Alastair Little, Lancaster Road HOW COULD I mind Anthony Holden's
complaining about me — in the sweetest terms imaginable, of course — in this week's Express? I'm flattered — as indeed he meant me to be. At first I thought he was just cross that I'd written about his local pub and, he insists, given it such a glowing review that when he went in for lunch he found I'd excited a slavering assembly of food critics. It turns out his objections were to the new regime and their `pony lentils', for Holden — that horny-handed son of toil — would prefer an honest plate of bangers 'n' mash. But the Anglesea Arms not only has a menu innocent of lentils, it also does a good lunchtime business in ham, egg and chips and, for that matter, sausage and mash. Mr Holden insists that he has written to my husband begging him to keep me out of the local pubs. The letter isn't entirely a jour- nalistic invention, and though I feel mean blowing Tony's cover as a curmudgeon, in fact the only communication received was a message to the effect that the chip butty he'd just had in the Anglesea Arms for his lunch was the best he'd ever had in his life.
.When I chose to write about that pub, it wasn't just my review of Bruno Loubet's new — or now not so new — place I was pushing off the page, but also my report of Alastair Little's latest. By the end of its first week, the Little joint was jumping and so I thought it would be more interesting to give space first to a place which otherwise might not get noticed. But I am very glad to get back to it.
It doesn't surprise me that it's a huge success. I've been reading Little's first book, Keep it Simple, again, and I am struck by how good it is, how much it says about food as it should be eaten. I trust his instincts: he's intelligent, he's without pre- tension and he likes eating. He himself, though, is not cooking here. Toby Gush, his chef at Lancaster Road, must get rather annoyed hearing the praise for Alastair while it is he who is producing these won- ders from a kitchen that is quite as modish- ly designed (great slabs of bright, bold Colour) as the dining-room. It's very W11: a modern, stark take on the Fifties. I have called Alastair unpretentious, but I can see that some might baulk at his refusal to mark out the place with any name over the door. A hound's-tooth awning is all the announcement it gets; inside a huge lower- case 'a' is set in relief on the wall. Still, Little's pulling power ensures that people will overcome any difficulty in finding the place; it also guarantees, that, despite his and his partner Kirsten Pedersen's inten- tion that this should be 'just a neighbour- hood restaurant', it will always be more than that. It's also true that the neighbour- hood for which Little feels so fondly has changed a bit over the years. The clientele here are more SW10 than W10 although the restaurant nestles by the Westway.
Prices are low, though: £15 for three courses at lunch, £20 at dinner. The menu is short, but to the point. Porco tonnato — a relatively PC form of vitello tonnato — with the pork cut thin, the tunny-mayonnaise dot- ted with shiny black olives and crossed with anchovies, fresh, marinaded and still glint- ing, rather than the dull brown shards that breathe their salty fire all over pizzas comes as a starter, and was fabulous. So was a bollito broth, which I had imagined would simply be the leftover cooking liquid from some bollito misto, but turned out to be bol- lito misto itself but in miniature: aromatic brodo, with chunks of boiled beef and capon, shards of carrot and celery and fen- nel, with cannellini beans and cavolo nero. In fact it was a cross between ribollita and bollito misto, and an exceptional union. Spaghettini with shredded squid, chilli, pars- ley and garlic was infused with a seductive smokiness and, what's more, was timed to perfection. Fritto misto came as a battery tangle of lamb's liver and brains, chard and onion, deep fried as if it were tempura, but with an ordinary, eggy batter. It worked.
Main courses never excite me as much as starters. One did here, and this was the roast Hereford duck. This was utterly straightforward, just excellent duck cooked incredibly slowly so that the meat was soft, intensely meaty and unfatty, and the skin bronzed, caramelly and leaf-thin crisp. This came just with celeriac mash. Poached ox tongue was pink and succulent; calf's liver was moussey and sweet, and the mashed potatoes with it were not that ghastly over- whipped purée that you get everywhere now. I had here, too, the best pudding I've had in ages: everyone should eat the Seville orange curd tart at least once before they die. Actually, I came across it in another incarnation (the curd in a glass, served with shortbread) in the Anglesea Arms, and when I mentioned it to Simon Green who's managing the place, he said that it was just the same recipe doing the rounds: he is Toby Gush's flatmate and his girlfriend is Gush's sous-chef. Very incestuous world, the restaurant business.
Alastair Little: 136A Lancaster Road, London W11; tel 0171 243 2220.
Nigella Lawson
Previous page
