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Five of the best: a staff canteen and then some
Evening Standard 09.04.08
Revamp: Delfina Studio was once a chocolate factory
Not just a canteen: River Cafe has been voted best Italian restaurant in Europe
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A former derelict workshop, bike shed and canteen are amongst the five best restaurants to have been turned around by architecture...
ST CHAD'S PLACE
6 St Chad's Place, WC1 (020 7278 3355) £35
Five years ago architects Squire and Partners turned a derelict workshop into a restaurant and bar to furnish staff, clients and locals with an agreeable place to eat and drink in King's Cross. Dishes such as tagliatelle with sprouting broccoli and smoked lamb fillet with aubergine and tomato salad and tahini yoghurt dressing segue into tapas for the evenings.
ROCHELLE CANTEEN
Old School Building, Arnold Circus, E2 (020 7729 5677) £22 (BYO)
Melanie Arnold and Margot Henderson worked together at Soho's French House Dining Room. Margot's husband Fergus went on to open St John with Melanie's husband Jon Spiteri. The admirable ethos of Nose to Tail Eating also informs the menu of Rochelle Canteen housed in the former bike shed of a Bethnal Green school. The menu doesn't mince its words, just offers straightforwardly delectable dishes such as mushrooms on toast; steamed mussels and clams with potatoes, onions, fennel and herbs; Welsh rarebit; chocolate brownie.
DELFINA STUDIO
50 Bermondsey Street, SE1 (020 7357 0244) £39
A former chocolate factory run as a charitable trust houses gallery spaces, artists' studios and a café which deserves to be called a restaurant. Head chef Maria Elia has worked in Phoenix, Arizona, in a health spa in Italy and spent part of her apprenticeship at Ferran Adrià's El Bulli. Results might be a first course of pan-fried squid with zhoug (a hot, green chilli paste from Yemen) dressed butternut squash and a main course of roast rabbit with artichoke skordalia, shaved fennel and crispy potatoes. Artists in residence have their designated table and a rate that gets you sharpening pencils.
RIVER CAFE
Thames Wharf, Rainville Road, W6 (020 7386 4200) £65
Here is the inspiring tale of what can happen when the wife of an architect and their mutual friend decide to run a canteen for employees of the practice. Twenty-one years and one Michelin star later they have been described as the best Italian restaurant in Europe and New Labour's dining room. Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray have stayed focused on one restaurant plus a flourish of stylish recipe books. Devotion to ingredients is the key, as can be inferred from a recent menu offering punterelle with anchovy and dried chilli; handmade nettle pasta; wood-roasted Dover sole with Italian spinach and grilled Florence fennel.
THE TABLE
83 Southwark Street, SE1 (020 7401 2760) £30
The Table is on the ground floor of the studio building of architects Allies and Morrison, who refurbished the Royal Festival Hall. Open for breakfast, lunch and cocktails and on Fridays dinner as well, a year after it opened the venue was winner of best Cheap Eats and runner-up for Best Design in Time Out's Eating and Drinking Awards 2006. Customers praise the clean-cut look, amiable staff and the salad bar which puts freshness, invention and healthiness back into a much-abused phrase. Lunch is self-service; at dinner you are waited upon.
Opening times can vary from the norm. Ring to check. Prices estimate a meal with wine and service for one.
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