Brockley Market - Lucky Lewisham

Van Dough
 at Brockley Market

For my last blogpost of 2013 it seemed fitting to finish on a market, the lifeblood of London food.  London Farmers' Markets (LFM) now have 20 market sites covering areas from Balham to Wimbledon. LFM's principle of "We grow it. We sell it." is laudable but its rules and regulations can mean some good "local" producers don't quite qualify.  I shop at one or two LFM markets but they don't satisfy all my needs.  Some very good producers and traders who do not fit neatly into LFM's strict criteria find a home for their goods at Brockley Market in SE24.  That's not to say Brockley doesn't have high standards of its own, they're just different and, in fact, some of their stallholders also trade at LFM.

Brockley Market offers a cracking list of traders in a compact area where stalls are ranged around the car park to Lewisham College.  The estimable BBC Radio 4 Food & Farming Awards described Brockley as "a market that serves a community without pretence or artifice, a model to be followed". Brockley Market is doing a great job of finding, hosting and presenting some of the best food and drink producers and suppliers.  Some of what's on offer is very locally produced and some not, but Brockley Market has most of the food bases well covered.  With a central area devoted to seating, it's a family-friendly place to shop and eat.  This adds to the relaxed and welcoming feel of the market.

So who's there?  To mention a few, there are two excellent Organic fruit and veg stalls in the form of Wild Country Organics from Cambridgeshire and Kent-based Perry Court Organics; meats by my three favourites, Jacob's Ladder Farms, representing a small cooperative of Sussex farmers rearing animals on organic and biodynamic principles, The Butchery, the Bermondsey-based whole carcass butchery owned by Nathan and Ruth Mills and poultry from Fosse Meadows Farms in Leicestershire; East Sussex-based Hook & Son for raw milk; Hartland Pies who I know also make the excellent pies sold by The Butchery using The Butchery's meats; Flavours of Spain with a good range of Spanish ingredients; Blackwoods Cheese Company selling a small selection of Neal's Yard cheeses alongside their own Lewisham-made fresh cheeses.  Food vans include Van Dough selling freshly-made pizzas baked in a wood-fired oven mounted in the back of a 1970s Citroen Hy van; Mother Flipper offering burgers; and Good & Proper serving tea with, that irresistible pairing, crumpets.  Coffee is represented by Dark  Fluid.

Blackwoods Cheese Company has quickly become a favourite of mine for their lovely marinated raw cows milk Graceburn.  The fledgling cheese-maker is already getting noticed, being stocked by both Neal's Yard Dairy and the recently-opened shop attached to the Quality Chop House restaurant on Farringdon Road.  Look out for a Blackwoods washed-rind cheese coming soon, I'm expecting it to be pretty special.

You really get a sense of passion from walking around and from looking at the Brockley Market website.  It's a market I want to go to more and if I lived closer I'm sure I'd be shopping there every week.  Luckily, I can shop on Saturdays at some of the same traders in Spa Terminus/Druid Street, Bermondsey.  From talking to those traders, I know that they love trading at such a well-run and well-supported market as Brockley.  I can see how hard the organisers work at getting the best and Lewisham is lucky to have it.

Happy food shopping in 2014.

Brockley Market
Lewisham College Car Park
Lewisham Way
SE4 1UT
Saturdays 10-2pm
The market is a stone's-throw from St John's train station (7 minutes from London Bridge)

LeCoq - London

LeCoq
Roast chicken & Caponata

After far too many lean years London has seen a spate of quality chicken restaurants opening in the last 2 years, from fried chicken in Brixton to chicken schnitzel in Soho.  Mostly they've left me cold.  The American chicken and 'slaw formula just doesn't do it for me - let alone the German twist.  The chicken joint I was looking for, it seemed, just didn't exist in London.  My dream place has a warm neighbourhood feel; the aroma of well-reared chicken turning slowly on a spit, potatoes beneath soaking up the chicken fat; something acidulous alongside to cut the richness; an uncomplicated, yet gutsy red wine to drink with it.  It seemed this was too much to ask of London.

Finally we have LeCoq, the perfect, no-booking, 40- (or so) seater, only a few doors down from Islington's excellent Trullo.  It's handily close to Highbury & Islington underground and in the rapidly developing food hub of N1.  I don't know if this is the chicken restaurant London has been waiting for, but it's definitely the one I've been craving.

LeCoq is owned by sisters Sanja (a founder of Salt Yard Group) and Ana (Bocca di Lupo, Rochelle Canteen) Morris.  Ben Benton left Stevie Parle's Dock Kitchen to head up the kitchen.  The menu is admirably simple.  A couple of starters, a main of rotisserie chicken served with something to complement and cut the fattiness, and two puddings.  Although focused firmly on chicken, the menu changes weekly and, on Sunday,s a different roast meets the flame of the rotisserie.

LeCoq
Ricotta, fig leaf, Strega ice cream

Starters, on our visit, were an artichoke dish and some Pico charcuterie but we'd already spotted the puddings so something had to give.  The chicken, cooked to juicy perfection, was firm-fleshed, the way well-reared outdoor chicken should be.  That day it came with a portion of knock-out caponata, a jug of juice and spoonful of tarragon mayonnaise alongside.  A side dish of potatoes and garlic cloves cooked in the chicken fat was more than worth its £3.75, a salad ordered proved unnecessary.  The house red, Nero d'Avola, at a very reasonable £4.50 a glass, was just right.  Puddings were a good Chocolate Tart scattered with honeycomb or a very good Ricotta, Fig Leaf and Strega ice cream (made for LeCoq by Sorbitum ices).

More about those chickens, as these things matter a lot to me.  The birds come from Kennel Farm in Sutton Hoo.  Slow-growing, fed an additive free diet and allowed to forage freely with plenty of room to stretch their legs (far more space than any EU law on "free-range" directs).  The quality shows on the plate. Two courses for £16, a couple of side-dish and a glass of wine each brought the bill to a very satisfying £47.25 excluding service.  That's what I call a bargain.  Added to which, the care taken over every aspect ensured a swift return is certain.

LeCoq
292-294 St Paul's Road
Canon bury
London N1 2LH
Open Tues-Sun 12-2.30pm & 6-10pm

PS  Takeaway coming soon.

Maltby Street & Spa Terminus Update

I know many of you are interested in news from Maltby Street and Spa Terminus so here's a quick update.  In April I posted about the gradual migration of the original Observer Food Award winning Maltby Street traders.  The end of the year seems a good time to update you on how Spa Terminus is looking now.  To save repeating myself, you can find my April piece at Maltby Street & Spa Terminus - the doors open  Since then, Spa Terminus has welcomed a few more wholesale businesses opening for retail every Saturday:

Monmouth Coffee

England Preserves

La Grotta Ices

Natoora

Spa Terminus now has a website  with a map and a listing of all the businesses.  A few currently don't open their doors for retailing on Saturdays, and I have yet to try them.  The ones I mention here and in my April piece do open and I can recommend them.  The good thing is the 'Spa Terminus' website covers the new site and includes those few traders who are remaining in their original arches for the time being.  Most are on Druid Street (north side of the railway line) with only Gergovie Wines/40 Maltby Street bar remaining on Maltby Street (south side).

Other traders have moved into the area, particularly Rope Walk, to take the place of the originals.

Le Coq Rico, Paris - Classy Chicken & Chips

Le Coq Rico
Paris

Given the fact you can eat your way around the globe in London, it's surprising how difficult it is to find a good plate of chicken and chips.  Not that we don't have an abundance of unfortunate 'Chicken Shops', but these I will gloss over.  What I'm looking for is top quality chicken, expertly roasted, served with its precious juice and a little garlic with a cone of perfectly cooked chips alongside.  Maybe with a simple, fresh properly dressed green salad.  I'm looking for a place that honours the bird and knows how to use every morsel to best effect.

Le Cafe Anglais  in Bayswater and Les Deux Salons in Covent Garden both do a pretty good job of roasting a chicken, and then there is Mark Hix's Tramshed in Shoreditch.  I can't comment on the Tramshed.  When Hix removes the Damien Hirst cow with a chicken on its back I'll give it a go.  There are one or two new openings in London but they look to the American way rather than the French - and if you want marinades, BBQ, onion rings and Philly cheese that's fine.  I don't.  What I'm looking for is focus, somewhere that makes poultry the star, not something to carry a myriad of flavours.

In Paris they know how to do this, though it's not as easy to find a good one as you might think.  Good butchers sometimes have a small rotisserie outside.  Anyone who's been to Paris has experienced that  aroma of roasting chicken drawing you down the street.  You can take home a roasted Poulet Fermier and, if you are lucky, some potatoes which have been cooked under the spit in the Lèchefrite.  There are plenty of restaurants serving Poulet Frites but, until now, a really good one celebrating the chicken has eluded me.

Montmartre is not where I would normally head in Paris.  I prefer to catch glimpsed views of Le Sacré Coeur by glancing up the steep streets of the 9th Arrondissement, but on a late summer's day it proved the ideal place to be.  A beautiful day, quiet streets and a perfect lunch spot on rue Lepic.  Le Coq Rico came recommended by a Parisian who knows, and he was right.

The restaurant is small and intimate without that tight-squeeze feeling you so often find in Paris.  The bar - always my first choice - provides a sleek, black granite topped view of the kitchen action.   A full- on view of the rotisserie is a wonderful thing.  Add to that a chance to observe Chef Thierry Lébé and his young team running a thoroughly professional kitchen and it's perfection.  There's focus, attention to detail and pride here.

Starters and mains revolve around chicken, guinea fowl, duck, goose and pigeon, all with detailed provenance, sourced from the regions of France that raise the very best of each kind of fowl.   Hearts are seared, gizzards confited, wings lacquered and terrines and rillettes produced for starters.  You can even have a luscious take on the boiled egg.  The rotisserie takes care of most of the mains but there's a dish of Poule au Pot too.

This being our first visit we played it safe with the quarter Challans chicken and frights with an impeccable vinaigrette-dressed salad.  The chicken was tender, moist, crispy-skinned and full of flavour - everything a rotisserie chicken should be.  Served with chicken gravy and roast garlic, it was perfect, as was the large cone of twice, or thrice, fried chips.  The one dessert we tried was good but when I order Clafoutis Peche I expect more of a batter pudding than a sponge - far be it for me to tell the French how to cook Clafoutis, it was delicious anyway.  The Verbena ice cream which came with it was fantastic.  A glass of Brouilly each and mineral water brought the bill to 72 Euros for two, though you can eat much more expensively.

Le Coq Rico only opened in January this year and is from the same stable as the highly regarded Drouant and Mon Vieil Ami.  All three are overseen by Alsatian chef Antoine Westerman.

Back in London, I hear Nick Jones of Soho House is set to open "Chicken Shop' in Kentish Town.  Maybe that will push my buttons but if, once again, I'm disappointed I'll just have to keep taking the Eurostar to Le Coq Rico where they know how to do this sort of thing.

Le Coq Rico
98 rue Lepic
75018 Paris
Tel: +33 (0)1 42 59 82 89

E-mail : reservation@lecoqrico.com

Open 7 days a week