High summer is one of the best times for eating. It’s also one of the worst for properly cooking, as standing over a bubbling stove in a heatwave is a special kind of torture in a London flat. So feeding myself has meant a lot of tomatoes (in salads; on kewpie mayo’ed toast) and canned beans (in salads, strewn among other canned and fresh things), which I don’t think you’ll find particularly titillating. Do you?
My restaurant meals, on the other hand, have been a little more noteworthy (as they should be). I love having my birthday in July as it means I get more of an excuse to eat my favourite things, which this month meant cold fruity puddings, and lots of fresh seafood—the closest thing you can get to a seaside holiday without leaving the big smoke.
In no particular order:
The schnitzel at One Club Row, which came perched on a pool of mustard sauce like a craggy island on which a Bond villain would erect his lair. It usually comes with gorgonzola dolloped across the top, but Ivan’s strong cheese aversion meant I had ours on the side, in a neat ramekin. The meal as a whole was pretty faultless—to be nitpicky, the rice pudding creme brulee could’ve done with more rice—but I kept returning to the colossal schnitzel, hacking more off to have with the (also excellent) chips, one crispy mouthful after another.
On the topic of well-fried things, I have it on good authority (Jess’s) that the fried chicken at The Knave of Clubs (One Club Row’s sister restaurant, downstairs) is the thing to order, as opposed to the TikTok-beloved rotisserie.
I hogged the poached stone fruit and creme fraiche at Millie’s pop-up at Giacco’s. Who could blame me? Pitted stone fruit is such a treat. I don’t know if a peach can taste better than that, slick with syrupy juices and jazzed up with a lick of tart dairy.
The bottarga pasta at Nina, which arrives in a whirl of linguine (coated in a tomato sauce cooked with prawn shells, I think) topped with chopped raw tuna and a dusting of roe—a holy trinity of ocean dwelling foods.
Speaking of tomato pasta, I would’ve listed the perfect rendition at Quality Wines if we didn’t also have the strawberry ice cream, aka summer on a spoon. It had a light, almost whipped texture; as with the peaches, I don’t know if strawberries and cream can be bettered, in any form—Wimbledon-goers, eat your hearts out. We immediately declared it the ice cream of the season, on no credentials at all (my most-eaten ice creams so far are still the M&S valencia orange lollies; we love a high-low diet).
Pictured: the unimprovable egg mayonnaise at Café Deco: a single boiled egg, halved side down, crowned with a painterly double blob of mayo and a two anchovies. X marks the spot for what I (and since posting an Instagram story of it, two and counting supporters) believe to be one of the top ten best ways to start a meal in London.
I think I’ve said this here before, but it brings me a quiet joy that Café Deco, despite being located within an easy walk from the British Museum and Soho, makes such a stress-free lunch reservation amid all the hype and unbookable tables elsewhere.
The least summery dish I had by far was the chicken princess Oslo Court at Oslo Court, which I’ve already written about (I named a whole email after HRH). Am pleased to report that though we didn’t come in wind-whipped from the biting March cold, the enthusiastic air conditioning and pure deliciousness of the dish makes it a year-round winner. Yes, even with a matching side of creamed spinach and cauliflower cheese, which I didn’t think through and would likely give me gout if I made it a habit.
Lastly, Millie and I were gifted a sushi lunch at Kioku a 30-degree day, which is both heaven and a furnace. Thankfully, our lunch was sushi: the only thing I’d been craving that week. The torotaku temaki (a seaweed hand roll with fatty tuna and pickled radish, on the far left) was the unanimous favourite; the radish balanced out the unctuous fish gloriously. Also, how warm do the dregs of my beer look? They handed us cold hand towels and we draped them over the backs of our necks, like Chinese park uncles.
Thanks for reading—if you’re working up an appetite, here are some recent food-heavy dispatches you might’ve missed.
Zoe
