The Grain Store, London

We read an article on Timeout last month listing London's top 10 dishes. Having been following top restaurant lists globally, we enjoyed the concept of top ten dishes rather than top ten places. 

We are not sure what ratings were used to classify these dishes as better than others. London has such a variety of restaurants that I would find it extremely difficult to narrow down top dishes. However, we love people who try to do this and we love a good challenge. 

We have already started a seemingly never ending quest for London's top ten burgers heavily aided by Young and Foodish's list which is kept fairly up to date and makes us very happy. We have been unable to go down the full list when it has been static but have been lucky to try a fantastic range over the past couple of years. The result: I am a burger snob. And I'm not ashamed to say so! I am physically unable to order a burger from just anywhere. The bun...I'm partial to a brioche bun and will avoid supermarket buns offered at friend's barbecues. It may be extreme but when you've had some of these burgers you will realise you can't go back to a pub burger where they can only serve it 'well done.'

Now that I've come clean, and hope anyone reading this won't judge me, I will continue writing about our latest challenge: London's top 10 dishes in 2014 as per timeout. Why? As I said, we don't need much convincing to embark on these mini challenges. And if this anything like our burger challenge I am sure we will never truly decide which is our favourite.

Tonight we went to the Grain Store located in Granary Square at King's Cross. The venue was an old Victorian warehouse. High ceilings and ample space. Even our table for 4 had room for sharing dishes in the middle with our respective plates with no overcrowding whatsoever. I've never complained about small tables or restaurants where we spend most of our time visiting but I have to say it was rather refreshing to enjoy the space the restaurant had to offer.

The dish in question: Toasted fermented corn brioche with burnt leeks and slow poached duck egg.

We used our phones for the photo and judging by how often we will carry a camera with us, I can imagine this is the sort of photo quality we will get on posts in future...we will do the best with what we have.

The dish was very well done given the simplicity of the ingredients. The egg yolk was runny but in a gel-like manner which was so smooth. We have been reading up on sous vid cooking and wondered if this was how the egg was cooked tonight? (Side note: we invested in a kickstarter project for Anova Sous Vid so we hope to experiment with this type of cooking in the near future!)

Leeks is a vegetable that I don't use often enough and I must remember it can work very well with dishes! In short, although we had this as a dinner starter, I can imagine us trying to replicate this dish for brunch one weekend. We may find it difficult to get our hands on a toasted fermented corn brioche, but I am sure we can find nice bread at the Old Post Office bakery in Clapham North to serve this on. Nicely done dish and I can see why it is someone's favourite.

The rest of the menu was very interesting. We had read up on the restaurant beforehand and were informed that chef Bruno Lounet focuses on vegetables in his menu. Being the meat eaters that we are, reading this would normally deter me from visiting the restaurant. However we have learned to be open minded and we will eat anything and are always up for trying new cuisines. So why not?

We made the right choice.

I wanted to try all the menu. Really interesting combinations. They have a flag for vegetarian and vegan dishes (which upsets me out of principle but I guess these people exist). It was confusing to read a main that was a butternut squash ravioli with mustard apricots, rocket and pumpkin seed that was not marked as vegetarian or vegan. We asked about this and the waitress said that it was because it had cheese. Since when did vegetarians stop eating cheese? I think there was some confusion there...

The specials were scallops with shaved fennel as a starter and a venison cooked in a josper oven (cool factor). I was unable to take a picture of all the dishes ordered particularly because I was not planning on writing about this later so I will share the rest pictures we did take:

Mushroom croquettes. So extremely moreish. (as in you want more and more and more)

Steamed seaweed sushi, braised cabbage, black garlic purée, hake in vanilla butter. The hake was cooked beautifully and was my favourite part of the dish. Black garlic purée was spread over the plate and allowed to set in swirls. Cool for presentation but being a garlic fan, I would have wanted a small pile of this on the plate as well. The rest of the sides did not necessarily have a wow factor but still worked overall well with the dish.

Roast potatoes, garlic confit, pumpkin purée, squid steak au poivre. Yes yes yes yes.

First time having a squid steak and on the back of my mind I expected it to be chewy. It was beautifully cooked and very fresh: not chewy at all. The sides were a perfect complement to the dish and though I am used to seeing pepper sauce on a beef steak, it worked wonders with the squid steak. Not sure I could replicate this dish at home, but here's to hoping..

The other dishes ordered without their respective pictures were the scallops with shaved fennel, the onion and cider soup, the butternut squash ravioli, and the venison. All executed very well, and very tasty. The soup was wholesome and filling so it was nice to have the option to order the starter size of the ravioli. The scallops: these are always hard to fault and I am biased as I am a huge fan of scallops. The venison cooked on the josper grill: so tender. 

For dessert, again only one picture:

The description read: baked apple, rosemary crumble, creme fraiche, and salted caramel sauce.

I expected an apple crumble and was pleasantly amused to see it was indeed a baked apple with crumble on top. Perhaps not enough rosemary on the crumble but very tasty nonetheless and potential dinner party idea to replicate. The restaurant also recommends dessert wine pairings with each dish. Follow their recommendation, it works very well.

The desserts also eaten with no picture were the chocolate and red bean cake with soya yoghurt and balsamic mousse (takes an extra 15mins to cook, served hot and essentially a great take on a hot chocolate pudding), and lastly the coconut & kafir lime green tapioca, sweet pineapple and banana wafer. This was light, fun and tasty. We were told the tapioca is cooked in coconut milk. The result is a dessert like no other I have tried before (the closest thing I could think of was a light rice pudding but incidentally rice pudding is another desert offered...) I was impressed by this. I like classic desserts with a twist like the chocolate pudding or the crumble, but every now and then when I come across a fun new dessert I can't compare with anything else, this is really exciting.

Would I go back? Absolutely. 

With the London restaurant scene being so diverse we tend not to repeat many restaurants. We don't have a 'local' and we have been kept busy discovering new venues over the past few years. It is worth noting though that with such a diverse menu, the Grain Store is on the repeat list.

Price for 4 people for a three course meal with drinks and service £174.

The Grain Store

Granary Square, King's Cross

Ps I absolutely loved the glass they used to serve the ginger liquor and will be on the lookout for a set!