I’m looking at the item in front of me with the kind of dilated-pupil, pulse-racing lust other women reserve for Ryan Reynolds. (Or Benedict Cumberbatch. I know! Me neither.) It is, simply, beautiful. A pie of wonder, an über pie. Sure, they call it a pithivier, but whatever; it is the prince of pastry goods, one of the finest I’ve encountered in my puff.
Cut through the golden, egg-washed crust – crisp and buttery, with just the right suggestion of squidge where pastry meets filling – and the interior is every bit as gorgeous. It’s described on the menu of this new restaurant in London’s garment district as “game pithivier”, but tonight contains only wild mallard; its contents change with the seasons, what’s good at the market, the chef’s whims. The bird’s extremities and innards are minced to create, with duxelled mushroom, a brilliantly honking farce that clings to the mallard like a bandage frock to a starlet. Despite being baked in pastry, the whole breasts are still purplish-rare, intensely meaty, the knife sliding through them like a whisper of anticipated naughtiness. As if this weren’t overexcitement enough, there’s sticky, vinous game sauce on the side and the whole thing is confetti-ed with tendrils of black truffle. In the mouth, the whole thing comes together in a blast of purest culinary pleasure.
Aaaanyway (*small embarrassed cough, adjusts clothing*), you can tell I’m smitten. We eat other things, too. Marvellous other things. There’s a salad that’s bracing in its simplicity: mandolined breakfast radishes, quartered chunks of little gem, sour cream. Trout is smoked over elder wood until it’s the colour of a tropical sunset and as soft as chamois, and served with a daisy-chain of microherbs and a cooling blob of just-sharp cultured cream. More smoking features in the thrillingly umami broth poured over dark-fleshed teal, another moody wild duck, gamey without being high, this time with chunks of parsnip that taste of burnt caramel. Perhaps there’s some good dashi in the broth, too.
Vegetables are frequently given starring roles: tiny heritage carrots that poke rudely out of a pool of vegetal puree are given salty piquancy by aged mimolette cheese and crunch from a “granola” of toasted nuts and grains. And there’s a dessert worthy of the stuffiest Michelin temple of gastronomy, where it would be called something like “Memories of Snickers”: a glossy-coated baton of chocolate ganache with peanut butter praline and a quenelle of the silkiest milk and peanut ice-cream. Splendid though these dishes are, they’re merely fluffers for that pithivier.
Portland is so much my kind of place: an independent serving great food, with smart, savvy service (both owners are working the floor on our visit); it takes reservations and doesn’t charge like a rhino. Millions haven’t been spaffed on designers – if anything, it’s under-designed, with only a few paintings to save it from austerity. The menu nods at enough modern cooking keynotes to let you know they’re on the ball, but doesn’t forget that giving customers pleasure should be up there at the very top of every restaurant’s mission statement whiteboard. So you can have mushroom miso, charred brassicas and pig’s head croquettes with kimchi mayonnaise. But you can also have steak and chips – six-week-aged Angus, frîtes and béarnaise, admittedly, but the principle stands.
Increasingly, I find that restaurants run by front of house rather than kitchen are where to come if you fancy being properly looked after. Especially those not dictated to by investors and spreadsheets, but by the bank of mum and dad – even if, as is the case here, mum and dad of partner Will Lander (he also co-owns the excellent Quality Chop House) are biz luminaries Jancis Robinson and Nick Lander. As you’d imagine from this pedigree, the wine-list is quite something, too, with a dazzling selection of fine and recherché labels by the glass. Our “Alpine version of white burgundy” Julien Labet Fleur de Savagnin En Chalasse 2012 has a wonderfully ripe, musky, lemony quality that pairs gloriously with the food. And, quite clearly, chef Merlin Labron-Johnson – who has come from Michelin-starred In De Wulf in Belgium – is no slouch, either. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to lie in a darkened room to contemplate pie.
Portland 113 Great Portland Street, London W1, 020-7436 3261. Open Mon-Sat, noon-2.30pm, 6-11pm. About £30 a head plus drinks and service.
Food 8/10
Atmosphere 5/10
Value for money 8/10
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