What to say about April Bloomfield and her two night residency at St John Chinatown?
In some ways, it was like being reunited with an old friend.
But also it could herald very exciting things for the future.
April is a British chef from the River Café school, but her
name has been made in New York. The Spotted Pig ‘gastro-pub’ in the Village,
followed by John Dory and The Breslin within the Ace Hotel. Much like McNally,
she’s carved a following among more food-obsessed Brits as she’s charmed New York, but has
remained largely unknown in her homeland.
Her star dish is the Spotted Pig burger, a sloppy expanse
of perfectly pink meat and gooey blue cheese, and the iconic rosemary matchstick
fries. I first had it in about 2004, long before anything in London was
edible away from ethcni or fine dining, let alone the burger mania of late. We
spoke about it for years afterwards; the mess it created, the decadence, those
amazing fries… could it now be coming to London?
April’s one dud I had at The Breslin a few years back. It
was a fatty rancid rolled pig’s leg; basically a $50 battered sausage with pork
pie gelatine. I was anxious I'd be facing that again, it's definitely to be avoided…
So I was a bit nervous about the menu, as her Breslin dishes
are quite challenging in terms of nose to tail, but relief set in as the burger
was leaked.
Starters were a fantastic haddock chowder and a creamy dish
of gnudi with sage and brown butter. Both were excellent, and reasonably priced. I was
pleased overall, as April could probably have charged a hugely expensive set price for the novelty, and it would still have been packed.
Rabbit with fennel and bacon was an interestingly flavoured dish.
Very contemporary in that meat/fish + two ingredients formula seen at 10 Greek
Street, Copita or Duck Soup, it would be bang on trend in an April London
resto.
And on to the burger…
Feelings of fondness and nostalgia for
our first trip to New York together (and my first being over 21), have
clearly been a powerful thing. Not because there was anything wrong with the
burger: it was brilliantly cooked and tasted great. But between 2004 and today, I’ve had so many
great burgers (as any regular reader would groaningly attest) that it’s hard to
exalt one above the many others.
Underwhelmed would be too far, but there was that
slight anticlimactic feeling of revisiting a childhood favourite film and finding it a bit meh. It wasn’t bad; it was very good,
but London isn’t the foodie desert it once was. Especially where New York
imitation comes in...
What irony where a Brit trailblazes in New York, creates a archetypal dish for that city, and upon repatriation is just a few years too late, and returns to a foodie landscape where aping New York is now honed to perfection.
£16.50 is about ok for the burger given the style of the event,
but that price point for a permanent fixture of April’s would be inadvisable,
given the range of burger between £7-12 in this town.
I remember being so excited about Bill Granger in London (more nostalgia from Sydney) and being let down...is his Notting Hill hellhole still going? I very much hope April doesn’t go the same way as greedy Granger, should she decide to venture a London resto.
She is far from a one-trick pony, and I have faith in her adventurous yet simple cooking, but reputation is everything, and a 2013 London cannot be conquered by blue cheese burger alone…
