Tonight, I wandered down south after work to join two good friends of mine for an evening of pop-up gastronomy, in the form of Mike+Ollie. I've always wanted to go to a pop up/ underground restaurant (and have less than secret desires to try to establish my own), so I was beyond eager to experience one first hand.
Taking over the Deptford Project, Mike+Ollie set up a whimsical space complete with wood slab platters, crawling ivy and lamenting guitar melodies as we all gathered round the long narrow table to await our feast.
As soon as we sat down, our friendly and enigmatic host and chef, Mike, greeted us with a handshake and a cocktail of pear juice, vodka and elderflower, which, while sweet, was the perfect start to the evening.
The slabs of wood were whisked away, only to return balanced tenderly on the arms of our ethereal waitress. Laden with fresh beets, and scattered across the platter was our first course - toast piled high two ways - one with roasted beetroot, goat's curd an toasted seeds, and the other roasted pork belly and pickled quince. Both delectable, but the pork belly nudging into the winning space, with its balance of sweet and salty, tender and crunchy, it was a pretty heavenly combination.
Round two brought more food on toast, this time mackerel with pickled ginger, pureed cauliflower and capers. Simply prepared yet packed full of flavour, the ginger, whose bite was tempered by its pickling, played nicely against to strong, salty capers, fresh fishy mackerel and sweet, smooth cauliflower.
One last toast-based course to go, where we found ourselves spooning out marrow and sweetly roasted heads of garlic onto too few slices of crisp bread. Having read about marrow dozens of times, I was intrigued to finally give it a go, and found it sweet and gelatinous, but not in an overtly fatty way, and beautifully complimented by the almost candy-like cloves of garlic. It was no match to the earlier pork belly, but the marrow held its own, and made a very good first impression in my book.
Thinking this was it, we were treated to a surprising twist of a fruit in another fruit - a tangy and refreshing pear sorbet nestled in a carved out apple - apparently an unintentional paring on their end (it was meant to be apple sorbet) but a better choice in my regards, with the sharpness of the pear providing what was to be an essential palate cleanser.
A bit of a lull in our dining filled with chat and plenty of wine left us wondering if the palate cleanser was indeed our final dish, before a plateful of wood pigeon, garnished with baked pear and apple (a delightful flavour theme running throughout the menu) was set before us. Less rich, but more tender than duck or goose, the pigeon (another first for me) was perfectly pink in the middle and matched well with the sweet melting fruit on the side - course number five and my plate was practically licked clean.
Last but not least was a simple yet brilliantly balanced dessert of sliced blood orange, fresh mint and dried dates. Light, refreshing and anything but heavy, it was exactly what one needed to finish off a meal filled with rather rich components. There had been whispers of a tart midway through the meal, but I'm very glad they opted for a pastry-free finish, as that probably would have made me go from pleasantly full to heavy and stuffed. Accompanying the oranges was a homemade liqueur - a rosehip gin concoction that was potent by nature yet surprisingly easy to swallow (perhaps helped by the two bottles of wine my friends and I consumed throughout the meal...).
And so ended my wonderful first experience into pop-up restaurants, and at £25 plus £18 for a bottle of very lovely wine, it was well worth the money.
I reckon there will be many more to come...
