Raising the gastropub standard
This review was published in May 2002
Gastropub opens in Islington. No change there then, but THE DRAPERS ARMS is a Georgian double-fronted building with a long history as a pub and an outlook on to beautiful Lonsdale Square, where house prices must be rising by the minute.
Chef is Mark Emberton, who has followed in the footsteps of Antony Worrall Thompson. I ran into Woz at The Glenfiddich Awards last week and he volunteered to accompany us to The Drapers Arms, indeed to drive us there. His car has one of those gadgets which can dictate the route and I was pleased to see that even the bossy woman inside the box - something of a rival to me, I thought - was eventually defeated by Islington's one-way systems and traffic-calming/driver-infuriating measures.
Antony didn't recognise the red bucket chairs in the long upstairs dining room, but they were apparently a legacy of the catering company Simpson's of Cornhill, where he was once a director. They are rather well set off by the Wedgwood blue of the walls.
Emberton's menu is more ambitious than that of the average gastropub yet very much of that genre, of which, I have discovered, a body can eventually tire.
The meal did not get off to a great start with one of half-a-dozen rock oysters being noticeably off. It should not be beyond a kitchen to sniff the creatures before sending them out.
Seared squid, chorizo and artichoke salad was a clumsily assembled bowlful featuring large pieces of squid, too many leaves and thin slices of a seemingly fairly ersatz chorizo sausage. Italian Capone (sic) salad refers not to gangster Al but to cappone, the Italian word for capon (a neutered cock). For a really good version of this classic Renaissance dish from Mantua, make it according to Alastair Little's recipe in his excellent book, Keep it Simple (Conran Octopus).
Things looked up in the main course thanks to slow-cooked shin of veal flavoured with saffron and eastern Mediterranean roasted rump of lamb with bulgur and aubergine. Side dishes of potatoes, vegetables or salad are priced at £2.50 and £3.50, which seems a lot on top of the cost of a main course at about £12.
A well-judged risotto primavera came topped with a deep-fried stuffed courgette flower looking like a bolster that had been left out in the rain. Speaking of weather, there is a particularly nice garden at the back of The Drapers Arms.
Speaking of desserts, we had a fine bitter-chocolate-and-ginger tart and a rather less successful rhubarb and custard bavarois served with shortbread. Anyone failing to get a table at Le Caprice or The Ivy on the grounds that they want to try frozen mixed berries with a warm white chocolate sauce, will find that very confection here.
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