Pubs & Restaurants: The Compass (Islington N1)

The Compass, 58 Penton St., Islington

We found ourselves stranded near St. Pancras of a Saturday lunchtime, and the solution seemed obvious: To Angel we will go.  A perfect opportunity to try The Compass, a well-regarded gastropub at the corner of Penton Road and Chapel Market, about 6-minutes walk from Angel Underground.

Great happiness ensued.  Here’s why:

First and foremost, the food was delicious. The dishes were well prepared, imaginatively constructed and gorgeously presented. More on that later.

Second, from the clean, simple pub décor to the relaxed banter of our server, we felt wholly welcome, as if we had been regulars for years rather than strangers who happened in off the street. To anthropomorphize, The Compass seems entirely comfortable in its own skin, without a hint of pretense or superciliousness.

Now the details.

The main dining room is a typical pub room, with a dozen or so typical pub tables; there is dark wood everywhere, bathed in soft natural light from the south facing windows. The only clues that this is not a simple neighborhood boozer are the open kitchen tucked in the corner behind the bar, and the fact that all of the tables are set for dining. There are two other families here with babies and prams; it seems we’re finally getting the hang of finding good places to eat at off-peak hours, which certainly makes dining out with a seven-month old and his enormous pram much easier.

Heidi and Jack peruse the menu

The bar offers three cask ales, which the website says are “regularly changing.” Two of the three pouring at our visit—the Adnams Bitter and the Whitstable East India Pale Ale—are also pictured on the website, however, so I can’t vouch for how “regular” that “changing” may be.  We started off with the Bath Ales Barnstormer, a deep, reddish-brown bitter that is firmly hopped but well balanced, with hints of fruit and distant echoes of chocolate. The Whitstable IPA, in contrast, was a cloudy pale yellow, with a wonderful hop aroma and fruity late-hop flavor; in my opinion, it was inadequately bittered for the style and ran thin on the tongue. That said, both beers were served in excellent condition.

(The server gave me a wine list, but if you want to know anything about it, you’re reading the wrong review.)



Braised featherblade with beetroot and wasabi mash



The menu is modern English, and our initial reaction was that it promised much – an interesting variety of dishes, with some imaginative combinations.  Would the chef’s execution fulfill that promise? We decided to try two very different mains: the braised featherblade[1] with beetroot and wasabi mash, and the whole plaice in a moules marinieres sauce. Both were wonderful.

The featherblade was as enjoyable to look at as to eat: a succulent piece of beef set atop a mound of beet-colored mashed potatoes, swimming in jus, beautifully garnished with contrasting and complementary colors. The star of the dish was the mash, the spicy wasabi playing against the rich, rounded flavors of the braised beef.

The plaice lacked the dramatic flair of the featherblade, but it was a fine dish. It was simply prepared, pan fried in a light batter, served whole, sauced with a restrained moules mariniere. The result was an airy, flavorful mouthful, the mussels in the sauce providing a texture and flavor contrast to the delicate white fish.

Whole plaice in sauce moules mariniere

We finished the meal with a cheese board, on this day including a bleu d’Auvergne, a chevre and a camembert. All three were richly flavored and delicious, each in its own way, and I could kick myself for forgetting to note the cheesemakers!

The verdict: All things considered, possibly the best gastropub experience I’ve had since coming to London. We shall return!

---

[1] Americans would call this cut a blade roast or chuck roast.

Restaurants: The Butcher's Hook, Fulham

The Butcher's Hook, 477 Fulham Road

There are few things in life I love to hate more than Chelsea Football Club. Had I known anything about The Butcher’s Hook when I selected it, more or less randomly, from The Good Food Guide 2011, I likely would have reconsidered my choice. That would have been a shame, because this is a superior gastropub.

If you are as ignorant as I was, here’s a little background: The Butcher’s Hook sits at the corner of Fulham Road and Holmead Road in Fulham, directly across the street from the Stamford Gate (east) entrance to Chelsea FC’s Stamford Bridge[1] stadium. In 1905, the pub on this site was called The Rising Sun, and it was here on March 10 of that year that Henry Augustus Mears and Frederick Parker founded Chelsea Football Club. Indeed, The Butcher’s Hook hosted the Chelsea FC centennial celebration shortly after it opened in February 2005.

Wonderfully, none of this history is apparent in the pub. We arrived for a Saturday lunch to find the main room large, clean and inviting, with simple stripped-wood floors and furniture, white walls and natural lighting muted by sheer white curtains. The tables are well spaced, giving the room an open and relaxed ambience. 

Space for the pram, and a nice cabernet, too!.

The bar was pouring two cask ales, both from Greene King; my IPA was served at the perfect cellar temperature and carbonation level. The Butcher’s Hook emphasizes its wines, however, having been named the Best Wine Pub for 2008 by The Publican. They do have a large and varied wine list, with many selections also available by the glass and 500 ml carafe. The menu suggests wine pairings with several of the starters and mains.

The Butcher’s Hook describes its menu as having a “strong British slant,” and perhaps many of the dishes have roots in traditional British cuisine, but chef Jacky Lelievre’s French roots are plain to see in the preparations.



Delicious mushroom & gorgonzola pie.

 As we often do for lunch at a new restaurant, we chose to sample and share a variety of starters. We were pleased with all four; three of the four were excellent. The standout dish for me was the mushroom and gorgonzola pie; the mushrooms were musky and meaty and blended perfectly with a restrained, creamy gorgonzola; the pastry crust was flawlessly light and airy, vanishing in one’s mouth to leave a hint of texture and flavor. The confit pig cheeks were rich and tender, the crispy onions and lentils accompaniments giving it depth and range at each end of the flavor scale. The beer-battered whiting goujons[2] were light and crispy and delicious. Only the Old Spot port and sage terrine wasn’t exceptional—but it was still quite good, particularly with the caramelized onion marmalade. Even the basket of sourdough bread that preceded the meal was deliciously tart and crusty and notably superior.

The one flaw in the meal was dessert. Heidi had an own-made hokey pokey ice cream. The flavor was bland—on par with a generic supermarket vanilla—and the texture icy.

I have complained about gastropub service in the past; I have no such complaints about The Butcher’s Hook. The room was rather crowded by the end of our lunch, with one very large party occupying much of our server’s time. Nevertheless, she remained responsive and helpful throughout our meal, and the serving staff generally was quick and friendly.

Overall, we had a very positive experience and would happily return to The Butcher’s Hook—its unfortunate connections to Chelsea FC notwithstanding!!

---

[1] The name of the stadium has nothing to do with the famous Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066, which occurred nowhere near here. If you are curious how the stadium got its name, the story is on the Chelsea FC website.

[2] “Goujon” is, essentially, an upscale restaurant word for “fish finger.”

Restaurants: The Old Bull & Bush

Tucked away in a charming corner of North End between Golders Hill Park and Sandy Heath, The Old Bull & Bush bills itself as a “country pub and eating house.” In truth, since its renovation in 2006, The Old Bull & Bush looks and feels a lot more like an urban restaurant than a country pub—and a mediocre restaurant, at that.

The place certainly has historical pedigree. There has been a pub on the site since 1721, and the current building is Grade II listed. Artists William Hogarth (1697-1764), Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) and Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) all drank here. The pub was the subject of a hit song called “Down at the Old Bull & Bush” before The Great War.

Yet one gets little sense of this history from the modern interior, and on a recent Sunday visit there was nothing about the place that felt like a “pub.” The bar has some period features—an open fireplace, an exposed beam running the length of the room, a plaster arch over the bar, a few well-worn wooden tables and benches—but they are offset by such jarring modern juxtapositions as silver metal tables with gray felt-covered armchairs, insipid charcoal drawings of wine bottles covering the walls, and cow-skin rugs reminiscent of the sort of roadside souvenir stand in the American west that hawks faux Native American jewelry to hapless tourists. The staff were promoting Bloody Marys rather than cask ales; they offered a wine list, but no beer menu. Only two casks were on, both London Pride.  A return visit on a weeknight proved better for the beer—they were pouring three cask ales, all in good condition—but the atmosphere still felt more like a modern restaurant bar, not a 300-year-old English pub.

A family Friday in the OB&B bar

Judged as a restaurant, The Old Bull & Bush gets mixed marks. The dining room has a pleasant ambiance: the black wooden tables are well spaced and provide a nice colour contrast to the light floor and walls. The indirect lighting provides a soft, comforting glow.  We sat in a cushioned banquette built into a bay window that was spacious and comfortable.

Some of the food was good. I had a side dish of wild mushrooms sauteed in garlic, and they were fresh and meaty and delicious. Our appetizer was a well conceived dish of scallops set on a bed of cold mango and mixed vegetables; the scallops were fresh and sweet, and I enjoyed the contrasting textures and flavours of the fruit and vegetables. (I thought the dish called for a better sear on the scallops, but reasonable minds can differ.) And, unexpectedly, the espresso drinks we had to finish the meal were excellent, and proved the highlight of the meal.



Ample signage, methinks

On the other hand, our main courses were very disappointing. Heidi, ever searching for mussels to equal those we had in Ballyvaughan, got a bowl of mussels so grossly overcooked they had the texture and flavor of a soapy kitchen sponge. My pan-seared duck breast was poorly executed, and turned out tough and flavourless.

The service, too, was spotty. Our server was friendly, quick and attentive—when she remembered that we were there.  Diverting her attention away from her telephone proved to be a challenge.

Overall, although there were high points, this was a disappointing dining and drinking experience at this price point.

Restaurants: The Holly Bush



The Holly Bush



There is no place quite like The Holly Bush.[1] Although only meters from Hampstead tube station, the pub is tucked away on a quiet cul-de-sac at the top of Holly Mount, accessible from Hampstead High Street only by a steep stairway or an uphill climb along a narrow road.  As a result, it is an urban pub with a country-pub feel.

The building is worthy of its location.  The pub was built in 1643 as the stables of a house later owned by painter George Romney; shortly after Romney’s death in 1802, the stables were converted to a tavern, and pints have been pouring here since 1807. Artist John Constable gave an art lecture in these rooms in the early 19th Century; physicist Michael Faraday debated, by gas light, the utility of electricity. It is rumoured that Samuel Johnson and James Boswell drank here, and that the ghost of a long-departed waitress still takes the occasional food order.

The Holly Bush is now a Fuller’s pub, pouring a range of Fuller’s products on five casks, including the ubiquitous London Pride and the richer, more flavorful ESB. The drier Harveys Sussex Bitter also is available, on a sort of permanent guest-beer basis.  I have been told that The Holly Bush pours the best pint of Sussex in London; I look forward to trying to verify that claim.

The food is generally very good gastropub fare, but it can be inconsistent.  I have tried only one starter, a terrine of foie gras with chutney, that I found very pleasant for the price point.[2]  My braised venison shank was excellent—served on the bone, the meat was flavorful and tender, and the sauce thick and rich.  The steak-and-ale pie is superior, and it looks as good as it tastes.  The fish pie is smokey and creamy, packed with fresh, firm chunks of salmon and haddock. The sides and desserts have been uniformly good—the roasted vegetables in particular were sweet and cooked to the just the right texture. 

Enjoying a recent Sunday roast at The Holly Bush

On the other hand, I have had a roasted lamb breast that, although beautifully presented, was very chewy and fatty. Similarly, I found the Sunday roast sirloin tough and under seasoned—although I must disclose that both my wife and daughter disagreed, and happily gobbled up their portions.

I have been quite pleased and rather disappointed with the service, sometimes simultaneously.  For example, on one crowded Friday evening during the Christmas season, we booked ahead through Toptable, but The Holly Bush never received our reservation. Nevertheless, and despite being fully booked, the staff quickly found us a table and seated us for dinner. But then, once our food orders were taken, our server seemed to disappear—I cannot imagine how much money has been lost by The Holly Bush and other gastropubs because servers infrequently (or never) return to take additional drink orders while diners are waiting for their food. If a pub is going to adopt a restaurant table-service model and charge restaurant prices, its diners have every right to expect restaurant-quality service.

And one more small complaint, while I’m at it—can someone please turn down the heat?! The place is unbearably hot, in both the front and back rooms, far too often.

That said, I have been very pleased with my experiences at The Holly Bush, and it has become our default local option for both a pint and a meal.  I recommend it highly.

[1] For my impressions of The Holly Bush as a pub-crawl destination, see my post here.

[2] I qualify my evaluation of the foie gras by price point because, perhaps unfairly, I cannot help but compare this dish to the transcendent terrine of foie gras de canard served at Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bistro in Beverly Hills, which is the most delicious thing I have ever eaten.

---

Restaurants: Bye, Hi Sushi!

We realized last night that we hadn’t been out for sushi for over a year due to Heidi’s pregnancy and our move to London, and we determined immediately to put an end to that.  I wish we hadn’t.

For us, finding decent sushi at reasonable prices is one of the great joys of dining out.  Back when we were courting, Heidi and I often made a point of catching the happy hour special at Paradise in Hermosa Beach; I still yearn for their Rock ‘n Roll.[1]  And, of course, it was at his first sushi all-you-can-eat night that John Binford famously pronounced, “How can I know if I’m full if I don’t know what the hell I’ve eaten?”

First Impressions

Hi Sushi on Hampstead High Street

So it was with a great deal of hope last night that we visited the Hampstead location of Hi Sushi, which operates seven restaurants in London, for their all-you-can-eat buffet. The space was small but inviting, with bright white lighting and walls, light natural wood floors, frosted glass or laminate tables, and brightly colored cushions.  It is divided into three sections, with normal booth seating in the front and rear sections, and in-floor seating in the middle.  By “in-floor seating,” I mean exactly that—the floor has been raised and holes have been cut to accommodate the tables. Patrons sit around the tables on cushions set on the floor, with their legs beneath.  (See photo below.) This gives the visual impression of diners seated, Japanese style, on the floor, but is more comfortable for westerners accustomed to chairs.  Getting into the seat, however, is still a bit awkward for big fat guys like me.

The Service

We were four (three adults and baby Jack) and had not booked a table (travel tip: always book ahead at a London restaurant, if possible!), but they quickly found space for us at a shared, in-floor table. Score one for the service. But while Lucinda, Jack and Heidi took their seats, I was sorting the pram outside, and when I went to join them I was brusquely challenged by a small, sphinx-like woman garbed in black—one of the staff, I later discovered—who demanded to know whether I had reserved a table. I will say only that it is possible to make this inquiry politely, and that perhaps sphinx-woman might try harder in that regard.



The "in-floor" seating at Hi Sushi

Having passed the gatekeeper, I sort of half-slid, half-rolled into my seat to have three tacky laminated food menus (and a rather sparse drinks menu) tossed onto the table in front of me. This was a persistent problem throughout the evening.  Because the tables were so low to the floor, the staff is forced to bend down or squat to reach the table top.  This is particularly difficult when carrying armloads of plated food, resulting in the staff pretty much dropping or tossing things onto the table rather than placing them gently down.  The couple sharing our table, for example, saw their long-awaited, carefully arranged platter of sushi scattered when the server put the it down edge-on and then let it drop clattering to the table top. I swear one of the salmon rolls executed a perfect Fosbury Flop into the soy sauce.

We glanced at the menus and quickly put them down, because they said nothing about the all-you-can-eat buffet. We waited (and waited, and waited) for our server to return; when she did and we explained that we wanted the buffet, she reacted (in Lucinda’s words) as though we were second-class citizens.  Which was quite odd, as everyone in the entire restaurant was having the buffet.  In any event, she took our drink order and promised to return to explain the buffet, which (eventually) she did.

An aside about the English use of the word "buffet": As far as I can tell, it does not denote here that you're going to grab a plate and serve yourself from a bunch of chafing dishes. Both "buffets" we have been to in England involved traditional table service. The only difference from a regular restaurant meal was that the menu was limited and (theoretically) we could get more food if we wanted it without paying more money. But more on that below.

The many all-you-can-eat sushi nights that we’ve been to in L.A. have all had a consistent, simple structure: You pay a set fee per person, and you can order as much sushi as you want for a fixed period  of time, usually 90 to 120 minutes.  Drinks and a la carte items are extra, and if you order a bunch of sushi you don’t eat, you might get hit with a small surcharge.

In contrast, the buffet at Hi Sushi is governed by a complex and arcane set of rules, and by the time our server finished explaining them to me, I was glad for my legal education and 20 years of experience—particularly as our server lost patience with explaining the rules to the entire table, so she charged me to explain them to Heidi and Lucinda.

Anyway, if I understood correctly, the rules go something like this:

You pay £16 (about $25) per person, plus service charge, and you get two lists.

List #1 contains about a dozen items of hot food (tempuras, teriyakis, spring rolls, etc.). The table can order up to 7 items of hot food, but you only get one shot at it—you don’t get second portions of anything, and you can’t place a second order to get items that you missed out on the first time around. So, I was cautioned, consider carefully whether you want the chicken teriyaki or the chicken katsu, because there’s no going back once you've made your choice.

Our List #2, with the unfulfilled second sushi order

List #2 contains sashimi, nigiri sushi, and rolls. The table can only order 5 of these items at a time, but you might get a second shot at it, because you can order 10 of the items up to 3 times. The other 8 items (the "Extra Bonus" items) can only be ordered once, but unlike the hot food, they don’t have to be ordered in the first go—you can order additional previously unordered single order items in your second order or third order. (Did ya get that?)

And apparently there’s a time limit, too, but the server didn’t really explain that part.

So we place our orders and they promptly bring out some miso soup and, a bit later, some edamame (both off our hot food list), and then the server comes to tell us that because they’re so busy our sushi order is going to be delayed 30 minutes.

We look around. The place isn’t that busy.

So about 4 minutes later, they brought out the entire sushi order.

And that was pretty much the last time we saw our server. We prepared a second sushi order—Heidi calculated that the meal would only be an accetable value if we ordered at least  four more items, some of which had to be sashimi—but no one came to take the order, and we were sufficiently indifferent to eating more indifferent food (see below) that flagging down a bus boy of the speeding bus boys seemed more effort than it was worth.

The Food

The food was not terrible. But at these prices, "not terrible" is not nearly good enough.

The hot items we ordered were, without exception, mediocre to poor. I have had far better food at the Mitsuwa supermarket food court for less than half the price. The miso soup lacked the rich umami flavor and mouthfeel that is the whole point of miso soup; the chicken katsu was dry and the katsu sauce unremarkable; the chicken teriyaki was bland and a bit stringy. The Japanese spring rolls were decent, with a crisp exterior and hot, crunchy vegetables inside.

The sushi was somewhat better than the hot food, but it was not good value.  The fish was fresh enough and the rolls were well constructed with fresh ingredients, but neither the negiri nor the rolls were especially flavorful.  The nicely textured seabass negiri was perhaps the best of a mediocre lot. Heidi thought the undisclosed use of imitation crab in the California rolls was a major negative; I cannot really complain about that, as the classic California roll has always used imitation crab.

The Beer

Finally, a note about the beer.  As far as I’m concerned, the highest and best use of a Japanese light lager is to accompany sushi.  Last night, I drank Asahi and Heidi drank Kirin.  The beers were £3.50 for 333 ml (12 oz.).  That’s pretty expensive, but I might pay £3.50 for a good Japanese beer to accompany a good meal.

Note that I said Japanese—if you have ever had a Japanese light lager from Japan, you will know that they taste different than the licensed products widely available in the United States and, it turns out, in the U.K.  The Japanese versions (or so I am informed) are slightly higher gravity and higher alcohol, and to my palate taste richer and maltier than the licensed products.

The “Asahi” I had last night was brewed not by Asahi in Japan, but by Shepherd Neame in Kent. The “Kirin” Heidi had was, in fact, brewed by Heineken in Edinburgh. I can tell you unequivocally that I would not pay £3.50 in a pub for a 20 oz. pint of any Shepherd Neame or Heineken beer.  I see no reason why I should pay £3.50 for a 12 oz bottle in a restaurant.  Again, not good value.

So, bye, Hi Sushi. You weren’t the worst I ever had, but there’s no reason to give it another go.

---

[1] Don’t consider that a recommendation—Paradise has fallen far and hard over the years. Based on the visible lack of basic hygiene when last I was there, they should probably change the name from “Paradise Sushi” to “Paradise Now”.

Restaurants: Big Fat Greek Flop

The problem with watching Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares (the U.K. version, which is much less focused on contrived foul-mouthed confrontations, melodramatic voiceovers, and cockroaches than Kitchen Nightmares U.S.A.) is that, once you’ve seen what some restaurateurs get up to when no one is watching, you never again want to eat at a restaurant unless you’ve first inspected the kitchen.  Inevitably, you think, the “chef” will be some catering school drop-out who would rather be smoking hash out back, or some lazy line cook will sauce your lamb shank with disgusting goop that’s been left out for the rats to use as a toilet, or the entire dinner will have been bought in pre-made from Sainsbury and reheated in a microwave.

I can't say for sure, but it sure seemed to us that the last of these is what we got at Bacchus Greek Taverna in Hampstead on Friday night. We were looking for an early dinner after our Friday night pint at The Holly Bush; Bacchus is right down the hill on Heath Street. It’s brightly lit and has a charming enough interior, accented with vaguely Greek bric-a-brac.  When we showed up at the door with a pram – always a tricky proposition, because most restaurants here are very small and, by London standards, Jack’s pram is the size of a small lorry – the staff were very helpful and quickly made space for us.

Heidi went upstairs to use the restroom, and while she was gone I realized we probably had made a mistake.  The other parties in the restaurant all were American.  That doesn’t necessarily mean they were tourists, but it was a pretty good indication that the locals were not flocking to Bacchus to satisfy their cravings for Greek.

Then I realized that the conversation behind me was, in fact, a diner sending back an entire plate of lamb, complaining that it was unchewable.  (Credit the wait staff – the waitress immediately offered to bring him something else, and the manager tried to comp the meal, an offer the diner refused.  I’m glad he paid for it because both he and his companion were the sort of irritating pretentious prigs that sometimes make me ashamed of my American accent. Someone needed to pay for making me sit within earshot of their interminably self-centered, self-righteous conversation.)

The menu offered the same Greek stuff you can get at any Greek restaurant anywhere, according to Heidi, who actually lived in Greece.  (Me, I haven’t been to a Greek restaurant since 1988, when I went to a place on 113^th Street in New York and discovered that I don’t like grape leaves. Okay, last parenthetical, at least until the next one.)

For a starter we ordered spanakopita, which is feta cheese and spinach wrapped in filo dough.  Sounds delicious, doesn’t it?  It wasn’t.  I don’t know Greek food, but I’ve cooked with filo and I know how it’s supposed to be – crisp and ultra-flaky and absolutely divine.  What we were served was soggy and mushy, obviously frozen and reheated.  If you’ve ever reheated a two-day old egg roll in the microwave, you know exactly the consistency I’m talking about.

For my main course, I ordered moussaka (a bit like a Greek shepherd’s pie) and Heidi got chicken kebab with rice pilaf.  I suspected immediately the moussaka had been bought in, because it was served in exactly the same sort of single-serving dish you would get from the frozen food case at Waitrose.  Also, the layer of béchamel and cheese on top was suspiciously smooth and uniform, as if it had been machined, like one of those plastic food displays you see in Japanese restaurants.  To test my theory I drilled down to the middle, and sure enough, it was cold.  Frozen and reheated, poorly.

Heidi thought her kebab was okay. It’s hard to screw up little cubes of (supposedly) grilled chicken, but to me, the chicken looked like it had been sautéed with the heat too low – there were no grill marks, and only tiny patches of browning.  There was no question, though, that the rice pilaf was grossly undercooked and soupy.  I tried a forkful, and it was like chewing pebbles in a watery paste sauce.

When the dessert menu came, all pretense was dropped.  The dessert menu clearly had been printed for Bacchus and provided by the catering company that supplies the (probably frozen) desserts – I know this because the catering company’s logo was on the back of the menu. Needless to say, we passed on pudding.

The Verdict: Two thumbs way, way down.  It’s a shame, really.  A reasonably priced, family-run Greek place serving fresh, rustic dishes would be a nice alternative to have in this neighborhood.