Claude’s Kitchen could easily be just another friendly neighbourhood restaurant: a pleasant place to have a casual meal where convenience and company outweigh the quality of the cooking. While the Parson’s Green joint does indeed conform to the former, the dishes are by no means ordinary. Chef Claude Compton has created a weekly-changing menu that is masterfully simple yet abundant in exciting flavours.
In a charming little room above the Amuse Bouche bar, the perfect spot for a pre-dinner drink, Claude’s Kitchen is intimate but not claustrophobic. High ceilings, pastel colours, minimalist rustic furnishings and large windows give the place an airy and refreshing persona, almost as if it were exempt from whatever tedious weather happens to plague the city.
In such modest surroundings, the quality of the food comes as a welcome surprise. Claude, who trained at Club Gascon and Petersham Nurseries, is not afraid to experiment with flavour. The king scallop starter comes with strawberries, radish and delicious pickled cucumber – a combination of the sweet and the savoury that inspires the palette. Claude seems to be a fan of using fruit in exciting new ways: the duck main also comes with summer berries giving a refreshing lightness to the succulent and perfectly cooked meat.
For dessert, a stand-out that features regularly on the menu is the cheese platter. What may appear to be an ordinary assortment of bread, cheese and jam is, like the rest of the menu, a complex dish where confections comprise sweet and subtle flavours and the dairy is fresh and piquant.
A great meal in a great location can only be improved upon by great service, and Claude’s Kitchen aces this category too. The staff is so warm and friendly and happy to talk about the dishes that you almost want to invite them to join you for dinner.
At affordable prices – with starters at £6 or £7 and mains between £14 and £16 – this wonderful restaurant deserves to be frequented, and not only by the Parson’s Green community, but by all Londoners!
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