Galvin La Chapelle
THE most ambitious effort yet from the brothers Galvin, whose name you should be familiar with via Galvin Bistrot de Luxe and Galvin at Windows. Galvin La Chapelle looks stunning.
Housed in St Botolph's Hall in Spitalfields, built in the 1890s as part of a log since demolished girls school, it was saved from demolition in the 1970s when it was granted Grade II listed status. An oasis of Victorian architecture in an area that's lost much of its soul through redevelopment, it sat rotting in search of a purpose for decades until the Galvins and their backers came along and decided, with its cathedral-high ceiling, that it would make a fine City restaurant.
In fact it's actually being sold as two restaurants. Firstly there's La Chapelle, which takes its name from the Rhône's Hermitage La Chapelle and in return offers the largest selection of the celebrated wine's vintages this side of the Channel to deep-pocketed diners with - thanks to a hi-tech wine preservation system - glasses available from £49 to £69-a-pop. It's aiming to be a class act from start to finish from the bowler hat-wearing doorman to the service, overseen by Sara Galvin, Chris Galvin's wife.
The menu is an upscale variation on the well-sourced, classic bourgeois French repertoire that the Galvin's have made their trademark since opening Galvin Bistrot de Luxe on Baker Street in 2005.
Attached to La Chapelle is the more casual Galvin Café de Luxe, a variation on which was originally planned for the whole site. Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner it makes use of an eye-catching zinc bar, reclaimed from what was Terence Conran's Aurora at the nearby Great Eastern Hotel, and a wood-fired oven. The additional outdoor seating will no doubt double its capacity come summer.
The Draft House
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From the team behind the Westbridge in Battersea, which in its recent wake has been re-christened 'The Westbridge Draft House', comes The Draft House on Clapham's Northcote Road. To say it's a quality operation compared with its predecessor on the site, a Pitcher and Piano - unfashionable even in Clapham - is to damn it with insultingly faint praise. As the name would suggest, The Draft House is built around something many London 'gastropubs' - whatever that term means these days - somehow seem to have forgotten in their quest to serve better food: beer. There are seventeen brews on tap here and an impressive selection of over 50 in bottles, the latter ranging from Stateside microbrews to Old World classics such as Duvel. Novelty seekers should note the former are available for sampling in dinky third-of-a-pint glasses, which means, assuming you're not up for a session, you can have yourself a pint-sized flight of beers from the selection that includes stout, lager, rye beer and weissbier on tap. When it comes to the food it's pleasingly more pub and less gastro; the unpretentious menu, designed to encourage thirst and soak up all that beer, fit for purpose with hocks, potted meats, steaks, burgers and bar snacks such as ox tongue fritters and homemade pork scratchings. |
Tike
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The first London outpost for the Istanbul-based Tike - pronounced "TK" as in "Maxx" - does much to rehabilitate the image of Turkish restaurants. London has no shortage of good quality Turks offering delicious charcoal-grilled meats in unglamorous locations such as Stoke Newington; that's if you're willing to track them down. An infinitely more user-friendly and fashionable take on the usual Turkish grill scenario, Tike is located in the Richards Rogers-designed Lloyds Register building near Fenchurch Street Station. With its welcoming purple-lit interior, suspended first floor dining room and a cocktail bar; it's very much the sort of young, hip Turkish London hasn't seen before. Thankfully the menu is not a radical departure from the usual Turkish grill scenario. It's quality mezze followed by large portions of perfectly charcoal-grilled lamb and chicken. Carnivores should salivate in anticipation of the speciality of the house - the 'meterlik' - a metre of 'adana kofte' (minced) kebab supposedly designed for sharing. |
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Joe Warwick