Clapham is an area I frequent often and one of the reasons is the high density of top quality restaurants on offer, in particular, the Old Town area. Minnow is one of those restaurants, you could easily walk past without noticing due to the relatively small restaurant frontage but it would be to your culinary loss.
The pedigree is strong from team Minnow: it is owned by Chris Frichot and Saba Tsegaye. Chris worked at Hawksmoor and Caravan whilst the head chef is Jake Boyce who was the head chef at Jason Atherton’s Social Wine and Tapas.
The decor is a true delight and you can see they’ve invested plenty of time and money into this project. It has a stunning walled garden with well-tended flower baskets, they use a soothing pastel colour scheme in the restaurant which lends itself to a general calming French brasserie vibe. Do check out their vaulted booth in the basement with a cute stained glass lightbox.
Photo courtesy of Jade Nina Sarkhel
I wouldn’t normally review a Sunday roast menu as that tends to not show off the tremendous range and style of such a quirky restaurant. And they have some great sounding autumnal dishes on their menu such as red-legged partridge, breast of hogget, dumpling, celery heart and salt baked kohlrabi, red cabbage, parsley roots.
Photo courtesy of Jade Nina Sarkhel
However, I must say it was one of the best executed Sunday brunches we’ve experienced in a long while. Eggs Florentine was a heavenly combination of crunchy in-house baked sourdough bread, buttered spinach, perfectly timed poached eggs and smothered with creamy Hollandaise sauce. It might be a simple dish, but it was tremendously well-executed even down to the plate that it was served on to make for a visually appealing brunch dish.
I tried their roast rib eye of beef with all the classic trimmings. It had all the key ingredients you would expect, but somehow everything was just that much better than your traditional pub variety. The beef was substantial and tender tasting yet had a decent chew which you would hope for in your roast. The sponge-like interior of the Yorkshire pudding was perfect for soaking up the divine gravy and the winter vegetables were suitably heart-warming. Finally, the crispy kale was just sensational and I wonder why other chefs don’t use it more in their dishes.
They might have a concise menu, but Minnow is a restaurant that demands repeated visits, as they have the kind of mouthwatering menu in which you want to try every single dish. Whether it’s for their Sunday roast menu or not, make sure you check them out soon.
baldwin@townfish.com