How many of the U.K.’s 100 best restaurants have you been to? I ask because it’s a thing – the National Restaurant Awards – and it came out last week.
Looking through the list, I couldn’t help but feel I was letting the side down as a restaurant reviewer: my score was a measly 7. Some of them, like Manteca, ranked among the best meals I’ve eaten in the course of writing this blog. But there were at least a couple in that list where I thought “really?” I was pleased to see Wilsons make the list but COR, which didn’t feature, is definitely better than at least a couple of the top 100 that I’ve been to. Still, as I’ve said in the past, the delight of reading a list like this largely lies in disagreeing with it.
Anyway, as it happens my total only ticked up to 7 because I happened to visit Kolae, a regional Thai restaurant in Borough, the week before the awards were announced. It was ranked 27th, significantly higher than any of the other places I’ve been to, which is an impressive achievement given that it opened late last year. It’s the second restaurant from the team behind Shoreditch’s Som Saa and has very quickly surpassed it in terms of profile (it probably helps that, unlike Som Saa, it doesn’t have any problematic racist incidents in its history).
What this means is that a significant number of restaurant critics have reviewed the place already: Giles Coren for the Times, Tom Parker Bowles for the Mail On Sunday, Tim Hayward for the FT, Jimi Famurewa for the Evening Standard, and Lilly Subbotin for the Independent. Even a couple of restaurant bloggers have already got in on the act, so I can honestly say I’ve rarely, if ever, read as much about a restaurant before stepping through its front door as I had with Kolae.
And the acclaim was consistent, full-throated, verging on the hyperbolic. I mean, get a load of this: Famurewa said it was a “scintillating shot in the arm”, Parker Bowles that it made “the tastebuds tumescent and the gut giddy”. Hayward, the thinking person’s least favourite broadsheet reviewer, settled for the overblown “This has just reminded me why I eat”.
It wasn’t all like that – Giles Coren spent a large part of his review name-dropping Important People He Knew, as did one distinctly regional restaurant blogger – but the important thing was that there wasn’t a single word of dissent: Kolae, according to the consensus, was magnificent.
So it had been on my radar for a while, and an afternoon off in London ahead of a gig that evening – the exceptional Jessica Pratt at Islington’s Union Chapel – gave me a chance to check it out with Zoë. It’s literally just round the corner from Borough Market, a few doors down from Monmouth Coffee, and a pre-lunchtime stroll round the market made it clear just how much competition there was for Kolae to stand out amongst: not just from traders, but nearby restaurants like Barrafina, Berenjak and Bao.
It’s a handsome site, across three storeys, which apparently used to be a coach house in a previous life. I didn’t see the first or second floors, but the ground floor was lovely, all muted concrete and exposed brick. Everything was nicely proportioned: the tables were generously sized and well spaced, and even the bar stools followed suit, being even better padded than I am. So different from, for example, sitting cheek by jowl at Manteca. The Independent summed it up thus: “there’s no other way to say it, Kolae is cool”.
We arrived for a late lunch but even then the room was full of happy-looking diners. No outside space that I saw, really, but the exterior was quite fetching, to the extent where when we left a couple of people were taking pictures sitting in front of the restaurant and uploading them to the ‘gram. “But they haven’t even eaten here!” was Zoë’s baffled assessment.
The menu, on paper at least, looks like it can’t decide whether it’s a starters and mains or small plates restaurant. All the reviews I’ve read say it’s the latter, but the menu lists three things as “smaller” and the rest as “larger” and our server said we should probably plan on three of the larger plates between two. But it’s sort of structured as starters, mains and sides and so we approached it that way. I would say everything seemed reasonably priced, too, with the smaller plates costing about six pounds and the larger ones going from ten to eighteen.
But really, a lot was fluid: at least some of the larger plates felt more like starters or sides, and at least one of the sides, which we ended up ordering, was far more like a main in its own right. Perhaps all the dishes simply identified as food – if so, all power to them. We took it as an excuse to order pretty much everything we wanted and to risk being full. From what I’ve seen, many people who have reviewed Kolae have taken exactly that approach.
Now, before I tell you about everything we ate, I do have to mention heat. Because another thing my research indicated, time and again, was that the food at Kolae might be hotter than you’re used to. A few reviews don’t really talk about it – presumably because those people are hard as nails. But most go to town on it – in no particular order, the food apparently “jolts the senses like being woken at 4am by a sadistic drill instructor”, “blew my bloody head off”, is “blisteringly hot” or leaves you “teetering between burning pain and pure, unfiltered pleasure”.
Does that sound like fun to you? I have to say it didn’t really to me, so I did ask the server which dishes to absolutely steer clear of. There were about three of them. Everything we had was fine, so you won’t get any sub-Fifty Shades Of Grey hogwash in this review.
The first thing we ate was that first step outside the comfort zone. Fried prawn heads with turmeric and garlic were one of those things where you just have to suspend disbelief and give them a go, so we did. Zoë was reluctant approaching the first one but they were crunchy and distinctly moreish and that meant I didn’t have to polish off the rest on my own. I’m not sure how something from the sea could taste quite so earthy, but these did: I can honestly say that I’ve never enjoyed eating brains so much before, and almost certainly never will again. And yes, prawns do have brains. I know, because I Googled it.
Even better were biryani rice crackers, huge slabs of tactile delight with more than a trickle of nam jim, one of those dipping sauces which just has, and effortlessly combines, everything: sweetness, citrus and funky, salty fish sauce, infinitely more than the sum of its parts. This, for me, was the first of many moments at Kolae where I just thought: this isn’t quite like anything I’ve eaten before. Some of that is my own fault for my sheltered gastronomic life, but if anything that made me appreciate how high definition this food was.
The next few dishes, a mixture of small plates, large plates and specials, were variations on a theme and all linked with the name of the restaurant. Kolae is apparently a southern Thai technique which, as far as I can gather, involves marinating in coconut milk and spice, grilling over fire, re-marinating and re-grilling until what you get is glorious, deep and sticky.
The small plate displaying this technique was a couple of skewers with plump – or, if you get your kicks this way, “tumescent” – mussels threaded on them. I liked them, but perhaps having read so much hype about them I expected these eight mussels to be even more magnificent than they were. Worth it, perhaps, just for the novelty of seeing mussels served in such a different, faff-free way.
It was much, much more successfully deployed with chicken – in this case a huge, deboned chicken thigh which came on a skewer which surely could barely have carried its weight. This is where the technique was really at its best, the meat permeated with complexity and delight.
This kind of food makes fools of us reviewers because it exposes our narrow horizons and our limited vocabulary – I’ve seen it compared to yakitori, to laksa, to satay and to massaman. Better to be honest and say you can’t really sum up the smoke, sweetness, spice and comfort and just say that you should maybe order it so one day, you can compare other great dishes to it instead.
The third of our trilogy of skewers was bavette, topped with crispy onions. You get the idea by now, and although I enjoyed it, three different permutations of that concept was probably one too many. It was better value than the mussels, but not quite as good as the chicken.
At this point, the only question in my mind was where in the pantheon of greats Kolae would wind up nestling. The space was fantastic, the food had been eye-opening – just enough challenge, just enough fascination – and it was simply a wonderful place to be on a weekday afternoon. Every now and again flames leapt from a wok in the open kitchen, there was still hubbub even after the lunch rush had passed, and more was to come.
But that’s where things wobbled, if only slightly. Service had been wonderful, and when you got the attention of a server they couldn’t have been more helpful, but it proved increasingly difficult to flag them down. We’d finished a really gorgeous hazy IPA, Juicy Chug, by small London brewery Jiddler’s Tipple, which had gone beautifully with the small plates, but were keen to get some wine.
And we got there eventually, but if the staff had been more on it I daresay we would have drunk more. It’s a decent and interesting wine list, although the vast majority of the options by the glass were north of a tenner. I really loved my choice, a Greek malagousia and assyrtiko blend, but I think Zoë might have shaded it with her New Zealand riesling.
The first of the large plates that came out again demonstrated that this was a fluid menu where things overlapped and echoed other dishes. I’m not saying that the kale fritters were a replica of the biryani rice crackers from earlier in the meal, but they were definitely close siblings, both in terms of the crunch and complexity. This sauce was very different from the nam jim, but I got sweetness and chilli but maybe not the fermentation the menu suggested would be there. It was however another tactile triumph, although I’m not sure it really felt like a side. Perhaps I should have tried the sour mango salad with dried fish, but everything I’d read suggested that eating it would be a fast train to meltdown..
One of the absolute standout dishes of the meal was – surprise surprise – Zoë’s choice. Soy braised pork belly and ribs was outstanding, in a sauce that was far more about the tightrope between sweetness and saltiness, with heat, just this once, taken out of the equation. The sauce was just gorgeous, the meat was that perfect combination of caramelised and yielding, and it was if anything another dish I hadn’t expected – more poise than bombast, in a meal that had mostly been about very forceful flavours.
And this was where the wobble came in again. We’d ordered this and a second main, a prawn and stone bass curry, and we’d asked for a couple of bowls of rice to accompany them. Our server told us that one bowl of rice would easily be enough for both dishes, and that we could always order more if we wanted to. And maybe that might have been true, but it was very hard to judge when we were waiting something like ten minutes for that second dish to come out.
And this is the drawback of small plates and large plates, starters and mains: because, rightly or wrongly, we had ordered a main each and what this meant in practice was that I sat there like a lemon wondering if they’d forgotten my order. By the time it came out, most of the rice was gone. We ordered another one to go with the fish curry, but didn’t end up using most of it.
I waited so long for my main that I didn’t even get a photo of it, which would frustrate me more if it had been more exciting. It was okay but not extraordinary, and I wonder if the staff have had to manage expectations about the heat levels in the menu following some of those hype-laden reviews, because they told me that this dish was on the hot side and reality it was more restrained than I’d expected.
It was possibly the only thing I ate, up to that point, that tasted unspecial: was that because I’d had to wait so long for it, or just because it didn’t quite match the standard elsewhere? Who knows. All the other reviewers seem to have thought it was out of this world.
Kolae’s menu only had two desserts on it, so naturally we ordered both: how could you resist the possibility that you might just eat the twenty-seventh best dessert in the country? Especially as there was a Coteaux du Layon on the menu, a dessert wine I can never see without ordering which always punches above the likes of a Sauternes (or even a Tokaji, for my money).
Zoë had the worst of it, with a dessert which left her baffled and ambivalent. Mango custard with sweet sticky rice and fresh coconut sounds great, doesn’t it? But the reality was a little odd and neither one thing nor the other. The custard was pleasant enough, if not exactly singing with mango, but the layer of lukewarm rice – more claggy than sticky – left her a little cold. Looking at the reviews I’ve seen, Kolae only did one dessert for some time, and all their desserts have been kind-of permutations of what Zoë had (well, left some of) and what I ordered.
That suggests they might still be searching for the right dishes to end meals at the restaurant. On this evidence, perhaps they should keep looking.
I had the smaller, cheaper and better dessert, and arguably the more conventional one. A single sphere of coconut sorbet, gorgeously smooth, came crowned with a salted tea caramel, peanuts on the side. And again, it felt like a few good ideas in search of better execution: I liked the sorbet, I absolutely loved the caramel, I wanted the ratio of the two to be different. And just dumping peanuts next to it felt like an afterthought, when I’d have liked the whole thing to feel integrated.
As I said, previous reviews I’ve seen suggested that Kolae previously only offered one dessert which combined elements of these two. That process of evolution doesn’t feel like it’s concluded yet.
Still, we were full and happy with much to digest. At this point getting attention was a breeze, and our meal – a lot of food, three drinks apiece and a 12.5% service charge lobbed on – came to a hundred and sixty four pounds. I’ve seen a few reviews say that you could spend less, which you could, but I for one didn’t want to come away from the meal thinking anything along the lines of ‘I wonder what those chicken skewers would have tasted like?’
Hours later, after a hectic traipse round Selfridges and Liberty unsuccessfully trying to identify birthday presents, we sat in the very nice beer garden of a pub in Islington, drank two deeply expensive pints of Steady Rolling Man and talked about our meal. It’s always one of my favourite things about going on duty with Zoë, the post mortem, and few things accompany one as well as sunshine and an al fresco pint of Steady Rolling Man.
Our conclusions were fairly similar – that Kolae was extraordinary, and that we were glad we’d taken a punt on it. That the room was incredible, the location was brilliant and that there were many dishes on there the likes of which neither of us had ever had. If the overwhelming critical reaction did have a feel of mass hysteria about it, it didn’t detract from the fact that it was an excellent restaurant.
And yet, there were a few things that just stopped it from being truly great. The slightly disconnected service, for one, and the homogeneity of some of the menu. And the timing issues with the mains did really bug me: I get that when you bill things as large plates and say people might want to share them you may not guarantee they will all come out seconds apart, but a ten minute lag felt like a gaffe and really did take the sheen off what had otherwise been an excellent meal.
And then there were the desserts, the most underwhelming element of the whole thing. I don’t hold with all the tourists wafting round Borough Market with their naff standard issue strawberries swamped in chocolate, but I seem to remember a stall in the market offering raw milk ice cream. If I’d known what Kolae’s desserts would be like, I’d have gone there instead.
But these are, in the scheme of things, relatively minor quibbles. If you have a list of London restaurants you plan to get round to, and Kolae isn’t on it, I’d definitely recommend adding it. If you have any curiosity about this kind of food and this region, even if like me you might lack the experience or the vocabulary to express it, it’s well worth expanding your consciousness with a visit.
And if you’re slightly worried either by suggestions of apocalyptic chilli heat or the visceral horrors of munching on a plate of prawn heads, don’t worry: the former probably won’t materialise, and the latter isn’t mandatory. That’s just the hype talking – the hype that sells papers, results in reservations and gets a very good restaurant an elevated status as the twenty-seventh best restaurant in the country, less than a year after it opened.
Is it the twenty-seventh best restaurant in the country? I’m not sure about that. I’ve wondered, since eating there, whether it would make my top thirty meals of all time: it’s one of the highest ratings I’ve given out on this blog, but top thirty full stop? Maybe not. But the best is the enemy of the good – and whether or not Kolae is the best, the fact remains that it really is very good indeed. Just leave as many preconceptions as you can at home, and enjoy the ride.
Kolae – 8.7
6 Park Street, London, SE1 9AB
Edible Reading 