Transcending its Fulham wine bar-style setting and service, a bourgeois restaurant of some ambition; we’d bet that this will be the location which will finally establish Ramsay-protégée Gemma Tuley as a chef of note in her own right.
To any restaurant which offers a dessert of Jerusalem artichoke cheesecake we say ‘respect’. With all due regard to Alain Ducasse and his somewhat bizarre recent boosterism of London as the restaurant capital of the world, the capital’s scene has been pretty dull of late.
The likes of Lutyens, say, or the mobbed Dean Street Townhouse, may be hugely successful, but – particularly on the gastronomic front – do we not all know in our hearts that they are a teeny bit dull? This repetition and re-invention of Anglo-French classics may be a worthy enough aim, but is that all there is to our restaurant scene? It does sometimes seem so at the moment.
So again we say respect to Gemma Tuley, and her new Fulham operation, where the aforesaid cheesecake turns out to implausibly delicious.
Gemma not a name known to you? Well, she first came to attention when she was ‘positioned’ – forgive the terminology – as one of ‘Gordon’s babes’. That was the point at which she was presented with the ultimate poisoned chalice – the re-launch rôle at the stove of the uninspired and dreary Foxtrot Oscar, which she occupied only briefly. (Amazing fact: FO still has a ‘bib’ in the new Michelin!)
Having fled the Sweary One’s coop, she soon bobbed up again at a new restaurant, Arch One, by Waterloo Station. Again a gig which didn’t last long.
We hope Ms Tuley will last longer in Fulham: the heaving crowd we found on a Monday night visit certainly suggested that she may have cause to stay. The attraction can’t be the interior – pleasant enough, but feeling as much like a low-lit wine bar as it does a restaurant of ambition. We suspect that the pleasant staff are not the principal attraction either.
No, it must be something to do with the food, which shows a grounding in the classics of just the type you’d hope a Ramsay protégée would possess: indeed, as soon as you taste the bread rolls (a variation on fougasse), you know this is not a Fulham wine bar of any known and usual type. (Fair to say, you’ll be reminded of this when the bill arrives too.)
Similarly of a quality that you’d normally hope for in a smart Mayfair establishment, rather than in Fulham, was a classic simple scallop starter – perfectly timed and full of taste. A game hot pot was impressive too, but arguably open to criticism for being a bit too West End-elegant in style for a dish presented in a peasant pot.
It was the dessert, though, that really caught our attention. The combination of the Jersusalem artichoke cheesecake (a conceit of David Everitt-Matthias, of Cheltenham’s Champignon Sauvage, it seems) with peanut ice cream and a knob of peanut butter was truly inspired – one of those rare dishes where the whole really does end up tasting of more than the sum of its parts.
To be able to do the classics is a necessity for any cook with ambition, and novelty is good too. But to be able with a sure hand to combine the two – well, then, you might just a chef of real note in the making.
