The Observer
On a rare trip to the northern capital, Joel Golby visited a “go-to if you’re up there” recommendation, and was suitably impressed, if occasionally baffled, by a multi-course meal that opened unpromisingly with a dish of Jerusalem artichokes, toasted hazelnuts and coffee, whose “overall effect, weirdly, was like eating chewy, burnt popcorn”.
What followed was far better, starting with aged beef tartare in a celery-root canolo with parmesan and tomato ponzu that tasted like “an £11, one-bite, perfect cheeseburger”. Joel was “clap-like-a-toddler delighted” at a mushroom and miso-cured egg dish, some torched seabream, a duck breast with umeboshi, and the showstopper of barbecued Cornish scallop “cooked as if it were a perfect white wad of fat, and served with burnt citrus and roe”.
The only problem was the location of the loo – “outside the restaurant, along the newbuild mews and, after a slalom of Astroturf, through a code-to-enter door and round another corner”. He managed not to get lost on the trek there and back but wished the restaurant “was in a building I could love as much as I love the food.”
Joel Golby - 2026-03-15
Drinks
Extras
