Brat
Shoreditch, London
What was once a pole-dancing bar is now a wood-panelled restaurant devoted to 'live fire' cooking. This is Tomos Parry’s flagship Brat (he also runs Climpson’s Arch in Hackney, where the concept originated) and, loosely, it pays homage to Basque cooking. Indeed, the first thing to hit you as you ascend the stairs – it's above Smoking Goat – is the smell of the grill; the second is the sound of diners eating, drinking, chatting and laughing. There’s no such thing as a quiet lunch in this tightly packed dining room. The thing to do, if funds allow, is to come with friends and enjoy a whopping great turbot (from £150, to feed four) or a juicy beef rib. Otherwise, fear not, the menu covers a lot of ground, from Menai oysters and seasonal vegetables (such as peas or young English corn) to crustacea, sausages and chops. It’s often the simplest things that surprise. Peppers from Flourish Produce in Cambridgeshire are essentially pimientos de Padrón, grilled, oiled and salted in the Spanish style but here tossed with chopped herbs. The addition is a revelation. Next, the grilled bread with anchovies, famous on Instagram but surprisingly underwhelming in reality (there’s no shortage of blistered buttery naan in east London). Velvet crab soup looks spectacular with its crown of crab shells and bobbing mussels, and it tastes profoundly of the sea – a bold dish. Main courses might be plaice pil pil with cockles, lemon sole or paella-esque roast duck rice served with the bird's heart and slices of rare breast. To finish, crème caramel is a textbook example. The wine list fits a page of A4, with a good choice of styles and grapes from across Europe, at fair-for-Shoreditch prices.
