Restaurant of the Year 2017 - The Holborn Dining Room

Well, we survived. This time in 2016 I was typing with trembling fingers in the aftermath of Brexit and Trump, unsure of what it meant for the health of the UK's restaurant industry and the continued survival of the human species generally. I still don't know exactly how things will play out (if you do, for the love of God let someone in authority know), but though I still do occasionally wake up screaming at night, cutting the TV news out of my morning routine and blocking anyone with a flag next to their name on Twitter has helped with the panic attacks. I can thoroughly recommend doing both.

And to be fair, so far - so far - life appears to continue somewhat as normal. From the pace, and quality, of new restaurants appearing over the last twelve months you wouldn't know Armageddon in any form looms in the next couple of years, and whether this is simply rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic or a genuine belief amongst restaurateurs that things will indeed be OK In The End, well, the effect is the same - lots of genuinely brilliant places to eat, in London and all up and down the country. So, without further ado...



Best Newcomer (London) - Xu

A huge amount of competition for Best Newcomer this year - again - so I've decided to split the category into inside and outside the M25. Runner-up mentions must go to Jamavar, a swanky restaurant in Mayfair which continues to push the possibilities of high-end Indian cuisine and serves food of such exquisite flavour and precision that it almost makes you forget the prices you're paying for it. Also, just nipping in at the end of 2017 is Parsons, which manages to be some kind of platonic ideal of the seafood restaurant. Great ingredients, treated well, served at a decent mark-up. Nothing much not to love.

But overall, the best new restaurant needs not to merely be good, but groundbreaking. Xu serves the kind of food I'd not seen before in London - high-end Taiwanese - and is as good as ambassador for it as you can possibly imagine. Flavours are bold, but balanced, and full of interesting twists and turns; presentations are as careful and geometric as architecture, colourful and clever; and you'll enjoy it all in a cosy, clubby space that makes the most of its small Chinatown footprint. I'm baffled that not everyone loves the place; maybe they just don't deserve to be happy.



Best Newcomer (outside London) - Where The Light Gets In

If someone had told me when I was growing up in North Merseyside/West Lancashire - a part of the country that could charitably be described as "beige" - that there would one day exist there a Michelin-starred fine dining modern British restaurant in the l'Enclume vein, set in acres of kitchen gardens and with its own cheese and charcuterie rooms, I'd have assumed you were as detatched from reality and sense as the customers I regularly served at the Ormskirk Abbey National during my teens. But there Moor Hall is anyway, and I somewhat suspect despite its location rather than because of it, it's utterly wonderful.

But wonderful though Moor Hall is, there's a bright little spot in Stockport that somehow managed to upstage even that temple of gastronomic achievement. Where The Light Gets In is everything that's good, and decent, and rewarding about eating out in this country, all in one beautiful package. The food served is exciting and technically proficient without being difficult; they wear their environmental waste-free credentials on their sleeves without being preachy or - crucially - without the product suffering at all, in fact if anything it seems to make more sense that certain ingredients crop up in various different forms throughout the menu. But mainly it's just impossible to sit down for dinner here and not have the time of your life.



Best Restaurant 2017 - The Holborn Dining Rooms

First, some runners up. I split the newcomers category into London/Outside London mainly because I wanted the excuse to list more places, but in all honesty there's no point any longer in pretending that Not London needs any kind of advantage any more. Anyone who's ever eaten at any of the restaurants immediately above, or at the glorious Parkers Arms serving ingredients gathered from the surrounding fields, or the Rat Inn with their giant, generous hug of a menu of seasonal beauty, or indeed the magical Coomebshead Farm with its mangalitza pigs and rural idyll, will conclude that these are just as deserving of national attention as anywhere down south. We are all the richer for their existence, but residents of Lancashire and Northumberland and Cornwall in particular should be intensely proud of these gems on their doorstep.

And so too at l'Enclume, which is still the standard-bearer of modern British food, and where far from settling for their two Michelin stars and international fame have expanded their test kitchen Aulis into London, expanded their horticulture and animal husbandry operations up in Cartmel, and drawn up plans to have a kind of California-style outdoor BBQ operation in the middle of their farm (can you imagine how much fun that will be).

But as much fun as I've had at these places, my overall favourite restaurant of 2017 is closer to home. Closer to home, and closer to work - about 30 seconds walk from the office, in fact. You'll have heard all about Calum Franklin's wonderful pastry work, and I imagine your Instagram feeds have, like mine, been enriched with his mahogany brown pâté en croûtes and gleaming game pithiviers. You probably feel like you know his work inside out, even if you've never been to Holborn. But there are two points worth making while I have your attention.

Firstly, these extraordinary examples of savoury pastry work taste even better than they look - this is by no means a purely visual endeavour. The jelly that binds the meat is packed full of flavour and dissolves in the mouth to silky, porky heaven, and the ingredients (pork, duck, rabbit, whatever he thinks will work) are top notch. Secondly, while it's true that certain hotel staples that lurk on the menu are mainly to keep the tourists happy (the burger is a bit half-hearted), Franklin has gradually been shaping the menu to his own image over the years and there are some real non-pastry gems to be found now as well. Try the lobster thermidor tart, or the octopus, or the elderflower jelly dessert - all of which are outstanding, superb advertisements for British food both in that gleaming dining room and, via Instagram, the wider world.

While the grand Rosewood hotel on High Holborn has, it's true, had a lot of my custom this year because it's so handy, I suppose it could be argued that gave them something of an unfair advantage. On the other hand, the fact I go there so bloody often and have a consistently wonderful time (the staff are so friendly you'll want to invite them home for Christmas) is testament to just how impressive an operation this is. It's the most Cheese and Biscuits stress-tested restaurant in London, and I still look forward to going back every time. So, last year's runner up is this year's winner. And thoroughly deserved, I'm sure you'll agree.



So, where do we go from here? Time was I'd use this opportunity to make some grand prediction about the future of London dining, or what crazy new trend or fusion experiment I hope to see the next time the Just Opened newsletter (subscribe here) drops in my inbox. I have a wishlist of places I need to get round to - Clipstone, Westerns Laundry, even Le Gavroche still eludes me. And I'd like to visit a few more super-gastropubs up in Lancashire; the Freemasons at Wiswell, and the Swan at Fence to name but two.

But you know what? In the current climate I have a horrible feeling planning anything much at all would be tempting fate; I'll settle for continued survival. So I'll just say thanks to all of you for reading, and following, and sharing, and making whatever contribution - large or small - to the joy of eating out in the UK, for however long it may continue. Happy Christmas.

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Restaurant of the Year 2016 - The Quality Chop House

There’s no point avoiding the obvious, so we may as well start with it. For anyone even remotely invested in the business of eating out in this country, anyone who appreciates sparkling service, great food, wonderful cheese, fine wine; anyone who’s involved in the restaurant trade either as a genial host or a grateful guest; certain events of 2016 have conspired to stun, depress and terrify. Looking back over the first few months of the year it seems like a different, kinder world, where even an enforced trip to the JRC Global Buffet in a car park in Croydon seems tinged with the warm glow of pre-apocalyptic naivety. I look back on those miserable plates of deep-fried brownfood eaten in a hospital waiting room with discarded chips trodden into the floor and think “what I wouldn’t give to be back there now”.

Well, not quite. But the whole business does make you look with new eyes upon the restaurants and bars, and food producers and importers of London and elsewhere, anywhere that clever, passionate people are doing the thing that they love and to the benefit of us all, and think that to lose even the tiniest bit of that would be a complete and utter tragedy. And I hope to the very ends of hell that I’m worrying unnecessarily and everything will be OK In The End but it’s going to take an awful lot of good news to stop me waking up screaming in the middle of the night never mind feeling positive again about the future.

So perhaps, in the meantime, before it either is OK In The End or we just start hurtling screaming towards the apocalypse, we should just make the most of what we have. Because what we do have, right now, in December 2016, for however long it lasts, is the most exciting, dynamic, exhilarating and rewarding food and drink scene on the entire planet and I’ve felt uniquely privileged to have been able to make the most of it. Here the places that have in the last twelve months, above all else, made me happy – not to mention relieved – to be alive.


Best Newcomer – Kiln / Padella / Smokestak (tied)

Look, I know it’s a bit of a copout to choose two never mind three equal winners in a single category, but the fact is I could not, even with a gun to my head, choose between these equally technically accomplished and sensationally exciting operations, and so I’m afraid a joint win it is. First to Kiln, who like so many of the very best restaurants, came up with a completely new twist on a familiar cuisine, adding sparkle and invention while keeping all of the flavours and traditions that make Thai food so special. The short, daily-changing menu is packed with unusual ingredients, and the no-reservations turnover means you can enjoy it all for far less money than you might expect.

Turning the same level of passion and skill to Italian food, Padella made London realise that however much we thought we’d had good pasta, up until this shiny, marble-decked spot opened in Borough Market in April, we really, really hadn’t. The whole menu is a joy, as is the experience of ordering it, but you’d have to have a heart made of stone not to fall instantly head-over-heels for the pici cacio & pepe, a minimalist masterpiece of stark, pepper-spiked beauty.

And finally Smokestak, who proved that there’s no style of cuisine that can’t be saved from the dumbing-down effect of chains and supermarket shelves given a true pit-crafter’s eye. Their brisket is the supreme example of its kind, marbled with fat and with a dark, complex bark, and worth the journey alone. But further unusual delights lurk in the rest of the menu, such as the mushrooms on beef dripping toast which is already gathering a fan club of its own.


Best Outside of London – The Royal Oak, Paley St (special mention the Sticky Walnut group)

Outside the “anything-goes” culture of central London (and with a few notable exceptions elsewhere in the country that exist in their own creative bubble), restaurants often have a very difficult job to do in balancing cutting-edge cuisine – and all of the time and effort and expense that entails – with the demands of a local audience. This is why places such as Sticky Truffle in Chester and its sister restaurants in Heswall and Manchester (and soon – joy! – Liverpool) are so crucial for the future dining health of the nation, because they tread that fine line between value, quality and accessibility and prove that when all those things are right, people will pay for it. And so a very honourable mention goes to Gary Usher and his teams up in the North West, from which I hope and expect you’ll be hearing a lot more in the coming months.

But while Sticky Walnut is the local restaurant everyone wishes they had, and could have, the Royal Oak is the kind of place that is necessarily a one-off. Yes, in true local restaurant style the menu is welcoming and accessible, with things like Scotch Eggs and pork chops and triple-cooked chips meaning there are few people with a working digestive system that couldn’t find something to enjoy. But what’s hard to accurately convey using mere blog posts is just how perfect everything is that they set their mind to, from the service, the surroundings of this ancient building in the Berkshire countryside, to – of course – the food, every bit of which you’d happily order again given the first opportunity. Even the journey to get to it (a combination of unreliable trains and rather expensive cabs in most cases) just puts the reward of eating there into sharper relief.


Runner up – the Holborn Dining Rooms

Before you get trapped in a fruitless Google search, let me stop you – I have never given the Holborn Dining Rooms its own blog post. This is a terrible omission, and they certainly more than deserve one, but I do have an excuse. The thing is, the HDR is right next to the office, and rather than make one or two comprehensive visits with my camera like I’d do to most restaurants, I have visited this grand dining room with its phalanx of helpful staff countless times over the last couple of years, from anything so simple as a bowl of soup to the latest and greatest of chef Calum Franklin’s creations.

Because this is no normal hotel restaurant. True, they serve an enticing, elegant menu of modern British dishes, from dressed Cornish crab and native oysters to an award-winning Scotch egg and a rich, buttery chicken & girolles pie. They do all these things with style and a smile, alongside fine wines and (with the help of Scarfe’s Bar next door) a very comprehensive spirit collection. But this is the Rosewood, the classiest of classy five-star hotels, and we’re in the middle of London, so you’d expect them to have spent a bit of money on the place.

What sets the Holborn Dining Rooms apart are the side projects that chef Calum occasionally embarks upon, and announces to the world via his Instagram feed. What first had my jaw dropping to the floor was a grouse pithivier that appeared as an off-menu “special request” in August, and you’ll have to take my word it tasted every bit as good as it looked, complex and powerfully gamey, with a meaty Madeira jus that could bring you to tears. Then, in early December, his Christmas pâté en croûte appeared, a breath-taking work of pastry genius, an entire posh Christmas dinner containing turkey and bacon around a sage and onion stuffing centre, a truly astonishing thing. To do this kind of work under any conditions would be impressive; to fit them around his full-time job as head chef of a busy all-day five-star hotel kitchen is utterly staggering, and deserves every bit of recognition that will surely come his way.


Restaurant of the Year 2016 – The Quality Chop House

Quality Chop House was always in the running for the top prize, as anyone who’s ever eaten there will understand. It is one of London’s leading examples of the restaurant craft, a classy and comfortable spot a few steps away from the foodie hub of Exmouth Market that makes the most of its historic setting and gorgeous period detail (it’s been a restaurant for the best part of 150 years) with warm and attentive service and the kind of menu that you want to take home and frame.

Quality Chop specialise in game, and while supply of the most interesting stuff can be – necessarily – erratic, if you have even the slightest interest in this country’s incredible bounty of feathered food, this should be your first port of call. Woodcock, snipe, mallard, teal, grouse (obviously), diver (a new one on me, pictured above, like mallard but with a more powerful flavour), partridge, pheasant, you name it – if it has a beak and you can eat it, it’s made an appearance on the QCH menu at some point, always cooked perfectly, served with God’s Own chicken liver pâté, bread sauce with delicate, greaseless potato crisps, and various other delightful accompaniments.

Of course, it’s not all about the game. Their seafood is top-notch too, a crab and Jerusalem artichoke dish being particularly knockout on a recent visit, and I’ve heard their white truffle risotto is a thing of wonder. With so much invention and risk-taking going on, it’s inevitable that some dishes will end up noble failures – I still shudder from the memory of a cod chitterlings dish from a couple of years back, though quite why I ordered fish guts and then complained about being given fish guts is perhaps an issue for my therapist. But where else would even attempt a dish this mad? It’s all part of the place’s slightly eccentric English charm.

So far so excellent, and certainly one of London’s greatest restaurants, no question. But why the best? Well perhaps little more than in these deeply troubling times I find myself increasingly looking for restaurants to make me feel settled and welcome as well as serving incredible food, where I can do old fashioned things such as book a table at a particular time, and not have to queue up in the rain or have it wrestled back off me before I’ve finished my post-dessert brandy. Quality Chop is the kind of place where you want to spend all day, but crucially it’s also the kind of place where you can spend all day, working your way through that extraordinary menu, cossetted by fine wines and capable staff and gradually sinking into a boozy afternoon coma as if I were an elderly patient in a nursing home.

As a final example of how highly I regard the place, I took a small group of friends there for my birthday. They had a “game-hung chicken” menu on special that day, which turned out by general consensus to be one of the most brilliant things any of us had eaten this year. Decadent chicken consommé poured into fine china, fluffy bread rolls made with schmaltz, a very clever terrine made with pressed chicken skins topped with a roast heart, it was all utterly brilliant. A highlight of the year. So here is my thank-you, Quality Chop House, and expect to see me darkening your doors many times more over the next 12 months.

Oh, and one more thing. The confit potato. ‘Nuff said.


So that was 2016, and yes, some of it was bone-chillingly terrifying but still, plenty of it was lovely, and always amidst the doom and gloom there are good people doing good things who deserve our appreciation (and custom) more than ever. As long as there are good restaurants there are good times to be had, and I’m buggered if I’m going to let the collapse of liberal western democracy and impending global nuclear war spoil it any time soon. So chin up, best foot forward and until it all collapses around our ears let’s make the most of it. Because when it’s all over and I’m queuing up at the pearly gates the least I want to be able to say is that I had a bloody good dinner.

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