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'I can't remember a meal that prompted so many actual, physical reactions'
It takes the pal I delegate to get a table 74 attempts. He comes away irritable and with incipient RSI: "Nothing is worth this amount of hassle." Seems he's impervious to what restaurant observers call hypesteria: the condition of being so wound up by an imminent opening that you work yourself into an actual frenzy.
Normally, I'm not even vaguely interested in that kind of nonsense, but here I am witnessing Story's baby steps: hypesteria got to me. And it's just as I imagined, the air steeped in jittery anxiety, the staff like nervy meerkats. If 26-year-old chef Tom Sellers weren't quite so confident in his own ability, I'd feel sorry for him. Within nanoseconds of launching, it's booked to the rafters and overexcited pundits are feverishly pronouncing it "the new Dabbous". Oh, yikes, that was me.
Story is so out there, it verges on pastiche: a wooden construction on the site of a public lav, sauna-meets-Tellytubby house. Out the back, a smoker belches away (and I don't mean a Bermondsey local). Inside, a Noma alumnus with his tattooed colleagues. The restaurant reactionary who's forever bleating about honest scran in comfy surroundings will hyperventilate at the very thought. I know I did.
And then food starts coming and you shut the hell up. "Snacks": cod skin crisped into translucent almost-paper; nasturtium flowers cradling oyster sabayon; a rectangle of tender rabbit stuffed with tarragon-scented mousseline and topped with soused carrot of different hues. They're as decorative as modern art and as neckable as Pringles. Then raw scallop with the slippery sweetness of a first snog, spiked with horseradish cream and more nasturtium, and served with cucumber spheres black with dill "ash": sensory light and shade.
I knew Sellers was one to watch when I helped judge (anonymously) the YBF Awards last year, and was enchanted by the arrival of a candle in a vintage, nursery-rhyme holder. It was that rarest of experiences: something genuinely new. A refined version turns up here: a candle made from beef dripping pools into the holder; dense, dark sourdough for dipping; and a relish of finely cubed veal tongue, celery and jellied chicken consommé in a sharp-sweet dressing. Bloody lovely: earthy, piquant, meaty flavours and wobbly, crunchy, fatty textures, all in one mouthful.
I can't remember a meal that prompted so many actual, physical reactions: faces purse like cats' arses at the pain-pleasure bursts of sourness in a rhubarb, custard and cream soda dessert. Moans of horny delight at an extraordinary potato creation, the mash improbably smooth and buttery without dairy but with radishes (both sea and bog-standard) contrarily slathered in wildly buttery sort-of-hollandaise. Gasping at dill "snow" or hooting as barrels of beetroot skite off plates. Muttering and prodding at "Three Bears": three dishes of whey-soaked oats – shaved cobnut and salted caramel; condensed milk; and comb honey, lemon and flowers. "I haven't seen so much gurning since Ibiza 1990," the pal says.
Some of it is squirm-inducing: the story theme is battered insensible, with diners asked to leave a book behind (I was thinking 50 Shades, since I ain't reading it) and each dish comes with its own tale. The candle references Sellers' dripping-loving dad. Onions in varying degrees of seductive, thyme-fragranced charredness tell us about fairground hotdogs, apparently, their fruity gin bath "because Tom loves gin". And there's a distinct lack of humour off the plate – Marmite quips on the arrival of beef cheeks with yeast-baked cauliflower go down as well as if we'd asked for Fosters and ketchup.
Sellers may be cocky enough to call his warm-up London and New York pop-ups "Foreword" and "Preface", but he can walk the walk: his food is genuinely directional. I hope he doesn't do a Heston and serve the same showstopping dishes in perpetuity. For a first chapter, this is a barnstormer. I can't wait to see it unfold.
• Story201 Tooley Street, London SE1, 020-7183 2117. Open Tues-Sat, lunch noon-2pm, dinner 6.30-9pm. Set menu: £45 for six courses, £65 for 10 (lunch, £35 for three courses from either menu), plus drinks & service.
Food 8/10
Atmosphere 7/10
Value for money 8/10