To the Manor Borne

Vesper. Exmouth Market. EC1.

I’ve got a thing for Finsbury. I used to live there. We bought what had once been a brothel in the magnificently shattered Lloyd-Baker estate, put a roof back on it, and ‘did it up’.

It had the lot. Collapsing damp plaster that smelled like horses, junkies nodded out on the doorstep, rats, exploding sewers and a landline that, three years after we’d moved in and had a child, occasionally rang with hassled-sounding old men, obviously in phone boxes, wanting to know if Greta still offered her old services. I liked the place. I still do when, every now and again, it pops up on the television, behind Gwyneth in ‘Sylvia’ (2003) or Gary in ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’ (2011). Finsbury’s got the proper inner-London atmosphere of which more manicured ‘quarters’ can only dream.

Of course, if you’re a food lover, Finsbury’s got even better bones. At the same time we were Farrow & Balling the arse out of our recycled knocking shop, Quality Chop House, the Eagle and Moro were doing the same within staggering distance, and just a few yards further sat Stephen Bull, Vic Naylor’s (of Glorious Memory) and the lodestar, St John. It felt like Ground Zero. Today, that same strip that starts now at the Yellow Bittern and ends at maybe Cloth was, and is, an unusual and significant concentration of places that have swerved trends, defended independence and basically been brilliant.

Yes. I have a soft spot for it, which is why it felt like a ballsy move when Jackson Boxer, a man I’d always regarded as irredeemably Westside went East Central, took over the classic fishbowl, formerly ‘Grind’, on the corner of Exmouth Market and Roseberry Ave, and transformed it into something immensely old fashioned. Without the visible groundwork of brand creation. Without vast corporate or apparent PE backing, he’s just taken over an old site, stripped it out, painted it up and started serving great food to the neighbourhood, based on nothing more coherent than an adorably naïve combination of enthusiasm and talent.

It’s so unbelievably retro. This is the kind of thing that happened in Finsbury 30 years ago, before this whole ‘renaissance’ farrago span up. (It is, if you think about it, quite marvellous that there are still affordable spaces like this so geographically close to the centre). It’s also quite remarkable that a place that’s been around for mere weeks feels already like a local institution, which, considering the pedigree of its neighbours, is an achievement.

The room is exactly as it should be. Rough brick and enough RAL 9016 (Architect’s White) to cover. There’s a central bar/counter for belly-up eating-in-the-round and tables occupied by the indigenous raffish art/left crowd. (At some point I might need to do a small monograph on the influence of the Guardian on restaurants and the qualitative change in the ecosystem since Central St Martins arrived. Turning Smithfield into the ‘Museum Quarter’ next year is going to add another strange attractor to the equilibrium). They’re a pleasant bunch who gently remind you that this is also ‘Inner Islington’.

Some things have Instagram appeal, some can sell on the copywriting of a good menu “Salt and Vinegar Crisps, Smoked Onion, Pepper Jelly, Trout Roe” manages both. The homemade crisps are excellent and abundant, but the dip they come with looks a little like a pink savoury trifle. The smoked onion is blitzed to paste, the fish eggs jewel the top (Trigger Warning: there has been strewing. Things have been strewed. Strewage!) and then cubes of alarmingly orange gel have spilled, as if by a heathen upon the dusty ground, shamelessly hither and yon. There is little to do here but shovel and love.

I think I’ve always believed that the words gooseberry and tahini shouldn’t share space, let alone be spooning as they do here. Cold shredded green beans are tossed in it then heaped over a puddle of Robiola, a soft, brie-ish beauty from the Langhe, and then sprinkled with toasted hazelnuts. It’s a belter, no doubt. Looking a little like green pasta with pesto, but the sharp fruit enlivening the beans. If I have a cavil, it’s entirely personal. Boxer is a wizard with unexpected flavours, and I’m no lover of the clove. If we can agree to differ, it’s a genuinely brilliant and completely innovative dish.

There’s a lot of this kind of thing on offer…

Torched Trout, Spring Peas, Raspberry & Wood Sorrel

Palourde Clams, Coco Beans, Cider Cream

Grilled Atlantic Prawns, Fenugreek & Black Lime Butter

Rigatoni, Peas, Pistachio, Burnt Lemon

Grilled Pollock, Friggitelli Pepper, Coral Broth

Boxer has a simple and rather glorious theory that Londoners have highly-developed, extraordinarily Catholic tastes and reckons there are very few cities in Europe where you could confidently get away with mashing things up. In Paris they’d clutch their pearls, in Rome, they’d stab you in the neck. In a London neighbourhood full of reasonably well-heeled Bohemians, you can mix this stuff up on the fly and anticipate appreciation and loud Hosannas.

Jimi Famurewa has already tagged Boxer as a poster boy for a new urban eclecticism - that may or may not be a backlash against the crushing moralistic tedium of authenticity and the abject terror of appropriation. I can only agree and celebrate. Attempting to describe the place I find it uniquely refreshing that one can’t actually say what Vesper is beyond a great restaurant. Whether by omission or brilliance, it has no concept.

A ‘Coal-Fired Herb-Fed Chicken’ sounds amusing. I can’t shift the image of Boxer, stripped to the waist like a stoker and shoveling glowing coals up the yawning chuff of a giant bird. “She’ll no take it Cap’n. She’s gonnae blow!” But on the plate, it’s half of a neat and well-treated little chook, possibly part-poached for juiciness, possibly brined but definitely marinated and then seared in a varnish of agrodolce richness. It’s a great presentation. Unfortunately the bread sauce is not in a large steaming bucket alongside but rendered to a very smooth smear under the chicken… and the bloody cloves have been subtracted to be added to the gravy.

‘Green Leaves, Spenwood’ is an inadequate warning for a pile of salad hung with a thousand yards of fine-grated cheese. Dangling like Spanish moss from a cypress, draped like incendiary cheese tinsel strips over a 1970s Christmas tree. It was like staring at the Trevi Fountain after an ice-storm… in cheese. The dressing on the leaves was sweet, which played nicely with the tsunami of cheese.

Did I mention the cheese?

I love that Boxer’s done this. It does my heart good to see an opening that isn’t another cynical, corporate five-knuckle-shuffle. He’s making great, innovative food, he’s hung out a shingle; and he’s keeping his prices low while he pays his dues and earns a reputation.

It’s so old-school I could weep.