I am undoubtedly behind the curve in planning a write up of the Union Street Café a year and half after it was opened by the Gordon Ramsay group. At the time the restaurant, not café, generated a tremendous buzz amongst London’s foodies and seasoned restauranteurs which was undoubtedly linked to the rumours of David Beckham’s supposed investment. These rumours proved false and it is still not clear to me whether Becks genuinely pulled out of backing the restaurant or whether it was a cleverly crafted PR stunt. Either way evidently no harm was done as the Union Street Café received 2,500 bookings in the first four hours of the lines opening and sold out till the end of the year within days, reminding me of the painstaking process I went through when booking my parents tickets to the Monty Python Comeback Tour at the 02 around the same time.
Before I get to the food, a few sentences about the Union Street bar, which sits in the restaurant’s basement. Spacious and stylish with exposed brickwork characteristic of the bars and clubs around Southwark, with quirky brightly coloured street art adorning the walls. The bar was packed and every table full of party revellers, except the small one in the corner where my companion and I sat upon oversized Campbell tomato soup tins. The cocktails were tasty, though not spectacular, Bees and Honey strong with whisky and sweet with lemon and honey, reminiscent of an alcoholic Lemsip. Take Me Away was better, tangy ginger beer, grapefruit, lime and thick sweet lychee juice giving it a smooth and rich texture. Overall good and I certainly would return back with a group of friends to make the most of the atmosphere.
The restaurant follows the same warehouse style, albeit without the colourful pictures to brighten up the place. Upstairs is all steel and concrete, including exposed strip lights, pipes, and peculiar reflective spheres at the back, in fact I imagine one would feel quite at home here at 3am on a Friday night listening to repetitive bass music. One thing I definitely appreciated was the spaciousness inside the Union Street Café – the designer and owner have resisted the urge to pack it full of as many tables as possible, which allows customers a bit of privacy on their nice round tables as well as a good view across the room to take in the features.
Our smiling Puglian waiter took us through the daily changing menu, which was definitely required as much of it was in Italian leaving it difficult to decipher what was a cheese, meat or type of pasta. To start my dish of stracciatella d’Anria, broadbeans, Sicilian tomato, mint, gave me a very generous portion of creamy cheese akin to burrata (my favourite), delicious with olive oil and black pepper. The touches of mint and broadbean were lovely though left me wanting more of a robust broadbean flavour. My companion quickly devoured his fassona beef ‘al coltello’, fresh peas and Sarawak pepper, which is always a good sign. Beef ‘al coltello’ translates to us non-continentals as steak tartare, which was prepared very well, though quite why it required an exotic pepper specifically from the Malaysian part of Borneo I am not sure (an enticing touch of la-de-dah perhaps).
Delicious as they were, our starters were eclipsed by the heavenly gnocchi we shared for our primi course. It was creamy with ribiola cheese, sweet ‘calcot’ onions and a Sardinian tomato sauce. The gnocchi themselves were cooked to perfection like little fluffy clouds of potato balanced perfectly with the light sauce. Equally the creamy richness of the cheese was well complimented by the sharp glass of Spanish white the sommelier had selected for us. Our mains equally impressed. The crispy skinned seabass fillets were sublime, served with peasant style fregola Sarda, or pearl barley, and aromatic slices of cooked Italian red pepper. My companion’s ox cheek sliced like butter and matched his full bodied glass of red wine. We completed our Italian-style feast by sharing a budino al cioccolato and ameretti, a soft partially set chocolate mousse with sweet crunchy amaretto biscuit and cream.
We enjoyed our evening at the Union Street Café immensely. All the staff we met, including the manager and head chef Davide, were incredibly friendly and helpful, which is much appreciated when the menu is as tricky as it is. Though we preferred some dishes to others, every one delivered on flavour as well as presentation. The space is trendy and buzzy, and the music was quiet enough that we conversed easily, which was a massive relief since some of these hip looking restaurants cannot resist the urge to turn the volume up. Though indeed some time has passed since the early days of the Union Street Café and the hype that surrounded it, it is absolutely still worth a visit and thank goodness you no longer have to hang on the phone for hours to make a booking!
www.gordonramsay.com/union–street–cafe/
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