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Noble Rot Soho

London

The second restaurant outing for oenophiles wine Mark Andrew and Dan Keeling is helmed by ex-Sardine chef Alex Jackson

£££££

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  • Wine List of the Year Award 2021 & 2022

Noble Rot’s Dan Keeling and Mark Andrew took on iconic Greek Street site The Gay Hussar for their second restaurant outing. It was a typically shrewd move for the pair – this slightly gritty corner of Soho is a great match for the Noble Rot brand – and the restaurant has been an instant smash on the London scene despite having a rather bumpy start due to launching in the midst of the pandemic (it’s especially popular with restaurant and wine industry folk).

While Noble Rot Soho shares much of the same DNA of its older sibling on Bloomsbury’s Lambs Conduit Street, it has its own identity thanks to the involvement of former Sardine chef Alex Jackson (although The Sportsman chef Stephen Harris still has some involvement in the menu).

His food references the Hungarian restaurant’s storied past – it was here that the downfall of Thatcher was plotted – with dishes such as eggs ‘casino’ and goulash but is also expressive of Jackson’s own approach to cooking, with other dishes demonstrating a more pan-European outlook. These include rabbit cooked in rose with cucumber, tomato and saffron; girolles, courgette, ricotta, rosemary and farinata; and roast chicken with morels, Vin Jaune and riz au pilaf.

The wine list at Noble Rot Soho is accurately described by the founders as ‘the stuff of dreams’. As with the original site it’s a case of all killer, no filler offering wines with unusually low mark ups (especially at the high end). The list is made even more accessible by a good selection by the glass and knowledgeable but never snotty staff. Cin cin indeed.

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