Angler restaurant review: City staple feels both humble and flamboyant
There’s long persisted a rumour that people in the Square Mile aren’t short of a dime or two. So it is strange that our local parish doesn’t have more Michelin starred restaurants. There used to be three, but then I said Jason Atherton’s City Social had a “Vodka Revs vibe” and it lost its star. The food quality had gone down, but it’s fun to imagine critics still have power. Anyway, now there are two: Angler and Galvin La Chapelle.
Why so few? There’s probably a dull answer to do with the insanely high cost of running restaurants, and how the Square Mile is empty at weekends. Even Shoreditch and Farringdon (Farringdon!) have more than the City.
Anyway, now Angler and La Chapelle fend for themselves. Like all good Michelin-star restaurants, they both feel somewhat staid but also totally relevant – it depends on which metric you’re counting. In La Chapelle, they’re still confused by the idea that anyone would spend less than four hours dining, with at least double that amount of courses, and at Angler, there is that unnervingly sparse design ethos saved for the very fanciest of Michelin star restaurants.
Angler: restaurant’s approach to Michelin star service is to serve plates full of food
A carpeted dining room has tables dotted at random every few metres across it, and there’s very little else by way of decorations. They hung some brightly coloured paintings recently, as it does look incredibly minimal, but there’s something fabulous about the idea that the only entertainment is taking place on the plate.
As for modernity, that’s outside on the 7th floor rooftop terrace, where there is one of those chairs couples can sit in together to pose for an Instagram photo. I didn’t do that, but I did enjoy the sun with an Oscar Wilde cocktail. With champagne, cognac and absinthe, it had the heavenly sweetness of old school Blanc de noir champagne.
The best ingenuity remains on the plate. Angler specialises, as you’d hope, in the food of the sea. I went for the eight-course tasting menu, but there is a four-course option and an a la carte menu. Here, again, contemporary ideas clash with tradition: there is great care to explain every dish, but no-one’s talking your ear off. Service is friendly, not stifling. Plates are full up with food and not so artfully designed that you need to pop to McDonald’s after.
Read more: Toast the City: Galvin La Chapelle brothers on Michelin success and 20 years in business
A tiny little ice cream with Tunworth cheese and candied walnuts, then to kick off the main plates, a traditional tuna tartare with toasted sesame and pepper puree that was Angler asserting how it can do the classics well. Next up a frankly intimidating Orkney scallop (“they’ve been this big!” said my waiter, showing me his fist) with seaweed salsa, white asparagus and a clever twist of smoked eel velouté. This dish was as much about provenance as flavour.
The lobster ravioli with fennel, Thai basil and spice lobster bisque is the sort of thing you just sit and stare at, artful on the eye and brilliantly bold to taste. Next, the roasted monkfish with indulgent cauliflower purée and anchovy cream was an example of how such humble vegetables should be given main character energy more often: genius comfort food. There’s time for one meat dish: the Cornish lamb belly with crushed courgette and mint sauce; little penny-sized slithers of meat in a thoughtful glaze, with its sweetness balanced by depth of flavour. We’d gone for the paired wines, which are in decent portions, like the food: the best being a bracing Riesling and a characterful white Bordeaux the som was particularly proud to pour.
The restaurant, on the top floor of the South Place Hotel near Liverpool Street, was quiet by 10pm on a Friday night, which I suppose proves my point about how it can be difficult for very good restaurants to succeed in the Square Mile. It had supposedly been rammed for lunch. I’m torn: on one hand, I hope more out-of-towners find out about Angler, because the restaurant deserves it. But then again, it’s a rather nice little Square Mile secret, isn’t it?
The eight-course tasting menu is £155; to book go to anglerrestaurant.com
This October we’re celebrating the best of the Square Mile. Read more about the Toast The City Awards and nominate your favourite Square Mile venues on the website