![]() ![]() To serve pork neck as a meal for two, with what looks like a bubbling vat of toasty cauliflower cheese but, confusingly, is girolles persillade, is a piece of theatre that draws envious stares from every other diner in the room. (But oh my what a toastie: ripe, fruity, brine-washed ogleshield oozing like raclette all over glorious sourdough.) The confidence to let vegetables shine, perhaps a hangover from Borthwick's time spent with Michel Bras, the French guru of veg, but with none of the tortured grandstanding that can come with this kind of CV. The confidence to put a cheese and ham toastie on the bar menu at the same time as pig's head "kremeski" (sic) with tarragon mayonnaise. The confidence to accessorise a generous hunk of pork belly with little more than roast cauliflower and savoy cabbage, sophistication coming from an almost throwaway blob of the most intense, bitter grapefruit purée. If I were to try to find a word to sum up Merchants Tavern, it would be confidence. This is food that hugs you and puts a woolly scarf around your neck. I've eaten from the sensibly-priced lunch menu, too (£18 for two courses, £22 for three): wood pigeon, its innate earthiness blasted up a few notches with sticky beetroot and more hazelnuts rosy collops of lamb neck, nutty barley and a soothing onion purée. Borthwick is fond of gentle pickling: a truffle-soft tranche of mackerel, for instance, is given real glamour by its fennel, orange and horseradish sidekicks. There might be quail, juicy and with a seductive whiff of bonfire from the grill, with a scattering of toasted hazelnuts and a wibbly square of foie gras: the culinary equivalent of storming through rustling golden leaves, but without the nasty surprises. I've been a couple of times now, and each time the menu is different, but intensely seasonal. That, and the acquisition for the launch of FOH boss Thomas Blythe, one of the capital's most accomplished workers of a room. Design is studiedly undesigny: only the beautiful, jewel-coloured endpaper pattern on the menu gives a hint as to the seriousness of intent. The room then spreads out dramatically: bustling open kitchen vast skylight offering a moody vista of blank-eyed buildings and fire escapes low, sludge-green banquettes and mid-century-modern lamps. You enter via a bar with a subfusc, almost Edward Hopper-ish quality, where the cocktails are justifiably billed as "sharpeners" – my Dr Henderson The Younger, spiky with the recherché flavours of Punt e Mes and Fernet Branca, is about as sharp as it gets. ![]() ![]() This handsome restaurant is a collaboration between Angela Hartnett, her partner Neil Borthwick and the chaps behind true Brit mini-chain, Canteen. The humble spud is allowed to shine, to show that it's every bit as sexy as the gussied-up parvenus.īut I'm getting ahead of myself. It's not a poncey purée or ambitious aligot it's just mash, as dense and stiff as the stuff they'd serve at school dinners, if school dinners were catered by a deity. ![]() I'm guessing here: it could, of course, be made using that molecular process whereby butter isn't used at all and it's all diastatic malt powder, but somehow I doubt it. The slightly smoky flesh of baked potatoes is scooped out and passed through a ricer until entirely smooth, then whipped with what tastes like appalling amounts of good butter. It's also one of the most voluptuous: I've been dreaming about it ever since, waking up with the kind of sigh of longing I once reserved for dark-haired, tattooed rock gods. The mashed potato that's served at this deceptively low-key newcomer is one of the simplest. YouTube stats: 4 new videos uploaded yesterday.I n the frenzied search for the newest, the wildest, the farthest-out culinary rushes, it's easy to forget simple pleasures. Tags: Management (187), Simulation (180), Building (175), Medieval (144), Strategy (129), Resource Management (123), Indie (95), City Builder (87), Top-Down (81), Time Management (79), Relaxing (78), Atmospheric (68), Singleplayer (67), Crafting (65), Stylized (64), Historical (59), 3D (43), Adventure (32), Dungeons & Dragons (22), Casual (11)Ĭategory: Single-player, Steam Achievements, Steam Cloud Languages: English, Russian, French, Italian, German, Portuguese - Brazil, Turkish, Spanish - Latin America, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese You start with a very small room, couple of benches and tables and build your way up to a huge successful tavern with a kitchen, rooms for guests, group of loyal staff and much more!ĭeveloper: Untitled Studio Publisher: Untitled Studio, WhisperGames Tavern Master is all about managing your medieval tavern. ![]()
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