Food and Drink in London

Soup: a hero

After the grimmer than grim effort at Waterloo Brasserie, I'm pleased to say that my faith in soupe de poisson has been almost instantly restored. The example I had at the quirky Queen's Head & Artichoke just off Regents Park was among the best I've had, certainly outside France. The soup was gloriously warm, both in temperature and in colour, the saffron not overpowering, the fish base long and satisfying and the pre-loaded rouille and Gruyere toasts just the ticket. See? It's not that hard...

Other highlights from this long and slightly boozy Sunday lunch included an immensely satisfying plate of roast beef that only suffered through a slight gravy shortage, a fish tank in the upstairs loo and a well-priced wine list that boasted some very entertaining three-adjective descriptions. All of which I've completely forgotten. The roast, incidentally, included some of the finest roast potatoes I have ever eaten.

Highly recommended.

Queen's Head & Artichoke, 30-32 Albany Street, London NW1 4EA 020 7916 6206

A crime of poisson

I can forgive a new restaurant a lot of things.

I can understand if they haven't got the A team welcoming people at the door and this leads to confusion and a certain amount of brusqueness when taking the coats. They're having to train people up after all and hanging up a jacket while smiling at the same time is obviously going to be too much for some newcomers to the restaurant game.

I can just about forgive an overenthusiastic hand on the sound system's volume control, and even a deeply odd choice of music. I won't attempt to categorise it, but I somehow doubt it would have gone down well with the clientele of the pub I drove past recently on the Isle of Wight which boasted music "for your inner thirtysomething". In this case I can forgive it partly because (arguably) a big empty restaurant needs something to pep it up, but mostly because the maitre d' spotted the problem almost as soon as it started and did something about it without being asked.

And I can almost excuse a little shakiness from the sommellier about the wine list, although describing every wine from a page of spendy clarets as 'nice' wore a bit thin after a while.

Where I draw the line, though, is with quite the worst soup I have ever tasted. In a restaurant whose menu is basically a checklist of brasserie classics with a few voguish hearty sharing dishes thown in for good measure, you'd have thought the fish soup would have been a banker. Instead it was execrable. A layer of fat on top that must have been a quarter of an inch thick distorted both the colour and the taste of an underlying soup that had precious little of the latter in any case. I plodded around with the accoutrements while others tucked into some more successful offerings (indeed most of the rest of the food was pretty good) before giving it up as a very bad job. The waitress took the rejection pretty well considering, although it's not clear how her saying she'd it had looked wrong when she'd brought it out was supposed to help. I was offered a replacement which I could't face and not charged for the soup. But the damage had been done. And the chef having a laugh with his mates at one of the only other occupied tables and giving barely a second glace at the soup being sent back under his nose didn't exactly help.

The perpetrator of this fishy felony was the Waterloo Brasserie, recently opened just opposite the Old Vic. I should get in there quick. If you must.

Waterloo Brasserie, 119 Waterloo Road SE1 8UL 020 7960 0202

Chicken sicken

I'm sitting here watching Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall begin the televised leg of Chicken Out his campaign against intensive chicken farming. Now I'm a fan of Hugh; his Meat book was some kind of epiphany for me and I've been as free-range and as organic as I can reasonably manage ever since I read it. Especially when buying chicken. I'm happy that this has made a modest contribution to the lives of a few birds, and I've also eaten better as a result.

I've also seen Hugh in action before, evangelising and shocking townies into changing their buying habits. All too often he falls at the price hurdle but there have been one or two memorable and moving success stories along the way.

So I thought I knew what to expect.

But then he threw a curve ball by responding to the negative reaction from the intensive chicken farming establishment to his requests to film a real working farm by opting to set up his own. In an admittedly dramatic gesture, someone as committed as he his to the ethical and responsible husbandry and welfare of livestock had decided that he was prepared to raise four thousand chickens under precisely the conditions he wants to phase out. Maybe, he argues, that's the level of investment and sacrifice required to change the two-for-a-fiver mentality that dominates the attitude of the chicken buying public. I'm afraid he may be right.

From the clips they showed at the start this looks set to be powerful, brave and quite possibly important television.

Jones the egg

Just for Mr Silverbrow, then, a quick recipe for Welsh eggs, the veggie version of Scotch eggs that I served up with some success as comfort food on New Year's Eve. They were brilliant served hot with a dish of ultra-comforting pommes dauphinoise and some butted kale, but they'd obviously also work well as a picnic treat.

The recipe follows more or less exactly one found in a friend's book that focused exclusively on canapés. It was American, I think. That's all I can remember. The quantities involved were to make six eggs but (perhaps with a more generous coating) I used most of the stuffing mixture up on just four.

Chop one regular-sized leek (I used four babies) and soften in butter without colouring. Meanwhile pop your eggs into boiling water for about seven minutes (they will be pleasingly still soft in the middle when you serve). Allow the leeks to cool a bit and run the eggs under a cold tap before peeling and coating in seasoned flour (I added some smoked paprika to the flour). Then combine the leeks (and the butter) with 4oz of fresh breadcrumbs, 2oz of vegetarian suet, a handful of chopped parsley, some salt and pepper and the chopped zest and juice from a lemon. Carefully form a layer of this mixture around each egg before dredging in some lightly beaten egg and coating in some staler breadcrumbs. Chill for half an hour so before deep frying for three or four minutes at 190C.

Lovely.

The fun of the fare

All too quickly the annual festival of overconsumption that is Christmastide has past us by. This culinary year's efforts included one or two tweaks on traditional favourites including an improvised mustardy glaze on a ham that didn't work too well (we blamed my mother's new oven) and a far more successful stuffing that showed that giblets are not just for Christmas gravy. The turkey itself cooked a little quicker that we expected but was none the worse for that. A Christmas day brunch of kedgeree was a qualified success, my overzealous hand on the cayenne pepper proving a little too much for the eldest member of the party. Turkey sandwiches, curry and bubble and squeak were great, proving once again the power of the humble leftover. And Antonia and I had a lot of fun making buttered rum and combing baking with architecture in the creation of a special treat for my little nieces. Expect something far more ambitious next year...

There was naturally also a certain amount of dining out over the festive period. Honourable mentions must go to the Fox & Anchor, a pub that has been very successfully restored in Smithfield and where I had a splendid lunch of native oysters and steak and oyster pie that would have given Wright Brothers a run for their money; the original Canteen at Spitalfields, where bloody Mary and devilled kidneys proved just the ticket the morning after a typically boisterous Friday night before; and Locanda Locatelli, which was everything I had hoped it would be, and where I was delighted to see Giorgio himself tucking in: if the big names aren't going to be in the kitchen surely the next best thing is for them to be keeping everyone else on their toes out front. It was my first visit to all of these places and I am sure I will be back for more.

And this year? More of the same I think. Expect a few more vegetarian experiments in the kitchen (veggie Scotch eggs are now happily added to the repertoire), possibly even a new kitchen to experiment in, and plenty more dining out in London and beyond. Posting a bit more regularly ought not to be beyond me either...

Happy New Year.