London restaurant doodles

10 much loved destinations, gone but not forgotten

Something a little different …

If you’d like a recipe from me this week, then head over to Ben Lippett’s all conquering How I Cook, where I’ve guested with a few chicken-wing shaped ideas. You won’t regret it.

Here, though, things are a little more sedate.

Feeling slightly worn out after a month of launching Peckish (and all the time leading up to it), I took a moment to look back over old blog posts.

It’s very nearly 16 years since I began ‘Rocket & Squash’ – indeed, around this time in 2010 I would’ve been settling on the R&S name (can’t remember the rationale), and working with my brother Oli to design what was definitely one of the most aesthetically pleasing food sites at the time.

Which is slightly bold statement on my part. But also a knowing slight on many of the other food themed (and foodie-run) websites. For 2010 might well have been peak blog. But it was not peak camera phone, nor photo, nor website. Certainly not when it came to photos in and of restaurants.

I decided early on that mine would be prose rather than blurry image based. But still felt the need to lead with an image.

So I began to doodle. Just simple black and white line drawings. But generally they worked well, and I realise now leave me with a gratifying visual archive of 2010s restaurants.

I grabbed 10 from the pack to show today. As it happens, each of the restaurants featured are now closed. Which doesn’t mean they ‘failed’; they’re a mix of trailblazers, pop-ups, much loved restaurants and early iterations of places and restaurant groups that are very much ongoing. The drawings and indeed the places themselves are and were snapshots of a moment in time.

Black Axe Mangal (the one in the middle without a sign), Highbury Corner, N1. Lee and Kate Tiernan’s unique, iconic, anarchic, wood fired restaurant. 2015-2025. RIP.

Monty’s Deli, 227-229 Hoxton Street, N1. Mark Ogus and Owen Barratt’s pastrami and salt beef sandwich shop (and other treats) was open on this site from 2017-2019, although it began in 2012 at Maltby Street Market, and then under the arches on Druid Street, SE1. Bloody miss it. Need to get to Frome (Somerset) for some of Owen’s sausages.

Raw Duck, E8. 2014-2019. Of the Duck Soup restaurant group (see the original site in Soho and also Little Duck the Picklery). I remember when they opened on Richmond Road after their original site next to Hackney Central got unexpectedly demolished(!). v2.0 was sleek and calm, deceptive in its simplicity, big on ferments and heavy on the concrete. Recognise the wavy underside of that counter top? Yes, the site is Pophams now.

The Modern Pantry, 47-48 St John’s Square, EC1. Alright kids, you probably don’t know of this Clerkenwell landmark, nor of The Providores in Marylebone. But they were important – in particular in terms of their influence on Antipodean-ifying our breakfasts and paving the way for small plates to become standard through the 2010s. Anna Hansen was the chef-patron of The Modern Pantry (having worked with Peter Gordon at The Providores). I recall a sugar-cured prawn omelette being a star dish. Also lots of tamarind.