It takes a certain type of person to be able to handle Camden on a sunny Saturday. I am without question, not that person.
All credit to them, tourists and slightly grubby teenagers seem to take it in their stride. Most will - for some reason - have Camden on their London itinerary. They’ll jaunt up the Northern Line, funnel-neck out of that tiny station in their hordes, swell into Camden High Street and progress along it at the speed and density of poured molasses.
I’m not great with crowds (see my rant about Oxford Street). The last time I was in Camden was the day I packed up and moved out of my student halls on Camden Road, in no great hurry to return. But in these pockets of intolerable people-density, there is often salvation in the form of somewhere to get away from everyone else, sit a while, and have something good to eat.
In this neck of the woods, push on through the throng and continue along the high street until it becomes Chalk Farm Road. Rejoice at the exponential reduction of headcount with every few metres you advance, and find respite in Q Grill for some brunch.
The man behind the enterprise is Des McDonald who opened it in March this year, having already landed a big hit in Islington with The Fish & Chip Shop. In the kitchen is Phil Eagle who was previously Head Chef at Hix; both men have a CV that includes Le Caprice. The concept is locally sourced meat and fish, cooked via a charcoal pit grill and in-house smoker, and in September they introduced a brunch menu.
I’ve heard people grumble about brunches recently, saying they actively avoid them or don’t see their point; I couldn’t disagree more. It’s a lazy man’s breakfast. A meal that encourages you to both have a lie-in, eat bacon into the late afternoon and accompany it with a hair-of-the-dog tipple and good coffee, is nothing but a friend of mine.
On the note of alcohol, they’ve set up a DIY bloody mary bar, creaking under its own weight of rainbow-coloured tomatoes, celery, chillies, sauces, lemons, limes and every other bloody mary paraphernalia you might think of. You can concoct a pitcher to your own specification and with your own fair hands for £20.
The food options include meat butties, grilled broccoli with wild mushrooms and a duck egg, eggs on muffins or toast, waffles with sweet cured bacon and maple syrup, and beans and egg on toast.
But forget all of that, because what you want is the Josper Fry-up. A josper is an elegant combination of a grill and an oven in a single machine - combine that cooking method with some gorgeous meats, and you’ve got yourself a plate of something very good indeed.
Bacon so crisp it was like crackling, a slice of sourdough, slightly sweet (but not overly) BBQ beans that worked with the saltiness of the pork wonderfully, a sausage, a portobello mushroom, an egg.. and ¼ rack of ribs. Oh yes.
I cleared the lot (as well as a few other things), and felt fabulous. None of the self-loathing associated with finishing plates of greasy meat and carbs that poor fry-ups often are. This was the best I’ve had in a long time. I would travel from where I live in SW London all the way up the Northern Line and happily endure the weekend masses to eat it again.
Now guess the price of it. In the tourist hotspot that is Camden. With quality locally sourced meat. And that ¼ rack of tender, gorgeous, bone-sucking ribs that no other fry-ups have. Go on, guess.
You’re right, they could easily charge over a tenner for it, and folk wouldn’t bat an eyelid. But it is in fact only £7.75. I know.
My companion had the eggs royale, with great generous hunks of cooked salmon rather than smoked. The large is £11.50, translating to two eggs and muffin halves rather than one in the small, we assumed. A great hit of protein and good it was too. But compare it to the fry-up, in terms of value and volume, and I know what I’d order.
There’s also the option for a continental breakfast at £12.50. You can help yourself to an unlimited amount of fresh pastries, fruit, muffins, granola, quality bread and parma ham from the counter.
I ordered a kale, avocado and apple smoothie to balance out the sin from my pork-heavy plate (£4.50). It was good, but needed more blitzing to eliminate ice chunks clogging up the straw. Even the coffee was good, really leaving me with little to grumble about.
Q Grill is a double fronted, large space. Around the corner of its L-shape interiors, there’s more seating and a mezzanine level, but it’s a lot darker back there and a bit smokey from the grilling. My suggestion is take the bright and sunny window seating with comfortable swivel chairs. You can indulge in a spot of people watching as you enjoy a coffee and a paper, and you can crack the window open for some fresh air. All these elements one looks for on a relaxing weekend morning came together during my visit, and I have to say, I really enjoyed it.
I’ve already told the in-laws to stop by Q Grill during their upcoming Camden visit (they're a great example of ‘domestic tourists’) and to get that fry-up. I think I might have to join them.
Liked lots: great value fry-up, ribs in the fry-up, bacon cooked just so, good coffee, great easy-going vibe, very pleasant staff
Liked less: I think sitting up front in the bright and breezy part of the restaurant helped the experience - I'm less sure about the rear; pricing of some of the other brunch items seem a little dear for what they are in comparison to the fry-up
Good for: wiling away a lazy weekend morning
My rating: 3.5/5
Find the menu on Zomato.
Afiyet olsun.
Note: I was invited as a guest to this restaurant.
Any restaurant with a sound system greeting me with Lenny Kravitz that isn’t Are you Gonna go My Way and Bon Jovi that isn’t Livin’ on a Prayer, has already got at least a couple of ticks on my Sunday brunching check-list. Because I love both those artists, but hate both those songs. I’d expect nothing less from a feasting titled Bobby’s Rock n’ Roll Brunch. So well done House of Hồ, for that.
The Bobby in question is Bobby Chinn, the man behind the enterprise. Along with restaurants in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City back in his home country of Vietnam, he also has cookery books under his belt and a CV that saw him cut his teeth as a chef in the States.
I say home country. He was in Vietnam for 18 years. But being born in New Zealand, raised between England, Egypt and San Franciso by his Egyptian father and Chinese mother, I suspect his home is wherever he happens to lay his hat.
It was in December 2013 when Chinn decided to make his mark on the London dining scene and opened House of Hồ on Old Compton Street.
Despite the name and location in a part of town that’s never been short on after dark activities, House of Hồ is not the local Madam’s business address but in fact a low-lit self-assured Vietnamese restaurant in Soho. The flick and little hat atop the ‘o’ makes all the difference, you see.
Chinn himself is a showman, awarded no less than Best Entertainment Presenter at the Asian Television Awards for his work presenting five series of World Cafe Asia. And this part of his personality is reflected in the design - confident, sexyily-lit, it’s a space that wants you to flirt with it, and it will flirt back.
They’ve joined a few others in the quite recent trend of boozy Sunday brunch deals that involve the words ‘limitless’ or ‘bottomless’ somewhere in the marketing spiel (also Flesh & Buns, Roka, Bunga Bunga, One Canada Square). Which, for lazy, slow-paced Sundays with requirements to feed sorry souls out of hangovers and into the cold light of day with vibrant, zippy dishes - or, just more alcohol - is more than appealing.
Not that anyone with a hangover wants to see the cold light of day. Maybe that’s why it’s so dark in there - clever.
The main difference between the £36 and £29 menus is that the former offers a greater choice of both starters and mains (the more expensive one includes the shaking beef - the best thing I ate), the option of dessert, and cocktail pitchers. The format of both menus include one choice of main and unlimited starters, sides, prosecco and wine. But before you think about pitching up tent for the full 12pm - 5pm duration, visits are subject to a two hour turnaround.
Soft smoked aubergine topped with a sweetened fish sauce and crispy shallots, with astringency from lemon, slipped down with ease. Duch pho cuon were sprightly meat salads with mint and shiso leaf, packed into wide rings of flat noodle, with a hot dipping sauce like a runnier Sriracha. Summer rolls were fat and fresh, stuffed with noodles, carrot matchsticks, lettuce, more mint, the presence of aniseed, and a dark and glossy peanut sauce for lubrication.
Seven-spiced marinated squid had the air of Nice ‘n’ Spicy Nik Naks about them - no bad thing, let me assure you. Cubes of lemongrass chicken furry with the fibre from ginger, packed a good citrus punch, while the “shaking beef” with oyster sauce, soy and whole peppercorns came in exquisite, expertly cooked, quivering chunks.
For sides, a pile of little juicy buds of a flower I caught as ‘thin-li’, but I no doubt heard it wrong or have spelt it wrong as I can find no presence of it online. Regardless, briefly cooked and doused in lime, they were glorious and different, and so they ran out of them by 13.15. I’m certain they just weren’t ready for it’s popularity. To replace it, a bowl of fleshy jackfruit cooked with good flavours. It all finished with a splendid crème brûlée which you might think has no place in a Vietnamese restaurant, but don't forget the country was under French rule for some time.
The bloody mary I ordered never arrived, and I had to put in a second request for the summer rolls before they appeared. Other than that, the staff and kitchen seemed to be on top of what was a full-house, never ending top-ups and constant orders.
Did I mention on Sundays they have a live band playing grown-up versions of rock pop classics like Oasis and Nirvana? Well, that was cool too.
House of Hồ isn’t trying to replicate the simple ten-seater road-side pho shacks you might find down a back street in Hanoi, where they cook meat over a little barbecue fire on the pavement and you eat it straight off the stick. When you want that sort of no-frills authenticity with vibrant dishes to match - and those times are more frequent than not - head towards Kingsland Road for the likes of Mien Tay (also in Battersea), Sông Quê and Viet Grill.
But when you want a sexy, fast-paced, buzzing, centrally located Vietnamese with a modern twist and most likely a smattering of Chinn’s eclectic upbringing on the rest of the menu, this is a solid shout.
Liked lots: shaking beef - a shame that isn't bottomless, flower buds, choice of music, value for money
Liked less: you do feel like you’re clock watching a bit, trying to catch a waiter to get a final order or two in before your two hours are up. But that could just have been me imposing that feeling on myself - I’m not sure who was actually watching the clock in there
Good for: feeding a hangover, hair of the dog, drinking too much, eating too much, not having to eat again that day
My rating: 3.5/5
Afiyet olsun.
Note: I was invited as a guest to this restaurant.
Hakkasan is the long-serving establishment that did the slick-lined, low-lit, subterranean celebrity haunt thing before most others. Since 2001 it has served as a dining vestibule for evenings often ending in whichever night-life hotspot is currently most impenetrable.
It certainly lends itself to this clientèle. The interiors are dimly lit enough for wisp thin socialites of the evening crowd to avoid interacting with the food without attracting too much attention to the fact. There’s a lot of black leather, dark wood and deep pockets.
And it’s probably one of the only restaurants in London (other than The Ritz) to exercise a desire for certain attire: ‘Our dress code is smart casual. No sportswear. Jeans are permitted as long as they are worn smartly with shoes and a collared shirt. Please do not wear hats inside Hakkasan.’ I’m not sure the girls blinding waiters with full body sequins were planning to do so whilst wearing their Converse.
In an attempt to broaden their customer base beyond tourists, business men and debutantes, Dim Sum Sundays launched in the tucked away Hanway Place branch in September this year. The menu available each week from 12-6pm is a rather good excuse to get sloshed during daylight (but in the dark) whilst eating good food to the backdrop of beats chosen by the lounge DJ (thankfully proving to be nothing more than elevator music).
There are two set menu options with the main difference being the volume of alcohol involved. If you were hoping for a dry lunch, hope some more; at a minimum you will be drinking two (strong) cocktails. At a maximum add to that half a bottle of Perrier-Jouët Blason Brut Rosé Champagne (blimey). Unless you opt for the non-alcoholic drinks, of course. Witness any good intent to boycott the booze dissipate as the desire to get your money’s worth overrides.
The atmosphere was freer and less self-obsessed than I recall in my last visit on a Friday night some years ago when the corridor to the ladies acted as a makeshift catwalk runway. But one would hope so, at 1pm on a Sunday afternoon.
Pre-lunch cocktails were quickly followed by a crispy duck salad with well textured nuggets of meat slightly sweetened from a glaze, lifted by fresh segments of pomelo and sprightly salad leaves.
From the option of seven steamed dim sum, we selected smooth and transparent har gau bonnets filled with firm little shrimp with bite, Chinese chive dumplings with prawn and crab meat topped with goo and a goji berry, spicy seafood sauce and scallop rounds with Thai asparagus and lingzhi mushrooms, and morel mushroom and lemon sole mouthfuls - the superior and most discernible of the four.
Then there was the fried, baked and grilled course and while the same swathe of golden glow adorned all four of our choices, shapes and designs were interesting enough for us to wonder out loud how they were achieved.
A light and crisp pumpkin puffball encasing a smooth middle of the gourd flesh itself along with the (apparent but undetected) presence of smoked duck, creamy lobster meat rolled in ultra thin rice noodles and fried into something lighter than air, Shanghai dumplings with ground pork, and poofed up pear and taro (starchy root vegetable) balls with another beautiful centre, and in the shape of pears!
From the small eats we swapped out the two available options in exchange for the salt and pepper squid from the alternative menu at the cost of a decent course.
It came heavily battered and fried; an unwanted vision after previous plates of the same vein. Bereft of the levels of (white) pepper needed to satisfy the two present of Chinese and Taiwanese heritage, it was not befitting of its label; "this has been made for the western palate and is not at all authentic". It was a plate of slightly better than bog-standard calamari and was an effort to entertain.
For mains, a luminescent grilled hunk of Chillean seabass made a vibrant orange from something I don’t believe we ever identified. The Chinese honey coating rendered it too sweet for my palate after a couple of forkfuls, but the flesh was cooked so precisely that despite the sugary mouth, I was unable to leave it alone. Soft and smooth, just the right side of opaque, breaking away in meaty flakes with a slither of crisp fatty skin full of flavour. Really very good.
To accompany the bass, pak choi with al dente whites and wilted tops cooked with Shaoxing wine and garlic (I could eat barrels of this), and a wad of sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaf, punctuated with nuggets of sweet Chinese sausage and grainy salted egg yolk.
To conclude, a choice of three desserts, the best of which I selected. A smooth and fudgy dark chocolate bar shot through with a very cherry sauce along the length of its centre, with a sweet and tart cherry sorbet imparting the sensation of submerging my head into a bucket of them freshly picked from the tree.
Also of note was the elderflower sorbet with the strawberry panna cotta, chantilly cream and elderflower jelly - one lick of the spoon left a ringing of the tak-tak sound of sourness as the tips of our tongues smacked the roof of our mouths. The macaroons were ok, mostly with indistinguishable flavours.
With the meals came endless pots of freshly brewed loose leaf Taiwanese tea; delicate, cleansing, refreshing and altogether more preferable to the cocktails, the post-lunch ones of which remained mostly untouched.
I was duly impressed with all courses, particularly my dessert but excluding the squid. And should one's lunch desires involve a good saucing on a Sunday afternoon, the value is of note when considering the drinks involved; the menu described above is £48 and the one including the champagne is £58. Quite reasonable for an establishment that has retained it’s Michelin star since 2003.
The praises from the Taiwanese and Chinese were a little muted. Whilst they enjoyed it, proclaims of ‘but I have had better’ followed any accolades. The day I too eat truly authentic dim sum in China or Taiwan itself is the day I suspect I may mirror their sentiments. Until then, I'll settle - in the loosest sense of the word - for Hakkasan.
My rating: 3.5/5
Afiyet olsun.
