FALLOW
2 St James’s Market,
London SW1;
fallowrestaurant.com
M
y aim is never to let
personal prejudices
colour these
reviews. But God,
I’d happily never
see Mayfair again as
long as I live; lately
it seems to have
morphed into the
Monopoly map
equivalent of a gated
community. Last time I went
— to the sad reimagining of
Langan’s and then the doomed
pursuit of a congenial cocktail
— I was made to feel as welcome
as Stalin at an oligarch’s orgy.
Fallow is in St James’s, Mayfair,
according to its internet
presence, which kind of put
me off. Also, I thought these
were two separate entities,
St James’s marginally less
infested by men who look like
the Tinder Swindler. But the
“Mayfair” is a hangover from
its extended pop-up days in
Heddon Street and the
restaurant has now relocated
to that odd, beige St James’s
development that also houses
newly two-starred Ikoyi.
Well, nominally: it’s on the
Haymarket side, just down
from Planet Hollywood,
a location that does not bellow
cool or indeed recherché.
There must have been a
serious injection of loot. It
looks like a million dollars —
and the rest — with acres of
greenery (sea kelp and heather,
apparently) dripping from the
ceiling. Organic mushroomy
life sprouts over pillars. With
its sleek cocktail bar, parquet
and leather and marble, its
flame-belching open kitchen
and sombre palette, it breathes
opulence. My husband once
got stopped by sniffer dogs
at Gatwick, not for drugs,but because he “smelt like
money”. (As if.) Fallow also
smells like money.
Contrarily, it’s not all steak
and lobster but is “dedicated
to sustainability”: humble
ingredients often the stars of
the show, little wasted, roots
and leaves pressed into duty.
Take corn ribs: sweetcorn
sections fried until almost
toffee-chewy and dusted with
kombu, for gnawing off the core
“ribs”. I could have eaten an
economy-sized bucket of these.
Prices are more luxurious.
How can a serving of bread cost
a tenner, I wonder, before being
given what’s basically a tiny
designer pizza, the deliciously
blistered dough laden with blue
cheese, treacly black garlic,fronds of pickled onion and
candied nuts.
It’s a tricky menu to navigate
because it all sounds amazing.
So much thought has gone into
the dishes. Trout ceviche —
more like aburi sashimi with its
delicately scorched surfaces —
comes with mandolined salsify,
flaked red seaweed and tiny,
fleshy sea vegetable leaves (or
maybe kelp has fallen onto the
plate from the ceiling). It’s as if
they’ve wondered, “What can
we add that’ll make fish even
more piscine, more briny, more
of-the-sea?” They make their
own charcuterie and sausages
too: getting past the distractingly
turdy demeanour of a smoked
number is well worth it.
Magnificently meaty with itsTA B L E TA L K●Marina `ʼLoughlin
Sensational cooking at the bling
end of the Monopoly board
sage leaves and glittering cider
jelly, it is, emphatically, a banger.
Desserts alone are worth the
trip. Even this pudding agnostic
would travel for the caramelised
whey “Chelsea tart”, a precision-
cut wedge with all the sensuality
of salted caramel and none of the
cloying weight. It’s sensational,
the quenelle of delicate milk
ice cream tipping it over into
greatness. And rhubarb soufflé,
fragranced with cardamom and
served with ginger ice cream,
makes you goggle: spiced and
hot colliding with spiced and
cold, sheer sybaritic pleasure.
Will Murray and Jack Croft,
Fallow’s chef-owners, met while
working at Heston Blumenthal’s
Dinner. I’m not a great fan of
Knightsbridge either — norThere are shades of Heston’s
perfectionism — each dish seems
engineered to be a barnstormer
40 • The Sunday Times Magazine