59 Wells Street, London W1A 3AE (020 3963 8270). Small plates £6-£14.50, big plates £12.50-£20.50, desserts £6-£9, wines from £30
I remember the betrayal as if it were yesterday when, in truth, it was a Thursday evening in July 1981: Top of the Pops night. I had taken up position in front of the television, the loyal sentry, ready for the most important event since, well, whatever the last one was: the new Spandau Ballet single. I had thought To Cut a Long Story Short not merely a cracking electro dance tune, but a cultural artefact of great importance. It involved tartan worn unironically, raging drums and huge declarative vocals. Listening to it made me feel serious. Musclebound was even better. Grease me up and send me out on to the Mongolian plain. I had seen the future and its name was Spandau Ballet.
Now, here it was: Chant No 1 and… what the actual? What in God’s name had they done? This wasn’t a New Romantic, tartan-clad, floppy-fringed piece of post-industrial electro pop. This was, oh God, funk! I watched for about 90 seconds then turned off the telly and walked away in disgust. After all I’d done for Spandau. After all that loyalty, all that arguing with Charlie Lewis about why they were better than Teardrop Explodes, actually.
In time I got over it. I learned to love the shiny pop of True. But the lesson remains: if you’ve made your name by driving down the middle of one lane, you’d better think hard before swerving out of it. Rovi, the new restaurant from Israeli-born chef Yotam Ottolenghi, is a lane swerve. It’s a subtle one, but a swerve all the same. For a start it is modish, in a way Ottolenghi has never been. Of course he’s been new before, but it’s always been his newness. It’s a mark of his brilliance that, through his delis, cookbooks and Guardian columns, he has created his own space full of charred vegetables and big-shouldered salads that somehow manage never to collapse under the weight of their myriad ingredients. He showed us how to use sumac. He was his own trend.
Rovi takes hungrily from others. It’s a live fire restaurant, because this year gas rings are simply regarded as one long bored eye roll. The kitchen here ferments with gay abandon; at Rovi, Lacto Bacillus isn’t the new Lithuanian chef de partie, but a major part of the process, because Skandi flavours are in. There are Japanese references, too – dashi, tempura – which feel very un-Ottolenghi. There’s also an uncluttered simplicity to the food. Prior to this his food has always been about piles of things heaped in bowls. His was the unmade bed of cooking. This is cleaner and tidier.
From the very first the food makes an argument for itself. It’s a Chinese restaurant-style prawn toast, but one that’s been completely re-engineered by someone greedy enough to get their hands dirty. Instead of toast it’s a crisp-shelled, buttery crumpet. Instead of prawns it’s roughly chopped lobster, under a crust of black and white sesame seeds. On the side is a chilli dipping sauce, which is sour and salty and hot and fresh and flecked with the bright red of a new knife cut. This is a snack in Dr Martens. Another dish from the same list brings slices of bolshie, heavily spiced duck pastrami, surrounded by hunks of pickled and fermented vegetables: candy pink radishes, ravishing carrots the colour of a sunset, the darker funk of Swiss chard stems.
The one clear marker that this is an Ottolenghi venture is the vegetable-led menu. There are full-on meat dishes, but so far down menu you’ll be challenged to leave space given the lure of what precedes it. Sweetheart cabbage has been slow roasted until it has collapsed into louche, buttery petals. It is smeared with a little salted anchovy and dressed with a dashi broth (there’s a fully vegetarian version, too). Various alliums – onions, spring onions and the like – are grilled until the sugars have started singing, and dressed with seeds and crisp sage leaves. To one side there is a bright sour green “gazpacho”, held back by ramparts of whipped salty feta.
But the show-stopper is the celeriac shawarma. It’s a killer idea, brilliantly executed. Who knew that if you took celeriac and gently roasted it for an age, it would turn into something deep and sticky and rich? Clearly, Ottolenghi did. It is served under drifts of crisped onions inside their own gnarly pita bread with, on the side, more fermented chilli. It’s a total eye widener. It is a late-night kebab with a PhD. Yes, the £14.50 price tag feels enthusiastic, but then look at this damn room with its polished marble, plum-coloured, club-class-lounge banquettes and back-lit panels. We’re in Fitzrovia, my loves. All that isn’t going to pay for itself.
Onglet skewers are pleasing enough. Much better is the Jerusalem mixed grill: a dark, seared pile of lamb sweetbreads, chicken livers and hearts and a few other things besides. It’s the meaty innards others scorn. I’ve had other versions of this where, courtesy of a tahini dressing, it’s been heavy and dull. This is light and brisk, the whole thing helped along by more dainty piles of ferments and pickles in children’s picture book colours.
This is vivid, thrilling stuff. Yes, if you go for the works you will build up a big bill. But this is cooking that stays with you. A couple of dishes will set you up very nicely. Indeed, at the end we have space for only one dessert which oddly, given Ottolenghi’s skill at pastry, is a letdown. It’s an apricot clafoutis, baked inside fig leaves. The problem is that it appears to have been pre-baked before service and then reheated, so the sweet batter is heavy and thudding. It’s a bit clumsy. I’m told you should go for the chocolate and beetroot fondant instead.
One other negative. Historically, us Jews don’t drink very much which may explain why Ottolenghi has come up with a wine list designed to discourage you from doing so. Between courses you can play “hunt something affordable”. Why would anyone write a wine list without at least a few bottles below £30? It’s unnecessarily exclusive. I suppose the only alternative is to get drunk on the terrific lane swerve of a food menu.
News bites
Husband and wife team Itamar Srulovich and Sarit Packer worked for Ottolenghi before setting up the much-loved Honey and Co on London’s Warren Street and its larger sibling Honey and Smoke on Great Portland Street. It too has an open grill. There are grilled lamb chops with spiced plum sauce, smokey aubergine with a chilli and garlic marinade and flat bread parcels filled with spiced roast chicken (honeyandco.co.uk).
Kerb, the umbrella group for street food operators, has just launched its first meatless market, in London’s Devonshire Square development, at lunchtimes from Wednesday to Friday. Traders will include the vegetarian Korean BBQ stand Hanok and vegan pizza makers Little Leaf (kerbfood.com).
In more meatless news, Pret A Manger is to open its first veggie branch outside London next month, in Manchester’s Deansgate. It follows the success of the original in Soho, which opened in 2016, followed by two more in east London.
Jay Rayner’s new book, Wasted Calories and Ruined Nights: A Journey Deeper Into Dining Hell, is published by Guardian Faber at £5. Order a copy for £4.30 at guardianbookshop.com
Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @jayrayner1
The headline on this article was amended on 30 September 2018 December
