Food House, 46 Gerrard Street, London W1D 5QH (020 7287 2818). Starters £5.80-£9.80; large dishes £9.80-£24.80; hot pot £18-£38.80; whole fish £36. Wines from £19.80
All parents will retain a deep affection for any restaurant where their once small children were happy, and the family therefore harmonious and nobody died and can we all go home now please? It’s why Pizza Express retains the love of a slab of the British middle classes, despite endless whining over the current quality of the pizzas, and the silliness of the one with the hole in the middle, and the blood-sucking endeavours of venture capital firms. They have managed to retain a culture that is welcoming to small kids, without infantilising their weary parents. It’s a neat trick. And if you still want to rant about why Pizza Express is terrible, please take it up over on Reddit. Someone there will be gagging for your hot take.
I have similar warm, fuzzy feelings about the premises at number 46 Gerrard Street in London’s Chinatown, with its arched marble frontage. For many years it was an extremely reliable Cantonese place called Harbour City. My boys loved the dim sum there when they were small, and so did I. The fluffy, cloud-like char siu buns had an uncommon citrus kick. The har gow were spot on. A Sunday lunchtime at Harbour City was always a good one.
Recently the website Eater London, an offshoot of the US Eater empire, published a list of 38 “essential” London restaurants. If you don’t know Eater London, think of them as the cool boys on the back seat of the school bus of the food journalism world; the ones who listen to those bands you’ve never heard of and yes, they’ve got a girlfriend, she just goes to another school. But the thing with the cool boys is, secretly you always wanted to listen to those bands to find out what was so great about them. Because maybe that would make you cool, too.
Included in that essentials list alongside reliable bangers like Mangal 2, Trullo and, er, the River Café was a Sichuan restaurant called Food House, which they said was “the trendiest restaurant in central London”. In keeping with the whole back-seat-of-the-bus thing, it was so trendy, so cool, I’d never heard of it. I squinted at the address. Blow me: it occupies the location of what was once Harbour City. Naturally, I booked.
Going by the carpets I’d say little has been done to the joint in years. But this is a very different type of restaurant from the one I knew. It is all the grand, jumpy, thrilling, chilli and numbing peppercorn hullabaloo that those of us addicted to the Sichuan repertoire just adore. I believe you’re meant to say that Sichuan food is not just about chilli heat, it’s about flavour. And, of course, it’s not just about chilli heat. But actually, it also is. There’s even a samovar-style decanter of bright red oil, full of chillies, on the bar so they can dispense it at the turn of a tap, like absinthe. If I had brought my boys here when they were small, they would, faced by all this, have tugged at the sleeves of strangers and asked to be taken to a place of safety. Or perhaps a plate of safety. Food House is full on, in a very good way.
One of the dishes regularly talked up online is the fearsome sounding red chilli oil noodles. It’s actually one of the more soothing platefuls: broad, ragged-edged ribbons of noodle the colour of a baby’s teeth, come slicked with just enough of the crimson oil to remind you where you are. We have it topped by friable pieces of long braised lamb. It’s comfort food for when you’re caught in a winter storm, or like to imagine you might be.
Before we get to that there are other thrills. There is the barbecue menu of things on skewers, roughed up with cumin, salt, chilli and the occasional dab of sugar. Often, these can be mimsy affairs, delivering seized up pebbles of hard matter. Here, the red willow twig lamb skewers are solid, chunky pieces of still smoking baby sheep. There are also skewers of lamb kidney which, arriving with a cloak of crispy fat, must be eaten while still hot. I understand that offal and its fat may not be everybody’s thing. They are my thing. We have king prawns which, under the heavy hand from the spice mix, seem to become even sweeter. Alongside this there are silky-skinned, pan-fried pork and cabbage dumplings that leak their juices down my chin. It is an attractive look.
We have Yu Xiang aubergine (eggplant, on this menu) in a deep glossy gravy and, from the broad selection of offal dishes, a heaving plateful of more kidney in a hot and sour sauce. When I called to book, I was asked if I wanted the hot pot. It’s a big thing here. I’ve tried them elsewhere and never quite enjoyed them as much as I think I should. This is partly because, however varied a list of ingredients you get to drop in the boiling stock or oil, it all ends up tasting rather similar to me. It’s also down to incompetence. I usually end up sticking a chilli-dipped finger in one eye or the other.
Instead, we have another of their big statement dishes: a whole seabass to share, first roasted so the skin and the flesh along the tail where it narrows, is crispy. It has then been plunged into a bath of chilli oil, bobbing with dried chillies and slices of lotus root, sprigs of coriander, halved cloves of garlic and so much more. It is magnificent to behold, as if it has its own stage lighting system, and justifies its price of £36 on those dashing looks alone.
It is not, however, simple to eat. We get in there together, working our way around the bones to get at the prized flesh. But it is very much worth it: there is a sweetness to the soft fish, stained red by its vigorous liquor. It can get messy. Either wear a bib, or don’t wear a white shirt. Perhaps don’t bother with clothes at all. It’s a pretty laid-back place. Drink bottles of Yanjing beer to soften the burn. I shall have to take the word of the cool boys on the bus that this is a very trendy restaurant. I long ago mislaid the ability to recognise what is fashionable and what is not. But I can say it’s an awful lot of fun. I have a great reason at last to return to 46 Gerrard Street.
Jay’s news bites
In the January edition of OFM I featured six chefs worth watching in 2022, among them Helen Graham of the lovely Middle Eastern vegetarian restaurant Bubala, in London’s Spitalfields. She and her business partner Marc Summers have just announced a second Bubala, this time in Soho on the site of what was the venerable Italian Vasco & Piero’s Pavilion. The 50-cover restaurant will open in April (bubala.co.uk).
Per Diem is a new food and household goods delivery service which, in its own words, sets out to do the boring things ‘really very well’. It offers only the very basics – dry pasta, flour, sugar, rice, cleaning materials and so on – but only one good example of each, sourced from independent suppliers. Right now, therefore, there are just 50 items on the site. Products can be ordered as needed or on a monthly basis and they also offer a packaging-free re-fill service (getperdiem.com).
Rosa’s Thai, which has branches nationwide, is attempting to tackle the hospitality industry skills shortage by launching its own chef training programme. Wok School will operate out of the ground floor of its restaurant on Warren Street in London and will offer courses of varying lengths. Participants will be paid £11.45 an hour, and their dishes will be served to customers at a 50% discount. Participants who complete the course will be offered a job at the end (jobs.rosasthai.com/wok-school).
Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @jayrayner1
