We were sorry to hear that Bethnal Green’s quite marvellous Paradise Garage closed a few weeks ago.
Paradise Row, where it was based, is one of the city’s most underrated north-of-the-river stretches, and a recent meal at the perfectly-named restaurant was indeed memorable: charred mackerel, with chunky-cut beetroot and mustard, to start, with a blushingly pink hunk of Scottish mallard, festooned with (intentionally) burnt kale and crunchy hazlenut granola for the main.
The bloke behind it, Robin Gill, is a south London restaurateur at heart, with three hit Clapham joints including The Dairy. And so it would seem is his former Garage sous chef Patrick Williams.
Why? Because, together with front-of-house wife Amy (daughter of Chris Corbin, one half of a team behind The Wolseley), the pair are opening their own place, Kudu, on Queens Road in January.
There’ll be 46 covers and a seasonal menu featuring locally sourced, home-grown and foraged food. It heavily draws inspiration from Patrick’s South African roots – hence the antelope-referencing name – with dishes such as Kudu bread, cooked in a copper pot and served with lardon or seafood butter, and mussel potjie pot with seaweed gnocchi.
In addition, more familiar dishes will be given playful twists, such as onion and beer tarte tatin with goat’s curd, and pig’s head tortellini with hay bone broth and crispy onions.
In short? Worth the, um, leap to SE15.
