The 'immaculate' West London restaurant offering an escape for a 'downright steal' of £30 per head
Oh dear, I thought, as we stepped into the discreetly minimalist dining room of The Lavery. Here we go again. Because with its polished parquet floor and soaring South Kensington ceiling, its Georgian stucco detail, modernist light fittings, artfully aged mirrors and white – lots and lots of white – I expected fussy, fastidiously plated food served on strange and delicate porcelain, accompanied by pompous paeans about 'Chef's obsession' with sustainability, hyperseasonality and Somerset hand-crafted charcoal. I was, thank the lord, quite stupendously wrong.
Because this is a place that gets everything right: the service, which purrs and glides, warm but well drilled. And the light, which today floods through the vast picture windows, holding the whole room in a mid-spring embrace. And the food, from head chef Yohei Furuhashi, who's done time at Toklas, Petersham Nurseries and, of course, The River Cafe. There's a charred slab of golden, buttery polenta with a great blob of mellow salt-cod brandade. Crisp winter tomatoes add sharpness and bite. Asparagus, pert and thrusting, sit atop a puddle of gently pongy fonduta. Roasted artichokes come with silken slices of excellent prosciutto. The dishes may be simple, but are immaculately done.
Nettle tortelli are stuffed with ricotta and pine nuts, the pasta, a lushly verdant green, exquisitely delicate. It's like biting into something ephemeral, almost otherworldly: a breathy whisper of barely carbohydrate delight. Then a tranche of sea trout, a fraction overcooked –
I crave a little translucence in the centre of my fish, but nobody else complains. With it, a tangle of spinach, the first of the season's peas and a dollop of wild garlic mayonnaise. For something a touch more robust, there's leg of rabbit, stuffed with Tuscan sausage, wrapped in pancetta and served with lentils studded with baby broad beans. A few sorrel leaves add acidic aplomb.
You might expect the prices to be suitably stratospheric but while not exactly cheap, they offer serious value. You could come in for pasta and a glass of wine, and escape for under £30. For cooking this accomplished (and in this particularly gilded part of South Kensington) that's not so much a deal as a downright steal.
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