Modern Pantry London

When I was in London last year, I had dinner with my friend, the Man of Mode, at Modern Pantry in Clerkenwell in the oldest part of London. I was delighted to see the review of it today in the Guardian and it got a 9/10!

You have to wade through some obscure references at the beginning, but here's the review in full.

The Modern Pantry, Clerkenwell.
9/10Telephone 020-7250 0833 Address 47-48 St John's Square, London EC1

Open Mon-Fri, 8am-7pm

Even in such a hyper-faddish industry in so neophiliac an age, nothing lately has gone from all the rage to dismally passé with the speed of fusion cooking. At the turn of the century, the mingling of cuisines and ingredients that really should have been offering each other outside had come to offer untold riches to the parodist of rampant pretension, and gloomy bemusement to everyone else.

If the gold standard was Shumi, a central London shocker that coalesced the culinary traditions of Italy and Japan before surrendering to closure as its Axis powers predecessors did to the Allies (albeit without a shiitake mushroom cloud), it was hardly alone. During the millennium's earliest years, the nuclear family of fusion joints saw countless members vaporised before the penny finally dropped.

So it was with a fittingly assonant cocktail of emotions - nostalgic warmth mingling with terror - that I went to a newcomer in Clerkenwell belonging to chef-owner Anna Hansen. She's a protégée and compatriot of Peter Gordon, the grandaddy of British fusion whose Sugar Club and, later, Providores spawned so many wretched pastiches from those who never grasped that to be a great surrealist painter, you must first master such basics as accurate drawing.

According to the online guides, the Modern Pantry (and what a cute, era-fusing name that is) belongs to the Gordon-pioneered sub-branch of fusion known as Pacific Rim. That alone was enough to put me off, because to the self-respecting hypochondriac it isn't a geographical or foodie term at all, but the correct antonym for irritable bowel syndrome. "How's your IBS?" "Never worse. These bowels aren't irritable, they're psychotic. And yours?" "Much better. At the minute, touch wood, I have an astonishingly pacific rim."

Low expectations can distort the critical judgment, the relief luring you into inflating the competent into the outstanding, but by any standards the Modern Pantry is a gem. Sited in a pair of listed town houses in a quiet square, the small and more informal downstairs room (a posher one has since opened upstairs, and there's a deli attached) is bright but functional, with gleamingly white furniture, refectory table in the centre of the space, open-plan kitchen, obligatory Farrow & Ball bluey-grey walls, and conical copper lamps, while the staff are tolerant to the edge of saintliness. Our lunch, which kicked off at 12.30, did not end until 7pm, yet even after we had smashed the third wine glass, they smiled indulgently on heading for the dustpan and brush.

The decently priced menu, meanwhile, isn't overly laden with things you need to Google (Krupuk quail eggs, turmeric gujiya, umeboshi butter; just a few) and the food is simply beautiful. My God, this young woman can cook.

My starter was a desert island dish - an omelette of sugar-cured prawns, spring onions and green chilli, straddled by coriander leaves and served with a smoked chilli sambal, which perfectly mingled the sweet and the tongue-tinglingly acrid. Previously, I'd have cited the Arnold Bennett as all-time favourite omelette, but the lightness and delicacy of this masterpiece gives it the edge. My friend was almost as wild about his yellowfin tuna sashimi with truffled mustard seed, yuzu and soy dressing, an elegantly presented, zingingly fresh dish that elicited a visceral, "Och, that's wonderful."

The first glass had been destroyed by the time main courses arrived. "It's like a notably well laid out version of something you'd get in a jerk chicken place," said my friend of his spinach, shiitake and plantain green curry with roasted yams and spiced aubergine relish. "And it's gorgeous." As were my grilled Napoli sausages, gloriously herby, flavoursome beasts served with lentils, feta, parsnips and green pepper relish.

The portions being as rustic as the sausages, we couldn't manage puds. So with the coffee we shared a plate of cheese (including the creamiest Yarg I've tasted) - engagingly and fleetingly removed so the chef could pass the oatcakes fit for duty - and prepared to depart. Four hours and two more broken glasses later, we reeled out feeling as guilty, perplexed and fearful as middle-aged men must after a six-hour lunch. But at the same time we left entranced by Hansen's fusion of the pan-global inventiveness that is now so deliciously nostalgic and the old-fashioned technical excellence that's become so achingly trendy.
Although the Modern Pantry isn't all that at first glance, it becomes more impressive as each hour passes. In fact, it's what a self-confessed size queen of my acquaintance would admiringly call "a grower, not a shower", and should be around long enough to watch a myriad culinary fads rise and fall.

The bill
Bread £2

Prawn omelette £7.80 Pictured above

Yellowfin tuna sashimi £5.80 This is one of the things I had. It was amazing!!!

Spinach, shiitake and plantain green curry £11

Napoli sausages on lentils £12.50Cheese plate £6.50

Alcohol I'm not telling
Subtotal (excluding booze) £49.60Service @ 12.5% (ditto) £6.20
Total £55.80

This was the ladies room. LOVE the pink mirror!