London Dining - Liberty / Gordon's / J. Sheekey

The following is a summary of my culinary adventures in London last November (2004). There are scattered travel, site seeing and theatre notes as well, but mostly it is all about the food.

Liberty
We had a fairly standard tea (pot of tea, egg & cress, cucumber & cream cheese and salmon sandwiches followed by clotted cream and scones) all of which was quite good. The setting was very warm and comfortable as well. I can't say I recommend it as a culinary destination, but if you find yourself out and about in the Regent Street area, it is a very nice place to go and escape from the throngs of pushy tourists et. al. From there we continued shopping and ultimately retreated to Gordon's wine bar.

Gordon's
Gordon's is a lovely wine cellar turned bar just up from Trafalgar Square (I believe). The newspaper articles on the wall described it as "Dickensonian" which it may well be, but I prefer to describe it as equal parts wine cellar, pub, fraternity party and brothel (in other words, I loved it). We ordered an unremarkable bottle of Bourgogne, stepped past the crowded bar and over the couples in various states of passion and found a quiet corner to enjoy the bottle. From there, we headed to J. Sheekey for dinner.

J. Sheekey
Our party of four ordered a variety of starters and mains and shared them all. Starters included lobster bisque, cress soup and roasted squid and padron peppers. I was unable to obtain a taste of the bisque - which attests to how good it was - and the cress soup was a deliciously simple preparation, with the bitterness of the cress tempered by crème fraiche (the smoked salmon on a blini on the side was a nice touch). By far the best dish was the squid/padron peppers starter. Picture a cazuela of hot olive oil and garlic and then toss in raw baby squid and padron peppers - the result was melt-in-your-mouth tender squid and "pinch me, I think I am in Madrid" pimientos del padron. My love of Spanish food is documented elsewhere on these pages, so I admit to a sampling bias, but this dish really sent me. We drank a semi-sweet Vouvray throughout the meal, which was a bit too little for the squid, but then again, it was ordered with the main event in mind.

For main courses, our party shared the Dover sole, grilled prawns and prawn/monkfish curry. I ordered the curry - which sounds like an oddball choice - but in the end it was a coin toss between that and the fish and chips. Anyway, the Dover sole was as good as its billing. It managed to be tender and juicy without being overly oily and despite my initial doubts, paired well with a dab of béarnaise sauce (I was worried that the fish would be rendered as little more than a conduit for the béarnaise, but was happy to be proved wrong). My curry was very good as well. The monkfish and prawns were cooked to perfection and the curry was a slightly sweet version that really accentuated the monkfish and helped complete the trick that monkfish often plays - that of masquerading on the palate as lobster. The dish was served with rice that was beautifully perfumed with cardamom and saffron. The big surprise here was the grilled prawns. These langoustine-sized monsters were dished up 7 to a plate and served with a sweet/sour chutney that was a nice compliment to the smokey/salty meat.

We finished with a honeycomb ice cream and an apple crisp, both of which were very good, but suffered somewhat from being the second act to so many wonderful fish dishes.