Tonight:
9°c
Some fares could fall by more than a third when Oyster is extended to every national rail station in London, it has emerged
More...
New Moon is nothing if not an international advertisement for the hungry virtues of virginity and young people can’t get enough of it
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Theatre
A smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusion
Cock
Restaurants
Kitchen W8 is a bargain for this area, if such sophistication is what you crave
Kitchen W8
Too long and drawn out but very entertaining with excellent special effects
This is a peculiar play and does not work for me. Some of it is very funny but there are real flaws
Alex has a strong powerful voice and was faultless, she is far better now than she was on the X-Factor
London,
Fay Maschler's rating
Reader rating
Phone: 020 7731 7823
Open: Mon-Fri noon-3pm & 6-10pm. Sat 10.30am-4pm & 6-10pm. Sunday 10.30am-9pm
Bread winner: chef Liam Kirwan is well-travelled, imaginative, energetic and a skilled baker
Princes William and Harry, who have been described as "devoted fans" of a new gastropub in Fulham called The Sands End, were not there last Wednesday evening when I went for dinner. I believe Prince William is still deployed on the warship Iron Duke.
In a little backwater of neat terraced houses where Tom Thumb and Hunka-Munka would feel right at home, the Prince's new-found drug-busting talents might have been completely wasted. The low-built, two-storey Sands End, named after the locale near Wandsworth Bridge which in turn must once have had reference to the banks of the Thames, has a countrified air with scrubbed wooden tables, rows of bottled produce and floral café curtains at half-mast across the windows.
Fresh-faced men wearing jeans and pink shirts were in the ascendance among the clientele. I dare say the opening of this business co-owned by Eamonn Manson, erstwhile stage manager of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Madness and Iron Maiden, has made them feel better about having had to buy property so far from Parson's Green. Manson and his partner Mark Dyer, a former equerry to HRH the Prince of Wales, have had the sense and good fortune to employ a well-travelled, energetic, imaginative, bread-baking chef with Irish antecedents in the shape of Liam Kirwan.
Kirwan worked for Rowley Leigh at Kensington Place and for Jeremy Lee at Blueprint Café and has gained gastropub experience at The Gun in Canary Wharf. He has also done some culinary back-packing around the Antipodes but mercifully his flirtation with fusion food has fizzled out. It is now his Irish soul that speaks. It does so particularly noticeably in the bar snacks, served all day, which include Irish black pudding with mushy peas, fried pig's ears with spiced plum and apple chutney, cruibini (grilled breadcrumbed pig's trotters) with Ballymaloe relish and a slice of hand-raised pork pie. But it is not just the pig that is saluted. Roast beef marrow with mash and caper gravy, Welsh rarebit soldiers and chicken in a basket with mayonnaise also make it onto the blackboard.
Last Wednesday it rained remorselessly. Leaving the house to set out for Fulham we spotted a friend and neighbourhuddling under a large black umbrella so we roped him in for the craic. I had booked in the name of Warner - there's a good pseudonym down the drain - and on one of the tables at the back of the premises where the serious eating takes place there was a tent card saying Mrs Warner. A nice touch. There was plenty of room and a third place setting was immediately laid up without questions being asked.
After studying the bar snacks it was with slight regret that we turned to the dinner menu, but that too had lures. Half a native lobster with a salad of asparagus and broad beans was one that Reg immediately latched onto. It was the most expensive first course - prices started at £5 for wild rabbit and vegetable broth - but even so, a fair £9.95. Having the skins peeled off broad beans by someone else is worth almost that.
Thinking about the cheeks of fish has an anthropomorphic effect. Suddenly cold, bleak, sinuous creatures seem cheerful, wreathed in chubby smiles.
Fish cheeks are a prized part and I wish more fish shops would sell them but in London they seem to be a delicacy reserved for chefs. Here cod cheeks are cooked in batter and served with tartare sauce, which is probably not the best way of accessing their particularity - but appealing to children or childish appetites. Potted Telmara duck - an Essex bird - served with green tomato chutney and wheaten bread needed a bit more seasoning but the mix was good, the level of fattiness just right.
Fish pie with greens came in for loud praise. Arbroath Smokie cake with poached duck egg, bacon and sweet pea sauce was appreciated by our friend for the crispness of the exterior, the flakiness of the fish, the manner in which the duck egg collapsed when broken into and for the fact that the bacon "was not shatteringly crisp". He also remarked, while gazing at the arrangement of lilies and gladioli on the bar that "Degas would never allow flowers on the table". What isn't known is whether Degas countenanced flowers elsewhere.
My main course, taken from the first-course section, was an excellent warm salad of seared scallops, Clonakilty black pudding, roasted leeks and spinach. The slightly cakey wholemeal bread made by the chef, sold in the pub wrapped in greaseproof paper tied with twine and at Randalls the butchers on Wandsworth Bridge Road, was the ideal foil to the richness of the salad.
From the puddings seemingly aimed at Hoorays - Eton mess, Baileys and chocolate tart anyone? - we tried summer pudding with Chantilly cream which Reg, a summer pudding expert, pronounced superior. Wines, starting at £13.95, are cleverly chosen and the short fine wine list marked up with admirable restraint. The princes have, in this instance, made a wise choice of hang-out.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
[ 1 ] [ 2 ]
