The Loft
our comments
Perched above a Tescos up an anonymous flight of stairs off Clapham High Street, the Loft is certainly a step up from the dreary cheap eats and chain bars that dominate the surrounding area.
Head chef Marrianne Wit, formerly of the Michelin starred the Glasshouse in Kew, has put together an intriguing menu with some unusual twists on her classic British and Italian repertoire; although with brothers James and Andy Campana of the award-winning Brixton club Plan B at the helm as much effort has been spent on the restaurant bar’s enticing cocktail list, sophisticated beats and pared down industrial look as the food.
Having slurped a couple of excellent pre-dinner cocktails at the imposing concrete bar we headed over to the more intimate space of the adjoining dining area. For starters, an endive and crisp braised oxtail salad with walnut oil and mustard dressing demonstrated Wit’s flair for combining unusual flavours and textures. Contrasting the bitter endive with the sweet walnuty dressing, and the tender morsels of oxtail with a sharp apple salad, this was inventive cooking you wouldn’t normally expect from your average high street restaurant bar, and left me curious to try some more of her innovative creations, such as the exotic-sounding wild mussels with star anise and dill cream.
My partner, who I had dragged reluctantly south of the river, plumped for a more traditional choice of meaty plaice goujons in a crisp beer batter with a punchy homemade tartar sauce. It was good enough to put a smile back on his face, although with only three rather average sized morsels of fish to fill the plate he couldn’t help thinking there was ‘one goujon too few’.
For mains, a wild mushroom ‘orgy’ with puy lentils and a poached free-range egg proved a stand out vegetarian option, despite the unnecessarily sexed up name. The earthy portabello, porceni, shitaki and blue mushrooms – according to our waiter who was good enough to find out the contents of my fungal ‘orgy’ from the kitchen – were bound together in a rich cream sauce infused with tarragon and smothered in the luscious egg yolk. My partner’s 19-day hung cote de boeuf with red wine and shallot sauce was tender and suitably rare but the accompanying and all important chips were slightly under cooked and came in a rather ungenerous portion. ‘Just like the goujons,’ he sniffed.
He perked up with the arrival of a delectable pear, honey and almond tart with vanilla ice cream shared between us. We washed it down with a smoky bottle of South African Kings River Shiraz 2006, and a couple more creamy after-dinner cocktails from the bar. ‘Nice place,’ my partner confessed as we toddled off back to north London’s leafy groves. If you’re in Clapham the Loft is well worth a look.
M.D. - March 2008
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