Reviews: lamb fat candles at Cardinal and if it's bigger, it's better at Roe

Jimi Famurewa has found one of the “gravity-defying openings of the year” at Roe in London’s Canary Wharf for the Evening Standard

Roe is unfathomably huge, shot through with a slick, ruthless flintiness and, for all its chef-pleasing ingredients, unabashed in its pursuit of mass-appeal. It probably shouldn’t work. But it really, really does, and the reason for that is its digitally savvy founding team — chefs Will Murray and Jack Croft, plus operational consigliere James Robson — that recognise even a blockbuster restaurant lives and dies on its microscopic details and meticulously wrought moments of deliciousness.

 

It’s hard to overstate the scale of it. Roe pretty much occupies the entire, cylindrical ground floor of a jutting residential skyscraper. Inside, a space with no real capacity limit (it’s officially 500 covers with an outdoor terrace) has cleverly been broken up into an unearthly undercroft by reams of marble-topped counter, a space-age stretch of open kitchen, a little aeroponic farm by reception, and 3D-printed sculptural cladding, inspired by coral formations but vaguely redolent of malevolent fungi in The Last of Us. If fevered speculation about Fallow’s accounts is one of the hospitality industry’s favourite pastimes, then Roe’s fit-out is the confirmatory Ferrari on the driveway.

 

A snack of padron peppers and English peas lit the touch paper beautifully: a vigorously blistered, oiled tumble of greens with the sprinkled crunch of buckwheat and a rambunctious salt and pepper seasoning. Breaded nubbins of garlic mushrooms hit like a freight train of moreish, kombu-dusted umami. And then, between gulps of Atlantic Pale Ale, there was the polyphonic riot of pork scratching-strewn cuttlefish toast, and mint sauce-doused lamb ribs so succulent and yielding they practically fell off the bone under nothing but a hard stare.

 

Which all just about primed us for the deranged brilliance of a flavoursome, puffed flatbread heaped in barrelling, richly spiced pork and snail vindaloo. “I was not expecting that heat,” said my pal, with a delirious grin.

 

This enlivening eclecticism and digital age visual flair is part of the Fallow team’s established signature. Murray and Croft (working here with head chef Jon Bowring) may emphasise the sustainability of their cooking, but the inspiration — whether it is skewers indebted to Turkish ocakbasi or a dessert riff on mint Viennetta — tends to come from a high-low, quintessentially British approach that is classical in sensibility but irreverent in spirit.

 

Roe is both big and clever. And what could have easily been a victim of sequel bloat feels, instead, like one of the defining, gravity-defying openings of the year.

 

Tim Hayward revels in the effortless spontaneity of the Compasses Inn in Wiltshire for the Financial Times

 

 

It was a massively comforting menu. Highly competent bar snacks for the tankard-of-ale brigade, celeriac soup with truffle oil and home-made bread, mackerel pâté, pickled cucumber, toast, but they had me at Wiltshire cider rarebit, with house pickles and chutney. Yeah, I know. If I had any class, I’d have ordered that after the dessert but I haven’t, and I didn’t and I’m glad, because the topping and bread baked onsite made such a felicitous combination of smooth, rich and dense that . . . [insert your own joke about city boys/estate agents, etc]. There was a decent white Burgundy which sat so happily with it that it felt right to proceed to the next stage of The Quest.

 

Am I alone in this? I worry about orzo. You know the stuff. Little pasta pieces shaped like tiny torpedoes or creepy, streamlined rice. There’s something about it. I find the slick logic of its design — so smoothly shaped that when lubed with sauce it effectively flows down the throat — well, just a little threatening. But chef Dave Winter, by this point distinguishing himself as a noteworthy talent, had included it in a fish stew. It’s counterintuitive, I know. All orzo, by UK law, is supposed to be served out of a Le Creuset with chicken and lemon, but this guy knows what he’s doing.

 

There were lumps of monkfish and some extremely creditable prawns and the broth was rich and clean, with just enough saffron and chilli. What was particularly lovely, and increasingly rare, was that this felt like a talented chef improvising rather than some overwrought “signature” dish. It wasn’t in any idiom — let’s face it, Mediterranean seafood classics have no place in The Shire, but it felt like he’d stood there, tasting his broth and thinking, yep, you know what this needs? Some saffron and some chilli. It’s not a bouillabaisse, it’s pure Nadder Valley, sui generis and bloody beautiful.

 

They sent me on my way in the morning with the sort of fried breakfast they write Norse poetry about. And I drove contented towards home.

 

Photo: thecompassesinn.com/

 

Gaby Soutar is “in raptures” over the cod at Under the Table in Edinburgh for The Scotsman

 

Under The Table. Well, that’s a different matter. This place is literally the basement-level neighbour and sister business to nine-year-old Dundas Street chef’s table tasting menu concept, the Table.

 

It’s been opened by head chef Sean Clark and business partner Paul O’Donoghue to bring a ‘modern European bistro’ to the New Town.

 

Their investor and supporter, surreally enough, is Marvel and Captain America director and producer Joe Russo, who is a huge fan of the upstairs venue. I wonder if any of the people eating lunch on our visit are followers of his blockbusters. Not obviously so. The place is stowed out with a smart crew.

 

We’re enjoying the buzzy vibe, along with the decor, which is like the front room of someone who can afford an interior designer. The menu features plenty of temptation. My eyes grow wider with every line. In the end, I go for rabbit fritters with courgette (£8). I was braced for something quite sturdy, but this starter is more sexy Cadbury’s Caramel bunny than Peter. There are five tiny pale nibs of meat, in popcorn-hued cocoons of batter, all surrounding a pile of citrussy courgette ribbons. It’s beautiful, though fleeting.

 

My dining partner has gone for the crab (£13), which is also rather lovely. There’s a quenelle of seafood in a tangy pink sauce, with a black and biscuity tuille on top. The plate also features some crystalline grapefruit gel, with a few elderflowers stuck to it, like decoupage.

 

Next, I’m onto the braised beef cheek (£20). The meat, which was topped by a fried shallot halo, had been coaxed to its ultimate bovine intensity, so it felt like being stared out by a bull, and the connective tissue was rendered down to feathery collagen. Gorgeous, especially with the addition of a sauce-like whipped coffee polenta, which was velvety and light, with just a very distant tickle of the caffeinated bean.

 

We’re also in raptures over the cod (£21), though it was described as coming with chanterelles and these look like maitake. Still, life is too short to quibble over mushrooms. The cod is beautifully cooked, and draped in a cream sauce that’s sprinkled with caviar, like a billionaire’s take on hundreds and thousands.

 

When ordering, we asked if we needed sides, and the server said; “Maybe something green”. Thus, we’d gone for the spinach, butter, raisins and pine nuts (£6.50) – pleasant enough. However, if there’s going to be one criticism about this fabulous place, it’s the portion sizes.

 

Photo: www.instagram.com/under_the_table_edinburgh

 

Jay Rayner is taken on a journey at Arabic Flavour in Aberystwyth for The Observer

 

Arabic Flavour, which she [Ghofran Hamza] runs with her Greek partner, was meant to open early in 2020. A pandemic saw to that. The doors were eventually unlocked in March 2021. It is now a quietly elegant space of guttering tea lights and sandstone-coloured walls hung with bursts of Arabic art. That said, if you just glanced at the menu, you might assume this was a cheery Greek place; somewhere to recreate sunkissed holiday memories of dinners by the harbourside, picking at plates of calamari with the scent of retsina and Ambre Solaire on the breeze. And deeply beloved all of that is, too.

 

But there is much more going on here. It is cooking that traces a journey, from dish to dish, from one life to another. Hamza has lived an awful lot of that life for someone still only in her mid-20s. Dish names may be familiar. There is baba ganoush, tabbouleh and falafel. But that baba ganoush has a cave depth of smokiness and with it are folds of warm flatbread dusted with the sweetest and smokiest of paprikas. The tabbouleh is the expected mix of chopped flatleaf parsley, cracked wheat and diced tomato, but there’s a sharpness to the salt-sour dressing that turns it into a friendly slap around the chops. Later, Hamza will tell us that all the tahini and spices make the long journey from London, because she can’t get the quality she needs close by. She’s building a particular pantry to help her introduce us to these, her family’s memories.

 

Much of the food here is rich with the sweet and sour of pomegranate molasses, and the jewel-like shine of pomegranate seeds. There are dappled pools of an olive oil so virgin it has never even had an indecent thought, alongside the airiness of fresh coriander and the caramel tones of long-cooked onions. Roasted cashews are applied liberally because they make everything look cheerier. Salads come sprinkled with the raunchy purple citrus of sumac, while her hot, springy falafel puffs wafts of newly roasted cumin seed at us. Most diverting is the hummus fatteh, a dish of whole chickpeas bound in a garlicky tahini sauce. Fragments of crisp, just-fried pitta have been stirred through it all.

 

Photo: arabic-flavour.square.site/

 

Chitra Ramaswamy urges diners to marvel at the “smaller, less serious moments” at Cardinal in Edinburgh for The Times

 

 

How’s this for a bit of theatre? A tea light. Placed on the table. Surreptitiously, the way James Bond takes directions through his ear piece.

 

It happens somewhere around course eight. As we slide our knives through precision-cut scallops, scorched at the edges from a swift time spent over wood fire, the candle melts down. Now comes the big reveal. This is no ordinary wax candle. It’s not even wax. It’s tallow: made with the rendered down fat from the saddle of lamb now approaching our table. The melted fat is split table-side with a jus spiked with anchovies and nori, then poured over the lamb. If there’s a signature moment at Tomas Gormley’s highly anticipated new opening, Cardinal, this is it.

 

In less stylish hands it could be a bit naff. In Cardinal, it’s as perfectly judged as the discreet black frontage, black interiors, low lighting, sexy tunes, and hip youthful staff who know everything about everything. And there’s a lot to know: 16 courses using the best local produce, paired with seven outstanding low-intervention, biodynamic drinks. All this from a chef under 30 who only opened his first restaurant in the capital three years ago.

 

Some of the dishes are less well judged. The lamb, despite all that theatre, is under-seasoned and the sweet succulence of this prime cut is overwhelmed by the anchovies and, when all is said and done, is mostly fat. I was excited by Belhaven lobster smoked over the same cherry wood used to carve the bowls in which it’s served. Not least because it’s a nod to the irreproachable home smoked lobster at Andrew Fairlie at Gleneagles, where Gormley has done a stint. It’s good and rich, the fanciest lucky dip of your life: a mound of hollandaise espuma in which smoky lobster tail and cubes of firm, buttery pink fir potatoes are hidden. But it could be bolder, smokier, and my lobster is ever so slightly chewy. It can’t compete with its Gleneagles inspiration. Then again, what can?

 

These are the showstopper dishes yet it’s in the smaller, less serious moments — a glaze of birch syrup here, a hearty Sardinian pasta stuffed with potato there — that Gormley’s vision, brio and personality really shine. Still, these are early days. What’s beyond a shadow of a doubt is that Gormley is a real talent. And Cardinal is one of Edinburgh’s most exciting new restaurants.