Hereford Road
Above: Tom Pemberton's much-anticipated eatery Hereford Road is 'worth the wait'
Opening a restaurant is a fraught business. Given the vicissitudes of planning permission, licensing, builders, health and safety, fire certificates and a thousand other annoyances, it is remarkable that any open at all.
Take Hereford Road, for example. An over-eager publicist had already posted glowing reports of both restaurant and chef – Tom Pemberton – on Wikipedia, before the restaurant had sorted things out amicably with the local council: the same publicist, presumably, who claimed that it is located ‘on the site of an old Victorian butcher’s shop’.
Maybe, but in recent decades it had been the home of Veronica’s, a weird and occasionally wonderful restaurant which specialised in reviving ancient British recipes: Tudor-style civet cooked in mead with crystallised foxgloves, that sort of thing.
Anyway, after all the gun-jumping, Hereford Road finally opened in October. An early lunch was a little disappointing: a decent pumpkin and bacon soup, then a rather sterile assembly of rolled belly pork with lentils, which could have done with more melting crispiness and a spoonful of pan juices.
A few weeks later, and things perked up splendidly. ‘Stark’ is the best word for the décor, although habitués of St John and St John Bread and Wine, where Pemberton has spent the last few years at the stove, would probably view it as almost rococo in style. The main room is spacious and airy, with a circular skylight (on my visit, looking up to serenely blue skies) and the starkness tempered with generous, six-seater, red leather booths. Out front, the kitchen and bar area are done out in smart white tiles (aha! the butcher’s shop motif), while smartly-dressed staff go efficiently about their business.
That I felt I was sitting in the IKEA directors’ dining room may have had as much to do with my starter as with the Scandinavian rigour of the interior: two generous chunks of smoked eel, with faultless beetroot and pungent horseradish. Fergus Henderson, Pemberton’s ex-boss, thinks horseradish should have ‘an emotional quality’, and this example was tearfully good. Bread, freshly-baked and crusty, was superb. I had lots.
Water arrives free, a wilful denial of a few quid which shows purpose and integrity, and the wine list is notable for its selection of well-priced 25 cl carafes, many of which, oddly, work out a few pence cheaper, should you buy three of them, than buying a bottle. My crisp and tart Picpoul de Pinet was perfect with the eel, although the wide-necked carafes look worryingly medical.
Breast and leg of pheasant, served with pickled red cabbage and a potato rösti, could have had its feathers more assiduously singed, but it was juicy and richly flavoured. Service was professional, from the ‘Enjoy!’ ‘You’re welcome!’ school of hospitality (although, to her credit, on seeing me grappling with the pheasant, she thoughtfully provided a finger-bowl, rather than ringing the RSPB).
Pudding was a perfect chocolate cake of the flourless type, with pool of chocolate sauce and a jug of cream, allowing you to doodle artistically as your arteries harden. It might, just about, be a British cake, but it definitely has an Austrian grandmother.
Hereford Road is St John West in many ways (which sounds like a saintly tuna, come to think of it): terse menus, gutsy cooking, some challenging ingredients, a lack of frills, and a sense of grown-up conviviality. It was definitely worth the wait.
Lunch or dinner for two, with wine, around £70
Hereford Road, 3 Hereford Road W2; 020 7727 1144 www.herefordroad.org
Bill Knott