‘This fixed-menu idea is nothing new, but the Pidgin team have made it fresh and vibrant as a citron pressé’
In the restaurant business, there are bad amateurs and good amateurs. The bad ones will have made a few bob doing something else and think, “I’ll have me some of that.” They buy brick tiles and industrial lighting by the metre, smoke themselves some pig and stand back, waiting for the queues and rubbing their thighs. The good guys are those who, as the name suggests, just love the industry with a not-to-be-denied passion and, despite not being pros, can’t imagine doing anything else.
It’s into this latter category that I’d put the people behind Pidgin: James Ramsden and Sam Herlihy (neither trained in the restaurant business, but with a successful supperclub under their belts), alongside Elizabeth Allen in the kitchen. Allen’s most recent gig was at Neil Rankin’s ballsy Smokehouse in Islington; she’s staged at L’Enclume and has a love for Asian flavours – miso, sake lees, shiso, dashi. The result is bewitching.
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