Food and Drink in London

Brockley - gateway to Tayyabs

Everything changed today: at a little after seven this morning, a new London Overground train left Brockley station for the first time.

There are few round these parts who haven't been getting slightly giddy about the transformation of the old East London Line from a little-used anomaly - I've been going to Shoreditch nearly every day for the past ten years and I've still never located the station that used to serve as the northern terminus - into a genuinely useful artery that provides north and south Londoners - and even the good burghers of Croydon - with direct access to docklands, the City (ish) and funky East London. It means Brockley now appears on the London tube map. Most of all, though, it means I can get to and from Tayyabs in no time.

I realise, though, that there will be some out there whose life isn't ruled by lamb chops and seekh kebabs (poor fools), and for them, the appearance of Brockley on the tube map will trigger idle curiosity rather than fevered anticipation. For their benefit, then, I offer the following round-up of the culinary highlights in this unsung corner of London.

Around the station

Descend from the shabby portakabin that is Brockley station (no gleaming new architecture on this stretch of the line I'm afraid) onto Coulgate Street, home of the often life-saving Speedicars and two neighbouring coffee options: Broca and Browns of Brockley, the first, a hippyish worthy kind of place (they have a brilliant organic food hall over on the over side of the tracks), the second a bit more of a funky deli (although they've recently moved squarely towards the coffee-shop and dropped most of the produce lines). Both do really good coffee if you need reviving after the journey.

Bear right at Browns and you'll bump into The Brockley Barge. It's a Weatherspoons. That's probably all you need to know. But assuming you can tear yourself from the siren temptation of cheap lager and house doubles, it's worth looking in at Degustation, an excellent little French outlet over the road. Lots of charcuterie, good fresh bread, a lot of jars and cans familiar from French supermarkets and a great selection of carefully sourced French wine. This stretch of Coulgate Street is also home to a jerk chicken place I confess I haven't tried yet and a well-regarded Vietnamese take-away.

Brockley Road

Step onto the main drag of Brockley Road and you're confronted with the first of a seemingly endless number of fried chicken establishments. I can't comment on the quality - I'm not sure what I'd be comparing it with - but the kebab shop a couple of doors down is pretty good and the Essence of India is a reliable if unshowy take-away option. There's more to Brockley than take-aways, though, and round the corner into Harefield Road you'll find The Orchard, a relative newcomer that's somewhere between a neighbourhood restaurant serving decent gastropub fare and the kind of wine bar/cum cafe where yummy mummies hang out during the day (more on them shortly). It's a welcome addition to the area and one hopes it fares better than a number of other failed ventures that have occupied the same spot over the past few years.

At this point things appear to dry up, but it's worth pressing on towards Crofton Park. In fact this is a recurring theme: Brockley Road is a long, drawn out affair with a few random points of interest along the way. It's the American football of thoroughfares.

The next flurry of commercial establishments includes what appears to be a popular local Thai restaurant, almost certainly some more fried chicken, at least one bookmaker and Brockley Mess, another newish establishment and certainly another welcome addition to the local scene. Part gallery and part upmarket cafe it does a good breakfast and looks after the rest of those yummy mummies very well indeed.

Crofton Park

Purists will argue that this is falling out of the Brockley brief slightly - Crofton Park has its own station after all - but for the purposes of this post I'm going to treat anything on Brockley Road as fair game. So in the knot of businesses around Crofton Park station (17 minutes from Victoria, apparently, but not on the tube map so will probably destined to remain invisible to most Londoners) you'll find the famous Rivoli Ballroom, a couple of local supermarkets and two decent eating options. Jam Circus is a popular pub/bar in the same mould as The Orchard but with much more heritage. Decent steaks and other gastropub grub feature on the menu and it's a regular live music venue.

And over the road is Mr Lawrence, one of the treasures of the area. It's actually a pair of businesses, an independent wine merchant on one side and an unreconstructed wine bar on the other. Don't be put off by the anti-shoplifter gate in the shop: once you're past that you'll find a fantastic selection of spirits, beers and wines. The emphasis is on France: Mr Lawrence, who you'll usually find behind the bar next door, sources much of it himself. The bar does tapas-style bar snacks and a few more substantial dishes but the emphasis is on helping him reduce his stock levels by emptying bottles into tiny glasses that probably haven't been replaced since the seventies. A perfect spot to finish an evening.

Also in this neck of the woods, if you can find it, is Peter James, a very good, old-fashioned family butchers.

Honor Oak Park

If you have the stamina (and can escape Mr Lawrence's gravitational pull), it's definitely worth pushing on down to the far end of Brockley Road. Or, of course, you can stay on the shiny new train for an extra stop and go to Honor Oak Park station. There's a couple of decent places to eat and drink around the station apparently but I haven't had the pleasure: by the time I've made it down this far I'm only really interested in either Italian or Indian. The first takes the form of Le Querce, home of excellent ice cream, a bewildering number of daily specials, home-cured bresaola and dangerous grappa. And at the same latitude you'll find Babur, possibly the only genuine culinary reason for visiting this neck of the woods. Named London's best inexpensive restaurant by Harden's last year, Babur does refined, well-flavoured dishes from all around India and regularly has regional or seasonal themes. Definitely worth a trip. One day I may even get round to reviewing it properly. I've only been here eight and half years...

Your final port of call on this tour of Brockley (verging on Forest Hill by now) is The Honor Oak, a decent modern pub right at the end of the main drag. A good looking menu meets the needs of a youngish clientele and there's often food stalls out front.

So that's it. I'm acutely aware this has been a very selective journey, focusing only on the options along Brockley Road but these are the places most obviously made accessible by the new tube stations. Other local highlights include a shiny new gastropub (The Talbot) and the perennially popular Meze Mangal, but these are both marginally better served by St Johns station.

But even this brief round-up reinforces the fact that there's more variety and quality to be found in SE4 than first impressions might suggest. You won't find a Starbucks (thank god), and you will be distracted by more chicken shacks than is strictly necessary, but there is plenty out there, much of which has opened relatively recently. Here's hoping the influx of new visitors brought by the new trains will cause this trend to continue.

Bar Boulud - Bouluddy marvellous

Regular readers (I know you're out there somewhere) may have noticed I've dined a few times of late with one Chris Pople of Cheese and Biscuits fame (and I mean fame - he's the current go-to man for news and radio comment on the food blogging phenomenon). I'd like to take this opportunity to scotch any rumours... he's far too male for my tastes. He does, though, have a knack for snagging reservations at the hottest new restaurants, and I'm quite happy to tag along when I get the chance. So when he got in touch on Sunday suggesting dinner the following day at a place called Bar Boulud I was immediately intrigued.

Neither Chris nor the third member of the party hadn't heard of Daniel Boulud before but both had seen the buzz about his place on Twitter and read up on his back-story; for me it was the other way round: I'd taken my eye off the rumour mill so didn't know about his London debut but I knew a bit about Daniel Boulud, or at least the New York restaurant that takes his first name. Once I'd made the connection I was up for it like a shot.

Bar Boulud is to be found in some newly snazzed-up rooms in the lower reaches of the Mandarin Oriental. This is a hotel a mere precious stone's throw from Harrods so it's interesting to find such an accessible and affordable dining option among such exclusive, expensive surroundings. Later this year the same hotel will be home to Heston Blumenthal's first London foray, and although it seems unlikely he'll be indulging in quite the same level of expensive whimsy he does so well at The Fat Duck, I'm willing to bet you won't be able to get a burger and chips for twelve quid. You can in Bar Boulud.

And what's more you should: the burgers were among the highlights of a fantastic first Bar Boulud experience. Before them, though, came a sharing platter of charcuterie, patés and terrines. This was a generous portion for £14. I'd been angling for the bigger platter but, with the boudin blanc we ordered alongside, this was plenty for three. Just as well I was talked down: the restaurant had Googled Chris's name (either before or after the we got the cameras out, I'm not sure) and decided we merited special treatment, in this case a chat with Daniel himself and a few bonus dishes for us to try.

Anyway, of the cold meat selection the highlights were probably the jellied pulled rabbit and a lamb terrine that had distinct Tayyabs overtones. Never a bad thing. The boudin was excellent too: pillowy in texture and delicately peppery.

The first freebie was a block each of rillon: slow cooked smoked pork belly that was beautifully tender but with fantastically bacony crunch.

The mains were also spot on. Chris was momentarily distracted by some complimentary boudin noir and feeling more than a little daunted by all the special treatment (a discomfort henceforth to be known as the freebie-jeebies) so I snaffled a bit of his roast chicken with wild garlic. And it was good. Decent roast chicken that actually tastes of chicken is a rare thing indeed a restaurant. Almost as rare, in fact, as coq au vin, which was my choice. This was the real deal: three chunkly pieces of leg and thigh falling off the bone but still juicy, an inky black sauce and (I suspect) more of that rillon as part of the garniture. On the side a little pot of exceptional spätzle that made the waiter come over all unnecessary when I was ordering.

Dan had the piggie burger. It's odd to see burgers on a menu that's otherwise so relentlessly French but let's face it: the French know about both meat and sandwiches so why shouldn't they be able to perfect a burger? Turns out they can. Perfect pinkness, perfect seasoning, perfect fries, perfect bun: this was surely the perfect burger... Until we got to try another freebie, "The Frenchie", which ticked all of these boxes but also some another ones we hadn't considered before. Some umami alchemy involving confit pork and Morbier cheese rendered this the best burger I can recall tasting. And I've had a few.

After all this, we were too stuffed to contemplate pudding so we allowed ourselves to be upsold some macarons with our coffee instead. The strawberry ones were a bit jammy dodger for my taste but the hazelnut versions were cracking.

We were lucky enough to have a second chat with Daniel, who won't be in town for long, and the general manager, in whose safe hands the place will soon be left. We may have been getting special treatment because of our alleged importance as food bloggers but they both seemed genuinely delighted with our positive reaction to the food, interested in anything we thought could be improved and generally thoroughly enthusiastic about what had clearly been a very successful opening week. We were even shown the guest list for a "little gathering" of fellow chefs who were coming over later that evening: Robuchon, Atherton, Darroze, Hartnett, Blumenthal, Blanc, Wareing, Galvin, Bossi... There were 40-odd in total and it was like a Who's Who of current UK cheffery. With Gary Rhodes and Brian Turner thrown in. Boulud is already joining this list of household foodie names and on the evidence of this first meal it's easy to see why.

Bar Boulud, Mandarin Oriental, 66 Knightsbridge SW1X 7LA 020 7201 3899