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Harwood Arms
from 11 reviews
Harwood Arms
Walham Grove
London
SW6 1QP
tel.: 02073861847
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The gastropub fast seems to be becoming the default London restaurant format. The term, ever more encompassing, can be applied to any food service operation in a former pub, with ambitions to provide more than a Scotch egg to go with your pint. [read more]
The Harwood Arms, a handsome Victorian pub a stone's throw away from Stanford Bridge in Fulham, is famous for its Scotch Eggs. Not many places are famous for their Scotch Eggs, because not many places do them very well. If all the Scotch Eggs you've ever eaten have been those processed rubber balls you buy in the multipacks at Iceland, I don't blame you if you're wondering what all the fuss is about. By way of an explanation, let me show you this:
Crispy, flaky breadcrumbs cover a whisper-thin layer of spiced Venison meat, which in turn surrounds a perfectly soft-boiled egg. It's a pleasure for all the senses, not to mention a marvel of engineering - how they manage to get the yolk so soft while the white remains firm and the meat not overcooked must be a result of many hours of trial and error. Topped with a light sprinkling of Maldon salt, the Harwood Arms Venison Scotch Egg is worth a trip to Fulham alone, but lucky for me I found the time to sample some of the rest of their menu as well.
My starter of pigs trotters and ears was a bit of a Curate's Scotch Egg. The strips of deep fried ears weren't overly flavoursome but were useful for dipping in the herby tarragon mustard. However the trotter meat on toast was excellent - sausagey and yummy, and ideal with the accompanying expertly-seasoned salad. A good, British starter and a sign of a confident and experimental kitchen. Highlights of the rest of the starters were some huge, meaty oysters and a perfectly decent onion quiche.
Main course was a generous - in fact, slightly overly generous as it turned out as I had to leave some - portion of grilled Ox tongue with a vegetable gratin. The gratin had a good, deep flavour but a rather odd texture - quite thick and gloopy. But the ox tongue was good, well seasoned with attractive grill marks on it and a rich beefy taste like hot pastrami. Again, a solid gastropub dish that had "inspired by St. John" written all over it, and was none the worse for that.
I also shouldn't go any further without mentioning the cute little bags of house bread that we were served. They contained a very nice white bread with a lovely crust, but a truly extraordinary soda bread which they bake in-house. Sweet and moist, with a perfect crust and lovely depth of flavour, it is the best bread I've tried all year and almost the highlight of my entire meal. Spread with the provided salted butter, it's a delicious reminder of the enormous advantage of having a kitchen confident and skilled enough to bake its own bread; it's baffling why even the very top restaurants (the 3-star Gordon Ramsay restaurant for one) sometimes don't bother when the results can be this good.
It was just as we were finishing our main courses that the evening's entertainment began. Tuesday night at the Harwood Arms is Quiz Night, and there was no escaping it even in the restaurant half of the building. Such goings-on probably wouldn't be for everyone, but I found it quite charming that despite the top-end food the atmosphere was still unselfconsciously that of a normal neighbourhood boozer. A normal neighbourhood boozer with homemade Scotch Eggs and the best bread in London. Now that's my kind of place.
Crispy, flaky breadcrumbs cover a whisper-thin layer of spiced Venison meat, which in turn surrounds a perfectly soft-boiled egg. It's a pleasure for all the senses, not to mention a marvel of engineering - how they manage to get the yolk so soft while the white remains firm and the meat not overcooked must be a result of many hours of trial and error. Topped with a light sprinkling of Maldon salt, the Harwood Arms Venison Scotch Egg is worth a trip to Fulham alone, but lucky for me I found the time to sample some of the rest of their menu as well.
My starter of pigs trotters and ears was a bit of a Curate's Scotch Egg. The strips of deep fried ears weren't overly flavoursome but were useful for dipping in the herby tarragon mustard. However the trotter meat on toast was excellent - sausagey and yummy, and ideal with the accompanying expertly-seasoned salad. A good, British starter and a sign of a confident and experimental kitchen. Highlights of the rest of the starters were some huge, meaty oysters and a perfectly decent onion quiche.
Main course was a generous - in fact, slightly overly generous as it turned out as I had to leave some - portion of grilled Ox tongue with a vegetable gratin. The gratin had a good, deep flavour but a rather odd texture - quite thick and gloopy. But the ox tongue was good, well seasoned with attractive grill marks on it and a rich beefy taste like hot pastrami. Again, a solid gastropub dish that had "inspired by St. John" written all over it, and was none the worse for that.
I also shouldn't go any further without mentioning the cute little bags of house bread that we were served. They contained a very nice white bread with a lovely crust, but a truly extraordinary soda bread which they bake in-house. Sweet and moist, with a perfect crust and lovely depth of flavour, it is the best bread I've tried all year and almost the highlight of my entire meal. Spread with the provided salted butter, it's a delicious reminder of the enormous advantage of having a kitchen confident and skilled enough to bake its own bread; it's baffling why even the very top restaurants (the 3-star Gordon Ramsay restaurant for one) sometimes don't bother when the results can be this good.
It was just as we were finishing our main courses that the evening's entertainment began. Tuesday night at the Harwood Arms is Quiz Night, and there was no escaping it even in the restaurant half of the building. Such goings-on probably wouldn't be for everyone, but I found it quite charming that despite the top-end food the atmosphere was still unselfconsciously that of a normal neighbourhood boozer. A normal neighbourhood boozer with homemade Scotch Eggs and the best bread in London. Now that's my kind of place.
Fulham – ain’t it great ? No, really. And especially when there are places like The Harwood Arms to eat in. Hidden away behind Fulham Broadway this attractive pub cum restaurant is the result of a drinking session between Mike Robinson of the Pot Kiln fame, Brett Graham of The Ledbury and Edwin Vaux. My original plan had been to revisit the Pot Kiln and while browsing their website I came across a link to The Harwood Arms.
Regular visitors to the blog will know that I was mightily impressed by the Pot Kiln a year ago - the Pigeon and Venison was the best I’d ever eaten - so I was very excited to see how this bit of rus in urbe translated from the original. As it turned out very, very well indeed. The combination of superlative ingredients and the skill of ex-Ledbury chef, Stephen Williams in the kitchen meant a cracking meal was up there with the best of the year. This is a chef who can cook.
Bar snacks take the form of English tapas and are taken to a new level. In fact you could quite happily eat these accompanied by a pint or a glass of wine and you would still leave a very happy bunny. Not as happy as me, though. I had my eyes on bigger game.
I had to try the snacks (well of course I did). Venison Scotch Egg came with a crisp panko-like coating with lovely meat and a perfectly cooked soft egg within. I was so impressed I had to try another. Kipper Croquettes were the, er, nuts. Light and moreish they came with an excellent homemade ketchup and a little shallot salad. As good as you’d get in Spain or indeed in any of the Iberian joints in town (now there’s a killer combination: a copita of chilled manzanilla and a kipper croqueta).
For starters proper, a warm salad came with slices of lightly gamey Partridge and studded with cubes of excellent bacon and black pudding. There was a touch of sweetness from some beets and some crunch from chopped hazelnuts. Simple and delicious. Bread on the side was homemade, the soda bread in particular being fantastic.
The Venison at the Pot Kiln had been a highlight and the T-Bone of Henley Fallow Deer was certainly up to snuff. Bambi came as a big fist of meat cooked to an even, perfect pinkness and was very venisonny (a lot isn’t). There were some potatoes that been cleverly cooked to give a soft interior and a light crispy skin. Bringing the whole thing together was a deeply savoury mushroom ketchup.
I thought I might be flagging at this point but there was such a lightness of touch to the cooking that even after a dessert of Bramley Apple Doughnuts and a scoop of Brown Bread Ice Cream I still didn’t feel bloated.
Faults ? Well I did have a long hard think but the best I could come up with was that the Laguiole knife wasn’t quite sharp enough. Terrible, I know.
Prices are ludicrously low for the quality of the food and cooking. Service from the young, Antipodean staff was friendly, efficient and totally fuss-free. To be honest it’s not really a secret how good this place is and though it’s only been open for a few weeks apparently it’s full most nights and also for Sunday lunch. Go for a midweek lunch instead, or better still enjoy a leisurely Saturday – beating a visit B&Q into the proverbial cocked hat - with a bottle or two of wine and have some of the best food you’re likely to get in the capital. No, really.
Regular visitors to the blog will know that I was mightily impressed by the Pot Kiln a year ago - the Pigeon and Venison was the best I’d ever eaten - so I was very excited to see how this bit of rus in urbe translated from the original. As it turned out very, very well indeed. The combination of superlative ingredients and the skill of ex-Ledbury chef, Stephen Williams in the kitchen meant a cracking meal was up there with the best of the year. This is a chef who can cook.
Bar snacks take the form of English tapas and are taken to a new level. In fact you could quite happily eat these accompanied by a pint or a glass of wine and you would still leave a very happy bunny. Not as happy as me, though. I had my eyes on bigger game.
I had to try the snacks (well of course I did). Venison Scotch Egg came with a crisp panko-like coating with lovely meat and a perfectly cooked soft egg within. I was so impressed I had to try another. Kipper Croquettes were the, er, nuts. Light and moreish they came with an excellent homemade ketchup and a little shallot salad. As good as you’d get in Spain or indeed in any of the Iberian joints in town (now there’s a killer combination: a copita of chilled manzanilla and a kipper croqueta).
For starters proper, a warm salad came with slices of lightly gamey Partridge and studded with cubes of excellent bacon and black pudding. There was a touch of sweetness from some beets and some crunch from chopped hazelnuts. Simple and delicious. Bread on the side was homemade, the soda bread in particular being fantastic.
The Venison at the Pot Kiln had been a highlight and the T-Bone of Henley Fallow Deer was certainly up to snuff. Bambi came as a big fist of meat cooked to an even, perfect pinkness and was very venisonny (a lot isn’t). There were some potatoes that been cleverly cooked to give a soft interior and a light crispy skin. Bringing the whole thing together was a deeply savoury mushroom ketchup.
I thought I might be flagging at this point but there was such a lightness of touch to the cooking that even after a dessert of Bramley Apple Doughnuts and a scoop of Brown Bread Ice Cream I still didn’t feel bloated.
Faults ? Well I did have a long hard think but the best I could come up with was that the Laguiole knife wasn’t quite sharp enough. Terrible, I know.
Prices are ludicrously low for the quality of the food and cooking. Service from the young, Antipodean staff was friendly, efficient and totally fuss-free. To be honest it’s not really a secret how good this place is and though it’s only been open for a few weeks apparently it’s full most nights and also for Sunday lunch. Go for a midweek lunch instead, or better still enjoy a leisurely Saturday – beating a visit B&Q into the proverbial cocked hat - with a bottle or two of wine and have some of the best food you’re likely to get in the capital. No, really.
Half-way through my lone and lengthy lunch at The Harwood Arms, Amy – a very bubbly waitress – stared at me and exclaimed, ‘You’re going to eat your way through the whole menu, aren’t you?’
Sadly not! After a while, even my appetite reaches a reluctant limit. I contemplated, um, making space for more, but decided against it. Were it not for the effort required, I'd have gladly munched every dish they had.
It was fabulous. A spin-off of the much-lauded Pot Kiln in Berkshire, where Mike Robinson feeds his customers a menu of laser-guided seasonality comprising game he's often shot himself, The Harwood Arms competes in a different league from the places it superficially resembles. Indeed, with Stephen Williams (formerly of The Ledbury) in the kitchen, it's scarcely playing the same sport. Yet it cleverly retains elements that made the gastropub the quintessential Noughties eatery - stripped floors, scuffed leather, chalked-up specials. Some touches are frankly lovely, such as the drops of fresh lime juice added to an earthenware jug of tap water, or the fine hessian napkins. Others are less welcome: the irritating piped music, say, or the wine list seemingly compiled as an afterthought, containing two measly reds by the glass. read full review here
Sadly not! After a while, even my appetite reaches a reluctant limit. I contemplated, um, making space for more, but decided against it. Were it not for the effort required, I'd have gladly munched every dish they had.
It was fabulous. A spin-off of the much-lauded Pot Kiln in Berkshire, where Mike Robinson feeds his customers a menu of laser-guided seasonality comprising game he's often shot himself, The Harwood Arms competes in a different league from the places it superficially resembles. Indeed, with Stephen Williams (formerly of The Ledbury) in the kitchen, it's scarcely playing the same sport. Yet it cleverly retains elements that made the gastropub the quintessential Noughties eatery - stripped floors, scuffed leather, chalked-up specials. Some touches are frankly lovely, such as the drops of fresh lime juice added to an earthenware jug of tap water, or the fine hessian napkins. Others are less welcome: the irritating piped music, say, or the wine list seemingly compiled as an afterthought, containing two measly reds by the glass. read full review here
The Harwood Arms dining room is a simple affair, with bare wooden floors and tables without tablecloths (but with high quality napkins), and a few framed black and white photos on the plain walls. The emphasis here is on the food rather than the ambience, and after all this is a pub rather than a formal restaurant. Sister to the well-regarded Pot Kiln (owned by Mike Robinson and Edwin Vaux) in Berkshire, the culinary credentials of the Harwood Arms are impressive: an ex-Ledbury chef Stephen Williams, courtesy of investor Brett Graham of the Ledbury.
Prices are refreshingly fair, with starters around £5.50, mains about £14 and desserts £5.50, with vegetables £3.50. The wine list has copious notes on each wine and has stacks of choice under £30, with fair mark-ups. Examples include Marques de Riscal Tempranillo 2006 at £20 for a wine that will cost you about £9 in the shops, Clos de los Siete 2007 at £29 for a wine that retails at around £16, and the classy Thelema Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 at £45 for a wine that will set you back around £18. I can remember drinking this wine in the Thelema vineyards near Capetown some years ago when it cost less than £4 locally; those were the days. Of course these days even the rand looks like a robust currency compared to sterling.
Bread is a mix of excellent white bread from the Flour Station and soda bread made from scratch (5/10). I started with a bar snack, a Scotch egg, and it is hard to imagine anything further from the supermarket version. This is cooked to order, with a soft cooked egg in the centre of a fine filling of sausage meat and venison, and a light crust. It is hard to imagine how this could be much better (7/10).
A starter of charcuterie included excellent air-dried Cumbrian ham, potted wild rabbit, deep-fried tasty brawn and mince pies with Oxford sauce and toast. Well made though the mince-pies were, they seemed slightly at odds with the rest of the dish, but there was no denying the quality of the meat (5/10). A chestnut and thyme soup with chanterelles suffered from being lukewarm by the time it arrived, and although it had good taste the texture was thick, even for me (3/10).
Fallow deer Wellington had venison that tasted great though was a little chewy, with good pastry and mushroom duxelle, served with smooth and intense celeriac puree and shallots cooked in stout, with some cooking juices (5/10). I also sampled Cornish cod with seaweed, properly cooked and served with tender sprouting broccoli, boiled potatoes and sea purslane, the combination working well, the dish properly seasoned (4/10). Warm onion tart was less good, the pastry fine but with the taste of cheddar rather overwhelming the onions, and seeming to have pea shoots rather than the promised watercress (2/10).
I enjoyed Bramley apple doughnuts with spiced sugar, fried a fraction longer than ideal but tasting fine (5/10). Even better was Yorkshire rhubarb with excellent stem ginger ice cream, the ginger flavour coming through really well (6/10). Coffee had good flavour, if not quite hot enough (4/10).
Service was friendly, and indeed there was little to criticise about the evening, other than a lack of vegetarian dishes and a couple of dish served less than piping hot (which may have had a lot to do with the quiz night unfolding around us). There is some really impressive food being served here, which would put almost any gastropub in England to shame. I will be back.
Prices are refreshingly fair, with starters around £5.50, mains about £14 and desserts £5.50, with vegetables £3.50. The wine list has copious notes on each wine and has stacks of choice under £30, with fair mark-ups. Examples include Marques de Riscal Tempranillo 2006 at £20 for a wine that will cost you about £9 in the shops, Clos de los Siete 2007 at £29 for a wine that retails at around £16, and the classy Thelema Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 at £45 for a wine that will set you back around £18. I can remember drinking this wine in the Thelema vineyards near Capetown some years ago when it cost less than £4 locally; those were the days. Of course these days even the rand looks like a robust currency compared to sterling.
Bread is a mix of excellent white bread from the Flour Station and soda bread made from scratch (5/10). I started with a bar snack, a Scotch egg, and it is hard to imagine anything further from the supermarket version. This is cooked to order, with a soft cooked egg in the centre of a fine filling of sausage meat and venison, and a light crust. It is hard to imagine how this could be much better (7/10).
A starter of charcuterie included excellent air-dried Cumbrian ham, potted wild rabbit, deep-fried tasty brawn and mince pies with Oxford sauce and toast. Well made though the mince-pies were, they seemed slightly at odds with the rest of the dish, but there was no denying the quality of the meat (5/10). A chestnut and thyme soup with chanterelles suffered from being lukewarm by the time it arrived, and although it had good taste the texture was thick, even for me (3/10).
Fallow deer Wellington had venison that tasted great though was a little chewy, with good pastry and mushroom duxelle, served with smooth and intense celeriac puree and shallots cooked in stout, with some cooking juices (5/10). I also sampled Cornish cod with seaweed, properly cooked and served with tender sprouting broccoli, boiled potatoes and sea purslane, the combination working well, the dish properly seasoned (4/10). Warm onion tart was less good, the pastry fine but with the taste of cheddar rather overwhelming the onions, and seeming to have pea shoots rather than the promised watercress (2/10).
I enjoyed Bramley apple doughnuts with spiced sugar, fried a fraction longer than ideal but tasting fine (5/10). Even better was Yorkshire rhubarb with excellent stem ginger ice cream, the ginger flavour coming through really well (6/10). Coffee had good flavour, if not quite hot enough (4/10).
Service was friendly, and indeed there was little to criticise about the evening, other than a lack of vegetarian dishes and a couple of dish served less than piping hot (which may have had a lot to do with the quiz night unfolding around us). There is some really impressive food being served here, which would put almost any gastropub in England to shame. I will be back.
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