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Restaurants
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London,
David Sexton's rating
Reader rating
Description: "Tucked-away in a small terraced house, in the back streets of Barnsbury", this "welcoming bolt-hole" makes a good "romantic hide-away", with "very personal" service and "adventurous" food.
Food:
Service: 
Ambience:
Phone: 020 7609 3009
Website: http://www.fig-restaurant.co.uk
Good for: Romantic meals, Good food, Ambience.
Payment options:
Well travelled tastes: Head chef Christoffer Hruskova has roamed the world
Fig has an unusual mission statement on its website. “Fig restaurant is situated in the affluent locality of Barnsbury,” it states first — a fact no doubt important to the restaurant itself in generating a well-to-do clientele but a peculiar attribute to present first to potential diners.
But then Fig aims to fulfil two disparate aims — both to be, as it says, a “neighbourhood experience” in “an intimate, relaxed local environment”, and, on the other hand, to deliver highly ambitious “fine dining”.
Fig certainly has a cosy atmosphere — just nine tables in what feels more like the ground floor of a house than a former grocer’s shop, simply decorated in taupe, with plain dark floorboards. It’s pleasantly busy without feeling overcrowded, and there’s a definite look to the patrons — local homeowners in their thirties, no children yet, lawyers rather than, say, journalists, let alone academics.
But if the setting is low-key, the menu is strenuous. It changes monthly and, though simply written — the different components linked by “and” or “with” — it’s far from simple cuisine. Head chef Christoffer Hruskova cooks a modestly priced version of “molecular gastronomy” — the style, made famous in this country by Heston Blumenthal, that brings together improbable ingredients and techniques.
In “Pan fried quail, glazed beetroot, tarragon and savoury cepe ice cream” (£6.80) all the ingredients were good — the bird neatly quartered, the beetroot warm and tangy, the ice cream perfectly mushroomy — but they weren’t talking to each other much. What was on the plate had been assembled (and the herbs scattered over at the last minute), not cooked together.
In the “Baked Pollock, confit octopus with chorizo, piquillo purée and spinach” (£15.80), the piquant Spanish garnishes — again, all good in themselves — couldn’t disguise the fact that this ubiquitous cod-substitute simply isn’t very rewarding to eat, sustainable though it may be. It’s a Monday fish, not a Friday fish, sniffs Jane Grigson.
Good oven-roasted wood-pigeon (£15.50) came with chunks of foie gras and morels, as well as trim little carrots and “tonka nut jus” — but having been cooked separately, the morels had relatively little taste (and certainly hadn’t infused the dish in the way they do in that contender for the last supper, chicken with morels seethed in cream, ideally with vin jaune).
We skipped on the equally complicated desserts — “Spiced bread, can-died carrots, liquorice and carrot sorbet”, “Peanut parfait with crunch, condensed milk and caramel jelly” — and opted instead just for a slice of Morbier but even this came with “quince aioli”, a smear of fruit purée appallingly infused with raw garlic. The interesting wine list also emphasises strong varietal tastes, rather than regionality — we had a mightily aromatic Rivola from Spain, £22, served in good Riedel glasses.
Fig delivers an awful lot of fuss on the plate for a relatively modest bill — and a lot of mouth entertainment for a relatively small caloric intake. That’s not my idea of a neighbourhood restaurant or indeed of good-taste cooking — but then I can no longer afford to live in Barnsbury, either. In this neighbour-hood, perhaps such trophy food seems just the thing these days.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
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