Commencing countdown. Engines... On.
Notting Hill - 6 September 2014
Looking for somewhere new to go for a Saturday night (while we waited and waited for Peckham Bazaar to reopen), Mr Hyde's email appeared offering half price food at a re-vamped Notting Hill bistro. In for a penny, in for £0.50, and away we go.
New Tom's (formerly a deli called Tom's. I guess the restaurant is
the newness) is tucked away towards the end of Westbourne Grove, just around
the corner from bastions of expensive West London life, the Ledbury and 'Made In
Chelsea' featured Beach Blanket Babylon, a fancified pub that charged me 12.5% service
for opening and passing me a bottle of wine at the bar. A screw cap, at that. I'm still angry. New Tom's
isn't quite in that bracket, thankfully, and I recall this dining experience with far more fondness...
The restaurant is split-level, with the top level comprising of
diner-style leather booths, which look comfy and cool. However we're sat downstairs, a mood-lit (i.e. not conducive to good photo taking) basement area you could describe as 'cozy' (or cramped), which apparently gets "quite raucous". It's decorated with cool street art posters, with the buzz of the kitchen to
be heard over the music.
The menu offers every dish as a starter or main course option, so
we elect to go tapas-style and order four starter-portions, so we can try as
much as possible and fit in dessert as well.
From the garden section, we had a creamy celeriac
risotto topped with a blue cheese crumb, the cheese adding delightful pockets of savoury saltiness mixed with panko crumbs for crunch. There was little or no need for the apple puree dolloped on top.
Maybe intended to add a sweet dimension, it was just - as the gf pointed
out - reminiscent of baby food, and entirely unnecessary here.
We had two 'Sea' dishes. The first was a crab and avocado salad. The pickled cucumber in the foliage added a tangy counterpoint to the quenelles of sweet
crab with lemon mayonnaise, and there's a warmth brought by a dose of cayenne pepper that doesn’t
overpower everything. More panko crumbs again (wholesale order perhaps?) for crunch. This is a great dish.
The scallop was also strong. Normally I’d be peeved at
the presentation of one lonely scallop. But this is no ordinary scallop. It’s been
working out. It’s got hench. It’s the biggest scallop ever
seen. And it’s well cooked – a nice sear to the outside and still soft and
creamy inside. There’s some crispy ginger atop for spice and all the
colours of the cauliflower rainbow on the side (well…three…it’s a small rainbow) –
pureed, charred and cubed.
We finish up the savoury sections by coming ashore to ‘Land’, and some
Dingly Dell pork belly. This is served up with artichokes and pommes puree.
It’s cooked well enough, if slightly under seasoned, but isn’t really much more than it sounds on the menu. I’m getting bored with pork belly – it’s too light on the meat:fat ratio, and
there isn’t too much to get excited about here.
But desserts are memorable. We’ve been on a strong run of form
with desserts recently, and these don’t break the streak. We order up a lemon
curd with flamed meringue, and chocolate crack.
Subsequent research has shown that chocolate crack is an actual
baked treat, and not so-called because it’s addictively moreish. That said, it is moreish,
though perhaps not enough for one taste to have Phil Mitchell trashing
his house in search of one more hit. This crack includes a creamy
chocolate mousse sitting on top of silky salted caramel and a biscuit crumb,
with tangy raspberries (classic combination right there). There’s also a little
apricot jam on the side too.
Which doesn’t add anything to the pudding, but more unnecessary baby food dollops.
Their slant on 'eton mess' was killer. Scorched, creamy, Italian meringue, with sweet strawberries, mint leaves and sharp lemon curd, topped with refreshing lemon granita. It looks the business, and tastes it too.
We rounded it all off with a cheese course, which was alright, but not quite “the best cheese ever” as our waiter described it. The menu says it’s milky and gentle. Which it is, on boring - I prefer my cheese to be a bit rougher with me. Plus, it suffered from a total imbalance in the number of crackers (squid ink here) and damson jelly to cheese – I’ve never figured out why this is so hard for restaurants...
All in all, New Tom’s wasn’t flawless, but was enjoyable. The dishes showed good skill and imagination, even if there was the occasional mis-step. The atmosphere was good (I'd struggle to describe it as "raucous", though), and the staff friendly. If this was a neighbourhood restaurant where I lived, I’d be very happy for it to become a regular hangout.
