‘The thick wodge of monkfish in seeded bun has the air of god’s own filet-o-fish’
Why are the interesting restaurants moving farther and farther out of the centre of London? It doesn’t take a fiscal genius to figure it out: in a city where, according to research by Shelter, only 43 (yes, 43, not 43%) houses were reckoned to be “affordable” for first-time buyers, the same applies to restaurateurs. Even if they wanted to join the stately march of the Mayfair wankpits, they simply couldn’t afford to.
In the centre, even the apparently ramshackle and cool will have big loot lurking in the background. Scratch the surface of those branché Taiwanese bun merchants, and you’ll find backers with a big portfolio and even bigger wallets. So the creative independents are pushed out, to Walthamstow and Peckham and Streatham. The Richmond’s owner, Brett Redman, opened Elliot’s when Borough Market wasn’t today’s oversubscribed tourist magnet, and with this he’s headed east not to the main Shoreditch/Hoxton party axis, but to the tube-free, traffic-heavy Queensbridge Road. Still, if he decided to open at a supermarket forecourt in Penge, I’d keel up, because he’s one of those rare people in the business who always delivers restaurants with “it”.
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