Brutalist design, brilliant food
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
I love brutalism. I also love the theatre. But my visits to the National Theatre, a paragon of both, have always been marred by the dreary food.
“The food hasn’t always matched the excellence, creativity and ambition we see onstage,” admits Hawksmoor co-founder Huw Gott who, along with Café Rouge founder Karen Jones and Chelsea Arts Club CEO Geoffrey Matthews, sits on the National Theatre Enterprises board. Together they’ve helped forge a new strategy in which food and drink has been handed over to a variety of independent traders. The hope is to turn the NT into “a landmark for food and drink” and renew its standing as a mecca for design.
The strategy has seen the introduction of three casual options (currently Mumbai Mix, Lucky’s Hot Chicken and Bad Boy Pizza) in The Understudy canteen in collaboration with street-food incubator Kerb; the brasserie Lasdun, run by Jon Rotheram, Tom Harris and John Ogier of Hackney pub The Marksman; and, just opened, Forza Wine, a 160-cover indoor and outdoor space along the north-west terrace operated by Michael Lavery and Bash Redford of the eponymous venue in Peckham. Lavery jokes that they landed the gig because Olivia Colman happened to be dining at the latter when the NT board came for a tasting. As endorsements go, it can’t have hurt. Certainly Forza Wine and The Marksman bring a cool creative crowd.
The meal I had at Lasdun was among the best I’ve had all year, starting with a beef and barley bun, a ball of dough filled with mince and finished with horseradish cream. Also triumphant was a smoked eel, pressed potato and ham starter and the braised runner beans with tomato and olives, which recalled a French grandmother’s prized ratatouille.
Forza Wine’s offering pairs natural wines and seasonal cocktails with a snack menu that might include pancetta potato cakes with pickled cabbage or mozzarella with figs and hazelnuts; suitable for a quick bite before a show. Just make sure to bookend those with the signature cauliflower fritti with aïoli and the custardo, a ruinously voluptuous take on affogato made using crème anglaise.
What set Forza Wine and The Marksman apart in their bids to occupy these spaces was their passion for the NT’s architecture. “It’s one of my favourite buildings,” insists Tom Harris, who hadn’t even realised the theatre contained a restaurant. It didn’t help that previous incarnations had been called “House” and “Mezzanine”, which felt more like directions than names for destination restaurants. Their task was not “just creating a theatre restaurant but a great London restaurant in a theatre”, says Harris. A prerequisite was bringing in their own architect, John Whelan of the Guild of St Luke, whose redesign incorporates pendant lights inspired by Belgian designer Jules Wabbes and chairs modelled after Tobia Scarpa’s 1959 Pigreco. The original windows overlooking the foyer have been reinstated, creating a sense of privacy previously absent as sound crashed in from elsewhere. “You have to create a restaurant where people feel they’ve walked into something special,” says Harris, “somewhere with serious intent”. It was their decision to name the restaurant after the NT’s architect, Denys Lasdun.
The Forza Wine team appointed Tyeth Gundry of Gundry + Ducker to update their space. This included installing leather banquettes, opening up the kitchen and restoring Lasdun’s favourite spot on the corner of the terrace, where you have 270-degree views of the Thames and Waterloo Bridge. It’s the best seat in the house. Or at least the best you can occupy while sipping a Negroni.
The National joins other London venues where brutalist-loving foodies can now enjoy the whole package. I’m thinking of Toklas at 180 The Strand, which is also home to Ikoyi’s modernist dining room; Arcade Food Hall at Centre Point, which brings to mind leisure centres from the 1960s; and Maido Sushi in St John’s Wood, housed in a former post office. I’d love to add the Barbican to that list, if only its board would follow the National’s lead and cook up something fresh.
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