Daffodil Mulligan: a touch of Dublin in the heart of London

At first sight kale toast appears to be the only vegetarian option at Richard Corrigan’s new restaurant Daffodil Mulligan. Then I spot beetroot but still no mains. The veggie member of our party, having scanned the menu in advance is unimpressed. We’re worried - the other three of us, having heard good things about the restaurant which is named after the daughter of a famous Irish street seller, are gagging to go.

I contact the restaurant and turns out they do in fact have a veggie menu. It just isn’t up on the website which doesn’t come as a huge surprise. A bluff Irishman, Corrigan isn’t the type to have much truck with vegetarians.

I’m actually so preoccupied with deciding which of the many things I want I actually fail to notice what our resident veggie orders other than that the kale toast is much sexier than it sounds with 3 different types of kale, (curly, Russian and cavolo nero drenched in parmesan and truffle). Presumably Corrigan doesn’t do vegan.

The rest of us are meanwhile tucking into the most perfect beef tartare with oyster cream which I shall insist on every time I eat tartare in future and crubeens (Ireland’s answer to croquetas) and English mustard - bliss with the absolutely excellent Gibney's stout which is streets ahead of Guinness. There’s also a crab and dashi pear salad and fried chicken with which the member of the party who orders it is well pleased. Stealing a forkful it’s good but but doesn’t seem quite Corrigan's natural register. The langoustine and pumpkin bisque on the other hand which arrives at the table as an unbidden extra, is sheer heaven - silky smooth, with a deep shellfish flavour. We have to order a glass of Radford Dale chardonnay to go with it.

We’ve eaten more than enough for most people by now but we move on to our mains for which hearty seems an inadequate description. Two of us go for game: my partridge comes with mangalitza pork and apple - now, come on, why wouldn’t you have added pork with your partridge or, indeed, bone marrow crumb on your mash? (I can see that our veggie is cringing.) Even the heartiest trencherman among us struggles to finish his game pie which is showily served as a Wellington. Oh, and there’s Pete Hannan’s sublime sugar pit pork which comes kitschly with roast pineapple. You can see that becoming a bit of trend.

We have no intention of ordering pud but Corrigan, who is surprisingly on the pass himself, has other ideas. A loaded plate of pavlova, a 'crème pot' with poached rhubarb, an almond and bergamot 'sandwich' (a sort of mille-feuille) with pink grapefruit granita and a luscious little baked apple arrive, along with a glass of Jurançon, I seem to remember, but then again maybe not. I'd rather lost the plot by this stage. (I forgot to mention the delicious TWR pinot noir - a great choice from a surprisingly naturally-inclined wine list. Well, we are on the borders of Shoreditch).

Frankly I’d go back just for the tartare but there’s a lot to love about Daffodil Mulligan whether you're an carnivore or not.

Like the man himself it’s big, noisy and generous - a little touch of Dublin in London…

Daffodil Mulligan is at 70-74 City Road (just by Old Street tube), London EC1Y 2BJ. At the time of writing there are - amazingly - still tables for St Patrick's Day.

Disclosure We paid for our meal but were given a glass of champagne on arrival and a number of extra courses including dessert.

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Rovi - Ottolenghi’s latest restaurant is perfect for flexitarians

I’m writing about Rovi in almost ideal circumstances. After two visits - one very shortly after opening, the other last week, two and a half months later. I could, of course, have reviewed it after the first visit. It was fully open not a discounted ‘soft’ opening yet there isn’t a restaurant that gets into its stride in the first month. American publications insist that their critics go three times before their review is published I believe. In an ideal world you would.

Anyway it's benefitted - as most restaurants do - from bedding down so what can you expect?

The room itself is large, airy and smartly cosmopolitan. You feel it could equally well have been opened in New York, Hong Kong or Dohar as indeed it might in the future although Ottolenghi didn’t roll out his Piccadilly restaurant Nopi which Rovi resembles more than his eponymous cafés. Life is brought to the room by the circular bar in the centre and open kitchen at the back. Even the loos - possibly the most elegant I’ve come across - have sensuously sculpted blond wood doors

The menu also strikes me as more ‘plant-based’ than anything he has done before - or at least it was. On this last visit it seemed there was more meat on the menu. Seems a shame in a way - a similar thing has happened to one of my favourite places to eat in Bristol, Root but I guess you have to turn the stats about vegetarians and vegans on their head. Yes, 12.5% of the population now class themselves as vegetarian for vegan, according to the latest Waitrose trends survey, but that leaves 87.5% who do not. But many omnivores like me make veggie choices in restaurants and I suspect that's who Ottolenghi is catering for.

There was more variety in the menu too this time than in August. I remember ordering four dishes back then that while delicious were very similar - grilled or roasted vegetables with a dairy-based dollop or dip. There’s still a fondness in the kitchen for that treatment. There is a wonderful dish of dark, charred red cabbage with gorgonzola (above) and sweetly earthy hasselback beetroot with lime cream and herb salsa but there are other dishes like the inspired - and incredibly tender - squid and lardo skewer with a spicy red pepper glaze and a crunchy fennel salad that offer real contrast. I’d go back for that alone.

Of the four meat dishes on offer we went for three - another skewer, this time grass fed onglet - a tad tough but the fermented green chilli sauce that went with it was deliciously punchy; excellent congee topped with sticky Asian-spiced braised beef (there seem more Asian influences than in any of his restaurants to date and my favourite dish, a Jerusalem grill (below) - a plate of spicy offal, flatbread and homemade pickles we all piled into. We also ordered sides of hay-smoked pink fir apple potatoes (not quite so convinced by that one - a bit 'grassy') and tomato carpaccio, a tomato salad given an Asian spin with ginger, spring onions and pickled chillies and a good clean bright counterpoint to the richness of the some of the other dishes.

I probably don’t need to say this to you but make sure to leave room for dessert. We demolished three - some airy little plum and juniper doughnuts with bayleaf cream which I remember from last time), a fig clafoutis which was more of a cake than a clafoutis but none the worse for that and, best of all, roasted pear with mastic ice cream and filo which was transformed into a crisp flaky multi-layered biscuit. (Will we see roasted pears on menus now like we’ve seen roasted cauliflower and cabbage? I suspect we will.)

Downsides? Well, it’s a bit spendy - four of us including a 13 year old and two of whom weren’t drinking managed to run up a lunchtime bill of £250 though we admittedly ordered a good deal more food than most reasonable people would. A small but delicious snack of crumpet lobster toast was £8 for a couple of mouthfuls (still, lobster ….) and I imagine the Jerusalem grill (£19) costs about a tenth that amount in Jerusalem but was impressively tender which wouldn’t necessarily be the case on a street stall. The red cabbage was £10, the doughnuts £9 - you can see how how it mounted up. Still, this is Fitzrovia as we must call it these days (just north of Oxford Street if you can’t place it)

The wine list is largely natural which is to Yotam's - and my - taste but I’m not entirely sure it goes with the clean bright flavours of the food. I wasn’t drinking on this occasion but my pals ordered a 125ml glass each of the La Tranchee Yoyo from Banyuls at a pretty hefty £15 a pop and a slightly murky Czech pinot noir from Stapleton and Springer (£10.50) so the wine element of the bill alone was £51 before service.

Speaking of which it (service) could do with finessing. We felt a bit pressured as staff hovered over us to whisk plates away but were strangely absent when we needed to pay the bill. But, it's a minor niggle which pales into insignificance in comparison with the food which is glorious: boldly flavoured, original and a riot of colour as you’d expect from Yotam’s books and columns. The chef pal I ate with reckoned it was the most interesting meal he'd had during a few days eating his way round London. So go, just remember not to get too carried away.

PS There is plenty of bar space so it’s a good place to eat on your own if you need a bolthole from the steaming hell of Oxford Street.

Rovi is at 59 Wells St, London W1A 3AE. Tel: 020 3963 8270

St Leonards: very cool, very Shoreditch

One of the problems about being a food writer - though I’m not expecting much sympathy from you - is that you’re always chasing the latest new opening. Which means that restaurants you make the effect to go back you feel pretty special about.

So far this year Brat and Sabor (which I reviewed here) have fallen into this category. The latest is St Leonards which I visited for the second time last week.

I had high hopes of it because it’s owned by the highly regarded team of Andrew Clarke and Jackson Boxer who also run Brunswick House - a place friends have raved about but which I’ve never managed to get to.

St Leonards, which is in the up and coming area just off Old Street roundabout, home also to Leroy and Oklava, is rather more convenient.

Compared to many new restaurants it has a pared back, slightly utilitarian feel with a horseshoe-shaped bar as you come in and a large dining area that looks a bit like the staff canteen of a smart advertising agency. But the presence of a raw bar (the oysters are sensational) and an open hearth manned by the heavily tattooed and bearded Clarke, put a firm 2018 stamp on it.

You should definitely start with the oysters which are sparklingly fresh and beautifully dressed - this last time with pickles. The clam with sichuan oil and coriander is good too but at an eyewaterinw £9 a pop, likely to make you feel short-changed.

I would also not miss the nicely rare Dexter bavette which arrives under a snowy blanket of grated cured bone marrow and the unusually interesting sides - the fig leaf baked potatoes, infused with the fruity flavour of the leaves, are insanely delicious. I can’t imagine how I failed to order the hispi cabbage with pork fat twice - maybe subconsciously to have an excuse to go back yet again. And with all that macho cooking it was a surprise to find the prettiest imaginable summer dessert of sichuan pepper pannacotta, strawberries and sweet cicely ice cream.

There are various small plates you’ll probably want to take in along the way. including a spectacular charred leek with almond cream which indicates the restaurant treats vegetarians with respect. Actually it may even be vegan.

Not everything works. A deep-fried red mullet with sauce gribiche made with kelp has none of the rich flavour generally associated of that fish - it’s a treatment that works in a Thai restaurant because of the pungency of the dipping sauces but not here. I liked the wild bass crudo with lardo and burnt kohlrabi but can imagine some might regard it as too austere. Most of the dishes though are ones you crave to eat again. i haven’t checked out the mortadella dog and the white clam pie on the bar menu but they both sound like they need to be sampled.

Winewise you’ll find a largely natural list (of course - this is Shoreditch) presided over by the amiable Donald Edwards with some interesting gems such as vin jaune by the glass. Expect that to expand as Boxer is, rare for a chef, genuinely interested in wine. I drank a glass of grower's champagne with my onglet which was unusual but absolutely spot on.

I suspect Boxer and Clarke have created in St Leonards, the sort of place they want to eat in themselves. So, absolutely, do I. I need to find time to go back.

St Leonards is at 70 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4QX. Tel: +44 (0)20 7739 1291

Scully: intrepid eating in St James’s

Sometimes it pays not to look at the menu of a restaurant you’re thinking of going to. I was nearly discouraged from visiting Scully by the vast list of unfamiliar dishes and ingredients. Did I really want to eat puffed beef tendons or Welsh mutton with black barley and bisbas? I wasn’t sure I did.

The location too isn’t one of my favourites. St James’s Market is a bleak corporate restaurant development, a curiously deserted space to have within metres of the heaving crowds and lurid tat of Leicester Square though I guess one should be grateful for that. And it is at least an conveniently central place to meet a friend from practically any part of London rather than having to schlep over to Hackney for once.

As it was a mere 5 minutes from a nearby wine tasting and open (hooray!) on a Monday lunchtime it seemed perverse not to give it a try, particularly given the chef Ramael Scully’s pedigree. (Born in Malaysia and brought up in Sydney he has a fascinating multi-cultural background and used to be head chef at Ottolenghi’s Nopi.)

The Hackneyscenti among you will relieved to know there are pickles - a lot of them - including a highly instagrammable display as you walk through the front door. They turn up too in the slightly scary first dish we order of vegetable acha (an African grain, doncha know) which is maybe a bit hard core for anyone other than pickle aficionados.

But then things start to hot up. The arepa, eggplant sambal and bergamot labneh might sound weird but is actually quite wonderful. A light puffy warm maize bread (from Columbia and Venezuela I discover from Wikipedia) dusted with grated lime and served with a blissfully sweet, spicy heap of aubergine and dreamy, creamy labneh. The bread was too good to share - we had to have two.

I’d hesitated about ordering the early season tomato and coconut salad with green strawberries - it seemed too early for both at the unseasonably cold end of March - but it was as bright and fresh as it was beautiful. A salad of Italian spring greens red miso and sunflower seeds dusted with gherkin powder (yes, really) was probably slightly better suited to being served as a side - it was quite a lot of greens to chomp through on their own but it was our choice to go veggie, wanting to eat relatively lightly at lunch. And forbidden (black) rice with vegetable XO was deep and delicious, the sort of comforting dish you want to be able to make yourself on a wet Tuesday night.

Desserts, I feel, need a bit of finessing. They really are quite austere and I say this as someone who doesn’t have a particularly sweet tooth. The coconut and parsnip sorbet was 'nice' - maybe that's damning it with faint praise - parsnip works surprisingly well in desserts but the matcha ice cream with malt cookie and miso while striking to look at was really quite unappetisingly grainy.

Other reasons to go - there’s an interesting wine list with a good selection by the glass. We drank a refreshingly light white Hungarian field blend (a wine made from different varieties of grapes which are grown and vinified together) from a producer called Tizenhat - and shared a glass of Beaujolais and a really lovely German Lemberger (red) from Weingut Roterfaden. As off-piste as the ingredients, I admit, but spot on with the food.

I would recommend sitting the bar to get a birds eye view of the kitchen although we were told it’s going to be used as a chefs’ table which is a bit of a pain. Sometimes you just want to go and eat without having to wade through/think about/pay for multiple courses. Maybe it will be available for walk-ins like us at lunchtime.

All this must sound a bit equivocal I realise. Yet Scully is serving genuinely innovative food of the kind - pickles aside - that isn’t being done anywhere else in London that I’m aware of. If some dishes were challenging the best were sublime and for small plates, the portions were unusually generous.

In a nutshell I’d say it’s not the sort of place to take your conservative Daily Mail-reading mother-in-law whereas it’s perfect for fellow foodies, adventurous veggies and regular visitors to London who want to try somewhere new. As for me I've got to get back for that arepa.

Scully is at 4 St. James's Market, London, SW1Y 4AH. Tel: (0)20 3911 6840

We paid about £35 each including 2 glasses of wine. They treated us to a couple of other glasses, a salad and a dessert. Didn’t ask them to. Didn’t explain who we were. Just a gesture during the opening period I suspect. Expect to pay about £40-50 + wine if you have main courses.