Bar Valette in Shoreditch is a casual, relaxed, laid-back, let’s-go-with-the-flow type of restaurant. It serves modern European food and caters to the kind of audience who follow restaurant news in much the same way as others follow opera gossip or Formula One, and they’ll book out of sheer curiosity to experience this all-new, deeply chilled affair from Isaac McHale, chef/owner of the two Michelin-starred Clove Club nearby.
We were led to believe that Bar Valette would not be at all like that well-known destination-dining spot. Not as formal. More come as you are. Clapshot croquettes (that’s mashed swede and potato, by the way), chicken in a basket, fancy fish with spuds, flan for pudding. The prices, however, aren’t informal at all and are very much still wearing tuxes, cummerbunds and spats. Small plates from £16 and snacks at £11. Want spuds with that? That’ll be £9, please.
Watching the old guard of enfants terribles noughties Michelin chefs do “informal” is all rather fascinating. These people flew in the face of formality over a decade ago, chipping away at all the stuffiness and forlock-tugging, and making dinner at the Ritz seem like a prison sentence. Now those same chefs are opening places like Bar Valette to show us how to be truly relaxed while paying £11 for a bowl of kale.
But, guys, how much more chilled can we get? While the Clove Club is in the rather grand Shoreditch town hall, Bar Valette is just a room overlooking a busy east London bus route. A glass-fronted room with brick walls painted white, a blackboard for wines and specials, and jars of chickpeas and white asparagus used as decor. We began with Vichy Catalan, at £6.50 per bottle, but, spotting that I was a non-drinker, they kindly offered to make me a non-alcoholic spritz with a shot of Sylva Padauk topped with soda. I notice only later that they charged me £18.50 plus service for the privilege.
Two apparently complimentary devilled crab tarts appear – pretty unmemorable, but, hey, a gift … and added to the bill at £12. Fried boned chicken – reportedly bathed in buttermilk, though that might just be conjecture – is £14 and, in a nod to the Clove Club’s rabble-rousing era, comes in a basket and on a bed of pine branches. Fried Torbay prawns turn up, shell on and inviting us to crunch our way through their sweet tails and heads. For £27. A basket of perfectly nice swiss chard and ricotta barbajuans keep us happy while we chat, even though they’re £11. Gosh, we’ve spent some money so far at this draughty table near the door.
For mains, fabada Asturiana arrives – a sticky pork and bean stew featuring blood sausage and belly pork – and then something curious happens: there is a lump of hard plastic in it, which my guest, mistaking it for some pork offcut or other, initially tries to eat before retrieving it from his mouth. “Oh God!” I mutter. “This will cause chaos.” That’s because this is an expensive restaurant, and while they may not be serious about, say, wallpaper, errors of this kind generally lead to kitchen staff offering to fall on their swords. So I brace for the rumpus. “Oh, I am sorry,” our server says, and whisks the offending item off to the kitchen. We wait. But no further word or explanation is forthcoming, and the stew stays on the bill.
Alert, alert: in the smart, cool dining stakes, I think we may have hit Peak Relaxed Mode. No sane diner pines for the days of the special-occasion restaurant, where servers scowled while you fumbled over the 10 terrifying cutlery options. But the etiquette used to be that if a stew cost £26, someone would care if it contained miscellaneous plastic packaging. Two plump lamb chops “with spicy mayo” are up next, and at £11 a pop. Then some red mullet fillets with a green olive emulsion for – reach for your smelling salts here – £44. One large potato, sliced up and sauteed in duck fat, was £9. A lump of Stichelton with two figs was another £14. By this stage, we are £249 poorer for this experience.
We exit, feeling a bit befuddled and glancing around for anyone who might care to say good bye, but Bar Valette is not the sort of place where people stand on ceremony. “Is the white asparagus in those decorative jars the same white asparagus that they have on the menu for £16?” my guest wondered. “If so, that’s fairly brass-necked.” It’s hard to say, but I do know that everything is informal here except the price.
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Bar Valette 28–30 Kingsland Road, London E2, 020-3976 0076. Open Tues-Sat 5-11pm, dinner only. From about £80 a head, plus drinks and service.