Meals to Remember - 500 Places for Food and Wine Lovers - page 171

Straight from the Farm

187

Konstam at the Prince Albert
King of the Ring Road
London, England

If you think it's hard sourcing all your food
from local growers when you're in Berke-
ley or Bristol, just try doing it when you're
in King's Cross, the heart of London town.
That was Oliver Rowe's challenge on
the 2006 BBC television series The Urban
Chef . At the time, he had been running the
scroungy little bare-bones Café Konstam
in this former red-light district for 2 years,
and he was in the process of opening Kon-
stam at the Prince Albert, converting an
old pub into a smart locavore bistro. The
TV cameras followed him as he buzzed
around London, generally via the Under-
ground, visiting his eccentric collection of
only-in-London suppliers—a mushroom
grower in East Ham, a lamb and pig farm at
Amersham, a flour miller in Ponders End, a
beekeeper in Tower Hill, an ostrich breeder
in southwest London. He even convinced
his own grandmother to let him pick mul-
berries from the tree in her back garden—
anything that lay within the M25 ring road
was fair game.
Now that the bigger restaurant is up
and running, the reviews are in: Rowe's
methods may sound gimmicky, but the
food is delicious. Rowe does give himself a
bit of a break—only 85% of the ingredients
he uses have to be from his designated
area. It's true, you do find a few unusual
foraged ingredients on the plate—dande-
lion greens, wild garlic, knotweed, land-
cress, mushrooms—but he doesn't restrict
himself to a limited basket of local produce
when it's time to cook.
Konstam has an almost discolike look—
blond wood tabletops seem to float in an
otherwise monochromatic blue-green
room, with suspended light fixtures

draped in metallic bead chains. It seems
the antithesis of Rowe's whole-earth
approach to cooking, but it's a magnet for
the young and hip, like Rowe himself. Hav-
ing trained at the trendy African-inspired
restaurant Moro in Clerkenwell (where
there's a very hot restaurant scene these
days), he's an old hand at mixing and
matching unusual flavors, even if he is only
in his mid-30s.
In the end, the blend of intensely local
ingredients somehow lead to deeply Brit-
ish menu items—dishes like a crisp-
skinned roast chicken with roast potatoes
and a sage-and-onion sauce; mutton
chops with capers and chervil; pork belly
slow-cooked in London Porter ale with
braised cabbage shoots; charcoal-grilled
pigeon breast with roast-onion-and-hazel-
nut salad and beet dressing; and of course
a classic Dover sole. No cocoa beans grow
within the M25 radius, so desserts include
such simple sweets as a lavender ice
cream with ginger snaps; and bread pud-
ding with double cream and lemon zest.
Rowe's experiment is a daring one, but it
works.

Konstam at the Prince Albert, 2 Acton
St. ( & 44/20/7833-5040; www.konstam.
co.uk).
( Heathrow (24km/15 miles) or Gatwick

(40km/25 miles).
L $$$ 22 Jermyn St., 22 Jermyn St.,
St. James ( & 800/682-7808 in the U.S., or
44/20/7734-2353; www.22jermyn.com).
$$ Vicarage Private Hotel, 10 Vicarage
Gate, South Kensington ( & 44/20/7229-
4030; www.londonvicaragehotel.com).