No-nonsense quality food
Where to go for simply good food at a fair price? It isn't so easy to say. One answer I would give now is Medcalf, in Exmouth Market, having myself been taken there by a friend.
From 1912 to 1978, Medcalf was a family butchers. Then the premises lay long empty, until Clerkenwell became just too trendy for such an anomaly. In 2003, this restaurant and bar opened, keeping the listed shopfront, boasting Cash Butcher, and casually fitting out the room behind with an odd assortment of tables and chairs. It's a restaurant that likes to pretend it's just a gastropub, if not a neighbourhood bar, if not about to revert to a high-class butcher ...
The menu, which changes daily, is appealingly no-nonsense, in the neo-brutalist style established by nearby St John: "Chopped liver, toast", say, or "bavette steak, chips, horseradish" - just like that, if you please. But the quality of the ingredients and the precision of the cooking make the food itself infinitely more rewarding than any overwritten tosh, promising the diver-caught or hand-reared.
On a recent visit, we had "palourde clams, tomato, wine, leeks, parsley" (at £7.50, the most expensive starter) - an utterly delicious, simple take, sans pasta, on one of the tastes that Nigella says she'd consider for a last meal. Whitebait, tartare (£5.75) was crispy and irresistible, as always when well served. Equally obvious, equally good was battered plaice, mushy peas, chips (£12.50) - done about as well as it could be. Here, too, grilled sea bass was perfectly cooked and came with a refreshing cherry tomato salad and green chilli pesto. And we couldn't manage another thing, not even the finelooking British cheeses with oatcakes and homemade chutney.
The wine list is strongly Spanish, even the whites, beginning at £13.50 for a Sauvignon Blanc, £14.50 for a red Rioja and an I"urrieta rosÈ from Navarre - and the atmosphere's prosperously liberal and laidback. There is, be warned, a "strong music policy" and in the evenings you'll encounter "sun-drenched soul, raga, disco and funky flavas", unless you've already eaten up and gone home, happy. Despite the low-key presentation, it's still likely to cost £70 for two in the evening - but, for once, worth every penny.
Medcalf
Exmouth Market, London, EC1R 4QE
