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Is it a disco? Is it a bistro? Is it some crazy combination of the two, with French waitresses getting down as the chefs mix up some kind of disco stew?
Actually, Discobistro is the latest scheme from the self-styled “itinerant” chef Carl Clarke, who has attracted a strong word-of-mouth following for his pop-up ventures Rock Lobsta and God Save the Clam. He has now settled into a grown-up restaurant — they even take bookings — but only for six months, so you’ll have to hurry.
The idea is, apparently, to create a “culture clash” between two styles of dining. In the pub downstairs (a Carlsberg and Sky Sports sort of place), Clarke offers a “trashy” menu, which involves various invertebrates in sandwiches with chips. In the airy room upstairs, he cooks dainty sounding dinners involving lavender vinegar and pennywort. To confuse matters, when we turned up on a recent Friday lunchtime, he seemed to be serving a mash-up of both.
We settled in some benches upstairs, taken from a 1980s Routemaster, and eyed the taxidermy squirrel as we chewed on the bar snacks, which came in little plastic baskets. Popcorn arrived peppered with lobster dust mingling with the puffed fat of a pig (£4). Tangy chicken wings were sticky with a marinade of perry vinegar (£5). The item that has excited London’s food groupies is a lobster corn dog — a funny little thing, which crams a surprising amount of lobster into a stick-based snack (£7.50). It arrived with plum ketchup, which did something soothing to my hangover.
We divvied up four mains between three. The bacon-heavy house burger (£9) came “French-dipped”, which means it had been dunked in cow-juice, a practice that would horrify the French but which pleased us, as the fats dribbled down our wrists. Morsels of hake in a crunchy batter sat in a shallow trickle of gherkin and tarragon sauce, and some punchy crinkle-cut fries turned it into grown-up fish and chips (£14). Beef underblade fillet was a little dicey to be served so rare but it was a flavourful cut and came in a notable house sauce (£15).
We were a little confused by a plate of charred broccoli with shavings of Berkswell cheese and sheep’s yoghurt arranged around a glutinous semi-poached duck egg. It was a little like an eight-year-old playing Chopin in the middle of an electro night. A dessert of candied pumpkin with clementine jelly and chocolate mousse (£6.50) simply did not work, the childish flavours curdling in a way that reminded me of that moment when the birthday party made you cry.
61 Carter Lane (above The Rising Sun pub), EC4. (discobistroec4.co.uk; 07850 630 129). Lunch £60 for two with wine.
