Draper Arms

The Draper Arms, Islington, London, N1 1ER

Tucked away from the busy Upper Street this is a classical looking upmarket pub with a quite minimally styled interior. The staff were friendly and you got a good mixture of couples and families sharing the space easily. Nursing a bit of a sore head today wasn't a drinking day for me but they had reasonable ale selection with Harvey's Best and Wandle standing out but really more geared up for wines here and I thought it looked like some decent bottles for around twenty quid.

Plaice, Mussels, Baby gem & aioli

A really top salad to start, dressed generously which I always love in a salad the aioli was rich and light so didn't overpower the fish. Both the mussels and the plaice tasted of fresh and were lightly cooked just enough. Nothing amazing just a good simple salad.

Roast Old Spot, beetroot & potato salad

An enormous hunk of pork with an amazing surface of crispy crackling, the flesh was superbly moist and a satisfying dribble down the chin when biting into it was so fulfilling. But serving this great bit of meat with pink potatoes... no that's just not right, they added nothing to the dish except making it look like a thrown together mess, would of worked better with simpler potatoes and something else rather than the beetroot. But the pork was proper good.

Black pudding hash, fried egg

Slight disappointment that this didn't come with duck egg as I'd seen on their website before coming and the egg was a bit over cooked so you couldn't break up the egg and let all the york seep through the hash as the bottom of the egg was crispy. This would have added more moisture to the hash, which it needed. Also for this to cost more than the old spot main course just doesn't add up, this is gonna be a cheap dish to produce so why so expensive - my initial reaction was that it must be bloody good, but it wasn't anything special at all and let rest of lunch down a little bit. Overall I liked what they were trying to do and would go back as they seem to be constantly changing the menu which is always good to see.

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Bread & Wine

St John Bread & Wine, Spitalfields, London, E1 6LZ

Been wanting to visit here for ages after being a fan of Fergus Henderson's brilliant book 'Nose to Tail Eating' which a veritable bible on quality british food, so coming here for lunch on at Saturday was a real treat. We had to have an early lunch due to planned train journeys so were in here at midday and we're practically only people in here for first half hour, but it started to slowly fill up after that. The lunch menu is almost like British tapas so we decided to pick few things each and share the lot, the menu changes extremely regularly so definitely a place worth visiting a couple of times and I'm trying to plan my next visit already unless I'm feeling even more frivolous and decide to go to the flag ship restaurant instead.

Rock Oysters

Super fresh, super gorgeous... bliss

Nettles Soup

Rich and creamy, was a very nice soup but didn't strike me as particularly nettle like but it was nice just bit normal.

Faggot

What cuts went into the faggot I don't know but it was traditionally made being held together by the caul fat and the meat produced so many juices that it became a fatty sauce, looking back this much have been demolished in 2 minutes flat.

Mussels

The only disappointment really, the mussels hadn't been soaked long enough and were quite gritty, the waitress apologised when this was mentioned and when the bill came this had been removed without any fuss whatsoever, in fact they were extremely apologetic about it

Stinking Bishop & Potatoes

Such a good cheese that served as simply as this; just with new potatoes really let it's quality stand out. Simple yet complex - almost a mantra for St John's I suppose.

Ox Heart Salad

Slices of the heart were mixed in with fresh crispy watercress and a wonderfully rich balsamic dressing. Even the watercress-hater amongst us enjoyed this, the heart just melted in your mouth (or should that be melted your heart?)

Eccles Cake & Lancashire Cheese

So good to see proper Lancashire cheese and this was so good it provided all the moisture of a sauce to compliment the densest of eccles cakes I've ever seen, a homely treat for the taste buds but one hell of a workout for the jaw muscles.

Baked Vanilla Cheesecake

There is a long running argument/debate whether you chill or bake a cheesecake and I think that the fact dishes like specify they are baked shows this isn't the expected way. But I'll concede that baked cheesecakes are very good and this didn't disappoint, rich and creamy with excellent quality vanilla flavour this was fitting end to meal.

To drink we went with the house white, which at twenty quid wasn't cheap but can't complain about the quality of it, really crisp and refreshing and good to see you can pop in here for a bottle to take home for a decent price - in fact there was quite a steady stream of people dropping in just to pick up a loaf of one of the artisan breads which were as good as you'd expect. Very good place and just makes me wanna go to Smithfield restaurant more.

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