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Much has been made of the "transformation" of Kings Cross over the last few years. The stunning redevelopment of the St Pancras Renaissance hotel, the new Eurostar terminal, the remodelling of Kings Cross station itself and now the opening of the Granary building and a new wing of St Martins College are all evidence of the vast sums of money that have poured into the area, and of course these are all for the good. But actually, plenty of the "old" Kings Cross still exists and is just as grotty as it ever was. Instead of turning out of the station towards the smart Regents Canal developments, for example, head over to Argyll Street and see how many seedy hotels are still lurking around. And based on the alarming signs on the doors of the kebab shops on Euston Road, pickpockets still operate at very much pre-regeneration levels there.
So perhaps the "transformation" isn't so much about cleansing NW1 of petty criminals and grotty tenants than it is just giving people something else to associate with the words Kings Cross. And there are certainly plenty of nice new things - not least the vast dancing fountain outside the Granary building, which I spent a good twenty minutes transfixed by as I waited for my lunch companions to turn up. This incredible piece of water art is worth the journey alone, and despite my empty stomach it was very difficult to drag myself away from it and into the queue for food at Caravan. I'm glad I did, though.
You can (apparently) book a table at Caravan in the evenings but not during the day, and I was worried the first-week hype (and some good reviews) would mean a long and hungry wait. In the end though we were seated in around five minutes - or perhaps it just felt like five minutes once I'd knocked back a couple of house cocktails (the Cherry Gimlet I can recommend; a horrible Bloody Mary with about half a pound of grated horseradish in it I can't).
Food continues the Australasian brunchy theme from the original outpost on Exmouth Market. There were lots of things involving eggs and bacon, and (this not being a complaint at all) lots of things fried. My own choice - a "Raclette" (of sorts) French toast with spinach and bacon was everything you'd want in a hangover-cure breakfast, with plenty of crunchy melted cheese, a good slab of excellent bacon and just enough spinach to make you believe you might be doing yourself some good.
Jalapeno corn bread also played a clever game in combining ingredients alternatively tasty/filthy and tasty/healthy. There was a surprising punch of chilli in the fried bread, and the egg had plenty of good runny yolk, but our favourite bit was the chunks of green tomato on top which had an extraordinary amount of flavour and a lovely bouncy texture. It's a shame you don't see more green tomato on menus.
Best of all, though, was a salt beef "bubble" (sort of a fried potato fritter) which would have been worth the £9 even without the two perfectly-poached eggs perched on top, covered in hollandaise. The chunks of beef were thick and fatty (this is a good thing, in case you were wondering) and the deep-fryer had added crunchiness without greasiness. In fact it was a laudable feature of all three dishes mentioned so far that the combination of textures and cooking ability had produced some pretty impressive results.
Which is why the "Fried chicken and waffles" was all the more baffling in its utter ineptitude. It must be pretty difficult to cock up waffles, but these were thick and bland and bready, like slabs of pressed sand. Pickled chilli did absolutely nothing other than make you wish it wasn't there, and even the maple syrup was strangely thin, like it had been diluted with water. But the chicken itself was disastrous - a huge, square slab of desperately dry chicken paste, coated in greasy unseasoned breadcrumbs. It was a dish so out of place with the delicate touch shown elsewhere that, for once, we felt compelled to mention it to the staff.
It turns out that the "paste" was chicken leg meat, removed from the bone, shredded, pressed into a brick, coated, then deep-fried. "Why don't you just serve a breaded, deep-fried chicken leg?" was our obvious question. "Yes we might do that, now you mention it." was the disarmingly honest response. And to their endless credit, the Chicken Brick was removed from the bill and no more was said. Still, it makes you wonder what was going through the chef's head in the first place.
I will give Caravan the benefit of the doubt and assume the rather, er, rustic toilet arrangements won't last - I have nothing against unisex cubicles per se, I just would rather the two pretty girls doing their makeup at the bathroom mirror didn't have to raise the volume of their conversation over the sound of me taking a piss. But there is still enough to like about Caravan Kings Cross. The staff are energetic and attentive (just as well in a large room that sees so many customers during the course of a day), the room, with its high ceilings and exposed brickwork, is a gorgeous space to spend time in, and if you're into that kind of thing I'm reliably informed they take their coffee very seriously, with a huge roaster at the back of the room being pressed into service very shortly.
Most of all about Caravan, I liked the feeling that these were people doing things differently. I know there may be those of you who could reel off a list of Australasian brunch spots in London but I've never been to places like Lantana or even the original Exmouth Market Caravan and I was genuinely surprised how well it was all (well, most of it) done. Brunch has never been a native British preoccupation, and yet neither were burgers or hot dogs or any number of current foodie obsessions until certain people just started doing them well. And Caravan, for the most part, is doing what it does very well indeed.
8/10
A couple of weeks after suffering at the hands of a huge, geographically vague menu at Cha Cha Moon, here we are in a brand new restaurant in Kings Cross that has exactly the same problem. Look at the size of it - Brunch, Lunch, Larder, Hot Starters, Wood-fired Oven, Not Wood-fired Oven (weirdly), Puddings, Ices, it goes on and on and on. And I can see why they wouldn't want to lump quite so many items under anything so prosaic as "Starters" and "Mains" but how the hell am I supposed to know which of "Speck & pickled quince" or "Vegetables a la grecque" - both filed under "Larder" - are big enough for a starter without guessing based on their price?
Karpo is also billed as an American-style diner, but despite the appearance of a burger, "Shrimp & grits" and a Macaroni cheese, the rest of the dishes seem to hail from more or less anywhere. There's risotto with buffalo mozzarella, sourdough toast with Gentleman's Relish, a fish taco (lunchtime only) and Omelette Arnold Bennett (for breakfast). It is usually a good idea to be wary of anywhere trying to master too many cuisines under one roof, so first impressions of Karpo, not helped by the strangely soulless décor (complete with walls of plastic ivy), are not great. In that case, why did I end up enjoying myself so much?
Perhaps because, unlike Cha Cha Moon, the food at Karpo is worth the effort. The menu may be confusing and way too big but everything we ate was at least good, and occasionally very good. A trio of things on sourdough toast - whipped lardo, white bean purée and aforementioned "Gentleman's relish" (not out of a little white tub but made in-house) were all lovely - bursting with flavour and freshness. Speck with pickled quince was only adequate - I always think restaurants have something to hide when they serve their supposedly premium ham with fancy distractions - but was at least a generous portion for your £7 and disappeared quickly.
"Southern-fried quail" was as good as you'd hope, remarkably moist inside for what can be a dry bird and cleverly butchered so as to remove all but the biggest bones and sinew. It came with an astonishingly good celeriac slaw which cut through the ever-so-slightly-too-greasy quail and the breadcrumb coating on the meat contained a very commendable go at the familiar Southern-Fried mix of herbs and spices. I'd like to see the range of deep-fried poultry at Karpo expanded, based on this example.
The one main-sized dish we tried, a hanger steak with bone marrow and shallots, was also very decent. Seared deftly to rare and enhanced rather than swamped by the addition of rich marrow and caramelised roast shallots, it wasn't perhaps the hugest portion for £15 but you couldn't fault anything else about it. Boston Baked Beans were more generously pitched at £3.5 for a fairly large bowl and were just as rich and satisfying as the ones I'd ordered from a BBQ place in Boston a couple of years back, so no complaints there either. And Hasselback potatoes were a more interesting alternative to roasties and had a great flavour.
I wish we'd had more room to try some of the more interesting baked goods (Karpo do Macaroons as well as Eccles cakes and fresh cookies) but we just about managed to squeeze in a small bowl of assorted ices; all very good but I was particularly taken by a shocking pink rhubarb sorbet which is my hot tip if you go to yourself and fancy a dessert.
There will be those who find it easier to find fault with Karpo than I do; it's hardly a budget option, I've mentioned my issues with the overlong menu and the unfriendly décor, and indeed my friend wasn't taken at all - "like eating in a shopping centre" she said. But if you choose wisely enough (and make the most of the lovely staff to help you on this front), enjoy the great wine list with its healthy number of rare biodynamic and organic options (we had some lovely examples by the glass but don't expect me to tell you which - one was an Alsace Riesling I think) and start with a cold martini, there's a very good chance you'll come away happy.
7/10
I was invited to review Karpo
EDIT: I'm reliably informed that Karpo actually contains real ivy, not fake. Happy to put the record straight on this!
Although I try to never approach a restaurant expecting it to be brilliant - there's only the inevitable can happen when you set your prospects too high - there was a part of me really hoping my meal at the Gilbert Scott was great. Then I could lead this review with the subtitle "Great Scott!" and go on to draw many tortured parallels between the painstakingly researched retro menu and the Back to the Future films. Actually, on second thoughts, perhaps it's a good thing it wasn't great after all.
That's not to say there wasn't just about enough to enjoy. Worth a journey almost in its own right is a mooch around the fantastic and lavishly restored Midland Grand Hotel (sorry, I should say the St. Pancras Renaissance), the intricately painted high ceilings and gothic carved stone pillars making you wonder if this is what it might be like having lunch at Hogwarts. The first room you find yourself in is the bar, which produces cocktails every bit as impressive as the room - my Bloody Mary was powerful and tomato-y, and garnished with some kind of preserved or marinated cherry tomato on a metal cocktail stick shaped into a flying swan. Nice touch.
And then through we went to the vast dining hall, stretching into the far distance in a gentle curve, framed by even more lavish gothic detail and 20ft high windows. It was a bit of a surprise in fact, given the huge space the restaurant architects had to work with, that so many of the tables seemed squashed so close together; we were sat in-between two other couples barely two feet away on either side, and the table to our right had their chairs arranged onto one side as if our meal was part of the afternoon's entertainment. I munched with practiced nonchalance on the (nice) house bread, all the time acutely aware I were being watched silently from the corner and trying desperately not to catch their eye.
Starters were as good as you might find in a half decent gastropub, though not really worth the price tag. "Mushrooms on sippets" (£8) despite the eye-catching title was in fact just mushrooms on toast, edible but surprisingly bland for something containing huge chunks of bone marrow. "Dorset crab, brown and white crab, pear, hazelnuts" (£10.50) was better, the crab in particular being brilliantly fresh and sweet and with a generous scattering of shrimp, but although we liked the addition of pear and hazelnut the huge pile of unseasoned rabbit food dumped on top needed dressing and seasoning. Even a squeeze of lemon would have lifted it.
I enjoyed my chicken and snail pie (£17.50) although, again, you have to wonder about the price. It's a nice space to eat in and I'm sure the billions of pounds spent on this huge listed building need to be clawed back somehow, but really, this was a pretty small pie, only half filled with presumably cheap ingredients, and although having plenty of flavour and nice tasty pastry it didn't exactly feel like value. "Soles in coffins" (£22) was good, perfectly cooked, meaty lemon sole wrapped into little parcels (maybe these were the aforementioned "coffins") and with more very tasty brown shrimps and crunchy samphire. We couldn't taste any vermouth in the cream though, and despite the trendy retro title this was in the end a fairly straightforward dish.
We had heard lots of good reports on the desserts at the Gilbert Scott, not least the "Mrs Beeton's Snow Egg" (£7), a sort of an Ille Flottante topped with crunchy toffee bits and containing a hidden cache of liquid caramel inside. It was pleasant enough, not a great deal more than the sum of its parts, but there's still plenty to like even in a by-the-numbers Ille Flottante and the addition of the hidden caramel was a nice touch. Much better, in fact enough to push the overall experience up another mark out of ten, was a hilarious deconstructed "Jaffa Cake" (£7), with sharp slices of whole orange marmalade pressed onto a chocolate and biscuit dome and accompanied by a delicate scoop of Earl Grey ice cream. It was at once familiar to anyone who had scoffed Jaffa Cakes in their past (and I imagine very few British people haven't) and also fresh and inventive, a genuinely inspired dessert and one that had also presumably taken a bit of time to get right, and in contrast to the savoury courses, then, a remarkable bit of value.
With a bottle of sharp £35 Austrian Grüner Veltliner and a single Armagnac taking place of a coffee or cheese course, the bill came to £154.75 for two. It's (sadly) not a fortune by central London standards and nowhere near as violatingly expensive as some other hotel restaurants (hang your head in shame Apsleys), but it still felt (with the exception of that Jaffa Cake dessert) like an unremarkable gastropub lunch taking advantage of its location to bump up the prices by 50%. Also, the bill included an item guaranteed to make my blood boil, a cover charge of £2/head which "covered" no more than two slices of OK bread and butter each. Service was haphazard, too - the staff seemed to congregate in nervous groups from time to time, furtively whispering amongst themselves, before splitting and dashing off into the corners of the room, all the while cleverly avoiding eye contact with any guests. It took a great deal of time to track one down and pay the bill, although they were pleasant with it. I'd write it off as opening period nerves although the place has been opened over a month now and I can't see it improving a great deal further.
The Gilbert Scott is not a bad restaurant, and given the choice between this and any number of other horrible chains lurking up the road at Euston station, I know which one I'd prefer to have welcome people into London, or indeed sent happily on their way. And I did notice an "Early Supper" menu served between 5:30-6:30 which at £24 for 3 courses is a slightly cheaper way of getting your fill. So maybe I'm just picking fault because I can, and because the mistakes are easier to notice than anything else, and not because there's anything here that would really put most diners off. In this glorious old building, in an area of London not blessed with much else worth spending your money on, it's doing a pretty good job. Not quite great, then, but perhaps good enough.
7/10
Spanish cuisine is one of the things that London seems to have been doing very well of late; I've never had anything less than a great meal in all of the Brindisa outposts, and places like Dehesa and Salt Yard are consistently excellent, so I was understandably frothing with anticipation at the prospect of visiting London's first, dedicated sherry bar. The idea appealed hugely, and seemed eminently sensible. Think of how many "fusion" restaurants are actually any good - when was the last time you went anywhere that did an excellent fish and chips AND an excellent Thai green curry? It just doesn't happen. The key to a good restaurant or bar is not to try and be all things to all people, but to focus on what you're good at, and do just that one thing VERY well. You won't find Tayyabs putting chicken korma on the menu because some people don't like spicy food - those people just won't go to Tayyabs. And quite right too.
I would have happily blown my own hard-earned cash on an evening supping chilled Tio Pepe and folding in slivers of freshly-carved Jamón ibérico, and in fact very often have, but I was lucky enough to be invited to Bar Pepito on the press night, and didn't pay for any of it. This report, then, comes with the usual caveats that apply to many of these press launches - they give you far more free booze than is good for you, the service is eager to impress, and the PR people are charming and informative. But I have a very strong suspicion that even without any of this, I still would have fallen in love with the place. First of all, it's a lovely little spot, tucked away in an old warehouse around the back of Kings Cross, with attractive bare brick walls and and a very authentic Iberian feel. Secondly, the quality of the tapas is absolutely top notch. Not only do they have a wonderful selection of Spanish cheeses (albeit sweating slightly in the heat of the room - an airconditioning unit will be required to get them through the summer months I think), but they also have a qualified "Master Carver", who last night was expertly carving a leg of genuine pata negra into a plateful of delicate wafer-thin morsels.
And last but not least, the sherries. Despite the owners being Gonzalez Byass they have a commendably liberal selection from other producers, neatly categorized into 'Manzanilla', 'Amontillado', 'Fino' and so on. The Tio Pepe Fino (£3.50 a glass) was as good as ever, but I also managed to try a glass of a sweeter 'Matusalem' (£5.50) which went very well with the cheeses. I'm a complete sherry novice, and I'll leave it to others far more knowledgeable and qualified than me to go into more detail on the drinks, but I thought they were both superb.
Sounds like the perfect bar, so far, doesn't it? And that's kind of the problem. It is. And in a part of town crying out for just this kind of post-work casual-but-different drop-in spot. And it's attractive, and reasonably priced (a plate of that lovingly-carved, top-quality Iberico is £15, a steal compared to some places), and friendly. But it's absolutely tiny. With barely a half dozen customers Bar Pepito would feel buzzy - in full flow on a Friday night I'd be very worried you wouldn't fit inside at all. But then again, the courtyard outside has tables and chairs, and soon summer will be here and happy customers will spill outside with chilled Fino and plates of ham and all will be well with the world. Until then, I strongly urge you to visit Bar Pepito before the secret's out and it's packed to the rafters every night. Because it will be. You mark my words.
I was invited to review Bar Pepito. Initially they will open Wednesday to Saturday from 5pm until midnight.
