Off toTownthis week, on Drury Lane. Yes, a restaurant called Town, one word, so a bit of a challenge to find online. Then again, perhaps by the time you’re as experienced and beloved a restaurateur as Stevie Parle, formerly ofDock Kitchen,Craft,Sardine,PalatinoandJoy, your regular clientele will make the effort to find you. Parle’s shtick, roughly speaking, is thoughtful, high-end Mediterranean cooking and warm, professional hospitality, so the longer I thought about him opening a new place in London’s theatre heartland and calling it just Town, the more it made sense.
Yes, Town may be up at the less pretty end of this famous road, next door to a Travelodge and in the shadow of the lesser-knownGillian Lynne theatre, but whenever I hear the words “Drury Lane”, I’m whisked back to the impossible glamour of the start of theRoyal Variety Performanceon the BBC and people in tiaras exiting Rolls-Royces. Drury Lane, the commentator used to say, was the glitzy epicentre of London town, and Parle’s new restaurant certainly captures some of the essence of that yesteryear ritz. It’s a big, beautiful, ballsy, expensive-looking beast; a sleek, capacious, ever-so-slightly Austin Powers-esque, shiny-floored, caramel-coloured pleasure palace. It has a vivid, neon-green brightly lit open kitchen and thick 3D burgundy wall tiles that speak of expensive ceramic deliveries from the genre of Italian supplier that makesKevin McCloudclutch his face and sigh, “Well, this spells problems for the budget.”
Thankfully, the budget for Town’s decor – and how many portions of deep-fried sage leaves they need to sell to recoup it – is not my problem. All I know is that I was having a jolly old time from the second I sat down to sip on a naked flame non-alcoholic cocktail while feeling like Princess Michael of Kent circa 1988 hiding from a Royal Command Performance. And that was before I’d even glanced at the menu to choose between Town’s cod and clam curry with mussels, rhubarb and ghee flatbread and the Welsh lobster with lardo and house XO sauce, or indeed found room for the morello cherry clafoutis with thick cream.
Town’s menu, I should warn you, is not for anyone with a meek appetite, or those hoping for a Slimming World Body Magic award by the summer. Example: the fresh, warm potato sourdough from the “snacks” section of the menu comes with a bowl of bone marrow dipping gravy. Order Parle’s signature fried sage leaves, and they’ll arrive drizzled with heather honey. If you attempt to hide away with the 100-Acre radishes, they come in a thick puddle of miso hummus. This restaurant is a feeder. Other snacks are the likes of gildas, caviar with homemade beef fat crisps andCoombeshead’s cured mangalitsa shoulder.
Initially, I suspected that Town might be a pre-theatre restaurant designed to scoop up tourists in search of a deal, but it turns out that the food is far too good to rush through in an hour. And anyway, does anyone really want to sit through two and a half hours of Much Ado About Nothing after devouring a whopping great portion of sublime Kashmiri saffron risotto with yet more bone marrow, or a huge pork chop with seasonal onions, a rich, burnt apple sauce and hot mustard? Both of those dishes were finely executed, eminently devourable and teetering on the edge of a bit bloody much. We shared a side of beef fat pink fir potatoes that held good on their promise, because each one came enrobed in thick, bottom-of-the-tin, Sunday lunch-style beef fat.
Right now, Town is manageably quiet, but it won’t be for long, and nor should it be. Service is bright, crisp, clever and unobtrusive, and the prices are, dare I say, reasonable by London standards these days. There are a hundred places where the hopeful theatreland diner can be ripped off in this postcode, but Town to me is already a trusted friend.
The dessert menu offers no let-up on the excess, extra thought and ecstasy, either. We shared a single scoop of pale green Uji matcha ice-cream festooned in crunchy brittle and perched in a pool of sweet miso caramel. Then, the star of the show, a hot-from-the-oven, damp, sticky cherry clafoutis served with much, much too much clotted cream. Parle has taken to theatreland with another sterling performance: a great first act, a strong middle section and a thoroughly satisfying denouement. Unmissable. Five stars.
Town26-29 Drury Lane, London WC2, 020-3500 7515. Open lunch Mon-Sun, noon-3pm; dinner Mon-Sat, 5-10pm. From about £60 a head à la carte, plus drinks and service