Birchwood masters the art of keeping it simple.
Anyone can hide behind complicated cooking. It takes real confidence to serve simple food and have nowhere to conceal mistakes. The new restaurant, Birchwood – The Conduit, makes it look effortless. It has the feel of a family-run restaurant you stumble across in the countryside, where nothing is fancy, nothing is in the guidebooks, yet every dish is memorable because the ingredients are fresh and local. The surprise: this is in Covent Garden, right in the heart of London.
Opened on 22 June, this gastro café meets wine bar is the big-city sister to Birchwood – Taywell Farm in Kent. And like its predecessor (which is, in fact, in the guidebooks: Michelin, for one), it draws on ingredients sourced directly from its own farms as well as other independent local producers.
Take the Tomato Salad. The great Joël Robuchon became, in the last years of his life, obsessed with creating the perfect version. He spent three months on the attempt and finally cracked it, he said, when he realised it all hinged on the exact thickness of the salt grind. “Faire simple c’est très compliqué,” he explained. This means it’s very complicated to make something simple.
Birchwood’s chef, Will Devlin, may or may not have applied the same rigour, but his Nutbourne Tomato Salad was divine, and a minor miracle in England, where a good tomato is harder to find than a competent politician. Just beautiful, ripe produce with lovage pesto, olive oil and dreamy Blackwoods feta.
All the small plates we tried had the same elegant simplicity. We almost didn’t order the Beef Bresaola, thinking, how interesting can that be? Luckily, our excellent server, Ben, insisted. The meat was reared and butchered on their own farm, he said, and needed to be tried to be believed. Having seen its beautiful beetroot colour, and savoured its deep taste, call me a true believer.
Slow-cooked Lamb Flatbread and Pickled Wild Garlic Yoghurt also used meat from the same farm. It had a deep, rich taste and practically melted in the mouth. Mushroom Croquettes and Black Garlic were crunchy on the outside and creamily delicious on the inside. And the Whole Grain Sourdough was superb, with fluffy whipped butter.
A special shout-out goes to the Ray Cheek Skewers (the fish in question may change on the day, depending on availability). If you’ve never had fish cheeks, you’re in for a treat. A delicacy in Asia, these are not often found on British menus. True, they become rubbery if overcooked, but when lightly flame-grilled and left slightly pink, as here, they are astonishingly tender and delicious. A sprinkling of crunchy dulse seaweed lent a textural counterpoint.
We could have added a main course of Block Bavette Steak, Green Sauce and Chips or Grilled Cornish Bass, Nduja and Tomato Sauce; or a dessert of Dark Chocolate Mousse and Kentish Cherries or Kuroda Carrot Cake and Meadowsweet Cream Cheese. The few small plates felt satisfying enough for an early dinner for two on a blisteringly hot day.
The wine proved just as good. It’s on the pricey side compared with the food, but the small list is interesting and well chosen. And, unusually, it’s all available by the glass as well as by the bottle, so you can experiment. We enjoyed excellent British wines: a crisp, refreshing Pinot Gris from Kent, and a powerful orange wine that carried hints of cider from Monmouthshire in Wales. Yes, Wales. Who knew the climate-driven improvement in British wines had stretched that far?
The décor at Birchwood – The Conduit has a slightly 1980s vibe: exposed pipework, steel supports and high ceilings. The simple Scandi-style furniture with sheepskin throws adds a modern touch. It’s a relaxed place to hang out, grazing on uniformly excellent, simple, farm-to-fork dishes and sipping novel wines. There are a few tables outside, too. It’s rare that we cannot find a single fault in a restaurant, especially on its second night, but they make it seem effortless.
Apparently, it’s not so very complicated to make something simple.
Where: Birchwood – The Conduit, 6 Langley Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2H 9JA
When: Daily from 8am to 11pm
Contact: https://birchwood-family.com