London’s most exciting chef’s table restaurants
This article is part of a guide to London from FT Globetrotter
I am closely watching a young chef skilfully stuff sweetbreads between the fat and flesh of a French-trimmed rack of lamb. We are in the tiny former beer cellar of an 18th-century pub that converted into a restaurant with only 12 countertop seats semi-circling an open kitchen. Three chefs beaver away with production-line efficiency; when a dish is ready, one of the men presents it with an explanation to an eager diner. The sommelier is also host and busser. Everyone works front of house.
Chef’s table restaurants — where fine dining meets immersive theatre — have been cropping up in interesting spaces around London, offering diners insider access to some of the city’s most serious cookery. These venues are a playhouse for the gastro-curious (or MasterChef obsessives): the kitchen is the stage and a secret tasting menu, the restaurant’s sole offering, is the performance. Only a dozen or so bookings are available per night.
The 13-course menu highlights produce and processes that even ardent food nerds would be impressed by. What looked like a piece of nigiri turned out to be a thin slice of dry-aged kingfish sprawled atop a nori-flavoured meringue. Glass noodles (created with onion broth and held together by kuzu, a gluten-free thickening agent) were served in a refreshing dashi made with smoked eel and toasted rice — something that itself is seemingly simple but is technically demanding. The benefits of ageing fish became even more evident with grilled trout, so flavourful yet soft, served with a banana and hazelnut miso sauce that could be eaten by a fish merchant’s bucketful.
How might such a fish-focused endeavour do pudding? Spoiler alert: with a bit of fish. Carreira’s Pão de Ló, a Portuguese sponge cake that he topped with toasted fennel-seed ice cream and a dollop of caviar, is a thrilling entanglement of flavour, texture and temperature.
“We’re trying to do something fun, something a bit different,” Carreira said of his menu as Squid Game-like music thumped in the background. Indeed. I stepped out of the dark, cavernous space feeling slightly drunk with bewilderment (and also an excellent Sicilian wine). Those who possess a granular interest in what they eat — or a journalist’s affinity for interrogation — will certainly take in more at The Sea, The Sea than a superb meal. This is experiential dining at its best.
Evelyn’s Table (West End)
The Blue Posts, Cellar, 28 Rupert Street, London W1D 6DJ
Good for: A fun and joyous menu combining Japanese and French flavours and techniques (head chef Luke Selby has worked with Raymond Blanc, Clare Smyth and Ollie Dabbous, and has done a stint in Tokyo too)
Not so good for: You won’t stop talking about it
FYI: Bookings open on the 1st of every month at noon for the following month. Limited to 12 seats per service; £120 per person (prepayment required). Open Tuesday to Saturday (sittings at 6pm and 8.45pm)
What to drink: It’s worth adding the beverage pairing — an interesting tasting menu in its own right, which ranged from cider made the champagne method, to sake, to an obscure Greek wine. It’s £80, or £55 for the little or no alcohol pairing, which the diners next to me said was excellent
Website; Directions
Brothers Theo, Luke and Nat Selby of Evelyn’s TableWell, I hate to say it, but if we really want to irritate the French, it’s time to move on from banging on about British cheese. Instead, share how the best beef tartare, possibly anywhere in the world, is being made in the heart of London, where it is diced and dressed, sprinkled with a little bit of wild-nettle tempura for tasty texture, and served on a large English wasabi leaf. It’s unique, it’s gorgeous — and must be destroyed: rolled up, eaten with hands and devoured like a frat boy shotgunning a late-night taco. Yum.
Like the tartare, the whole menu makes you smile: original, amusing and prepared beautifully — the product of classic French and Japanese flavours and techniques applied to peak British produce, with a wink.
It typically starts with sashimi, such as hand-dived Orkney scallops, opened just before guests arrive to preserve their natural sweetness, served with a concentrated tomato essence (“an homage to Raymond Blanc,” Luke says) and finished with a fruity olive oil. A take on shime saba, Japanese cured mackerel, followed, before a show-stopping courgette flower stuffed with crab mousse, served with courgette purée and finished with a bisque that is itself layered and impressive. Lamb, cooked with a herby Provençal-style breadcrumb, is lightly smoked over burning hay as it’s presented to diners who “ooh” and “ahh” before it’s carved and served.
To even greater delight, the brothers always serve a bao, a steamed bun, as a surprise: when I visited it was filled with grilled lamb belly, seasoned with cumin and black pepper, and served with a date ketchup. “That’s why I love cooking and why I got into it,” Luke says. “You’re giving something that you’ve made and feel very passionate about to somebody else, and there’s such joy in that act.”
Kitchen Table (Fitzrovia)
70 Charlotte Street, London W1T 4QG
Good for: Showcasing the beauty of British produce with abandon — chef James Knappett is a feeder (and doesn’t shy away from big-hitting ingredients such as lobster, foie gras and caviar)
Not so good for: Your finances and cholesterol levels
FYI: Bookings are released by the month, three months in advance. Limited to 19 seats per evening; £300 per person (prepayment required). Open Wednesday to Saturday
What to drink: Grower champagne. The impressive selection is curated by sommelier Sandia Chang, Knappett’s wife and Kitchen Table co-founder, who also runs a wine merchant dedicated entirely to small-scale fizz
Website; Directions
Kitchen Table: ‘So in demand that finally getting a seat can feel like winning one of Willy Wonka’s golden tickets’Halfway through a meal at Kitchen Table, I seriously questioned if, like Roald Dahl’s Violet Beauregarde, my entire body was inflating as a result of greed. I should’ve gone easy on the bread course, but carbs are my kryptonite and it was too good to stop: a crispy exterior enveloping warm and pillowy pull-apart pieces, with a peppery, green butter (it had been whipped with grass). I felt dangerously close to exploding like a giant human blueberry.
Kitchen Table had been on my restaurant radar for a long time, but reservations are so in demand that finally getting a seat can feel like winning one of Wonka’s golden tickets. It’s no wacky chocolate factory, however: the two-Michelin-star Kitchen Table is the Monaco Grand Prix of chef’s tables. It’s the place to go big.
Kitchen Table’s James Knappett jokes that questioning his menu’s cost is ‘like going to a Ferrari dealership and asking why the cars are so expensive’
Knappett’s dishes include turbot served with a dollop of caviar, green almonds, unripe cucumbers, fig leaf oil and cream
The evening begins in the bar area, where guests have an aperitif and their bouches amused with an array of intricate snacks (an oyster with apple granita, a hay-smoked quail’s egg, a crispy chicken-skin wafer). After being led to the kitchen to take our seats, the real show kicks off: scallops (served raw with shavings of roe); white asparagus (with rhubarb and lovage); crab with foraged elderflower vinegar that is fermented in house; lobster with a Goan curry powder and caramelised mango chutney (chef’s kiss); trout, aged for two weeks, fried in fois gras fat, served with fried brioche, and topped with fois gras in case your left arm hasn’t signalled a heart attack yet; brill with a dollop of caviar; and, at this point — clothing feels unbearably constrictive now — a deconstructed baked potato of all things, emulsified with 50/50 butter and cream, and smoked eel, to gear guests up for an enormous cut of lamb that’s been teasing you by slowly cooking in the back corner all night. And then . . . dessert! Pear tarte Tatin with Suffolk Brie — a gorgeous juxtaposition of salty and sweet; a strawberry and elderflower whipped cheesecake that conjures Wimbledon, and a something-or-other with rhubarb that was grown in the dark, I think? My notes were indecipherable by now. Oh, and petit fours. Then a loss of consciousness.
Knappett’s food is elegant, refined, cooked with panache and unfathomable skill, yet it’s showy, unapologetic and loud — like a supercar on a plate. He would tend to agree. The menu price was increased in July (briefly driving the news cycle in chef circles), largely because of shortages and his refusal to sacrifice certain ingredients. “We’re serving the best turbot, the best caviar — you get what you pay for,” he says. Questioning the cost, he jokes, “is like going to a Ferrari dealership and asking why the cars are so expensive”.
The result is a dizzying display of conspicuous consumption (it feels weird writing about it in this economy). But this is special-occasion stuff, celebratory feasting — a Big Night Out, for all intents and purposes. You could have Bezos’s billions and still couldn’t dine like this all the time. Otherwise you’d probably be dead.
Aulis London (Soho)
16a St Anne’s Court, London W1F 0BF
Good for: A convivial, relaxed experience enjoying stunning, sustainability- focused cookery
Not so good for: Social distancing. The eight-seat space is very intimate
FYI: Bookings open every three months; £155 per person (prepayment required). Dinner-only, Tuesday to Friday; lunch and dinner, Saturday. It’s also available for private hire
What to drink: Add one of the wine pairings, crafted by sommelier Charles Carron Brown. Each highlights reliably good wines alongside a couple of lesser known but equally tasty selections. (An alcohol-free pairing is available too.)
Website; Directions
Sweet woodruff set cream with gooseberry juice and rapeseed oil at Aulis London . . .
. . . where head chef Charlie Tayler enjoys ‘getting to chat with the guests and impart the passion we have for the food we’re cooking’
Seeking out Aulis, Simon Rogan’s compact chef’s table, feels akin to looking for a secret spa concealed in one of the city’s most frenetic neighbourhoods. It’s nestled down an alleyway off Wardour Street, and the atmosphere inside the minimalist space is not what you’d expect from an upscale restaurant with a total staff count of three. The ultra-relaxed vibe is meant to be “like stepping into a warm bath”, says Charlie Tayler, Aulis’s head chef, who previously worked at The Ledbury and was mentored by Alyn Williams at The Westbury. “We work really hard [before the guests arrive] . . . to be mellow and chilled when service begins because it’s so guest-facing and interactive.”
Whereas other chef’s tables offer a bit of separation between the kitchen and countertop, diners here are sitting at the stove: dishes are prepared, cooked and plated right under their noses, and the relationship between the chefs and guests is more convivial. “The intimacy makes it a lot more fun for us as well — we genuinely enjoy each service because we get to chat with the guests and impart the passion we have for the food we’re cooking,” says Tayler.
Aulis’s executive chef Oli Marlow
The Aulis experience feels like ‘a dinner party where the (very talented) hosts are cooking and serving food at their kitchen island’
The 13-course tasting menu reflects Rogan’s sustainability-focused, farm-to-table philosophy, using produce mostly from his 12-acre farm at the southern edge of the Lake District. A delicate pastry cigar stuffed with beef tartare, seasoned with a slightly smoky charcoal-infused oil, cured egg yolk and caper jam started off the meal with a fun take on a classic; later came a rich bowl of mussel and seaweed custard — with bits of beef tendon — topped with a spoonful of caviar. While some dishes were deliciously quirky, others were all about showcasing premium ingredients: a slice of turbot, gorgeously iridescent like a seashell and wearing just a thick layer of lovage mousse; two cuts of lamb — a fatty cube of belly and a lean, pink fillet — seemingly simple but bursting with flavour. The most memorable dish, however, was Tunworth cheese ice cream: pungent, unctuous and bizarrely good, balanced with truffle honey and hazelnut. (Tayler warned us that it might be divisive, but all eight bowls were practically licked clean.)
While the food at Aulis is very much worth writing about, it’s the whole package that makes a meal here quite special. Calm, casual and congenial, the experience feels like a dinner party where you don’t know the other guests but you’re all friends with the (very talented) hosts, who are cooking and serving food at their kitchen island. And if anyone has mates who can knock out evenings like the team here, I’d very much like to be introduced.
Endo at the Rotunda (White City)
eighth Floor, The Helios, Television Centre, 101 Wood Lane, London W12 7FR
Good for: An elegant Japanese omakase from a sparky, highly respected sushi master
Not so good for: A quiet meal. Endo commands your attention (but is not overbearing)
FYI: Bookings open every three months. Limited to 11 seats per service; £225 per person (prepayment required). Open Tuesday to Saturday (sittings at
6pm and 9pm)
What to drink: One (or more) of the excellent cocktails made using Japanese and local ingredients. I particularly enjoyed the Yokohama Rose, a take on a Bamboo (one of the first Japanese cocktails, invented in 1890 in Yokohama), made with dry sherry, sakura vermouth and ginger bitters
Website; Directions
Ethereal lighting floats above a 200-year-old hinoki wood counter at architect Kengo Kuma’s pared-back design for Endo at the Rotunda“Please relax — this is not Mayfair,” Endo Kazutoshi, a third-generation sushi master born in Yokohama, announced with a cheeky smile. His restaurant, the one-Michelin-star Endo at the Rotunda, is decidedly not in W1, where you’d more typically find top-end Japanese cuisine (or dimly lit sushi joints for people who don’t eat). Endo wanted to set up somewhere different, opting for the top floor of a White City apartment building with glittering views across the Television Centre development. Designed by award-winning architect Kengo Kuma, the pared-back space is crowned with an ethereal light fixture to make it feel as though you’re dining in the clouds. Endo otherwise does not do modernity.
“Tradition is very important to me,” Endo said from behind the 200-year-old hinoki wood counter, as he handed me an oyster that had been cooked in soy sauce, the base of which goes back 70 years. It had been passed down from his master’s master, and its depth of flavour has been built over time. Even for a chef, Endo is scrupulous about ingredients. An udon dish called “Soup and Noodles” was three years in the making — the length of time it took him to negotiate an agreement with the particular noodle makers he wanted to source from near Okinawa, who work with only 10 chefs. Served with a light broth and steamed abalone, the thin noodles had a firm texture yet almost dissolved in my mouth. They were worth the wait.
Endo Kazutoshi uses a maguro — a sword-like knife — to prepare his tuna tamaki
A third-generation sushi master, Endo brings ‘a theatre performer’s energy’ to his work
Another highlight was what Endo called his “business card”: tuna tamaki dramatically prepared for his 11-person audience with a maguro, a sword-like knife, and popped into folded seaweed like a taco filling. The seaweed was “the best of the best” — from the limited quantities of the first harvest of the year, available to very few chefs (but his family has known its suppliers since the dawn of time). Endo, by the way, makes sushi rice the way God surely intended: flavourful, falls apart just so, yet has an almost creamy texture.
Despite the seemingly endless courses, a meal here doesn’t feel greedy or weighty — and anyway, Endo, with his theatre performer’s energy, wouldn’t let lethargy take hold. “Ometanashi is the philosophy, I want to wake up the guests,” he said, citing the Japanese spirit of hospitality. “It’s about everyone being together, not just to eat. I want it to be memorable.”
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This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Niki Blasina
