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'I'm tickled by the idea that it's a large Frenchman who's delivering this fresh, almost feminine food'
I visit Grain Store the same week I road test what seems like several thousand burgers, winding up suffused with guilt, shame and grease. A short while earlier, a report told us what we already know: our global consumption of meat is "unsustainable". It wasn't all my fault, guv, honest.
So the menu at Grain Store reads to me like aloe vera feels to the sunburnt: balmy and refreshing. Chef Bruno Loubet, its co-owner (with moneymen Michael Benyan and Mark Sainsbury), insists it isn't vegetarian, more "veg-centric", but every dish stars leaves, pulses or grains, with any meat or fish element – if there is one – relegated almost to the status of garnish. Hey, limelight-hogging flesh, how do you like them apples?
Loubet is a stellar chef: he's had the Michelins and worked with the big hitters. His excellent Bistrot Bruno Loubet is a typically meat-focused modern French restaurant, all snails and meatballs and wild boar ragout. This is quite the departure.
It's huge, for a start, a sprawling space in the magnificent former wheat warehouse that also houses Central Saint Martins and the estimable Caravan. Hard to believe this is once-scuzzy old King's Cross. When we arrive, young, happy-looking people are chilling on the astroturfed steps to the canal; when we leave, Granary Square's dancing fountains are staining the night violet and turquoise. On a hot night, it feels like a different country.
As does the restaurant itself. One pal whispers, "Ikea", and although it probably cost several gazillion pounds, you can see where she's coming from: the white-painted wood, the blond animal skins hanging from the whitewashed brick walls, the quirky lampshades, the "sweetpea" neon in the ladies. It all looks very set-designed. Down one long wall is the kitchen. Not open, goodness no. It's "exploded": all the units are on castors, as if they might wheel over to your table at the drop of a napkin. Towering above his team, Loubet orchestrates with brooding grace. If only I weren't facing the far less enthralling dessert station, where a solitary chap dollops horseradish ice-cream on to strawberries of varying degrees of jamminess (a terrific dish, the sweetness of the lightly balsamic-vinegared fruit chilled and thrilled by the sting of the acerbic root).
Some dishes are successful assemblies: baked beetroots with creamy goat's milk labneh with a sharp, medicinal note from dill oil. (Loubet enjoys the brightness of goat's milk; it turns up again in a dessert of pannacotta with candied cherry tomatoes.) Or a harmonious salad of endive, peas, runner beans and roquefort, with the crunch of hazelnut or little flavour bomb of smoked pepper jelly here and there. Some are more complex: a daily special of gratin dauphinois topped with little almost-fritters of rabbit bathed in salsa verde. Or a tamale filled with a nutty mush of quinoa and sweetcorn, the charred corn-husk wrapper wreathing it in subtle smoke. There's a cube of wobbly, sticky pork belly on the side, and a little jug of gazpacho-ish salsa. Clever, and fun.
Some dishes are less successful: lobster "bloody mary" features mushy "heritage" tomatoes, chilly lobster and a none-too-limpid and underpowered tomato water poured from a cocktail shaker. It has "vodka essence", too. Eh? And the potatoes in the dauphinois have an unwelcome, raw crunch. But a wonderfully light, puffy cherry pancake, like an ebullient baby clafoutis, finishes on the sweetest of notes.
This is sunny food, California dreamin' dishes. Loubet relocated to Brisbane for several years after "burning out" in London, and Oz's relaxed attitude to culinary rules and celebration of the ingredient must also be an influence. I'm tickled by the idea that it's a large Frenchman who's delivering this fresh, almost feminine food. (There's a heavy emphasis on imaginative cocktails, too – truffle martini, tuberose Collins – from cocktail boffin Tony Conigliaro.) It all feels very forward-thinking, rather than rooted in the past. For Loubet, it's a big, brave move. And it's a big, brave restaurant.
• Grain Store, Granary Square, 1-3 Stable Street, London N1, 020-7324 4466. Open all week, lunch noon-2.30pm (11am-3pm Sat; 11am-4pm Sun); dinner 6-10.30pm Mon-Sat. Three courses about £35 to £40 a head, plus drinks and service.
Food 7/10
Atmosphere 7/10
Value for money 7/10
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