La Gamba, Unit 3, Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London SE1 8XX
(lagambalondon.com). Tapas £4.50-£15; large plates £19-£36; desserts £5-£7.50; wines from £27
La Gamba is the answer to an infuriating question, that question being: where can I eat before seeing a show at the Southbank Centre? There are, of course, restaurants in that part of London. There are rooms with tables and chairs where food will be brought to you in return for money. But it’s a bafflingly dreary proposition: there’s a Wagamama, a Côte, a Strada, a Giraffe, a Las Iguanas and so on. I have nothing against any of these, or at least nothing too spittle-flecked. Brands like this have their place. They do a job. It’s not always the most brilliant job. None of them serve the best version of the food they advertise. Nor is it cheap. But it is, I suppose, reliable. In a grinding, it-must-be-a-Thursday-evening-in-Guildford sort of way. This is not meant as an insult to all the valiant independent restaurants of Guildford. It’s meant as an insult to all the other ones.
As ever, the biggest problem with the midmarket chains remains their financial heft. When a site comes up on a high street one of this lot will bid, and that bid will usually be better than that of an independent restaurant operator and come with less risk. Landlords are always more likely to go with one of the chain operators than an independent scraping funds together, especially given the current challenges to the hospitality sector. And here it all is, in a prime spot, overlooking the Thames.
The really odd thing is that context. The Southbank Centre – the Royal Festival Hall, the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Purcell Room, the Hayward Gallery and so on – prides itself on programming a broad, eclectic and diverting selection of contemporary art, culture and music. If that offering matched the restaurants around its base, it would be touring productions of West End musicals, Metallica tribute bands and Jack Vettriano exhibitions. Obviously, all of those also have their place. That place just isn’t the Southbank Centre.
Hence, when asked the restaurant question, I would direct people to Borough Market a 20-minute walk to the east, or across Waterloo Bridge to the edge of Covent Garden 15 minutes away to the north. Happily, things are now looking up on the South Bank. The team behind the terrific Marksman pub in Hackney have opened Lasdun inside the National Theatre. I reviewed the original, so I’ll leave that one to others, save to say I loved their beef and barley bun and their brown butter and honey custard tart. But there is now also La Gamba, an extremely solid and pleasing take on the Spanish repertoire from the team behind Applebee’s, the fishmongers and seafood restaurant operator over at Borough Market.
It’s fronted by the kind of big terrace you find outside the restaurants overlooking the sea along the Costa Brava: planters full of mini palms, a string or two of fairy lights, the very big umbrella. You can almost catch the waft of factor 50 in the air after a hot day on the beach. The bar and the dining room beyond are equally clean-lined. It looks like the kind of room in which you might lose a night and the following two recovery days to an ill-judged jug of sangria or three. There are dangly rattan lamp shades and a bit of Moorish art on the walls. The big light is on, which is as it should be.
Applebee’s are known for their fish, so start with a heap of their chipirones, with lemon aioli. The rustling and lacy skirt of batter around the baby squid, like a three-dimensional doily, are a keen reminder to me of the platefuls that pour out of the tapas restaurants of Málaga, where deep-fried seafood is the speciality and nobody listens to their cardiologist. Leave space for the seafood rice from the short list of big plates. The fat prawns on top, like the mussels in their shell, have a bouncy, squeaky freshness and come on a hefty mess of bomba rice, whipped up with a seafood reduction tasting deeply of shell and prawn head having given their last.
The pan con tomate uses thick wedges of crusty sourdough, topped with the sweetest of garlicky tomato, dressed in turn with peppery olive oil. For an extra £4.50 you can have four curls of meaty Calabrian anchovy. It would be rude to say no. The croquettas game in London is dominated by José Pizarro, who has restaurants just down the road in Bermondsey. These are heavier than his, but they do the job. I especially like the fried potatoes with nuggets of chorizo, with a fried egg slumped across the top, so the yolk leaks all over it as if leading the constituent parts home towards breakfast. Boned and roasted chicken thighs come with a romesco sauce, that thrilling condiment of roasted peppers, ground almonds, garlic and the rest. It’s good on flavour, but just a little loose. These criticisms are of the small niggle variety. The chef, Juan Cabarcos, is from Galicia, and he is attending to the essentials. If his family and friends ever pop over to check on him, they will recognise the menu. You do not sense the dead hand of head office, as you might in the surrounding places. It feels personal.
Until you get to dessert and then the whole cheery train comes tumbling off the olive oil-slicked tracks. The list starts with Basque cheesecake, which is now to London restaurants what nits are to primary schools: bloody everywhere. It turns out it’s possible to have too much Basque cheesecake. I’ve had enough; thoughts and prayers, please. There are ice-creams and sorbets, but those, they admit, have been bought in. The most interesting-sounding dessert, caramelised bread with cinnamon, orange and vanilla ice-cream, is off, “because we didn’t get the bread delivery”. Which just leaves the terrible churros: they’re thin and oily, and with an equally limp, tasteless chocolate sauce. And, to repeat the evergreen Jewish joke, “The portion, so small.”
At which point you can turn to the door and conclude that there are benefits to eating here on the South Bank. Because once you’ve done the savoury end of the meal, and done it well, you can head to the bright pink Snog frozen yoghurt bus nearby, or the equally pink Chocofruit stand where, as the name suggests, fruit and chocolate make friends. Or perhaps see if Ladsun will let you in just for that brown butter and honey custard tart. Finally, you’ll be ready to take in a show.
News bites
The Sheffield-based social entrepreneur Chris Hanson, formerly of the city’s Blend Kitchen, is launching a new venture called Chef’s Counter, raising money for charities by staging food events in underused community spaces. The first takes place on 20 July at Sheffield General Cemetery, a former burial site, now held as a trust for educational tours, workshops and conservation work. The menu for the Persian street food event, which costs £13 a head, includes carrot, cumin and preserved lemon falafel, baba ghanoush with tzatziki and Persian bread and harissa glazed chicken wings. Go here for more information.
Danielle Phillips and Dan Saunders, the team behind much-loved Abergavenny restaurant The Gaff, have chosen Bath for their second venture. The new 30-cover restaurant has a 16ft open kitchen running the length of the dining room, as well as a chef’s table and a private dining room. The menu, which changes weekly, includes faggot with smoked bacon, confit duck and Boston beans, mushroom arancini with garlic mayonnaise, and rhubarb trifle (thegaffrestaurant.co.uk).
Chef Nick Nairn will next month relaunch his restaurant in Bridge of Allan, Stirlingshire, which was devastated by a fire in 2021. Originally trading as Nick’s, the new venture is called Nairn’s and will serve a daily changing menu, including monkfish cheek scampi with tartare sauce, venison agnolotti with game sauce and roasted cauliflower, with harissa, yoghurt and dukkha crumb. Nairn and his wife, Julia, have implemented a four-day working week and have employed a dedicated person to develop and cook staff meals (nairns.co.uk).
Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @jayrayner1
