This is quite the plate of food: stark, almost bleak in its monochrome simplicity. Everything is shades of pale: waxy potatoes, pearly cod, espuma in a colour that Farrow & Ball would probably call Stornoway Sound, tiny dots of darkest grey. But it's also remarkable in its flawlessness: the cod cooked just so, subtle maillard brushstrokes on top, flesh as tender and yielding as a truffle. The potatoes have been smoked; not the full essence de barbecue, but enough to give them personality. And the espuma is potato foam, as soothing as fine vichysoisse, as airy as a quip. Those dots? Black olives, desiccated into crunches of pure flavour.
I don't normally get so food porny (my word count won't let me), but it's clear we're not in any common-or-garden wine bar. To backtrack: I've been a fan of this corner site off Carnaby Street since it was La Trouvaille, much-loved by the earliest wave of networking web-foodies, back when meeting anyone off the internet was regarded as the weirdest of all possible behaviours. Latterly, it wasn't anywhere I'd go for food, but the winelist was a corker, and it was a wonderful place for an off-radar outdoor seat on a hot city night.