Cloth, London: ‘Mixed but fascinating’ — review

“Wine led” has become a nuanced descriptor for restaurants. At places like Noble Rot or The 10 Cases, the idea fills you with joyous anticipation but, as the postcode tends toward the east, becomes a screaming warning siren. Cloth, a new restaurant from wine importers Joe Haynes and Ben Butterworth, is in Farringdon, so it’s officially on the border of acceptability.

The auspices are good. Cloth has Georgian fenestration, dark walls with thrift-shop art, and is lit generously with candles. It’s got a lot of the feel of Soho’s treasure Andrew Edmunds, surely the pioneers of “wine leading”, though there’s a strong smell of fresh paint and I’m not sure they ever painted Andrew Edmunds.

I’d really come for the food, though. Chef Tom Hurst has worked at Brawn, The Marksman and Levan, and was head chef at Lasdun. That is some kind of pedigree and, having loved them all, I’d have followed the guy anywhere.

I kicked off with the pickle plate, an ennobling hunk of freshly baked sourdough and geographically specific butter. All now mandatory in London restaurants, but no less welcoming for that.

There was no real way I could swerve the hogget croquettes with anchovy mayo. It was so much in Hurst’s wheelhouse that I’d have been mad to miss it. The meat was extraordinarily long-cooked, shredded and bound with a rich, dark jus. The spicing was bang on. The anchovy was intense, almost edging too assertive, but really perfectly judged. There was a lump of unannounced silverskin in among the meat, an unforced error that should have been spotted, but it at least reminded me of the long process of turning a cheap cut into something this glorious.

For anyone brought up on our national tradition of food writing, English asparagus is to be presented “simply”. Steamed or raw, with a little drawn butter, or a hollandaise. That is it. Anything else is a filthy, foppish affectation and possibly foreign. Which is a shame because here, they’ve cut the spears into rough chunks and tossed them in a sauce much like a gribiche, though with oil rather than mayo. An iconoclastic triumph. Cooling, fresh and minging with fresh tarragon.

A hefty quenelle of chicken liver parfait came with a gravestone of house-baked brioche, which was light in texture, airy, but a little sweet for my taste. The urgent kumquat flavour intended to foil the unguence of the mousse was in too small a quantity to counterbalance. It was a good CLP, which I love with all my heart. I just regret that you can’t give out fulsome plaudits for “a good CLP” and keep any credibility as a critic.

“Dorset crab, celeriac, almond.” An adjective would have been nice, but you could absolutely read the creative process in this one. Crab is superb in a mayonnaise. The shreds of white meat give texture and the brown meat brings flavour. A celeriac remoulade has shreds of vegetable that are similar in texture to white crabmeat. Celeriac and crab pair beautifully. Why not bind celeriac shreds with a mayo flavoured with brown crabmeat? It’s a flash of genius. Or it would have been in a small helping on top of some of that excellent house-baked sourdough. Instead, it was presented alone on a small plate in a large chef’s-ring mould, looking exactly like a turned-out tin of tuna. A small forkful revealed it to be gorgeous and indecently rich. But looking and, frankly, tasting a little like gourmet cat food, it was impossible to know how to attack it and indeed how far to proceed with it. It was an amazing thing, but lacking vital context.

A dish of grilled Tropea onions came with cavolo nero, cubes of panisse and a herbed and garlicked goat’s curd that blatantly channelled Boursin. Each element was good (c’mon, who doesn’t love Boursin?) but it lacked a coherent idea.

A tranche of Cornish turbot is never a bad order. This one came in a disproportionately vast moat of beurre blanc, but the crowning touch was a bowl of chips with Espelette pepper to dip into it. The waiter said they’d never wanted to put chips on the menu, but now they have, they’re insanely popular. I can only agree.

A young chef with a terrific pedigree has put together a menu comprising absolutely solid examples of excellent “Modern British”. It reads beautifully. He’s executed it to a high standard and though he hasn’t “messed with the classics” egregiously, he’s noticeably pushed the envelope on each recipe. Under normal circumstances, I cleave enthusiastically to the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mantra, but here I’m intrigued and delighted by what he’s tried. Every dish has been thought through and made me think in turn.

Which has made this an amazingly enjoyable review to write. I wish every restaurant presented food that I had to engage with, think about, parse and judge. Food that pushes a little. Food where the chef has respectfully given himself some rein for creativity. The result is mixed but fascinating. Pretty much everything I ate pushed things forward a little in some direction and fell a little short in another, which left me with an odd conclusion. I liked everything, but nothing was perfect. I loved the new place and, most importantly, the direction and ambition of the chef. I want creativity and experimentation, and if that’s really happening, I expect as many near misses as palpable hits. Above all, even though the meal was just short of stellar, I’m determined to return many times, knowing he’s doing really quite lovely cooking and that the potential here is limitless.

Follow Tim @TimHayward and email him at tim.hayward@ft.com

Follow @FTMag to find out about our latest stories first and subscribe to our podcast Life and Art wherever you listen