If you suffer from Iatrophobia, then a trip to The Remedy in Fitzrovia might be a plausible alternative. The independent owners have named their wine bar and restaurant as a cheeky reference to the reputed medicinal cures of yesteryear. If you walk along Cleveland Street where The Remedy is based, you will see other independent restaurants and bars dotted along the road. It might not be the best looking part of Fitzrovia, but there is where you might discover tremendous hidden gems in our city.
Booking is highly recommended at The Remedy considering they only have very few tables available. They run special offers like Monday Night Fever, where they have handpicked 12 bottles of wine, which are offered at half price.
The decor doesn’t go beyond the exposed brickwork variety, but the main point to note are their detailed chalkboards. They have constantly evolving wine and food selections which changes weekly, so checking the chalkboards on arrival is compulsory if you want to make the most out of your visit.
Asking David and Renato, the owners to recommend you wines to match with your food is the best course of action. I tried a very quaffable Tatsima 2015 orange wine. Yes forget about rosé, tangerine-hued wine is the trendy drink of choice at the moment for wine connoisseurs. Next I tried the minerally, crisp tasting organic wine, a Celsiane 2014 Chenin blanc. Finally, I tried Domaine Florentin St Joseph Blanc les Clos 2006, which has a weighty palate that doesn’t get overpowered by the strong-tasting food on their menu.
Their small plates orientated menu is perfect for matching with their wines. Snails ‘A la Bourguignonne’ and smoked bacon on toast seems deceptively simple, but isn’t a dish offered at most French restaurants. It’s hard to find a better use of crusty bread than for soaking up this sumptuous, garlicky ‘snail butter’.
The decor might be simple, but the food is utterly luxurious. Even a basic homemade gnocchi dish is accompanied with rich tasting sautéed shitake mushrooms. The gnocchi cooked to just the right temperature and amount of time to give it that al dente feel.
Grilled octopus, preserved tomatoes, samphire and black olives is beautifully presented with the right mixture of flavours and texture. The octopus has been cooked so that it has the ideal chew and isn’t overly tough.
The Remedy is the type of hidden gem you don’t really want to tell the whole world about, because you want to make sure there is a table for you when you arrive. Luckily for Townfish readers, you now know of this secret too.
baldwin@townfish.com