London je t'aime

Dear London,

It seems to be in vogue to write open letters at the moment, so I’m writing one to you.

I take you for granted.  You are like my family. You are meant to be there, always, in the background.  I don’t visit your galleries or check out your museums or do anything beyond tread my quotidian path across a tiny corner of your vast face, and I’m sorry for that.

I know we’re not meant to like the Shard.  Its only point is the one at the top of it, and it has been seen as a totem pole of the forces that conspire to make London cold and expensive and hated.  But have you spoken to anyone who has looked out from it and seen you? I have never seen anything like it.  Everything is so familiar; the gentle hills of Hampstead Heath, the spider webs of the train tracks around our feet at London Bridge and the vast, urban sprawl to the left and right, as far as you can see. Canary Wharf looking unimportant.  Traitors Gate steeped in the blood of hundreds of years. And the shimmering brown river winding all the way through it like a piece of ribbon. It was wonderful.

I don’t think I’m wrong about East London (she said, darkly) but I tried it again last week, because of seeing my city from a different angle.

We went to a pop up restaurant in a photographic studio in Stepney.  It was called Chateau Marmot and the chef, Laurent Quenioux, and his team had come over from LA for 10 sittings.  We sat amongst hipsters, old couples, young couples, some suits, a goth…. Funnily enough it couldn’t have been more London, in the best sense of the word. 

It was a six course set menu with matched wines. We hid the menus so everything was a surprise.  The food was impeccable.

First came a teeny tiny razor clam with guacamole, pico de gallo chipotle and spots of black corn.  It nodded at Mexico on its way to Ceviche on Frith Street.  It was spicier than you might have thought for the first plate of the evening.

Next up was a bright venison tartare with a cute little quail's egg to mix into it, some chocolate rubble that added crunch and a smooth liver pate that was heavenly.

Raw halibut came with cubes of root vegetables, a little salad and splashes of a spiky, herbal tarragon ‘varnish’. 

A light broth came after that – it tasted of autumn, with chestnuts, pumpkin and a poached egg.  It was polite and cleansing.  On the side was a little croquette which I couldn’t decipher and some cubes of foie gras, which I could.

The main event (although all the dishes were equivalently small, really) was a slow cooked pork cheek ‘parmentier’ with confit shallots and mash. I know how chefs make mashed potato (butter butter butter butter butter butter), so I’m always excited by it in restaurants, but when they put it in front of me they said it had been made with bananas.  As I said, I’m trying to be more open to new things but mashed bananas is baby food.  Conceptually it may have been a pork and bananas Caribbean idea?  Luckily, I couldn’t really taste it and everything else was delicious.

The pudding was a persimmon cake with barley ice cream and corn panna cotta.  I really don’t like panna cotta (it wibbles and wobbles too much) and my flatmate really doesn’t like corn (sweetcorn freaks her out to a hysterical degree) but of course we both tried it and you know what? It wasn’t that scary at all.

London, I love you.  You mean the world to me.

Laura