Home Kitchen is in Primrose Hill, another piece of fantasy London, home to the late Martin Amis and Paddington Bear. It is a measure of the times that Elizabeth II had no literary chronicler – no Amis, no Proust for her – but was, almost against her will, given Paddington Bear instead. When I saw the small bear at her memorials, I thought: is that her genre? Infants’ fiction? Couldn’t she do better? The question that follows is, of course: would they have eaten together at Home Kitchen?
The barley is doughty, fragrant and from the earth. The crumble is from God
To do so – and forgive this fiction, but Primrose Hill lends itself to fiction – they would first have to navigate the duality of Primrose Hill: that is, the things that make it awful, and the things that allow it to believe it is not as awful as it really is. Denial in bricks, I call it: postcode-washing. So, for every estate agent and seller of over-priced Uggs – they are a kind of fleeced boot – there is a rustic vegetable seller florist and now a restaurant with morals.
Primrose Hill did not invent the restaurant with morals. Notting Hill did that, to allow itself brunch near Grenfell Tower. If I had to choose between a restaurant with morals and a restaurant without morals, I would have said – until now – I don’t know. Neither. Both.
Home Kitchen is not for profit, an oddity for Primrose Hill. It calls itself ‘the world’s first fine dining restaurant staffed entirely by homeless people’, existing to ‘help socially vulnerable people get out of poverty and into work’. Staff are full-time, adequately paid, and take professional qualifications at the restaurant’s expense. If it sounds like the kitchen at Occupy, St Paul’s Cathedral in 2011 – political movements need cuisine as much as anyone, perhaps more – it is nothing like it. That was a tent, and it did not plead. This is a townhouse, and it does, but the world is crueller now.
It used to be Odette’s, a famous restaurant. Home Kitchen is more understated, which suits it: Sexy Fish for Global Justice would not work, and I would not eat there. It has pale walls and wood floors with a slight chaos motif – both art and lighting are variants on squiggles – across two dining rooms: one above, one below. If it is understated, there is a soul to it: the staff are unusually kind and interested. The executive chef is Adam Simmonds, formerly of Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons and Soup Kitchen London. There will soon be sister restaurants in San Francisco and Brighton.
The Sunday menu is tiny, which is always reassuring because nothing from a tiny menu can be forgotten by its chef: three starters, four main courses, three puddings, including cheese. (My serenity is a feint. Call main courses ‘mains’ and I will shoot you.) We have smoked salmon, shallot, lemon and caper salad; 28-day aged sirloin of beef with roast potatoes, crushed root vegetables, tenderstem broccoli, Yorkshire pudding and gravy; toasted barley with fermented celeriac, chervil and summer truffle; lemon tart with crème fraîche; seasonal crumble with vanilla custard. The food is faultless but warm-hearted: loving somehow. The roast lunch is perfectly balanced and pretty as day: unusually, it does not scream greed. The barley is vegetarian food as it is intended: doughty, fragrant and from the earth. The crumble is from God.
I cut into the beef. It is fine – soft and bloody, as it should be – but the knife is not sharp. Even as I process this impediment, the waitress silently places a steak knife at my elbow and I know then, as you do in the tiny moments, that this is a great restaurant. I hope there are queues outside this winter. In darkness, light a candle. Here is one.
Home Kitchen, 130 Regent’s Park Road, NW1 8XL; tel: 020 7183 6155.
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