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Five to try: Art & Food
Evening Standard 04.03.09
HIX OYSTER AND CHOP HOUSE
35-37 Greenhill Rents, Cowcross Street, EC1 (020 7017 1930) £45
Chefs and artists dance to a similar tune. When Mark Hix opened Rivington Grill in Shoreditch, local artists took up residence — Tracey Emin has described the restorative effect of steak, mash, and boiling hot gravy after 11 hours carousing. Hixy (and an Emin) are now in Smithfield, where an even more rigorous British menu is served. One reason I like this restaurant is that you sometimes encounter fabulously bad behaviour.
NATIONAL GALLERY CAFE
East Wing, National Gallery, WC2
(020 7747 5942) £40
Restaurateur Oliver Peyton gets approving mention in Lucky Kunst: The Rise and Fall of Young British Art by Gregor Muir (Aurum £14.99). His support of art takes a different route in The National Cookbook (National Gallery, £25) launched last week in the moody David Collins-designed café where Peyton's love of British produce prevails. The cookbook is a joy, particularly when a recipe and painting like pea and ham soup and Monet's The Thames below Westminster appear side by side.
CAFE AT SOTHEBY'S
34 New Bond Street, W1
(020 7293 5077) £45
Chef Laura Greenfield has an eye on the auction calendar when she composes menus for the lively café in Sotheby's foyer. This week's harissa-marinated braised lamb shank with pilau reflects today's Turkish art sale. What will she do for Gianni Versace on 18 March? Lobster club sandwich has been a staple since Alfred Taubman's day. Serena Sutcliffe chooses the wines; afternoon tea is bliss.
CLARKE'S
124 Kensington Church Street, W8
(020 7221 9225) £60
This year will mark a quarter-century of Sally Clarke modestly, industriously serving noble ingredients empathetically prepared in brief or fixed menus. She brought to London the heartfelt culinary revolution started by Alice Waters in California. Quite often you can find Lucian Freud, the greatest figurative painter of our time, appreciating Sally's vocation at a corner table.
ST JOHN
26 St John Street, EC1 (020 7251 0848) £48
This theme in mind, I revisited what has been called the YBAs' canteen, now redecorated and Michelin-starred. Mercifully there is no obvious change to the look; one of the ladies' loos still leaks. A party at one table took “nose-to-tail-eating” literally, pre-ordering a whole suckling pig, which seemed to paralyse the kitchen. Long, long waits, distracted staff, a dish of cold, practically raw pigeon had us leaving early and cross. Try the bar.
Prices estimate a meal with wine and service for one.
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