Plaquemine Lock, Islington, London Cajun and Creole pub review

Avoiding restaurants on Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day and any other major celebration is one of the rules that I live by.

Dining out during a major festival brings a much higher risk of an overpriced set menu of sub-par food as the kitchen is stretched to its limits in a packed-out restaurant filled with lairy revellers, screaming children and soppy couples.

Why not visit a restaurant any other day of the year when these issues are much less likely to arise?

So, I must admit that I had palpitations when I realised that I'd booked a table at one of London's most acclaimed American restaurants on Thanksgiving. And my anxiety was made all the worse when I received a call to say that it was going to be very busy the night we were visiting #FirstWorldProblems.

Plaquemine Lock, a Cajun and Creole pub which is located on the banks of the Regents Canal in Islington, is owned by acclaimed chef Jacob Kenedy of Bocca di Lupo and Gelupo fame. It’s a love letter to his American ancestry as his grandparents were both integral to the construction of the eponymous Plaquemine Lock, which opened in Louisiana in 1909.

With its waterside setting and jovial atmosphere, Plaquemine Lock combines British pub vibes with American hospitality. There’s an excellent selection of craft beers from local London breweries like The Kernel and Hammerton, a range of cocktails that features Sazeracs and Mint Juleps and a Californian focused wine list. To add to the fun, they also host regular live jazz nights and have a cracking value happy hour from Monday to Friday.

Whilst I was worried that it was going to be elbow room only in Plaquemine Lock on Thanksgiving, in fact there was a lovely buzz of families and friends gathering to give thanks. I was thankful that Plaquemine Lock's regular bar and restaurant menus were both on offer and there was no special set menu to be seen.

With their killer bar menu offering up oysters rockefeller, po-boys and crawfish boils and their compact restaurant menu serving up dishes like gumbo and jambalaya, we danced between the two with the primary objective of ensuring we had room for dessert.

A pair of cocktails were both booze packed, in a good way. A rather grown-up Hurricane (£13) was neither too sweet nor too fruity and a fine margarita (£12) was made with smoky mezcal.

As we had a bit of a wait to place our order, we were offered a plate of complimentary cornbread (£4). Warm, sweet and soft of crumb, it was accompanied by an equal quantity of whipped salty butter. It was like eating sponge cake with salty buttercream icing and I was 100% down with it.

Fried green tomatoes (£5) were so good they deserve to have their own film named after them. The tender and meaty toms were coated in a rugged spiced crumb that would make the colonel jealous and served with a piquant remoulade that was the ideal dip.

A wedge salad (£6) was very much up my street because of the healthy ratio of greenery to unhealthy adornments. The crisp lettuce slice was drenched in a funky and creamy blue cheese dressing and topped with plentiful nuggets of crispy bacon.

I've been craving shrimp and grits since the days of Hang Fire and Plaquemine Lock's version (£10) was very good indeed. Creamy, slightly coarse grits were topped with sweet prawns and crisp salty bacon pieces in a whoppingly savoury and meaty gravy. It's proper comfort food.

Onto the mains, and we were somewhat restrained, just sharing a main and a couple of sides.

Eggs Sardou (£20) was a lovely brunch-style dish, which we happened to be eating at dinner. More of that excellent cornbread, this time crisped up on the griddle was sandwiched with perfectly runny poached eggs, tender artichoke hearts and dollops of thick creamed spinach. It was all brought together by a silky and buttery herby hollandaise sauce.

Sides were belters too. A bowl of dirty rice (£6) that was filthed up by the addition of minced pork and the richness of chicken liver.

Smothered okra (£6), with just the right amount of bite, was coated in a well spiced and buttery creole tomato sauce.

We made it to dessert with mission accomplished as we had just enough room to order one each.

Beignets (£6) lived up to the expectations of those I've seen so many times in the film Chef from Café Du Monde. Served hot from the fryer, they were impossibly light yet squidgy, liberally dusted with powdered sugar and accompanied by a pot of compellingly toasty and slightly savoury hot chicory caramel.

A slice of pecan pie (£10) is probably the best I've eaten (except for Eira's from Inner City Pickle). Thin and crisp of crust, it was laden with crunchy nuts and dark sugared caramel. The kicker was a dollop of cockle warming bourbon whipped cream.

We had an excellent meal of well-priced Deep South cooking at Plaquemine Lock in a charming setting. I'll have to update my rules on eating out during major celebration days as I'd gladly go back to Plaquemine Lock for Thanksgiving any year.

The Details:

Address - Plaquemine Lock, 139 Graham Street, Islington, London N1 8LB

Web - https://plaqlock.com/

Telephone - 020 7688 1488

Silures, Roath, Cardiff Sunday lunch review

On the Sunday after the onslaught of Storm Darragh, I thought it would be a fine opportunity to check out the Sunday lunch at Silures on Wellfield Road on my own.

Whilst this was partially under the guise of supporting local hospitality after taking yet another battering, it was primarily because I’m exceptionally greedy and Mrs G was busy working.

One of the few swanky restaurants on my side of Cardiff, Silures was beautifully decked out in its festive finery. Combined with the excellent front of house from familiar Cardiff hospitality faces Ollie and Andrew, a visit to Silures always feels a little bit special.  

Silures’ compact Sunday lunch menu offers a well-priced two courses for £30 or three courses for £35. There’s a choice of three starters, five mains (including roast pork, beef and chicken), and four desserts.

I’ve recently completed a wine course so in theory the quality of my wine tasting notes should move kick up a gear from abysmal to woeful. A large gluggable glass of Pays D’oc Merlot (£7) was packed with red fruit and had good acidity. Nope, same quality of commentary as usual then.

To start, silky smooth and thick chicken liver parfait was partnered with some excellent garnishes - sweet date chutney, crunchy candied walnuts and zippy pickled mushrooms.

It was cracking spread over a slice of lightly toasted brioche, which was served in a rather absurd bowl of grain. This was a classic dish executed with class.

A roast dinner is best judged in terms of its individual components and this basis, Silures’ pork belly and cauliflower cheese are two of the finest examples that I've eaten anywhere.

A plate length piece of pork was impeccably juicy and tender and topped with shatteringly light, thin and crisp crackling. Bag this crispy pork skin up and it would be the best pork scratching on offer in Cardiff. 

Silures have clearly taken all the key learnings from their excellent macaroni cheese and brought them to bear on the brassica. A bubbling cauldron of golden cheese was home to dinky cauliflower pieces that were well-coated in an ultra thick and cheesy sauce. 

I’ve never had a version like it, and it was far superior to other examples where massive bits of cauliflower are barely coated in an underpowered sauce.

A light and crisp Yorkshire pudding, roast heritage carrots, fruity braised red cabbage, and greens were all unfussy yet hit the mark. Tender roast potatoes could have been more assertively crisp, but really that’s my only criticism.

A jug of thick glossy gravy ensured that there was ample saucing on hand.

Stuffed, I thought I'd crack on with a light dessert, a whopping bowl of rice pudding. Thick and creamy with a warming winter spice of cinnamon and cardamom, it was adorned with toasty honeycomb pieces and a dollop of richness balancing dark berry compote.

I had a corker of a Sunday lunch at Silures and it’s definitely up there among the best I’ve eaten in Cardiff. Whichever part of the city you’re in, it’s worth a trip over to Wellfield Road for a little bit of luxury.

The Details:

Address - Silures, 55 Wellfield Road, Cardiff CF24 3PA
Web - https://www.silures-amh.com/
Telephone - 029 2280 6369

Hiraeth, Victoria Park, Cardiff restaurant review

“A blend of homesickness, nostalgia and longing, ‘hiraeth’ is a pull on the heart that conveys a distinct feeling of missing something irretrievably lost.”

It’s also perhaps an inadvertently fitting name for Victoria Park’s newest restaurant.

Because Hiraeth, the restaurant that is, is currently on its third home in less than 2 years.

Having settled in at their initial home in a former pub near Cowbridge and gained listings in the Michelin and Good Food guides, they were turfed out just a year after opening when the building they rented was put up for sale at the end of 2023.

They then had a brief stint at Court Colman near Bridgend but from an outsider’s perspective it never seemed like a natural fit. Perhaps because a traditional country house hotel isn’t quite the right setting for modern and intimate Welsh dining.

So, now Hiraeth’s chef-owners Lewis Dwyer (who you might recognise from this year’s Great British Menu) and Andy Aston, have settled in Cardiff’s Victoria Park on the former site of Nook and Mangla’s Spice of Life. On a Wednesday lunchtime the cosy dining room was buzzing. It felt like a restaurant that had inhabited this space for years.

I’m always a sucker for a set lunch menu as it offers an affordable way to experience high end restaurants before committing to a full-blown tasting menu. At Hiraeth, £35 buys you bread, three courses and a glass of wine. It’s a bloody good deal and to be fair, their six-course tasting menu for £65 seems reasonable too.

Hiraeth’s weekly changing set lunch menu offers a choice of two starters, three mains and two desserts with a couple of additional snack and side options.

On the wine front, there was a choice of a Spanish white or Italian red but they kindly let Mrs G’s mum have a glass of Cava as she only drinks wine if it fizzes. A glass of floral white rioja and easy drinking Vilarnau Cava were both delicious. They also get extra swank marks for serving the bubbles in a coupe glass.

I’ve heard great things about Hiraeth’s bread and it most certainly lived up to expectations. A beautifully light, soft and sweet warm Japanese milk loaf glistened with herb butter and was served with a quenelle of savoury and meaty chicken skin butter that was flecked with the odd crispy bit of its headline ingredient. We’ve got plenty of top-drawer flavoured butters in Cardiff and this is deserving of its place in the A-list.

Roast cauliflower soup had huge boredom potential, but Hiraeth’s version was anything but dull. Thick and velvety, it tasted like it was made with as much butter and cream as cauliflower. It was zhushed up by a pretty garnish of crunchy crushed pistachios, caraway seeds, mouth warming pepper and I’m sure plenty of other spices too.

Mrs G really enjoyed a torched fillet of oily mackerel that was paired with the traditional accompaniment of roast and pickled beetroot as well as a grating of tangy goats curd and a salty and umami black olive tapenade.

It’s always great to see retro classics appearing on restaurant menus and a suet pudding is about as old skool as it gets. A golden, crisp and squidgy suet-crusted pudding was a handsome devil.

Its filling was a cracker too - long cooked shreds of beef shin and an ooze of pokey cheddar. On the side was a slab of earthy roast celeriac and a savoury and tangy puree, which I think must have been black garlic and mushroom based on the menu description.

Mrs G also highly rated a crisp-skinned fillet of grey mullet and plump briny cockles that were perched on top of comforting fregola pasta balls coated in a big-flavoured sauce with a good hit of seafood.

Sides were just as well considered as the main dishes themselves.

Sprouts (£6), with a good crisping and caramelisation, were flecked with fragrant sage leaves and loads of nuggets of salty pancetta. I’m all in favour of vegetable side dishes which are equal parts meat.

 

Sweet roasted carrots (£6) were covered with a flurry of crunchy and compellingly smoky almonds.

Desserts were both dinky but decadent. Considering how rich they were, it was all that was needed.

Silky smooth and creamy caramel ice cream was drizzled with caramel and served alongside pieces of warming ginger cake and a slab of crunchy almond brittle. An all-important scattering of sea salt brought balance to the dish.

Light and airy yet intense chocolate mousse was garnished with hunks of toasty cinder toffee and the boozy kick of rum soaked raisins.

I was really impressed by Hiraeth’s modern yet comforting cooking and it was lovely to engage with the chefs as they served food from the open kitchen.

Hiraeth certainly shouldn’t long for things it has lost - it belongs in Victoria Park.

The Details:

Address - Hiraeth, 587 Cowbridge Road East, Cardiff CF5 1BE

Web - https://www.hiraethkitchen.com/

Donia, Carnaby Street, London Filipino restaurant review

What can I tell you about Filipino cuisine?

Well, I guess I could do the usual blogger thing and look up Filipino Cuisine on Wikipedia, paraphrase some of it and pretend that I'm an expert.

Or I could come clean and tell you that I've been to Jollibee once (it was underwhelming), have had a corker of a lunch at Panadera Bakery in Camden Town, and I gather that roast pork is kind of a big deal.

Which brings me to Donia, a sister restaurant to Panadera, which is located on the top floor of Kingly Court near London's Carnaby Street. Since opening in late 2023, it’s been getting a lot of love. Jimi Famurewa called it “London’s best new restaurant” and Tim Hayward proclaimed it a “delightful revelation.”

Donia describes itself as serving contemporary Filipino cuisine that combines traditional flavours with seasonal British produce and different culinary techniques. So, chicken inasal, lechon, and adobo sit alongside choux buns, pithiviers and pomme Anna.

Dishes at Donia are designed to be shared, but I wouldn’t judge anyone for wanting to keep their food all to themselves. We were a group of four, so the friendly waiter kindly supplemented a couple of the dishes so that the portions were suitable for a quartet of mouthfuls.

We kicked things off with a light soft, salty and sweet pandesal bread roll (£4.50) that we thickly slathered with whipped chive butter.

Donia’s adobo takes the form of mushroom croquetas (£7.50). A coarse wild mushroom mix was spiked with the deep umami hit of soy and tanginess of vinegar and coated in the crispest of crumbs.

Plump prawn and pork dumplings (£15 + £5 supplement) were topped with sweet white crab meat and sat in a pool of luxurious brown butter and lime sauce with a thrum of chilli and pearls of salty fish roe. This was the first indication of just how good Donia is at saucing – each example was distinct yet brilliant.

A quartet of gigantic sweet-fleshed prawns (£28 + £3 supplement) were treated with the care they deserved. Kissed with smoke from the grill, they were served with their heads on to retain all that extra flavour and accompanied by a fermented plum broth that was addictively sweet, salty, fragrant and sour.

Lechon (£27) lived up to its fame. With hyper crisp and light crackling and juicy fat-rendered flesh, it was some of the best roast pork I've ever eaten. But the kicker was an immensely rich sauce which combined the decadence of chicken liver pate and the punch of peppercorn. Woof.

Chicken inasal (£28), marinated for 48 hours in coconut, vinegar, lemongrass and calamansi, before a good char on the grill was every bit as crisp and juicy as you could hope for. Topped with zingy pickles, it was accompanied by another corker of a rich, spicy and tangy sauce that was made with the butter enriched marinade.

Finally, a lamb shoulder caldereta pie (£35) was a pithivier-esque pastry palace that combined light golden pastry filled with shreds of tender meat, peppers and potatoes. I'm sounding like a broken record now but the accompanying sauce, enriched with tomato and chicken liver, was another bobby dazzler.

Bowls of jasmine rice (£5) were essential for mopping up all those sauces. A spoon also earned its keep that night, scraping up every last drop.

Dessert, so often an assembly of tasty things in even the best restaurants, took the form of a skilled piece of patisserie. A crisp and light craquelin coated choux bun (£14) was filled with vibrant purple ube ice cream, whose earthy vanilla and coconut flavour oddly reminds me of Nice biscuits. Whilst it’s a dessert which is probably designed to be shared, I’ll be ordering my own next time.

We had a belter of a meal at Donia with their whopping flavoured, technically accomplished and fairly priced cooking. Whilst I might be an ignoramus when it comes to Filipino cooking, our meal at Donia was an enlightening experience and I’ll be seeking out those rich, tangy and meaty flavours closer to home.

The Details:

Address - Donia, Top Floor Kingly Court, Carnaby Street, London W1B 5PW

Web - https://www.doniarestaurant.com/