Tom Hedley relishes the Peckham bistro opened by former Shoreditch chef James Beer.
Peckham isn’t renowned for elegance. Not even slightly. But its reputation may be about to change, thanks to James Beer, head chef and co-owner of the 42-seater Italian bistro, Artusi.
Beer previously worked at the Clove Club, a high-end Shoreditch joint, and now he’s brought the high end all the way down to south-east London.
Artusi is one of those restaurants I normally don’t dare enter in case I’m quickly flogged back out the door. McDonalds was always going to be plan B. But plan A turned out fine.
I had booked a table for two. On arrival we were ushered in by a waitress and pointed to a chalkboard. For once I was on the inside of a large restaurant window, with passers-by looking in at me from the outside.
The only menu is on the wall. The grub is delivered in snack-sized portions, reasonably priced between £5 and £10, with specialties coming in at £14.
Beer, I’m told, can be found at the crack of dawn, bartering for meat in Smithfield market. Pasta and bread are hand-made on a daily basis. You won’t find a tin of alphabet spaghetti in the fridge.
I opted for the ox tongue with salsa verde to start. New to the world of haute cuisine, these pseudonyms for food baffle me. Salsa verde turned out to be a startling green paste, mushed together with parsley, vinegar, capers, garlic, onion, anchovies and olive oil. It’s basically a super-powered vinaigrette, which explains the colour. The ox tongue – I clinched and gasped at the thought, was an actual tongue. It really was the strangest sensation to have another animal’s tongue in your mouth. But it had a firm and severely beefy flavour, aided by the tangy salsa verde. Ox tongue – must have again, my brain noted.
Next on the list was leg of lamb with beetroot and cavolo nero. You’ll be pleased to know cavalo nero it isn’t Fabric’s new resident DJ, but an Italian-born kale. The versatile vegetable is, apparently, a popular choice, renowned for use in soups and veggie sides.
Having been blown away by lamb before, most notably by a 10-seater diner in the sticks of España, I had high hopes – and these were in no way dashed. It was cooked well, a girlishly pink dish with a further colouring of beetroot; flame-blackened skin encasing the medium-rare flesh. A true Artusi ‘go-to’.
On the dessert menu tonight: doughnuts; but not the fairground variety. Hand-made dough had been pounded into shape earlier that day and speckled in frosty cinnamon sugar. Yes, another dish to go for.
Artusi’s flagship drink, a Campari Spritz, is a fiendishly bitter mix of grapefruit liquor and prosecco which I found hard to put away. Subtropical citrus fruits aside, however, the Italian Bistro swept me clean off my less-than-gentrified feet.
Spare the time to visit Peckham and be pleasantly surprised.