There was a time when main courses in pubs and mid-range restaurants could be reasonably expected to cost under a tenner. Unless good
chefs have mated and multiplied in recent years, it is likely to be the same microwave operatives behind many of these places' kitchen doors. Except these days their crap du jour will cost us three fivers rather than one.
Don't get Itchy wrong - we salute ambition - but not if
over-adventure leads to misadventure. If you're going to pay top dollar it's better to go to a proper restaurant, somewhere that understands food and charges accordingly.
Saddled-up on our culinary high horse we cantered through the capital's streets to London Bridge's fancy new British brasserie creation Platform,
in search of the good stuff.
The magnificent exposed red brick arches that house Platform were once
home to a strip club, but these days the meat on the menu is for eating. Platform sources its stock direct from Devon, which considering Borough Market's a steak's throw away, is a bold move indeed.
But Platform has its reasons, or reason. And that is that co-owner Barnaby Butterfield - as the name suggests - is a farmer, and therefore owns a farm. So, together with restaurateur Tony McKinlay, a genuine
field-to-plate, minus-the-middle-man approach is at play.
It all started with potted shrimp. Now the danger with these delicate little decapods is they can be overawed if overly caked in clarified butter. But here there was no such problem. The shrimps were unctuously clad; with their sweet-salty tightrope act far from upstaged.
The beetroot cured salmon also stood its ground against its chive crème fraiche accompaniment. The salmon tasted like it had leapt out of the lake brushing past
a conveniently placed beetroot on its way to our plate. Divine.
Our starters were water-dwellers, so we thought our next victims should be sons of the soil. A hunk of sirloin the size and weight of an anvil landed next. A change indeed from restaurants that slice you a slither so slender that
the cow would consider it an accident. Heck, this steak was so good, they could have carved it out of our backsides and we wouldn't have minded.
Platform make a point of working with whole carcasses. They don't operate from the wasteful premise that Britain is home to abundant
fields of grazing beef fillets and bouncing racks of lamb. We thought it right then to go for the beef, mushroom and tarragon pie – which we guessed would be home to the less fashionable cuts from the cow walk. Following an eight-hour slow-cook in a red wine Jacuzzi, the otherwise butchers' off-cuts positively sang. No surprise really after all that claret.
A faultless fondant finished things off, like a chocolatey snog, and
Itchy left with a smile. If you consider good times to be predicated on the delivery of good food, good service and a good atmosphere, then it's hard to better Platform.
www.platformse1.co.uk
Hamish Smith
