Ottolenghi

I had heard tell of Ottolenghi many times before I finally had the pleasure of visiting one of their restaurants. I first came across the recipe book of the same name at a friend's house and drooled over the tasty recipes within. Then I noted that their Islington location had been voted best breakfast by the very discerning readers of the Observer Food Magazine. My friend in New York was dying to go there and so I was awash with curiosity by the time I visited the Islington branch of this growing empire. One glance at the window displays made me understand why the original restaurant was mistaken for a jewellry store: never have I seen such an enticing display of superb and colourful salads and decadent cakes. I was sold before my first mouthful!

Yotam Ottolenghi is from Israel and he and his Palestinian partner Sami Tamimi share a passion for fresh food that is made on site daily and for divinely decadent cakes and pastries. Since the business expanded to include branches in Kensington and Belgravia as well as the home store in Notting Hill Ottolenghi has established a kitchen in Camden to bake the exceptional Viennoiserie, jams, biscuits and chocolates for all four stores. Everything else is made fresh on site daily and mostly with organic produce. Menus vary daily and in Islington you are seated at a long communal table. Apparently at breakfast toasters are plugged into the ceiling and set up along the table so everyone can toast their own bread!

At dinner things were slightly less communal but we still enjoyed looking at our neighbour's meals, and swapped a few menu recommendations.

Food is served in tapas sized sharing portions and so we tried a largish selection of supremely tasty and beautiful food between the three of us (apparently Ottolenghi and Tamimi will veto any dish that simply tastes good - they all must be beautiful as well, and from our selection they certainly succeeded.)

Highlights included the most delicously smoky, silky eggplant salad served with roasted pumpkin, wilted red onion and crumbled portions of a decadently creamy goats cheese. Simple yet sensational. We also enjoyed some stuffed courgette flowers, and the best pork belly dish I have ever tried, accompanied with a fabulous black pudding and a pear and crisped parsnip salad. I was selfishly glad that one of us was a vegetarian so I didn't have to split the pork three ways!

There was a superb dish of squid char grilled and served on a broad bean, tomato and coriander salad that included a few ingredients that I couldn't name but was ecstatically happy to munch. Beans and figs formed another salad and there was a delicious artichoke and pea salad which included a puffed wheat type grain called farro, lemon and parsley.

I was unable to manage dessert but watched my two friends demolish a raspberry topped cheesecake with extreme approval.

Ottolenghi makes a mockery of attempting to write food criticism as I have absolutely nothing negative to say about it! I simply can't wait to try their breakfast one day and could quite happily eat there every day. In the meantime there is always that cookbook!