This article was originally published in Business Life.
Restaurateurs are not smiling quite as broadly as they were a year ago as corporate and household budgets have been tightened. Lunchtime trade in restaurants located in the financial districts has been affected, as have dinner reservations in the suburbs. So too has been the hugely important spend on pre-dinner drinks and whether customers order a second bottle of wine or not.
Cumulatively, this may lead to more restaurant closures than openings in 2009. But 2008 has, I believe, seen five significant openings that will prove immune to the slings and arrows of economic fortune.
The first – and the winner of any competition anywhere for the funniest and most memorable restaurant name – is Urban Turban on Westbourne Grove in west London.
Urban Turban belongs to Vineet Bhatia and his wife Rashima, to whom all credit must go for their name, and this is their first foray into more relaxed and less expensive Indian food following the success of the more formal Rasoi Vineet Bhatia in Chelsea. My meals here have included distinctive Indian vegetarian dishes; a memorable masala lime lamb with coconut milk, chili and coriander; and several bottles from their excellent wine list.
While restaurateur Alan Yau was selling his Chinese restaurant Hakkasan to Dubai-based backers and his Thai restaurants Busaba Eathai to venture capitalists, he somehow found time to open Cha Cha Moon in Ganton Street, close to Regent Street (pictured).
As Yau also created Wagamama, a business he subsequently lost control of, it is all too easy to see the comparisons. Long communal tables; keen pricing – when it opened all the noodle dishes were £3.50 each – which leads to queues at the door as the restaurant does not take bookings; but lots of satisfied young customers in a noisy environment. Most interesting have been Taiwan beef noodles; noodles with Chinese salami, clams and bean sprouts; and a side order of shiitake mushrooms braised in chicken stock.
Denmark Street, just across Tottenham Court Road from Soho is now home to Australian-born chef Paul Merrony and his partner Tracey, who looks after their new restaurant The Giaconda Dining Room with great charm.
Giaconda seats no more than 34 but Merrony does not let this fact, or a tiny kitchen, deter him from offering a broad range of dishes that pack lots of flavour, all of which he can offer at very fair prices because of such a low cost base. It’s an eclectic menu that reflects their travels: ham hock hash; a prawn omelette topped with crab claws; an Italian pork sausage stew with polenta; and an apple compote with caramelized walnuts. Book well in advance and go hungry.
Stephen and Juliette Wall opened the first branch of Pho Café just north of Smithfield a couple of years ago, but this year has seen them open a further three branches, in Great Titchfield Street just by Oxford Circus, close to Goodge Street and just by King’s Cross. I hope 2009 will see more.
Pho is the national dish of Vietnam, a large bowl of rice noodles in beef stock to which you can then add additional cuts of meat – brisket, steak or meatballs – and spices to make the broth stronger. The Walls offer a good range of vegetarian options as well as spring rolls and Vietnamese crepes filled with prawns. Their food is fun, informal, inexpensive and filling.
Finally, to The Water House in Shoreditch, whose principles will, I hope, be copied by many other restaurateurs.
As well as serving good food, its founders, Arthur Potts Dawson and Jamie Granger-Smith, intend The Water House to be a restaurant that will make as small an environmental impact as possible. Suppliers are asked to leave their produce but take away the packaging for re-use; renewable electricity for the kitchen is produced via solar panels; a heat exchange system dispenses with air-conditioning; while a wormery digests the left-over raw food. It may not be glamorous, but it’s the future.
Urban Turban, www.urbanturban.uk.com
Cha Cha Moon, 15-21 Ganton Street, W1, 020-7297 9800.
The Giaconda Dining Room, www.giacondadining.com
Pho Café, www.phocafe.co.uk
The Water House, www.waterhouserestaurant.co.uk