France and Vienna meet in downtown Battersea at Bistro Delicat

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Battersea’s Northcote Road is the poster boy for the gentrification of south London. Not 15 years ago an unremarkable drag of local shops with a fading street market, it now boasts a profusion of foodie boutiques such as Hamish Johnston’s to-die-for cheese shop and a branch of idiosyncratic wine merchant Philglass and Swiggot. Well-heeled thirtysomethings throng its cafés, now spreading to the road’s southern end, where new "French-Viennese" Bistro Delicat’s tables spill on to the pavement.

Bistro Delicat occupies a compact but handsome space — white-tiled walls in the front plus shiny black tiles create a very urban vibe around the bar area at the rear (they also make it a bit noisy). Newspapers hang in wooden holders from the walls: a table outside would be a pleasant spot to fritter a sunny afternoon with an Austrian beer or three. But this feels more an evening hangout, already popular as such.

Despite the fact that the co-owner is Austrian and the chef German, the menu is more Paris than Vienna: bistro favourites include bouillabaisse, mâche salad and steak tartare. We opted for more echt starters, schlutzkrapfen pasta (large ravioli filled with curd cheese and spinach — tasty though a little heavy) and the excellent charcuterie board. The Tyrol speck was especially good and other French and Austrian ham and salume well sourced.

For mains, aside from larger starter portions, there are the cross-cultural porky treats of Nürnberger sausage and merguez with lentils, or more traditional dishes including trout meunière and Wiener schnitzel. The schnitzel was succulent and its coating pleasingly crisp, accompanied traditionally by a creamy potato salad. Grilled scallops with confit of pork belly was a nice idea yet somehow a little too soft in its textures.

Desserts are very good — sweet knodel (dumpling) with roasted apricots and vanilla ice cream was particularly unctuous — while the cheese selection is as top notch as one would expect from its supplier, Hamish Johnston.

The Austrian flavour is augmented by an unusually large share of the short but very well chosen wine list: 12 Austrian wines in all, showcasing all the major Austrian grapes at fair prices, including at least four by the glass. I particularly enjoyed the Markus Iro zweigelt, a silky example of this quintessentially Austrian red; the Anton Bauer pinot noir reserve is exemplary.

I wonder if Bistro Delicat is a little expensive for what it is, essentially well-executed bistro food. But it’s a fine addition to this corner of south London. And any neighbourhood where you can get zweigelt by the glass has truly arrived.

DeLICAT
Northcote Road, London, SW11 6QU