock University. The Canadian judges were asked to assess the wines and only put forward wines to which they would award a high silver or gold medal in a competition and which were suitable to pour for international trade and media. They were asked “is this wine representative of the best of what we do in Canada and will it make us proud? The Event & Reaction The day began with an export seminar for Canadian wineries by Gerard Basset MW MS and Jo Ahearne MW, about how to sell and price wine for the UK market, what our competitive advantage or unique selling proposition might be, as well as how to get inside the mind of the sommelier, who are often among the key influencers and gatekeepers in the competitive London wine market. Gerard Basset commented that after his recent visit to Ontario and British Columbia this winter, he is certain that Canadian wines have “the quality and are different”. While Jo Ahearne told the group that because Canada is already known for Icewine and has a positive country image in the UK, many trade and media are curious to learn more about the other wines they hear we are producing. Then came a sparkling wine master class for members of the wine trade that featured ten traditional method sparkling wines from across Canada and included well-known Canadian bubbly from Benjamin Bridge and L’Acadie Vineyards from Nova Scotia, Cave Spring Cellars, Henry of Pelham, 13th Street and  Hinterland from Ontario along with Blue Mountain, Tantalus, Sperling and Summerhill from British Columbia. The main tasting event included a sparkling wine table which included the above along with 10 other sparkling wines from across Canada. As the main walk around tasting unfolded we began to hear reaction from the guests that continued after on Twitter. Writer Oz Clarke was very enthusiastic. He felt that Canadian wines had shown a massive improvement from the last tasting thre

Words and Photography by Su-Lin Ong Extraordinary eating begins when convention and caution are thrown to the wind. Tonight’s one night stand is to enter mind-stretching realms, with the lofty promise to ‘engage all the senses, to restore, challenge and enrich’. Too tame! It’s a burst of adventurous fun: stones that aren’t stones, the zingiest kaleidoscopic colours, altered states of texture, and flavours that have a piercingly natural clarity. So this is it; when two Michelin starred chefs partner up as in the vision of Nuno Mendes at Viajante. One of his six selected co-hosts in his Craft season which ran in April is Rasmus Kofoed of Geranium in Copenhagen. Rasmus is the only chef in the world to hold a gold, silver and bronze medal from Bocuse d'Or. Geranium in the centre of Copenhagen is set high up. Urban meets rural as you connect with the tops of trees and windmills in view. Viajante in Bethnal Green, East London, is in the restored art deco Town Hall Hotel (see earlier review here). I pass pubs frequented by notorious criminals the Kray brothers and streets of faceless shops to get there.Photo: Viajante Choosing a late sitting tonight challenges this Viajante-Geranium dinner to prove itself all the more. Skip forward some 18 incredible creations over three hours, and it is 1.30am when we finish eating. I feel as if I’ve taken a trip through a dream cloud and emerged supremely energized. Buzzing. Each dish is presented at table in modest detail by the chefs, including Mendes and Kofoed. It’s a seamless sequence without any ceremony. Just as well; it’s been a stupendous week – both teams must have been up all night before celebrating their leap up the league of the World’s Best Restaurants. As for us guests, it’s tempting to play the game of guessing whose dish is whose creation. The real joy is experiencing how the signature style of each chef weaves round each other, emerging, re-emerging, creating a harmony with some characterful clout along the way. The menu is a mystery, and when I finally see it at the end of dinner, the descriptions are short and stripped back – incredibly liberating. You really want to understand the ingredients and composition, but not long into the dinner, you just want to sit back, admire and say wow at every bite. The dinner: Crispy twigs with sea salt aged cheese and burnt leek. Razor clams with edible shells. Crabmeat, peas, nasturtium and crab shell sauce. Milk skin lactose and squid ink. Space-age food. Dill stones and separate dish of lactic acid fermented vegetables with salmon roe. Langoustine with braised chicken skin, pine and chopped radish. Smoked bacon & walnut sourdough and potato baguettes with beurre noisette and hay smoked whipped butter. A fluid jelly made from ham from northern Denmark, fragrant thyme and tomato water, cooked at a constant 62 degrees C. Charred leek heart with lobster and bitter ground elder flower. White cabbage with shoots and stems, pickled leek flower and parsley with champagne butter sauce (our preferred substitute for oysters). Smoked bone marrow with carrot and dehydrated carrot skin. Brill wrapped in milk skin with vanilla and samphire. A royally red tartare made from leg and heart of lamb and smoked pork fat, red beetroot sauce, truffle & blueberry, gel of beetroot & cherry vinegar. Meltingly delicate Iberico pork and fermented cabbage and peppers. Reduced milk sorbet, lemon granita, smoked cucumber, salty cucumber jelly and linen seeds. Naked trees of crispy puréed prunes and frozen dark beer and biodynamic cream infused with beechwood. Beetroot & caraway ice cream. Eggs of dried pine & caramel & chocolate. Finally, petits fours of frozen oil of vanilla and cèpes mushroom truffles. We drank Filipa Pato Bical & Arinto 2011 Beiras and Gerhard Pittnauer Alte Reben St Laurent 2009 Burgenland Austria. Viajante, Town Hall Hotel, Patriot Square, London E2 9NF, Tel. 020 7871 04

I AM sipping cool Chablis from an almost ecclesiastical goblet under designer Philippe Starck’s decadent Black Zénith chandelier – identical to the 19th-century original in all but colour. I am at Guy Martin’s Cristal Room in Maison Baccarat. Overlooking the manicured Place des Etas-Unis, it feels removed from Paris’s snarl of traffic. Now HQ and museum for arguably the world’s most famous crystal brand, it first saw fame as Marie-Laure de Noailles’ mansion. The lavish patron of the arts supported Buñuel, Man Ray, Duchamp, and knew Dali as a pauper...Read at Square Meal »See pictures at Visuals »

Mr P and I both enjoy a good bit of bread. When Pump Street Bakery in Orford opened we thought that all our Christmases had come at once and we would never need to attempt to bake bread again. I enjoy baking bread, do not misunderstand me, but the enjoyment wears off quickly for me with something as technical as baking bread when it’s done on a daily basis, especially when menus change regularly. The British Larder Suffolk team visited the Hand and Flowers in Marlow a couple of months ago. It was a very special and memorable visit and Tom and his team looked after us very well. Amongst all the special and delicious plates of food, the memory of the delicious and very tasty soda bread has stayed with me. I was inspired to bake my own version of soda bread. It took a few attempts to get it right, or shall I say, the way I would like it to be. I used a local spelt flour mixed with wholemeal bread flour, and a teaspoon of honey gives the soda bread a rounded, moreish and lasting flavour. I add pumpkin and sunflower seeds for extra crunch to make it more interesting and give the bread another taste dimension too. The crust is superb; bake the bread at a fairly high temperature and the crust will be crisp and the interior fluffy and delicious, exactly as you would expect it to be. I now regularly bake this bread as I do find it very satisfying, and the best bit of all is that it’s incredibly quick to make. You can have a loaf of freshly baked soda bread on the table in just over an hour and you’re guaranteed to have the best smelling kitchen in the world!