Archive
Roast restaurant
The Floral Hall, Stoney Street London SE1 1TL www.roast-restaurant.com
Saved from the scrapheap
It’s been at least five years since I went to Roast. The pace of openings since then has become so fast, so furious, the keen diner need never go to the same place twice. Miss one restaurant’s hyped up, hysterical launch? Don’t worry there’ll be three more along in a minute.
Since my last visit the area around Roast has evolved. Massive building works have changed much of the area’s character but the approach to the restaurant’s lift, past the market shutting for the night, the drifting cabbage leaves and the spray from the pressure hoses cleaning down the wet fish stall, is still oddly romantic.
I remember the lift, I remember there was always a bit of a wait for it. Why? It only serves one floor after all. The lift finally arrives and it has a dwarf in it, no not a dwarf but one of those middle-class small boys with too-long, too much hair. He’s been playing about, no doubt to the benign amusement of his parents. I get in a light blow to his head while reaching for the buttons and return his aggrieved look with a cheery smile. No doubt he’ll tell mummy and daddy about how he met an evil Tory in the lift. Read more…
Canapés -Victoria Blashford-Snell and Eric Treuille
It’s what your fingers are for.
‘Ooh canapés, how posh!’ it’s a line from Abigail’s Party and if it isn’t it really should be. How many times have those of us of a certain age been offered canapés, normally not nearly enough of them, and what’s more impossible to eat without redecorating the carpet?
Canapes my mother always called them, steadfastly refusing to honour the acute accent and silent ‘s’. From the pineapple chunk on a cocktail stick, to the life threatening vol au vent, canapés were the 70’s on a plate.
Maybe it’s time to think again, after all there’s nothing wrong in theory in lots of pretty nibbles, and the splendidly named Victoria Blashford Snell, along with co-author Eric Treuille may be the people to lead a revival.
They first wrote this book in 1998 but since then tastes and trends have changed and more options are on the menu. Even so V B-S sticks to her avowed policy of keeping the canapés easy enough to make and eat while still looking good and delivering a bit of a ‘wow’. Read more…
Nick Harman 