the salt & pepper diaries

So Terrence Conran’s new place has opened to a high level of acclaim, praise and general back-slapping. Time Out have already placed it in their Top 50 list, it had a rave 4-star review from Guy Dimond in the same mag a couple of weeks ago and there is generally a buzz of favourable commentary across the foodie sites and blogs. And all well deserved.

photo | everydaylifestyle

This is a Conran and Partners project, as opposed to D&D London, the management team that took over the reins for the original Conran kitchen killers – Quaglinos, Blue Print Café, Orrery etc. and the new team (Terrence and wife, Vicki) have put together what is collectively known as the Boundary Project. An ambitious menu made up of three courses; for starters, The Albion ‘caff’ (their description), main course is The Boundary restaurant and the desert, the Boundary Hotel, with every room handed over to a different designer for its differentiating story. To top it all, the hotel also boasts a rooftop bar with 48-seat grill and gardens. All this, while we face somewhat of an economic hiccup – do you think anyone’s told our Tel?

We should be glad they haven’t told him, because it’s pretty special and if everything follows the lead of The Albion, it’s worth a visit.

photo | everydaylifestyle

The Albion offers straight, British cooking. It’s described as the Caff and no meals are over a tenner. The menu’s a little odd at first and feels very pick n’ mix, but a little thinking and you soon find a combination that works. Great fry-ups and bacon sarnies to start the day and the lunches include fish and chips, bowls of mushy peas, whitebait, crackling, chips cooked in beef dripping, welsh rarebit, pies and stews. Round it all off with crumbles, egg custard and bread and butter pudding. A definite recommendation is the crackling.

There also seems to be a sense of humour that I’m still not sure about – such as old tractor seats for the stools and tea cosy’s used on traditional tea pots. Quirky touches, but a little try hard. However, by far the best gag is the small deli at the entrance of the restaurant. £2.95 for a small bottle of Heinz ketchup when it’s a third of the price in the Tesco’s opposite. Well, at least it keeps and it makes a good window display.

Albion
2-4 Boundary St
E2 7JE
020 7 729 1051

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 1st, 2009 at 6:27 pm and is filed under Reviews, Restaurants, cafes & bars. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.