New British cuisine giving London new flavors

LONDON

The food halls at Fortnum & Mason, Harrods and Harvey Nichols have always been a gorgeous bounty through which tourists stroll, fingering marmalades and curds, biscuits and confections.

All still good, but an amble through the 1,000-year-old Borough Market on the south bank of the Thames provides the chance to see rare breeds of lamb, pig and goose reared on the Yorkshire moors, or Isle of Wight heirloom tomatoes gleaming from their bins at the tomato stall. And then finish the visit with a meal above the market at Roast, where all the ingredients come together.

Roast is one of London's most progressive New British restaurants, its mission to celebrate Britain's farmers, fishermen and cheesemakers in gutsy, hearty fare. (Mondays are special "native breed" days showcasing small farms.)

On this day, I am strolling through London's oldest food market with chef Tony Fleming, who is eyeing products for Axis and the other restaurants of One Aldwych hotel. Spanish charcuterie lines the shelves of one stall, a stack of spicy paprika-flecked chorizo catching our eye. We walk past New Forest Cider bar (although Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles are fans, it's still too early in the day for us) and instead stop into a booth to finger chanterelles and velvety oyster mushrooms. Too bad I have no kitchen to haul them back to for an afternoon of frenzied cooking.

On Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays the market is open to everyone and has become a popular stop for tourists, but on weekday mornings it's open only to wholesale customers like chef Fleming, one of a growing number of chefs who specialize in New British cuisine.

It's the punch line to a joke, right? British food. Not just the foods with the funny names (bubble and squeak, toad-in-the-hole and, heaven help us, spotted dick), but all those sturdy roasts and turgid meat pies.

On the heels of a new British invasion of sorts (Gordon Ramsay, Nigella Lawson, Jamie Oliver and that deranged-looking Marco Pierre White), Americans are starting to look to Great Britain as a culinary destination. And with good reason: A cultural melting pot has resulted in sophisticated culinary fusions, a focus on local products showcases the country's many farmstead foods, and a progressive environmental commitment means that sustainability is a high priority.

Finding the flavors

Another day, I tag along with London food writer Sudi Pigott, who leads culinary tours of the city for the Capital Hotel. We begin with a walk through the Belgravia neighborhood, stopping first to visit Poilane, the world-famous Parisian sourdough bakery that set up recently in London a replica of its original Paris shop on Rue du Cherche-Midi. Lionel Poilane was once commissioned to make chandeliers and sculptures of bread for Salvador Dali, culminating in 1971 with the order for a whole bedroom made out of bread (Dali was purportedly concerned about mice). I'm fine with the bedroom set I have, but I'd like a steady supply of the 4-pound Poilane rounds, made simply of stone-ground flour, sea salt from Guérande in France, Thames water and natural yeasts in a wood-fired oven (the only professional one in London).

From there, we glance in at the huge, billowy meringues and lavish breads at Ottolenghi on Motcomb Street and the deli goodies at Baker & Spice on Elizabeth Street before ducking into Daylesford Organic. More a state of mind than a shop, it's the brainchild of Carole Bamford. She began turning her family land in the Cotswolds and Staffordshire over to sustainable, certified organic farming more than 20 years ago. These days it has developed into an empire, with shops in Notting Hill, Pimlico Road and elsewhere as well as the original farmshop in Gloucestershire (which launches a cooking school in September). They sell their own meats and cheese, organic prepared foods in environmentally friendly packaging, home goods and bath products, as well as a wide-eyed commitment to treating the earth with respect.

Before returning to the Capital Hotel for a late lunch at its Michelin two-star restaurant, we spend several sinful minutes working our way through the delights at Gerard Coleman's L'Artisan du Chocolat, the leading British chocolatier who first introduced London to salted caramels and who sells to Ramsay and other top restaurateurs. Chocolates painted to look like intricate mosaic tile gave way to centers flavored variously with tobacco, green cardamom and fiery chilies. Their factory in Kent gives tours one Saturday each month, and a second Notting Hill shop offers weekly tasting events.

A variety of opinions

Book for Cooks is another must for visiting foodies. Founded in 1983 in Notting Hill by Heidi Lascelles, it's a jaw-dropper. More than 8,000 new and secondhand cookbooks, culinary novels, food histories and memoirs line the shelves, with helpful book lists arranged by subject for special areas of interest. Posters and note cards make for ideal gifts for your favorite cook back home, and the test kitchen above the shop offers evening classes (fairly pricey). A small cafe at the back caters to loitering cookbook leafers.

For my money, I'd rather cab it over for high tea at the Brown's Hotel, opened in 1837 as London's first hotel, where Agatha Christie wrote At Bertram's Hotel, Rudyard Kipling wrote The Jungle Book and where Alexander Graham Bell made the first telephone call. The hotel's English Tea Room was just awarded the Tea Guild's Top London Afternoon Tea for 2009, an accolade that's the equivalent to the Michelin star of the tea world. On low-slung couches, one tries to look suitably posh (pinky extended, or is that just in the movies?) while sipping a cup of Oriental Beauty oolong or organic Dragon Well green tea and nibbling scones and clotted cream.

As in all major cities, the restaurant landscape is shifting scenery — stop a Londoner on the street and ask where to go for "real British food" and you're likely to get an earful. In my conversations with chefs and shopkeepers, a few names recurred. Farm shops, such as London's new the Farm Collective and year-old Croots Farm Shop in Derbyshire not far from London, traffic in locally sourced food from fine small British farms. And there are more established "gastropubs" that are spoken of reverently.

The Eagle, Anchor & Hope and 32 Great Queen Street each manage to convey something essentially British and hearty while still sophisticated. At this last, in its spare and utilitarian dining room, one peruses a menu utterly lacking in adjectives, very Anglo-Saxon stiff-upper-lip, but rife with those British dishes which might have contributed to that joke not long ago — beef Wellington, roast lamb — were it not for an earnest focus on the work of real British farmers. But thankfully, no spotted dick.

Laura Reiley can be reached at lreiley@sptimes.com or (727) 892-2293. Her blog, the Mouth of Tampa Bay, is at www.blogs.tampabay.com/dining.