I felt a compulsion to go to Duchy, in east London, because I had dined at its predecessor, Leroy, in 2018, as well as its genesis, Ellory, in 2015. These three different restaurants share DNA. Yes, 10 years have passed, but very little in the pared-back, pan-European anchovies-on-a-plate-for-£12 dining scene has moved on.
No-frills decor, bare-brick walls, earnest small plates, staff with statement moustaches despite it not being remotely near Movember. We all know the drill for such places. There will be those exemplary anchovies on some sort of crostini, asparagus because it’s in season, some beans, maybe green, perhaps white, fancy French cheese and a tart of the day for afters. While Ellory merged into Leroy via a move from London Fields to Shoreditch, Leroy has become Duchy, it seems, via a simple change of the sign above the door. Front-of-house Alex Grant and chef Simon Shand met at Leroy and have now made this restaurant their own. In pop music terms, visiting Duchy is like going to see Bucks Fizz at Butlin’s and the only remaining member is David Van Day, and you’re pretty sure he was actually in Dollar, but hey, it’s fine, whatever, because they’re now cranking through Making Your Mind Up anyway.
Still, clearly this “things on plates, served sporadically” concept isn’t broken, and Duchy don’t need to fix it, because by 5pm on a Tuesday night, this new/old restaurant is filling up nicely, and by the time we leave two hours later, it’s absolutely heaving.
The UK restaurant world is patently nowhere near the end of its “three ravioli dressed in olive oil and a scattering of podded peas” era, of “Hey, guys, can I start you off with some comté gougères” and “Yes, we are playing Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense”. There has, admittedly, been a surge of “authentic French” restaurants in the capital recently – 74 Duke, French Society, Marjorie’s, Joséphine – where beret-wearing British restaurateurs seem to be draping onions around their necks and serving up hearty soups, souffles, trotters and Paris-Brests, and very nice they are, too. But this thing that Ellory, then Leroy and now Duchy does, and which was once so edgy, shows no sign of relenting.
Two anchovies on two crostini dotted with marjoram leaves arrive for £5, followed by a pile of rather soft, chunkily cut bread – polenta fries – enrobed in a thick grating of Alps wheel from Savoie. A calfskin with the veal served tartare-style is topped with what are reportedly shoestring fries, but have tangled into what looks like a deep-fried potato rösti. A highlight is a bowl of al dente Italian flat beans served cold in some type of vinaigrette, and with the pleasing addition of fresh almonds, blobs of rather pungent gorgonzola and a few slices of loquat. Surely loquats are just kumquats with aspirations of grandeur, you might be thinking. Well, you would be very wrong: loquats are bigger, more like a sharp pear in flavour and wholly suitable for matching with a stinky, oozy Italian cheese and some crunchy veg.
A bowl of fresh spaghetti with sage is as memorable as the chorus of Britain’s last Eurovision entry, and I am truly puzzled by what appears to be Duchy’s signature dish: some very damp smoked trout on a bowl of vivid green spaetzle that have been cooked until mushy.
Thank heavens for the final main course, then, wine chicken jauneserved on a silky buttery puree with a scattering of outstanding morels. Delicious, although there is always a moment, when I have been fooled again into sharing a plate of chicken and mash, that I think, “Surely sharing mash and gravy is the type of thing you should only need to do in a national emergency and you’re huddling around a brazier with other survivors. Why am I paying £28 for this pleasure?”
But, as I say, we are too far down this route to back out now; those brick walls that make conversations bounce around deafeningly, the slice of perfectly fine apricot tart with creme fraiche for afters, the £130 bill without drinks for an adequate, perfectly of-its-ilk, London small-plates dinner. Stop Making Sense is reaching its final track as we pay up, and I’m not entirely sure if the food world ever truly started making sense.
Duchy 18 Phipp Street, London EC2, 07874 310612. Open Tues-Sat, lunch noon-2pm, dinner 5.30-9.45pm. From about £40 a head à la carte, plus drinks and service
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