Eastside Inn
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Bjorn van der Horst is just the sort of chef/patron we need more of. His reputation may have taken a bit of a knock when he was chef of Gordon Ramsay’s short-lived La Noisette, but his previous stint at Mayfair’s Greenhouse had made clear he was a classical chef of note. And now, having spent the last year preparing for the launch of Eastside Inn, he’s shown himself one of the too few top toques brave enough to launch out on his own. [read more]
Many chefs talk about wanting to serve the food that they themselves like to eat, but it’s just as important for a venue to be the kind of place that the owner feels comfortable in. So when chef Bjorn van der Horst and his wife Justine decided to open their own restaurant, they not only put together a menu that they genuinely enjoy but the venue too was designed to reflect their personality and lifestyle.
The inspiration behind the concept was born of the couple’s love of hosting dinner parties at home, where they found that the kitchen was often the centre of party. It’s this easygoing and welcoming ambience that the couple are aiming to recreate at Eastside Inn. For that reason, a large open kitchen and counter shared by two restaurants – a bistro and fine-dining restaurant – is at the heart of Eastside Inn. The venue also has an intimate private dining room, a jazz lounge and late license to make guests feel as homely as possible.
The food too provides a snapshot off Bjorn’s life. Having learned his craft in the kitchens of some of the world’s most famous chefs including Joël Robuchon and Alain Ducasse, the plush section of the restaurant provides contemporary and creative French dishes, whilst the Bistro - where we dined - provides a rustic menu influenced by Bjorn’s upbringing in France.
French onion soup was full of chunky croutons, sweet onions and rich gruyere to create the most perfectly cosseting dish for a cold November night. Conversely, Baby squid was a far more delicate affair, with touches of paprika & lime vinaigrette. Mains again took me to rural France, with an outstanding Cassoulet, full of tender pork, flavoursome sausage and haricot beans; it’s only available on Tuesdays so make sure this is when you visit. Roast duck with peppercorn sauce was predictably less inspiring, but well cooked and plenty tasty. They also passed the ‘chip test’ with flying colours, with their unusual method of cooking French fries in beef dripping & sumac plants. Desserts too were excellent, with an intensely rich Araguani chocolate mousse-like ganache and a subtle but no less impressive Apple tart; apparently it had been basted with butter every 10 minutes whilst being baked for 3 hours, which probably explains why the sharp apple flavours melted away into the thin yet rich pastry.
Food: 4/5
Venue: 4/5
Value: 3/5
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The wine list is in its early days but has some very good growers and spans the world, while mark-ups appear quite varied. Examples are the Egon Muller Riesling Kanta 2006 at £40 for a wine that will cost £17 to buy in the shops, Mulderbosch Chenin Blanc 2007 at £30 for a wine that will cost you around £7 to buy retail and, at the higher end, Tignanello 2004 at £165 for a wine that costs around £64 to purchase in the shops. Bread appeared later in the meal, and showed the care and attention that the chef has put into sourcing. The supplier was a new one to me, Boulangerie de Paris (actually based in Uxbridge), run by an ex-chef at the Capital. The sourdough was nicely made but the star was a baguette with superb crust and airy texture; the latter was one of the best breads I have tasted in London (6/10 overall for the bred, higher for the baguette).
We began with slivers of foie gras flavoured with sea salt served on toast, the terrine sliced very thinly but having good liver taste and smooth texture (5/10). A little cube of fromage de tête with caviar was rich, the caviar giving a welcome saltiness (6/10). Next an almond gazpacho was thick and tasty, making use of celeriac and garlic, and a bold shot of pepper to liven it up (6/10). A starter of warm Scottish lobster was carefully cooked, the lobster having no hint of chewiness (something few restaurants get right), served with caramelised endive and a rich vanilla brown butter; a luxurious dish (6/10). I preferred this to braised eel with spring peas and broad beans with a little basil and garlic oil, where the eel flavour seemed surprisingly subdued (4/10).
For main course I enjoyed aged rib eye of beef (the beef from a small farm in Yorkshire, aged for at least 28 days), which had excellent flavour and was carefully cooked, having enough fat to give good taste. This was served with a smooth mash of ratte potatoes, a good olive-flavoured jus, pecorino salad and a little lettuce; personally I’d have preferred something more exciting than the lettuce for the greenery, but the beef was very good indeed (6/10). Wild salmon from Scotland was seasonal and had the lovely depth of flavour that you only get from wild salmon, which is so rare these days. This was simply served with excellent cucumber and sour cream, with gravad lax on toast served on the side tasting nicely of dill (6/10).
Cheese is supplied by La Fromagerie and here was a selection of just three cheeses in good condition: Swiss Etivez (rather like Comte), an Irish goat cheese from County Clare called St Tola, and ripe Roquefort (6/10). This was served with more of the excellent bread.
For pre-dessert, a verbena sorbet was well made and served attractively on a block of ice, though I am not sure whether verbena is so well suited to a sorbet, reminding me of the scented soap it is often used in (surely a sorbet of, say, grapefruit, peach or champagne would be more appealing?). Both desserts we tried were presented as spheres, one of white chocolate and one of meringue. The former had a filling of milk chocolate and popcorn sorbet, the latter of raspberry and pistachio sorbet, with a little popping candy. Both seemed to me to promise more than they delivered in the pretty presentation, the contents merely pleasant (4/10). Coffee was good, served with a very good macadamia nut and a chocolate mousse with coconut that had good taste but was fridge-cold (5/10). A final sweet taste of home-made yogurt with red fruit and thyme compote seemed overly sour to me, and while it is ever-so trendy to mix herbs in with desserts these days, I remain unconvinced by the notion.
Service under the experienced Thierry Sauvanot was very well-drilled, and indeed the whole operation was remarkably smooth for a restaurant that had literally been open for four days. Overall the food, while certainly having room for improvement in some areas (particularly the desserts), is already in borderline Michelin star territory, and I have little doubt that it will settle down and attain this level in due course. I found the menu interesting, the produce showing unusual care in selection, and cooked with a high degree of technical skill. I have initially scored this 5/10 based on the meal tonight, but it certainly has the potential to go higher.
About two-thirds into our dinner, just after we’d finished our main courses, my dining companion (she wants to be know as The Brunette but obviously that’s not going to happen) popped out for a quick cigarette. She came back saying the bistro of The Eastside Inn looked a lot more appealing: more fun and the food simpler. She had a point. On our side of the tracks everything was all a bit, uh, beige.
In Britain some of the best food and most enjoyable experiences are now to be had in pubs and bistros. In this new restaurant world order the Eastside Inn – well the fine dining side at least - seems a bit of an anomaly, a throwback.
All the old tropes of high-end dining are present and correct here: the décor understated and snooze-inducing; the service a bit stiff and uninvolving; the tiresome attempt to get you to buy Champagne; the enthusiastic overfilling of wine glasses with the bottle placed out of reach.
There are endless amuses and pre-desserts which could be interpreted as generosity – they’re all included in the £45 prix fixe menu – but after nearly three hours at the dining table seemed more like cruel and unusual punishment. Some of these problems could and should be eliminated over time. More problematic was the food itself which in several instances was muddled in concept and execution.
Of the amuse bouches the best was a refreshing red gazpacho that had what I took to be ajo blanco ladled on top. A nice palate enlivener. Of the other two a thin sliver of foie gras was good (as foie gras often is) but very salty. A small cube of head cheese came with a blob of caviar and was a bit cold but okay. No bread was offered which is a bit odd in any level of restaurant these days.
Our old high-end chum Mr Foam made an appearance in a Foie Gras starter. It’s interesting how coffee can work well in savoury dishes and here in the form of an espresso syrup it combined well with the liver. The Foie could have done with a little more cooking - it was that side of softness that gave it a sloppy, unpleasant texture – and the foam covered most of the dish making it look like someone’s morning cappuccino.
Braised Veal Sweetbreads were a big disappointment. Sweetbreads when cooked properly should be have a creamy, melting texture within. These were overcooked – sautéing them may have been the better treatment. The dandelion would have worked better if the whole didn’t come drowned in one of those unsubtle sauces that coated your mouth and killed the taste of everything else.
It’s at times like these that it would be good to be able to jettison out of a meal. Given what we’d had already eaten I could, by extrapolation, work out what was to come and it didn’t look so appealing.
There were good elements to our main courses. The Brunette’s (damn) Turbot was a decent tranche of fish cooked very well, but, and I know it was billed as a blanquette, it was overwhelmed by the cream sauce. The limp skin had been draped unappealingly over the flesh with some more nappage in evidence. Fish by itself, fine. Sauce by itself, fine. Together, not so great.
Similarly, my Salt Marsh Lamb was very good, as were the Gnocchi but the sauces were all over the shop. The tapenade would have been enough. Funnily, enough I can remember an excruciatingly bad curry sauce I’d had with lamb at La Noisette. It seems that Mr van der Horst has, as we say “form” in this area. Someone should call the Sauce Police.
The Cheese trolley rolled up and The Brunette says yes please. Not so clever later on when she realises it carries a £15 supplement although this did include a couple of half glasses of wine (a Juracon and a Vin Jaune). Roquefort, an Irish Goats cheese and one similar to a Comte were in good condition but why not more choice ? I also got to taste the bread which disappointingly was not made in-house but brought in from, to quote the waiter, a big French bakery in North London. No, me neither.
We were both visibly wilting by now and The Brunette wanted to leave but dammit we were going to see this thing through to the end.
Several of the desserts had that quality which reminded me of the Johnson quote about women preaching. Exhibit A in this category was a small blob of sorbet tasting mostly of a herb, whose name escapes me for the moment, which was presented on a big block of ice.
The two Orbs which comprised the main dessert (no choice apart from Gold or White Orb) were presumably supposed to elicit ooohs and ahhhs but arriving when they did only invoked inward groans not least from one of the waiters who burnt herself lighting one of them. That’ll be the Vacherin Flambée then. They at least had the benefit of not being over sweet and were relatively light in texture. Likewise, the PFs which were pretty good.
Several years ago Nico Landenis and MPW handed back their Michelin stars and decided that the future of restaurants lay in a less formal, more casual dining experience. Time will tell as to whether I’m the only person in EC1 to concur and wonder at how prescient this now seems ?
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