British fine dining meets Asian cooking techniques
Like many restaurants in the capital, new arrival London Stock opened earlier this year, but it wasn’t long before lockdown put a stop to their opening number. But now, this modern brasserie is back, and with a 10-course tasting menu to boot.
It is the first restaurant from Cordon Bleu-trained Assem Abdel Hady and Andres Bernal.
The kitchen is led by head chef Nico Fitzgerald, and together the team have a strong track record. Their new venture can be found in Wandsworth’s Ram Quarter, the restored Young’s brewery site; London Stock is tucked in the corner of the new Bubbling Well Square, and has a lovely outdoor terrace surrounded by herbs that are used in the kitchen.
The weather wasn’t terrace-friendly when we visited however, quite the opposite.
Tom Nicholson
We scampered across the square in torrential rain, but it wasn’t long before we were scooped up by the charming Luca, who dealt with our soggy umbrella, offered us drinks and regaled us with the history of the building.
On his recommendation, I went for an IPA Ice Tea - the IPA a nod to the restaurant’s brewing history. It was delicious.
My date for the night was also designated driver, so opted for a ‘Nogroni’ which also hit the spot, providing much of the satisfying bitterness of its boozy counterpart.
The offering at London Stock is a 10-course tasting menu priced at £65 in the evening, or 3 courses for £30 at lunch, which is what we were road testing.
The dishes on the lunch menu are all taken from the tasting menu but portions, we were told, are slightly increased.
The style of the food is described as ‘elegant and modern British fine dining meets innovative Asian cooking techniques’, which come care of the restaurant’s robata grill; robata is short for ‘robatayaki’, which translates as ‘fireside cooking’ in Japanese cuisine and involves a method of cooking over hot charcoal on a wide and flat open fireplace, similar to barbecuing.
Nibbles arrived whilst we dissected the menu, along with some bread and some sensational seaweed butter. I seem to have had a lot of seaweed butter recently, and this took the top spot.
Starters arrived, beautifully presented. I had what is described on the menu as ‘Alliums or French Onion Soup’. What arrived was half a soft, sweet confit onion filled with a heavily reduced ‘soup’ – it was thick and rich and very delicious. Wild garlic, leek and Marmite all came together to pack a flavoursome punch, whilst yeast flakes gave it a meaty depth, and the little chargrilled shallots on the side were divine.
I love French onion soup and rarely enjoy it when such classics are tampered with (or - God forbid – deconstructed), but this captured the essence of the dish and was extremely comforting.
The other starter was Scottish mackerel, which had been perfectly cooked on the restaurant’s robata grill and came with a rather curious combination of barbequed beans, hazelnut, kohlrabi and beetroot, but it worked.
Lots of lovely smoky, earthy flavours and a pleasant pop of sweetness from the wafer-thin discs of beetroot all stood up to the oily, meaty fish, and the blistered barbequed beans were delicious – God bless that robata grill. Both plates were licked clean.
A bottle of house wine arrived – a very drinkable Portuguese white, and then the mains.
I had a wild mushroom orzotto (like risotto but made with pearl barley instead of rice) with ceps and black truffle. It was very nice – rich, creamy, and deeply satisfying, but I struggled to sniff out the truffle.
The brill, which came with a creamy cider jus, mussels, seasonal greens and dill, was indeed brill – the fish was beautifully cooked, and I loved the sweetness of the creamy cider sauce paired with the saltiness of the little plump mussels. My only gripe was the size of the fish – perhaps as part of a 10-course tasting menu, yes, but it certainly made for a very light lunch.
Pud was ‘cherry mille-feuille’, deconstructed. The pastry shards were oily and weirdly savoury, but the deep purple Kirsch-infused ice cream, dollops of thick almond cream and sweet roasted almond pieces were very nice indeed, it just needed a bit more cherry.
We also tried the peach; a single slice which had been roasted and grilled and then served with honey, olive oil, thyme, yoghurt and oats. It was delicious, but there just wasn’t enough of it.
London Stock is most certainly a welcome addition to Wandsworth’s food scene. The ambience, especially on a wet, COVID-era Thursday, was buzzing, and the restaurant’s industrial interiors mixed with pops of luxe velvet colour and trendy light fittings make it an elegant and relaxing to be, if a little on the stark side.
We enjoyed our meal overall but judging by the high standard of the cooking, the beautiful presentation and the creativity of each dish, I suspect that London Stock’s strength lies in its tasting menu.
2 Bubbling Well Square, Ram Quarter, SW18 1UQ; londonstockrestaurant.co.uk
