Isn’t life a leveller? Get too big for your boots and something comes along to iron out the ego. Last week I strode confidently into a restaurant, dropped the fake name on the booking, and was met with bewilderment. “But I have a confirmation,” I protested. A shake of the head; I couldn’t do. Turns out the place I had wandered past on the way — the one I had dismissed for looking out of date — was, in fact, where I was meant to be. Who gets it wrong with Google Maps? Me, apparently.
Not the most auspicious start to an evening, but then West Smithfield, where Origin is, has problems of its own. Is it knowing there’s a meat market full of blood and guts close by, or the constant presence of grunting 12-wheelers that’s the buzz kill? Still, no point denying Farringdon is all foodie again: there’s Bouchon Racine and Brutto down the road; Club Gascon and St Barts holding up the Michelin end. I still miss John King’s Bowling Bird. It felt like Peter Langan might come tumbling from out the back.
Origin’s appeal is not in its address. It is owned and operated by the Landsberg family, who seem to own and operate an awful lot. There’s the 600 acre farm up in Argyll that gives the restaurant its beef, pork and lamb. The Loch Fyne oyster farm is also theirs, and where the seafood is sourced. Then, mais bien sûr, there’s a vineyard in Provence, Château de La Cômbe, which may explain the sister wine bar across the road. All a smart move, I reckon. You can’t get shafted by the supplier when the supplier is you, can you? Must be handy for a family so hard up.
The Landsbergs also seem to be in possession of fine palates, and accordingly have hired as executive chef former Langham Hotel and Daylesford Organic man Graham Noonan-Chatham (evidently another rough). His menu — “is this the new St John?” my pal said, which may be the best marketing a restaurant could use — is all nose-to-tail stuff, elaborate touches on the simplest dishes.
“In-house” is a serious business here: the butchery and ageing is all done out the back, and everything down to the charcuterie is made by hand. It tells in the quality of a sloop of ‘ndjuja butter, with its pirate sail of fried pig fat. Three charred slices of fine Morteau sausage, only gently smoked, sit on rich brown lentils mixed with biting mustard.
Tonnato tops pork loin instead of veal; it has a sourness from the anchovies that appeals. There is a courgette flower that comes swollen with generous goats’ cheese, the white soon corrupting the vivid orange of a gently tanging romesco. “You have white beans with that,” advises the sweetly-concerned maître d’. “You will not need a side.”
There is similar reluctance to ripping off diners with the wine list: it starts at £24 and only reaches past £40 twice. When was the last time that you heard of that?
The only misstep is the pork faggots, topped rather pointlessly with apple cut like kindling. Admittedly, I ordered out of sick curiosity — who puts faggots on an August menu? Noonan-Chatham is clearly heavily invested in the nose-to-tail thing. Just you wait till he hears about eating seasonally.
This is the moment to mention that we eat three-and-a-half weeks into a soft launch. But everything that soft launches are for — food, drinks, service — is sorted. Origin is, for all intents and purposes, the Square Mile’s Chez Bruce, and that is a very, very good thing indeed.
The Landsbergs might have acres of land and lakes, but looking at the place, I’m not convinced there’s a pair of specs between them. This room. Come on. There are bar seats covered in hair either from a yeti or a particularly dirty sheep, while some dunce covered the walls in the blandest of tweed, a bit Peaky Blinders, a bit high-street tailor. Was there a raid on Moss Bros I didn’t hear about? And, wow, the music. Christ. The playlist is dedicated to acoustic jazz-pop war crimes. I did not sign up to sit through Bossa Nova Coldplay covers so you don’t have to, but here we are. Vibes cannot have been high on the agenda.
What’s offered, then, is a terrific restaurant trapped inside a bad one. The Landsbergs should cart the DJ off to the slaughterhouse, put some money into art, but leave the kitchen be. That way, people won’t blithely walk past — they might even stop. I would. I’d be in so often, I wouldn’t even need a map.
