Blixen

Blixen is a restaurant in the style of the European grand cafés, with a focus on beautiful design, consistent quality and the true spirit of hospitality.

Blixen - Old Spitalfields Market

We've been busy below ground at Blixen creating a brand new bar in partnership with Max and Noel Venning, the pair behind one of our favourite bars; Three Sheets in Dalston.

The brothers have brought their signature, fuss free approach to our cosy, brand new subterranean space.

Cocktails are presented across three sections, with three drinks in each, that have been categorised by flavour rather than spirit; light-, medium-, or full-bodied.

The complex, carefully-crafted cocktails, using modern kitchen techniques, are presented in the Venning brothers’ trademark simple style.

http://blixen.co.uk

Blixen, restaurant review: Chef Matt Greenwood has created dishes of

So obviously this new restaurant called Blixen must be a specialist coffee shop featuring 17 varieties of Kenya beans and perhaps some moist coffee gâteau, topped with cream from the Masai M..

If that's true, it's the only thing that hasn't been considered at length in this handsome new restaurant, part of old Spitalfields Market.

From the cocktail menu, James and I ordered a Mariachi Manhattan (tequila, vermouth and absinthe, short but wicked) and Ferula Mule (Stoli vodka, ginger, lemon and fennel bitters – long and refreshing).

My choice of squid, chorizo and chickpea stew was a masterpiece of sexy intertwinings.

I've had several million crème caramels in my time but never one as smooth as the Blixen version, served with a trio of utterly sloshed brandied prunes, a combination to die for.

Blixen, restaurant review: Unbeatable comfort food on the edge of ...

After a dozen years, a couple of modest awards, a plethora of polysyllabic phrases and a near-obsession with crème brulee, I am hanging up my spiral notepad, my monogrammed napkin and my well-thumbed copy of Alan Davidson's Penguin Companion to Food.

Clive and Penny Watson and their builder-designer partner Justin Gilbert launched Blixen only a year ago, but it stayed embedded in my memory after the first visit: the gorgeous converted-bank décor, the three differently-styled dining areas, the delicious food, ambrosial puddings and genial service.

My second visit was last October, at a birthday lunch involving 17 people in the former vault, where our waiter sang an aria for the birthday boy (that's what I call service).

Philippe, our French waiter, served slabs of baked bone marrow with bagna cauda, tiny plates of pungent boquerones (anchovies with monksbeard and artichoke pesto) and squid, chorizo and chickpea stew with saffron aioli, a miraculous intertwining of flavours and textures.

Blixen may not be haute cuisine, but it's the highest-quality comfort food available to mankind, in the most airily pleasing ambience , among the most charming and obliging people, bang in the old beating heart of London's East End.

Blixen, London: quick restaurant review - olive magazine

Sit at a bar overlooking the kitchen and watch the chefs, in a booth on the main floor or on a raised plant-filled platform tucked in the corner that looks like a wedge of colonial Singapore.

Blixen has a lovely feel to it, relaxed yet buzzy and the menu with brasserie classics with a British twist such as white onion soup with cauliflower rarebit and souped up dishes like Croque Madame made with raclette and duck egg suit it perfectly.

Main course sea bream is served with good quality creamy white beans, broccolini and hazelnuts and crispy pork, a melting slap of belly meat with a crunchy roof of crackling with fried spaetzle, quince puree and kale.

Puddings include a nicely bright green pistachio ice cream with lovely crunchy sugared pistachios and lemon shortbread and a crème brulee with prunes.

Cocktails do just as well before or after a meal, the Ferule Mule mixes citrus vodka with lemon thyme, ginger and fennel bitters and there is a selection of local beers from Hackney, Bermondsey and Bow.

Blixen | London Evening Standard

Over the years, some chefs and restaurateurs have become friends, but quite a lot haven’t… Anyway, people like going to restaurants where they are known.

You can stare unapologetically at your phone, is one advantage Chang notes, but also points out that you make new friends among what is a band of outsiders within the restaurant.

Lunch at Blixen is with a woman who won a meal on the job with me in a raffle organised by Soho Food Feast, where local restaurants raise money to support Soho Parish Primary School.

Hilary starts with squid, chorizo and chickpea stew with saffron aioli, while I choose white onion soup with cauliflower cheese rarebit.

He also brings good news of a Croque Madame made with jamon, raclette cheese and duck egg.

Blixen, London E1, restaurant review - Telegraph

We were wandering around London’s Old Spitalfields Market (it’s not very old any more, though it used to be) as Susanna swooned over stalls selling stuffed animals, dream-catchers and assorted tat while I came over all Phil Mitchell, opining in a hoarse gargle that the East End ain’t what it used to be.

But Susanna likes shiny, cosmopolitan, new London.

The owner Clive Watson also runs a well-liked brasserie, the Riding House Café, in the West End, serving everything from breakfast to dinner, with coffee, cake and cocktails in any gaps you might have in between.

The courgette and goat's cheese fritter with kohlrabi slaw (Paul Winch-Furness ) We shared the courgette and goat’s cheese fritter with kohlrabi slaw, the squid, chorizo and chickpea stew with saffron aioli and the crumbed ox tongue with celeriac remoulade to start.

Susanna’s ox tongue was intense and satisfying.

Blixen | Restaurants in Spitalfields, London

But Blixen, on the south side of Old Spitalfields Market, might make some reconsider that policy.

This would count for zilch without good food and drink, but you’ll get both at Blixen.

Some juice fanatics think that the drinks don’t have to taste good as long as they’re supposedly beneficial to health.

Blixen is enlarging its domain with a terrace backing onto the market, and I have no doubt that they’ll make that look lovely too.

Good looks, good food, and fair prices to boot – it’s a winning combination.