Here’s a tip. If you have any sort of paranoid complex about the effect your presence has on a roomful of people – if you reflexively conduct an armpit sniff-test whenever a stranger moves to a different seat on the train – then you should approach a 7pm booking at Lasdun with a degree of caution. On a recent weeknight at the National Theatre’s glinting new flagship brasserie, I found myself in a busy, clamorous room at the precise moment that the show was about to begin. Arms semaphored wildly to request the bill, and then, in a flurry of gulped wine dregs and stampeding feet, almost every table bar mine headed towards the exit.
“It happens every night,” began John Ogier, once of Lyle’s and one of Lasdun’s co-founders, stopping by my table with a wry smile. “And it doesn’t get any less weird.”
This nightly exodus is a reminder of the tricky realities that this venture — a tantalising collaboration between Ogier, KERB, and Hackney pub The Marksman’s Jon Rotheram and Tom Harris — is up against. You would not, I don’t think, be all that surprised if the holding zone qualities of the space helped to engender something that felt a little awkward or chilly. If this opening didn’t quite work, it would be unfortunate but understandable.
Which, you may have guessed, is a roundabout way of saying that the fact that Lasdun really does work — that it is, in fact, in possession of a stirring potency and clarity of purpose — makes it all the more impressive and cherishable. Though it hardly breaks new ground, Ogier, Rotheram and Harris’s creation is a marvel of stark aesthetics and soothing flavours.
What sets Lasdun apart is the added note of craft, light surprise and restraint
Of course, a big part of that appeal comes from the unusual majesty of the room. The restaurant is named after Denys Lasdun — the architect behind the National’s once-divisive building — and a reverence for the blocky, grey elegance of the design shines through in a restrained fit-out that cranks up the futurist dial with dramatic uplighting, a marble bar, and chrome lighting fixtures that loom like salvaged Metropolis props. Still, if the swathes of raw concrete feel lightly transgressive, the pubby, throwback simplicity of the menu (all chicken and leek pies, and fish cakes in mussel sauce) is like a reassuring hug.
Beef and barley bun, a Marksman classic, was as good as it’s ever been: a glossy orb of horseradish-flaked dough as much about a rush of intoxicating sweetness as nose-tickling heat. Guinea fowl and Tamworth pork terrine had a galloping onslaught of robustly peppered flavour and a stellar, high-gloss blob of burnt pear brown sauce on the side. Black treacle sourdough, with a lovely, elusive edge of bitter caramel, might actually be among the best in the city.
As befits a trio of St John alumni, Ogier, Rotheram and Harris are seasonality and simplicity ultras with a tendency to try to locate beauty in the outwardly forbidding and supposedly old-fashioned. What sets Lasdun apart, however, is the added note of craft, light surprise and restraint — as with pitch-perfect roast pork shoulder beside a carefully wrought wonder of a celeriac purée — that is the mark of seasoned, serious operators. Even courgette, saffron and mint, the one dish I wasn’t mad about, was easy to admire in principle, if too restrained in practice. That there is a decent-value three courses for £38 deal which feels like the cherry on an irresistible cake.
And speaking of pudding, I finished with soft serve and Kentish strawberries: a beautifully balanced combination of Mr Whippy and high-grade ice cream van syrup. “We’re slightly blowing the older crowd’s minds with the idea of ‘soft serve’,” said Ogier. I expect they’ll come around. But if there’s any justice, Lasdun won’t be overly reliant on those about to nod off during The Motive and the Cue. What could have been a chilly waiting room feels, to me, like a brutally brilliant destination in its own right.
