"Four days after our opening, Boris Johnson said, ‘Don’t go to the pub’ and we closed.” Rob Webster-Shaw, co-owner of the Clarence Tavern in Stoke Newington is describing to me what happened in March to the new sibling of Anchor & Hope, Canton Arms and Magdalen Arms in Oxford — all of which had, of course, to follow suit.
I am back in the handsome, lofty north London premises painted in parts a reassuring shade of calamine lotion or maybe Elastoplast after a first visit on March 18 to take part in what turned out be their last supper. I’ve returned because I am a fan of what they do and I am also wondering how it felt to have a business cut off at the knees and how it feels to be back.
Manager Sam Gleeson, who had come from Anchor & Hope to make Clarence sort of his own, confesses to having been terrified but also exhilarated at having to react to a situation without a choice. Every day, he says, was a completely new day — long, at 15 hours — and still is. A shop was created to support suppliers and food was cooked for “heat-at-home” delivery, which gave them purchase in a neighbourhood not short of catering outlets. Both Rob and Sam say that they enjoyed doing the deliveries, meeting the locals and in turn felt supported by them.
Chef and business partner at The Clarence is Harry Kaufman, who was previously working within the same group at Great Queen Street in Covent Garden, where insupportable rents and rates closed down what was a thriving but not financially viable business. His style has been honed by working at St John Bread & Wine and Lyle’s and results in an unbroken list of temptations.
Notable among assemblies we shared (probably against the law) to start were a knotted tangle of fine green bean fritters concealing at their heart the powerful thump of pickled walnut ketchup; borlotti beans, primetime tomatoes and exceptional sheeny shards of tuna; potted shrimps served in a glass with pickled gooseberries — a clever marriage — and farinata, a flatbread made from chickpea flour, with sweet and sour aubergines and pine nuts heaped on top. It’s where South of France holds out a hand to Sicily.
Lamb breast, chermoula and hung yoghurt is my sister’s choice. Scott and I share spiced rabbit pie for two, an incursion of Indian spices into what sounds as English as Beatrix Potter. It is brilliant. My appetite, which can sometimes stutter and stall by the time of dessert, picks up high speed when peach and brown butter tart with crème fraîche arrives. It is sublime, fluttery and so, well, peachy.
You turn to Sam for wine advice — he is passionate — and his suggestion of low-intervention, organic Château Cambon Beaujolais 2018 — a ramble through brambles — is spot-on. The spacious pub with a terrace and beer garden at the back can handle distancing. I dare say they will have to be quite strict.
The Clarence is not the only restaurant launching into an industry in crisis. How do you survive opening your dream of a restaurant into which you poured four years of planning and all your savings when the day it is due to open is March 23? “Instead of our official launch we closed down,” says charismatic young Irish chef Adrian Martin.
His restaurant Wildflower in a converted shipping container is in Camden’s Buck Street Market. The 30 covers have had to be reduced to 10 (at four tables) when it re-launches on July 18, but his enthusiasm is undimmed: “You’ll never get a better lesson in business.”
A venue that opened after the lockdown was eased and looks set to lift spirits is The Garden at The Berkeley, where a Mediterranean menu is grilled on Big Green Eggs on the terrace. A spritz from a charred lemon half will transport you to sunny climes. An insider reveals that this coming weekend is already booked solid.
Two months ago when Tomos Parry of Brat in Shoreditch wasn’t sure that the restaurant could re-open (it will on July 21) and anticipating, as everyone must, 30 to 40 per cent less revenue, he set about planning a summer residency at Climpson’s Arch in Hackney, starting on July 11. An open fire has always informed his cooking and new dishes inspired by the cooking of the Asturias region including cockerel with Bomba rice, fish soup with velvet crabs, and a dish of aubergines, honey and sheep’s milk sound irresistible. Wines from Keeling Andrew are all from sun-blessed islands to feed into the idea that a meal here can be a little holiday if a longer one has been denied.
The chefs are top of their game. Good food will prevail.
