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Five to try: Restaurants that have gone green
Evening Standard 19.03.08
Fame game: Konstam at The Prince Albert
Drop in: Water House beside the Regent Canal
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The demand for guilt-free, environmentally friendly eating is ever-increasing. Here are a few restaurants that are top of the game as far as green menus are concerned...
MOSHI MOSHI
Opticon, Bartholomew Square, Brighton (01273 719 915) £26
The Brighton branch of this conveyor-belt sushi chain — the London original is at Liverpool Street station — is praised on the smartplanet website.
If you opt for the Clear Conscience sushi set at £7.50 you get the catch of the day from Cornish fisherman Chris Bean. And the RSPCA has bestowed a Good Business Award for the company's ethical sourcing of meat.
Hot seasonal dishes such as steamed fish in ginger and black pepper sauce and unagi (eel) teriyaki embellish the menu and contribute a sense of occasion.
LEON
35-36 Great Marlborough Street, W1 (020 7437 5280) £24
If you think fast food must, by definition, be unhealthy then the Leon chain has been put on this earth by Allegra McEvedy, Henry Dimbleby and John Nugent to persuade you otherwise. Their 10th outlet has just opened in Canary Wharf.
Some of the culinary inspiration is from the Middle-East since lentils, sweet potatoes, chick-peas etc are “good carbs”. When I recently ate an Original Superfood Salad in the Knightsbridge Leon, some of it was hard to differentiate from the cardboard container, but that too is doubtless gluten-free.
WATER HOUSE
1 Orsman Road, N1 (020 7033 0123) £50
This recently opened restaurant beside the Regent Canal in a particularly Blade Runner part of Hoxton is the second venture of Eat Green Ltd (Arthur Potts Dawson and Jamie Grainger-Smith) with The Shoreditch Trust.
Acorn House in King's Cross led the eco-conscious, composting, sustainable way, but while Water House has a heat-transference system sunk into the canal (Hooray) their menu — including Speck d'Aosta, Taggiasca olives, pancetta, pomegranate and seared New Caledonia prawns — seems to have more food miles involved (Boo). But, as they say themselves, they are only “trying to change the world one drop at a time”.
TOM'S PLACE
1a Cale Street, SW3 (020 7351 1806) £34
The response to the idea of a postmodern chippy in the heart of Chelsea might well be “Pollacks!” There are plenty of those left in the sea for the very sound reason that they don't make for good eating.
Tom Aikens makes his commitment to sustainable fishing abundantly clear, letting customers watch him looking concerned around fishermen and boats on a loop on two plasma screens.
Gurnard is a plentiful species considerably more successful when wrapped in an overcoat of batter. The recipe for mushy peas from a Michelin-starred chef is one worth catching.
KONSTAM AT THE PRINCE ALBERT2 Acton Street, WC1 (020 7833 5040) £38
In setting up this venture which aims to locate more than 85 per cent of its produce in and around Greater London, chef-proprietor Oliver Rowe was filmed for a TV programme called The Urban Chef.
Fame, or anyway notice, came too early for the good of the restaurant but now that the excitement has died down customers enjoy the in-your-face open kitchen, the weird decorative detail of swathes of ball-bearing chains and dishes such as Amersham pigeon breast, char-grilled Mersea squid and Waltham Abbey chicken. Mercifully, wines are allowed to travel from abroad.
Prices above estimate a meal with wine for one.
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