Westerns Laundry

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Bitten & Written | Review | Westerns Laundry,

When Primeur opened in a former garage on a quiet leafy street in Canonbury three years ago, a first thought came to mind: "Good luck chaps, this is a tough spot.

Jeremie Cometto-Lingenheim and David Gingell have opened their second site, Westerns Laundry, just fifteen minutes walk away (some have referred to this part of Holloway as LoHo - shudder), this time in a 1950's building that used to house a wholesale laundry business – this knack of finding disused sites and turning them into convivial dining rooms is now looking like it was no fluke first time around.

Head Chef James Mitchell takes the reins alongside manager and wine Tsar Francis Roberts, both of whom have been working at Primeur in the build-up to opening.

Cuttlefish and ham croquettes are remarkable, first tasted at a Westerns menu trailer evening at Primeur: crisp panko crumbed casing, jammed with chunks of cuttlefish and its ink, to be dredged through a wickedly garlicky aïoli.

Open kitchen, counter dining, and the room hums in the evening with the same energy, joie de vivre and candlelit charm of Primeur.

Westerns Laundry, Lower Holloway: restaurant review | Foodism

Located a stone's throw from Highbury & Islington, Westerns Laundry shares the duo's first site's ethos of simple, honest food and big flavours, applied to a seafood-forward menu and a natural wine list.

While there's a variety of specialist beers and vermouths on offer, this is very much a place to drink wine and have fun while doing it.

Chef Gingell works closely with his suppliers, creating his menu each day from the produce they deem best.

Never mind the rest of the menu – you'll find us popping in for this alone.

Small plates from £3; wines from £5 by the glass.

Grace Dent reviews Westerns Laundry: I can state plainly that this ...

Back in the beginnings of Ab Fab, when the sitcom was still great, there was a minor character called Hamish, a restaurant critic.

It was as if 30 years spent finding five new, fresh ways a week to describe consommé had rendered him otherworldly.

Research on this new joint will tell you of Himalayan birch trees, a leather-bound ‘black book’ of low-intervention wines, reclaimed King’s Cross cobbles, Shou Sugi Ban charred larch banquettes, dishes hewn from dayboat Devon fish and an owner called Jeremie Cometto-Lingenheim.

The kitchen buzzed with bright young chefs and the blackboard menu spoke of lobster fideuà, cockles with fennel tops, sardines, Marie Rose langoustines and chargrilled leeks.

Some simple grilled mackerel appeared in a slick of miso, chilli and spring onion alongside a plate of first rate paleta ibérico.

Westerns Laundry, London N5, restaurant review: 'verging on the ...

I spontaneously texted my old friend Lucy, a film producer, inviting her to sit opposite me for supper, in North London.

I do not see Lucy often enough, mostly on the grounds of our living 83.4 miles apart with a great big city in the middle.

Not only would she very much like to join me for supper, but it just so happened that when I’d sent the text she was dining at Coq D’Argent, the never-knowingly-fashionable rooftop City restaurant (formerly a Conran) that she had previously visited precisely once, 20 years ago, when I’d reviewed it for another Sunday broadsheet.

“I think we both hated it from the off,” said Lucy, with impressive recall.

I figured I owed her ­dinner at a restaurant she may want to revisit within the next 20 years.

Westerns Laundry, London: restaurant review | Life and style | The ...

Meal for two without wine: £85; with wine £120 Recently, in support of a new US TV series, Gordon Ramsay gave an interview in which he listed his golden rules for eating in restaurants: avoid the specials, because they probably aren’t, and so on.

Telling us we should pay no more than $30 a bottle – roughly £23.50 – is, of course, an invitation to excavate his own wine lists in search of something, anything, within the target price.

The food – small sharing plates, a bit of British, a touch of Spanish – is bright and light, well-executed and well-priced.

Small plates are £7 or so; the most expensive dish, a substantial piece of turbot, is £19.

Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants may not service his $30 rule, but across the board from high to low even they offer significant choice around £25.

Westerns Laundry | Restaurants in Highbury, London

‘You know, it’s the sister restaurant to Primeur’, or ‘it used to be the laundrette for Pentonville prison’.

As soft-boiled as an egg can be before you’d say, ‘This has definitely been cooked, right?’

But there was one dish that needs to step forward and bow deeply: the guinea fowl.

If it was ‘in town’, Westerns Laundry might just feel like another sexy small-plates restaurant.

The open kitchen spans the rear.